Book Club: I Pass the Test 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I Pass the Test, or "To be a ring bearer is to be alone"

"She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. 'I pass the test', she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.' " - The Fellowship of the Ring

Another Book Club deck, this one represents Frodo's meeting with Galadriel in Lorien. It started out from the quote by Galadriel "To be a ring bearer is to be alone" and have each of heroes bear a ring. But a quick skim of the book leads me to believe it's from the movie. So instead this deck switched a little to represent Galadriel's own 'free to choose' moment reflected in that mirror in a glade of Lothlorien.

I played the deck solo against Dungeon of Cirith Gurat, and after a bit of a shaky start to get our board under control we managed to make it out of the dungeon, if not necessarily in one piece.

Gandalf got loaded up with damage as taking attacks undefended with Frodo would have meant dealing with enemies more than one at a time, which would have been disastrous in the first couple of turns. But thankfully an early Treebeard and Legolas meant we could deal with each enemy in a single turn after the first 1 or 2.

Opening Hand:

If you're playing the deck solo, Nenya is almost essential to make sure we don't fail to quest. Sam Gamgee is a great cheap ally for questing too. I also find that most Gandalf decks will want to see the Wizard Pipe as soon as possible.

The usual Gandalf shenanigans with Expert Treasure-hunter and Hidden Cache will mean we can play all of those big, beefy allies as and when we need to.

At the Table:

I decided to go with the Pipe Suite (Hobbit Pipe, Smoke Rings etc) to handle our card draw and threat reduction but you could sub that out for some more conventional card draw such as Daeron's Runes, I was going more for theme here but it can take a while to get you pieces in hand especially if you're primarily using Nenya rather than Galadriel card draw ability.

Narya will be getting extra actions advantage out of our bigger allies to handle most of the combat for us, though Gandalf has never been adverse to getting in to the swing of things, especially once Shadowfax hits the table.

There's quite a few duplicates of unique cards in the deck so making some room for Protector of Lórien might be one of the more useful cards to sub in to help keep Gandalf alive when he needs to defend.

As mentioned Frodo Baggins can afford to take an undefended attack or two to help you get setup early, but if the quest is quite as enemy dense as Dungeons seemed to be you should be mindful of the engagement costs of your enemies till you have a combat ally or two.

If you have Crossing of Poros, you can use the Magic Ring from that AP to represent the burden Frodo Baggins tried to pass to Galadriel but ultimately carried out of Lothlorien.

Sideboard:

You could probably include a few more allies here, especially if you want to drop the Pipe support cards for something that will give you a more immediate presence in combat, especially in solo.

No healing in the deck can be a little worrisome depending on the quest, and if you don't want to drop the Pipe cards Old Toby can be perfect as a little spot healing for Gandalf as well as some card draw.