My first attempt at a 50-card deck. I have been starting with 30 and adding over time I am new to deck building in LOTR but I have been playing Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror for a while now. I recently got the Angmar Awakened Hero Expansion, saw Merry, and thought he was pretty cool. I have been trying to make Smoke Rings work for a while but Fatty Bolger is not it for Spirit Hobbits.
This deck, like many others, works best with another deck which will do most of the fighting for you. It specializes in threat reduction using cards like Elrond's Counsel paired with Elf-friend, the self-titled Smoke Rings, and Merry and Nori's hero abilities. It also does well with questing given it's high amount of Spirit allies. Use Bilbo Baggins to get Dwarf Pipe, Hobbit Pipe, and Wizard Pipe. Use Westfold Horse-breeder to get Shadowfax and Hobbit Pony.
When using Flame of Anor, you should always work to get Ered Luin Miner as your top card to double dip with +3 ATK and get him into play. Horn of the Mark with Merry when playing Bilbo, Curious Brandybuck, and Wandering Took will get more card draw. Steed of Imladris to discard the extra Shadowfax and any other non essential cards in hand. Erebor Guard and Zigil Miner will help discard Hidden Cache. Finally, Gandalf's Staff, A Test of Will, Silvan Refugee, and Will of the West are all great and work well in this deck. Will of the West in particular to reshuffle your discard and deck when you get low on cards.
This deck is not always the most competitive but you will have a lot of fun playing it with lots of card draw once it gets going,. Hope you all enjoy.
i would not include Elf-friend only for Elrond's Counsel. you will have enough money because of mining, so i would replace the council with The Galadhrim's Greeting (this way also more flexible to use on player in your fellowship)
i would include more pipes, the dwarf- and hobbitversions have the advantage that they can also go on allies, not only heroes.
you might have only rev.-content but consider to proxie Smoke and Think and Map of Earnil
playing solo, you can easily add The One Ring + Inner Strength to make Gandalf a superb defender.
overall i would add 3 Unexpected Courage, in solo u need extraactions for fighting in multi, you can give them away for other player.
would replace the Silvan Refugee with Galadriel's Handmaiden (they are also rev.-content, see ringsdb.com )
i am not a big fan of the Curious Brandybuck would replace them with Northern Tracker then you are overall better against nearly everything (locations, fighting)