Gifts for Gimli 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck is essentially inspired by all of the Vilya decks churning out free stuff every turn. I always like the idea of Ring of Thrór as an "attachment Vilya" but never really had a reliable way to get it to come out. That is, until The Riddle-game contract was created. Now I can have Ring of Thror in play from turn 1, and effectively get a free attachment every turn along with a free ready for Gimli.

Ring of Thror, of course, goes on Gimli, as he is going to be doing most of the legwork for the deck. Your ultimate goal is to give him both Citadel Plates, Golden Belt, Firefoot and Vigilant Guard, increasing his health to 15, and therefore his potential attack to 17 (assuming he's taken a few punches). You can then send him questing after the staging step with a Grappling Hook, although the 7 willpower coming from Gandalf and Galadriel with Nenya is easily respectful enough, particularly in the early game. Firefoot allows Gimli to splash his insane damage over two different enemies which makes for very efficient combat.

The rest of the deck is essentially built to do two things - stop Gimli getting eaten by the Hungry Creature and find all of the pieces you need to build him up enough. Gandalf allows you to look at the top of the deck, swap cards out with Wizard Pipe if needed, then Gimli has his choice of attachment to put into play with Ring of Thror.

Allies - There aren't many, and they are basically just there to hunt for stuff and heal. Bilbo Baggins is a good keep in an opening hand as it's useful to have Wizard Pipe as early as possible. Master of the Forge does nearly the same thing. Elrond resets Gimli and allows him to soak a few more undefended attacks, and can get rid of condition attachments that are preventing Gimli from doing anything.

Attachments - I wouldn't advise playing this deck against encounter decks which have a lot of attachment hate. If Ring of Thror gets discarded, it's not likely to have enough power to get anywhere else. You can defend against some with A Test of Will, but it'll make for a rough time if everything disappears on your heroes. Having said that, I've mentioned most of the attachments already. Those I haven't I'll mention now. Favor of the Valar costs 3, and therefore is useful for 3 Hungry Creature shadow cards. You should be able to find it or another 3 cost and keep it in hand just in case. Gandalf's Staff is insane for all of the reasons it usually is. Mirror of Galadriel is a key tool for finding everything you need. You'll have your pick of cards once it is up and running. You may wish to avoid using it until the Hungry Creature is dealt with to avoid any additional burdens on Silver Harp targets. Path of Need and Resourceful are both good Hungry Creature shadow cards for the 4 offerings from the encounter deck, but are also good Wizard Pipe > Ring of Thror targets. You never want to pay for either of these. Shadowfax is fairly self explanatory (readying Gandalf is good), and also costs 3. Strider can be handy as you're probably not getting more than 5 characters out, unless you wind up with multiple Masters of the Forge. You'll never get the not exhausting bonus (hopefully anyway), but 2 for 1 cost is solid. Unexpected Courage gets multiple uses from Gimli and Gandalf, which is pretty vital, due to your lack of allies.

Events - Most of these are obvious. Test of Will blocks stuff, Word of Command and Heed the Dream find stuff. Reforged brings stuff back (and technically costs 0 for the purposes of Hungry Creature). Elrond's Counsel helps your threat, but it's worth holding on to at least 1 zero cost thing to avoid Hungry Creature eating you based on a shadow card treachery. Finally, Far-sighted gives you a pretty valuable look at the encounter deck, so you can check what the Hungry Creature will need.

On the mulligan you are looking for Nenya, primarily to get access to your cards. Wizard Pipe or Bilbo Baggins, which sets you up to use Ring of Thrór more consistently, Silver Harp sorts out the issue of discarding cards for the Hungry Creature and Mirror of Galadriel, which is really the last card you're looking for. Everything is fairly easy to find, though.

Overall, it's a stupid deck which has some success, and I hope you have fun with it if you'd be gracious enough to give it a go.