Starter - Moria

Format: King Standard

Author: Phallen

Ring-bearer:
Ring:

Adventure deck:

Free Peoples Draw Deck:
3x
1x
1x
1x
2x
1x
1x
3x
3x
3x
3x
3x
4x
3x
1x
3x
2x
1x
1x
2x
2x

Shadow Draw Deck:
2x
3x
3x
4x
4x
4x
2x
2x
1x
2x
4x
3x
4x
3x
3x

Notes

Dwarves being run out of Moria by goblin hordes. I put together at least a dozen builds before giving up and allowing this deck an extra 18 cards over its peers.

Free Peoples: (starting Gimli and Sam, with a high bid of 3-4 for the site)
KS forces mono Dwarves to lean on all their neat tricks rather than just choke and stomp as in Movie. This isn't a bad thing, but I'm trying to hedge myself in a bit for the sake of theme which means forgoing some of their best tricks.

This deck has some serious downsides, but there are also real upsides. Your bid means you're basically assured to go first. Once you get about halfway through your deck, you have a highly flexible fellowship, condition discarding, good skirmish potential, and recursion for everything except characters. It's definitely more of a challenge than the other decks, but I think it's now to a point where it doesn't feel as if you have to play against your deck as well as your opponent.

For the downsides, there's one big one: you are extremely exposed at the start of the game. A 12 strength fierce minion will kill Sam and Gimli if you don't get anything usable, and if Gimli dies before you can play another Dwarf almost your entire deck is unplayable. To avoid that fate, we've got 16 strength boosts (12 possessions + 4 events), 7 companions, and Thrarin. More than half the FP side. You *should* be good. Against a non-fierce minion, sacrifice Sam if there's a reasonable chance that Gimli could be in danger. Frodo might be able to survive to site 5 on his own though, so if you do lose Gimli at 2 happens you're not totally out -- you have one shot at a swarm on site 4 for a Shadow kill.

The intent is to play Ever My Heart Rises at 1. If you don't get one of those 24 cards above, the 3 twilight for it could get you killed so you may want to play nothing and move. Or one of those 6 cards could be what you need, your choice. Should you happen to get EMHR in your starting hand, pull Here Is Good Rock instead.

Now that you've made it to site 3, a bit about the rest of your arsenal...
You have 5 tales (plus an extra copy of Here Is Good Rock) for Gloin and Bilbo
Slaked Thirsts will neutralize Grima, Enquea, IsenOrcs, Desert Lord -- anything that uses its vitality
Here Is Good Rock stacks Slaked Thirsts (and whatever else for Axe of Erebor)
Axe of Erebor uses EMHR for skirmish power
Courtesy of My Hall re-stacks Slaked Thirsts or heals in a pinch
Defending the Keep replays whatever you need (you may need to discard it with Axe of Erebor first)
Great Works Begun There replays Defending the Keep when necessary, pulls back Battle Tested, or grabs Slaked Thirsts to stack on HIGR. Disquiet of Our People is a fantastic card to pull back after playing a Dwarf Guard

Shadow:
I don't play swarms much so unfortunately I don't have much insight on how to balance the other FPs properly so that swarm has a chance without a good shadow hand being an auto win. Goblin Swarms is how I'm trying to accomplish that, with most FP intentionally not having stuff like Bounder to compensate for the interaction it provides. Thinking is that by planning things out and maybe spending a turn or two using Guard Commander to stack minions, there should be possibilities of swarming without the game just kinda ending suddenly. Balrog and Cave Troll are to get stops / kills in between.

You'll notice that all your Dwarven milling takes off the top of your deck, and Goblin Sneak stacks minions on the bottom. Whatever you put there, you can pretty easily discard until you hit it and make sure that is your final hand. Goblin Scavengers will of course pull back Goblin Scimitar and draw a card, so by stacking the bottom of your deck with 8 minions and skimming off the top until you get there you can play 12 minions just from hand at site 9 (draw all 8 and empty your deck, play Goblin Sneak to put a minion there, then Goblin Scavengers to pull Scimitar and draw it; repeat 3 times). Worst case scenario is that you have no Goblin Armories, in which case this will cost 12 twilight (4x Goblin Runners pay for themselves and 4x Goblin Sneaks, so you only need to afford the 4x Goblin Scavengers). This is basically unavoidable. If there are any threats, that's a few more minions you can draw. If you were able to get something stacked, that many more. Even if nothing goes right for you all game, you've got a chance here at the end. If you do have Goblin Armory then you could easily be drowning in twilight, so make sure you play Guard Commander!

Speaking of Guard Commander: *do not* place your only copy of him below your deck with Sneaks. Or any minion you may want to replay, for that matter. Host of Thousands and They Are Coming are only worth the minions in your discard!