Goblinrend 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This is a thematic deck built for an ongoing series on my blog, Darkling Door.

Theme: Dwarves

Played Against: Nightmare The Seventh Level

Dwalin propped his axe against a doorframe, causing the clinking of metal against carven stone to echo throughout the hall. "Would you look at what they've done to this place, Nori?" he muttered in disbelief to one of his travelling companions, whose travelling sack thumped to the ground as he considered the scene. "Goblins are looters and vandals," Nori replied with a sigh, "but we knew it would be like this, from Balin's messages." The first dwarf nodded slowly, the full weight of the desecration heavy on his shoulders. "I just didn't realize it would feel this... empty," he said after a moment. "Come, let us move on. The sooner we find Balin, the better. He always brings cheer to even the darkest of places."

Strategy

This is a tempo deck built around direct damage and enormous one-round quest pushes.

Every turn both Nori and Thalin quest, as well as any 1 Allies that I'm able to get down. They don't add up to much, but it's enough to keep the in the staging area from getting out of hand. I'm perfectly fine with under-questing and taking a little bit of threat damage since both Nori and Dwalin can reduce my threat by so much that it usually doesn't matter.

I generally hold Dwalin back as an attacker, and as such the first two Weapons I can find go on him. I may use him to help defend a few attacks in the early game, but ideally I'd prefer to defend as little as possible. Instead, I use Events like Goblin-cleaver, Hail of Stones, and Quick Strike to kill most Enemies before they even get a chance to attack. Later in the game, once I've managed to get a few defensive Allies down like Erebor Guard or Longbeard Sentry, I can start using them to defend attacks and having Dwalin destroy them the usual way.

All the while, I'm digging for two cards: Untroubled by Darkness and Dwarven Tomb. I want to collect as many copies of these as possible, since they are essential to being able to advance the quest. Once I have a few copies in hand, I pick a round to commit most of my characters to the quest, only holding back a defender or two. After staging, I calculate how many copies of Untroubled by Darkness I would have to play to clear the quest in one shot, and if I have enough, I play them.

Note that I can use Dwarven Tomb to retrieve a copy of Untroubled by Darkness immediately after I just played it, so it's effectively a second copy of the same card (just at +1 cost). If the Active Location is Underground, with a couple of copies of Untroubled by Darkness, even my wimpy 1 Allies end up questing for 5. It doesn't take many Dwarf Allies before that starts to add up to a huge rockslide.

If I happen to get Dwarven Tomb in my hand but Untroubled by Darkness is nowhere in sight, Allies that discard from the top of my deck like Zigil Miner can help me get the chain started by dumping cards into my discard pile. I usually try not to over-do it with discard-from-deck effects unless I have a copy of Dwarf Pipe in play, though; this deck can get pretty close to drawing through itself by the end of a game since it spends so much time stalling. Plus, I wouldn't want to delve too greedily and too deep and end up losing all of my potential or Weapons. Another neat trick: if I put something I want on the bottom of my deck with Dwarf Pipe, Bofur can shuffle my deck for me, giving me a chance to see it again sooner.

Obviously, this deck is only going to do it's thing in quests with lots of Underground Locations like the quests of Khazad-Dûm. It may work fine in multiplayer, though, if other decks are able to pick up the questing slack a bit—especially as part of a fellowship with other Dwarf decks. In quests with fewer Orc Enemies, it might make sense to swap in Óin in place of Dwalin, with the added bonus that you could then include the Dwalin Ally as well.

► For more analysis, check out my blog post on this deck.