Sneaking? Sneaking! 1.0

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• 1.0

Sam: "Where are you off to? Sneaking off are we?"

Gollum: "Sneaking? Sneaking! Fat hobbit is always so polite. Sméagol shows them secret ways that nobody else could find and they say sneak. Sneak? Very nice friend. Oh yes, my precious, very nice, very…"

Sam: "All right! All right! You just startled me, that's all. What are you doing?"

Gollum (grinning): "Sneaking."

On one of the recent Cardboard of the Rings episodes, Seastan mentioned that he had a tough request to build a Hobbit deck that truly felt like sneaking. So, I took that as inspiration and came up with this deck with the intent of fighting as few enemies as possible. I tried to keep the ally count low, and limited my options to just the Hobbits and some scouts/lookouts to help them sneak past the enemies.

DECK CONCEPT

In order to avoid as many enemies as possible, this deck relies on three things:

• Low threat - This is pretty much mandatory for sneaking. This hero lineup with Folco Boffin gives a starting threat of 17, and Pippin makes it effectively 14 for the purposes of engagement. The Galadhrim's Greeting and Gandalf can help keep threat low.
• Scrying the Encounter Deck - This is the key feature of the deck. You should go into every quest phase knowing what at least the top card of the encounter deck is. Celduin Traveler, Ithilien Lookout, and Risk Some Light are ideal on the first turn to let you know what's coming. Henamarth Riversong can provide repeatable scrying every turn (typically him use after combat to prepare for the next turn). The real value comes when you can scry more than one card. Scout Ahead, Risk Some Light, and Interrogation allow you to look at 3+ cards and really plan ahead.
• Avoiding Enemies - The problem with most sneaking decks is that enemies just accumulate in the staging area until their becomes oppressive. You can get past it by swarming allies with high , but that begins to feel a lot less like sneaking. This deck has a few ways to get around that. First, the traps - Ranger Spikes and Poisoned Stakes - can neutralize an enemy entirely. Scrying helps you make sure that you lay the right trap for the right enemy. Second, we can simply discard enemies from the encounter deck before they come out. Ithilien Lookout, Firyal, Risk Some Light, Interrogation, and Scout Ahead all accomplish that goal. A Watchful Peace - a card that I had never previously used - can be used to put a safe location back on the deck for next round. Lastly, if the enemies do make it into the staging area without a trap, we can kill them with Gandalf or Ride Them Down or banish them with O Elbereth! Gilthonial!.

Since you can expect fewer enemies, that means you get more locations and treacheries than usual. A Test of Will, Ancient Mathom, and Strider's Path all help with that. If you do have to fight an enemy, Frodo is the defender (works for undefended attacks too!) while the Lookouts, Folco, and Gandalf provide the attack power.

TESTING RESULTS

I like to test my decks by picking one quest from each cycle. Here are my results so far:

Journey Down the Anduin (W) - I was curious how this deck would deal with the Hill Troll. I used Risk Some Light and Scout Ahead to avoid 2 enemies and get 2 Banks Along the Anduin. Once you get two, they will cycle indefinitely to the top of the encounter deck, so you don't need to worry about any other cards. This gave me plenty of time to build up willpower, and I eventually killed the Troll with Ride Them Down and set up harmless locations/treacheries for stage 2. The initial Hill Troll was the only enemy I saw the entire game, and I was able to kill him with . If that's not proof of concept, I don't know what is!

Redhorn Gate (W) - I was able to dodge/trap most enemies, but did have to fight off an orc or two. Frodo is a great defender for that, and the Ithilien Lookouts provided enough . I was about to reveal a Snowstorm on the turn that I traveled to Caradhras, which would have killed all of my questing characters. But, I was able to see it coming, discard it with Firyal, and cruise to an easy win.

Morgul Vale (W) - I picked this one because it has a huge ratio of enemies, so I knew it would be hard. There are only 8 locations, compared to 13 treacheries and 23 enemies! This turned into a 28 turn epic. The first stage took about 20 turns. I snared 2 Forest Spiders, which was great for Interrogation because of their 3 threat. I had to fight my way through 4 bodyguards, which required at least 2 uses of Gandalf. After they were gone, I was able to scry enough cards with Risk Some Light to make sure that there were no more enemies coming. That way I could kill Murzag without triggering his ability, and I could safely lay both Ranger Spikes and Poisoned Stakes for Alcaron. So stage 2 was just a matter of waiting 3 turns for Alcaron to die. By stage 3 I had emptied my deck and had to fight Nazgul over several rounds. Finished at 47 threat with only 4 allies left. With the scrying and enemy discarding, I never had to deal with an Orc Vanguard or Orc Arbalesters. The Master's Malice was relatively painless because it only hit the Celduin Travelers and Frodo, who can just shrug it off anyway.

Fords of Isen (L) - I knew I wanted to try a quest with Time Counters, since this deck relies a lot on turtling. I was able to scry with Risk Some Light and clear a Scout Ahead on this first turn, so the first stage was pretty tame. This allowed me to milk all 5 time counters before I advanced. Second stage was pretty easy because I kept my card count low and was able to trap any enemies. The third stage became a problem because I had gotten up to 5 cards and just couldn't play any of them. Every 3 turns I would end up adding 2-4 more enemies because of the Forced effect. I was able to kill an enemy every turn for a while, but eventually got overwhelmed after the forced effect triggered the third time.

Across the Ettenmoors (L) - This one started off fairly smoothly thanks to some scrying and discarding enemies from the encounter deck. The side quests didn't hurt too much and I was able to breeze through stage 1. Stage 2, however, is quite rough for solo play. If you aren't at a safe location (of which I only saw 1), you have to reveal an extra card every turn and make 20 progress on the quest! At the same time, there were 2 nasty side quests in play. I hung on for a while, but eventually had 3 big trolls in the staging area and their threat locked me down.

The Fate of Numenor (W) - I tried one of the non-boat quests from the Dreamchaser cycle, and this one turned into a cakewalk. It punishes you for having cards that cost 2 or less, so secrecy is well positioned to avoid those effects. I was also able to snare a 3 threat enemy pretty early and use Interrogation to great effect. Despite Shrine to Morgoth being the last Lost Island out of 5 that I traveled to in stage 2, I was able to cruise to victory having to only fight one enemy the whole quest.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I had a great time playing this deck. It is definitely a slow burn and most quests will take 15 or 20 turns to beat. I had played a similar deck before that used Ranger Bows to kill the enemies in the staging area, but this is the first time I've truly avoided the enemies entirely. Most of the quests I was able to beat while engaging at most 1 enemy. The Galadhrim's Greetings provided enough threat reduction that I could stay in secrecy whenever I needed to.

It feels like a totally different game playing this deck. There are times that I would plan 3 turns ahead to kill an enemy and make sure I quested for the exact amount I needed to clear a location and/or have enough attack power left.

Some MVP cards:

• Frodo Baggins - What a great safety blanket. He can shrug off an attack or certain treacheries (like Master's Malice) with ease. This is crucial with such a fragile hero lineup and no healing.
• Interrogation - This was my first time using the event and it was money in the bank. I was usually able to trap a 3 threat enemies, so looking at the top 3 cards and discarding 1 is amazing.
• Firyal - She is just great for solo play, and even better in this deck. 3 is nothing to sneeze at, and I was able to use her to repeatedly dodge enemies and nasty treacheries. I often used Risk Some Light to put a card with surge on top of the deck so she could discard it.
• Ride Them Down - This was the best option for killing enemies that didn't get trapped. Usually I was able to quest for 10-16 and have less than 6 threat in the staging area, so with the right planning I could kill most enemies with this.