Dori helps play Gandalf every turn

base-idea is good i would try to do it a bit different. you do not really need radagast and Dori? btw. using Island Amid Perils on a Elf-friended Gandalf is a banger!!

you have better ressourse-handling taking bifur for radagast and a hero that create res for dori. if keeping tactic (and i perhaps would not do that) i would take Mablung he create usually an additional res per round (that can be given to Bifur)

with Steward of Gondor and Bifur you do not need the expensive Resourceful and can start your gandalf-train earlier. (just need either a Magic Ring or a Errand-rider or a Born Aloft for the start.

if keeping tactic, then Born Aloft is better than Elf-friend and having both makes the whole thing more secure (the dale-deck can attach it to the gandalf played by the other deck if the other deck is startingplayer, or before if playing with more than 2 )

if NOT insist on tactic, then Denethor is an option. he can play Steward of Gondor 1. round and you have stil a res. if taking Denethor i would include Armored Destrier perhaps even without him.

if using Bifur you do not need the radagast stuff and can include more carddrawoptions to get the setup faster. means:

• Daeron's Runes
  • Unlikely Friendship
  • We Are Not Idle

and overall to fasten it up, the Captain's Wisdom could help.

would include a Gather Information in the dale-deck too.

to get the Elf-friend safely back i would consider some Erebor Hammersmith and/or Reforged (when you take back gandalf, the Elf-friend will be discarded.

hope you appriciate my thoughts i think it would make the train go faster and more secure.

ignore the Erebor Hammersmith / Reforged advice that is done by Bard son of Brand

Right, from the very first Play Gandalf Every Turn deck (I've made a few, not all published), Bard son of Brand is the one indispensible hero. He has to be at the table in order to get Elf-friend back every turn -- there are ways of getting an attachment back from the discard, but we need our attachment back every turn, and that means Bard. You can even get around the Silvan hero requirement by using a spare Elf-Friend on an arbitrary hero to make them eligible for The Elvenking (This would be especially good for Galadriel with Nenya, as she could help quest then use her ability after Gandalf has participated in combat.

And unfortunately, Born Aloft doesn't work with Bard, because you have to discard it to return the ally to hand. Since the attachment is already discarded, Bard can't save it from the discard pile.

Does Dori help put the combo together, or help pay for it? Not at all! The only help he is to assembling the combo is by not requiring any deckspace for his own toy -- only King Under the Mountain goes on him, it helps draw and it could've gone as easily on Bifur or any other dwarf. (It's also a bit dangerous, because if it draws two components you need you will have to discard one of them). But this is (I think) something like the 14th Dori fellowship I've posted, and I've taken Dori fellowships through most of the quests in the game at this point. Most of them would be stronger if you just substitute TaBeregond for Dori at the same threat cost, but what fun is that? Aside from his awesome combo with Grimbeorn the Old running Dori is a luxury rather than a necessity. Still, Dori is durable enough to do some defending on his own right, and 2+ def heroes can be pretty stout on round one with Dori's help, anyone 2/4 or better can be Beregond (without shield) on their very first turn. At 2/3 defense Bifur is a little fragile, Radagast's 3/4 defense makes him a significantly better defender than 2/3. Bifur does help you get to six by stealing from the other deck, and he can do it planning when you need it. Radagast is better at getting the cards you want, between Word of Command and Messenger Raven. Plus Radagast also can quest and defend. I like him more.

But that doesn't mean that a Celeborn/Galadriel/Bifur wouldn't be just as strong or arguably better. They'd start with lower threat, it'd be easier to get to six, you can use Unlikely Friendship, and yes, you could use We Are Not Idle as a thinner, though I don't like to include any card as pure thinner except Daeron's Runes. (Yes, Galadriel's deck would be better at 54 cards and 3x DR.)

Gather Information was originally in both decks, as it tends to be in every other single Dori fellowship; the problem here was that Haradrim has nasty side quests of its own and requires a lot of fast starts, so it was pretty rare that the decks would have time to take advantage of it; I dropped it out of the Dale deck, put a few more copies of cards that I was missing, and then never got around to trimming the deck down to my usual 51. My usual 51 also explains Daeron's Runes being missing -- I love the card, but didn't want to cut the cards I had or depart from the 51 cards I was using.

One of those, of course, is the obscenely costed Resourceful. Truth is, with Dale giving the Steward over to the Gandalf deck, coming up with the resources to play Resourceful wasn't hard -- the rest of the deck is cheap and piles up resources quickly when it is NOT playing Gandalf. Getting the rest of the combo in place was usually the issue, and along the way of drawing to get the other components you can usually find (and afford to play) Resourceful.

Substituting Denethor for Dori would function as well as Bifur in terms of giving a resource, as soon as Steward has been played on the Gandalf deck, and the only tactics cards that would have to be dropped is Honour Guard. I love them, but that's not a dealbreaker. With double leadership and Denethor's resource you could get the Sentry out quicker. Playing the Steward early isn't vital, because Gandalf's deck doesn't need many resources when they're not playing Gandalf. But I'd rather have Dori for defensive purposes, because LeDenethor can't help across the table, and both decks don't start with a ton of attack. I do love Armored Destrier and like to include it in decks where Dori is backing up a dedicated defender; but in this fellowship defenses get done by Dori, Radagast, Bard or Brand in a pinch, and finally end up getting monopolized by Sentries. The Destrier doesn't pay out long term as he would on a hero who defends every turn.

Captain's Wisdom had no interest at all to me, since it is a one-time resource generator and I'm looking for recurring resource generation.

Born Aloft as single card wasnt meant to be as repeated with bard. just, if a res is missing, or the Elf-friend is not drawn up to this point or cannot be paid, you get gandalf a round earlier in and get him back. if drawing another, can do it again. every spared res can help.

with Bifur We Are Not Idle is not only for deckreducing, it can help to get the missing 1 res a round earlier (and that helps, gandalf quests for 4 bifur for 2)

regarding to Captain's Wisdom you seems not a fan of 1-time-cards, even if it means, that gandalf can be payd a round earlier. i am thinking about nightmare, and there every round/res can make the difference between win and loss.

In playing the deck (and its predecessers), I never really felt I was one temporary resource away from getting all pieces in place. In practice, when I was at the point where the deck was getting five resources per turn instead of six resources per turn, I never would have been happy to draw Born Aloft or Captain's Wisdom instead of Resourceful, even as lousy a card as it is. Sure, if I had Gandalf, Elf-Friend, and a Silvan event in hand or The Elvenking in play five resources would be enough to play Gandalf and get him back. But I want six resources per turn so I can do it every turn, because that's the gimmick of the deck. If I'm getting five per turn and draw Resourceful, I can get six per turn the next turn.

And I'll admit that I greatly prefer permanent effects over one-time boosts. The irony, of course, is that Gandalf himself is a one-time boost. Yes, Gandalf flitting in and out is the ultimate silvan, he quests, he fights, he draws cards or does direct damage or lowers threat. But then he goes away, and when he comes back he's going to be the exact same strength as he was the turn before -- if you're devoting all your resources (and your deckspace) to playing Gandalf every turn, there's not much else going on to improve your board state. Some quests, Gandalf is enough. Other quests it isn't. I haven't played any nightmare quests, but I imagine even an optimal Play Gandalf Every Turn is really going to struggle with many of them.

And this fellowship is very far from optimized. Heck, I left Daeron's Runes out of a deck that needs to find multiple cards as quickly as possible! You'd think I could find room for Heed the Dream in a combo deck, too. And here's Radagast in the deck and I haven't put in any Eagles, when Meneldor or Wilyador would let me play Gwaihir's Debt and possibly find Gandalf, play him cheaply, and return him to his hand!

I would like to see a more optimized Gandalf deck or Fellowship, but I doubt it would be top-tier -- unless playing Gandalf every turn was just something that eventually happened, rather than the priority, and the deck did a lot of other things very well up to that point, and did more than play Gandalf after.

Would an optimized deck have Born Aloft? I doubt it, but I'll conceded it's possible. But it's got me thinking. From the core on, tons of decks have 3x Gandalf. He can solve so many immediate problems when he drops in. The ability to cheaply/quickly get Gandalf in play (and play him more often) is the primary driver behind the popularity of Sneak Attack, a Leadership staple. I don't think anybody looking at a single copy of Gandalf in their hand would be sad to see a copy of Born Aloft as well, so you could play Gandalf twice.

And yet, from the very early introduction of Born Aloft onwards, it was a very unpopular card. The only place it ever showed us was Eagle decks, and even there it wasn't huge. I compiled two stereotypical Eagle decks. The first one (first cycle) only boasted two copies of the attachment, and in the Gwaihir-ally-using stereotypical Eagle deck it didn't use the card at all. Why was it so ill-received? In a world where every single deck was boasting 3 copies of Gandalf, why wasn't everyone who had a Tactics hero also packing 3 copies of Born Aloft, so they could play Gandalf up to six times instead of three?

I think it's because while anyone would be happy to see a Born Aloft in their hand with a single Gandalf, anyone would be just as happy with two Gandalfs. Seeing a Born Aloft in your hand with no Gandalf is just sad, and seeing two Born Alofts would just be depressing. And that's kind of how I feel about in this deck. Yes, I could save a resource for one turn if I had Gandalf with Born Aloft. But if I'm drawing Born Aloft, I'm not drawing some other card that I want more, and that's pretty much everything.

But it is a little short-sighted on my part, since it's not really the saved resource that would be the real benefit. In a Gandalf-Every-Turn deck, it's not unusual to have lots of resources, Gandalf in hand, but be unwilling to play him -- not because you couldn't use him, or the extra cards he could draw for you -- but because you have to save that Gandalf until you can get him back. That by itself might be a good reason to put Born Aloft in the other deck, where on a newly played Dale ally Born Aloft could read "draw one card and get +1 willpower forever" -- it wouldn't go to waste even if it wasn't ever needed to preserve a lone Gandalf.

Of course, even in that case, if I draw a Born Aloft that wouldn't be used that turn, and I was still looking for Steward of Gondor, I certainly would not be happy to see it.

Thanks for the comments and discussion, though! It's great to see someone look at a deck and see a niche for an unpopular card.

i am thinking about a 2-deck-secrecycombo, that perhaps could do the trick earlier and sometimes moreoften. (use Timely Aid to get him cheap and early in, then perhaps Born Aloft and / or some Gandalf - Sneak Attack in the ressourse-phase + the regular 1 time per round) in addition Resourceful would be much cheaper

perhaps on monday i will try to tinker it around (it might be a bit weired with a (MotK) Henamarth Riversong with The Elvenking or something like that ^^ the mandatory Bard son of Brand is expensive for a secrecysetting.