Gloin Mocks Quickbeam 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

We've been playing Glóin decks since, oh, I don't know, the BEGINNING OF TIME, but we're still not bored of the little fella and his amazing propensity to generate a ton of resources and cheat the game in interesting ways.

Some newer shenanigans involve, of course The One Ring and Well Preserved. Heal all damage? Every turn? Don't mind if I do.

Gloin with the Ring, Citadel Plate and Ent Draught is 11hp. That's up to 10 free resources per turn. The question isn't necessarily "What are you going to spend it on?" - the standard Big Allies package answers that to some extent. The question is more - how do you actually take enough damage, and what else can you do with that damage?

Hey, Quickbeam. You know that everyone prefers Treebeard to you? You better be-leaf it!

Enter Quickbeam. Song of Mocking is normally used to "taunt" an enemy, causing the enemy to hit you instead of it's original target. But what if you "taunt" the big treeman. How angry will he get?

Turns out pretty angry. With multiple Mockings, and the Dúnedain Quest, Quickbeam can be questing as well as striking twice with Ranged 4. With all the rest of the allies, that's normally enough to destroy things on yours or other sides of the board. Blocks can go either into your big allies, or (more usually) into Gloin for more resources, defended or undefended, Gloin doesn't care.

Hey, Quickbeam. Do you know what an acorn is? In a nutshell, it’s an oak tree.

The rest of the deck is either Engine, Big Plays, or Defense. For Engine we bring along Thurindir and a side quest package. Starting with Gather Information helps get a Mocking or a Narvi's Belt in play. If we have both, then a 2nd Mocking allows Quickbeam to quest or get mocked in the refresh phase for Peace, and Thought. Other engine cards include: Heed the Dream, Daeron's Runes. Parting Gifts is generally for multiplayer, allowing you to drop 10 resources onto an allies hero in exchange for that one Test of Will they played at some point. Make them feel special, Gloin-style.

For Big Plays, we can end the game with a well placed Path of Need, Grim Resolve, Hour of Wrath. Power of Command is also generally a late-game card as the need for Well Preserved to trigger at the start of turn means that it will spend much of the game as a 1-for-1 questing card before getting used at the end for a final push. We're purple with tons of resources, so of course we're going to both Sneak Attack and hard cast, Gandalf. It helps that we like all 3 of Gandalf's abilities. He's always good, he's doubly good here.

Hey, Quickbeam. We're in trouble. Were you being knotty again?!

Finally Defense. We don't run a ton of that, we're mainly a loud, proud aggressive deck, but with the One Ring we do want to guard our threat. A Lesson in Caution, Double Back and the aforementioned Gandalf give us all we need. Halfling Bounder is generally always online thanks to Thurindir. And Ioreth covers scenarios where we need more than just the Well Preserved to top Gloin up.

So how does it play?

Pretty strongly. By turn 4, you've generally drawn about 20+ cards and generated around 25 resources, perhaps having spent 10 of it on just building your Gloin and draw engine. So that leaves you 15 resources and a good selection of big allies to play.

Turns after 4 become silly. With multiple Quickbeam untaps, 10+ resources per turn, and the ability to draw into the remainder of your deck fast.

So you win. And that's great. Though afterwards, with Quickbeam crying tears of green due to how much Gloin mocked him, you are perhaps wondering what the cost of your victory was. Was it the friends you made along the way? Or in this case, perhaps the friends you lost along the way instead...

Hey, Quickbeam, I see a beaver over there. Oh, well, it's been nice gnawing you!