Mining Deck with Spoiled Contract 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Well, ain't this fun! 100 cards and no threat reduction, and a significant trade off of if you want to draw more than once...

Well, instead, what if we viewed the other side of the contract? We have a threat drop of 10 and then a bonus of questing, all for the cost of extra 50 cards?

Well, in my case, it was taking a 70 card mining deck with MotK Bilbo and turning it into a 100 card deck. With a threat elimination level of effectively 60, a 34 starting threat isn't too bad. Of course, you are engaging everything under the sun, and as I would suggest with my first iteration, we will probably not be questing for a whole lot.

Further, since you are doubling the size of your deck, but are not increasing the starting hand size, you should not be looking for toys. This, of course, hurts Gandalf decks tremendously considering we would really like to have his Pipe at the very least (that was the benefit of having a low threat (MotK) Bilbo Bagginsto fetch the singular copy of the pipe in the deck). Still, we have our ways.

Since we are missing the icon completely from our heroes, with the exception of top deck Gandalf, our access to card draw is pretty limited. However, we can have a LOT of fun mining. We have plenty of unique cards and I am sure at a certain point we will be happy to trash them. This is a incredibly strong combat deck as we can utilize Dáin Ironfoot and Thorin Stonehelm every round we have combat. We can utilize Zigil Miner for some resources (benefit of Gandalf's ability), Expert Treasure-hunter to fill hand (this is going to be much better once the contract flips), and, of course, the Messenger Raven can be utilized once Gandalf has his Ring . In terms of searching out specific cards, we have Gather Information and three copies of Heed the Dream which I assume will be staples in any deck running this contract at this point.

We still effectively have good card draw abilities with King Under the Mountain (which technically is a look and discard and can trigger Hidden Cache and Ered Luin Miner). Prepare for Battle certainly balances the ratio and honestly might be a good starting hand option if you aren't playing a quick start scenario. You might consider carrying Narvi's Belt if you find the money sitting on Thorin Stonehelm to be a bit unbalanced in this deck. Hopefully you can get to one of your copies of Legolas and he can join the fight.

If you happen to accidentally burn through a card you need in the mining process, we have a little bit of recovery. Reforged can grab attachments, while Nori can put cards back in your deck. Dwarf Pipe saves more discards, The White Council if you are playing with low player counts can be utilized, and you have one copy of Will of the West if you want to reset this monstrosity at any point.

Once again, this deck will struggle with questing -- Gandalf is okay, but you really would like to see some of the better questers come in early (Bilbo Baggins, Arwen Undómiel, and even Erebor Toymaker will help). But perhaps your best bet is Thorongil to go fetch your second copy of Dáin Ironfoot. With this, you have a classic dwarf deck and your willpower should be fine.

I built this around possibly running two player, one who can handle the questing side, and they can carry Steward of Gondor.