Hobbit "Starter Deck" 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I've often lamented how Revised Core players are missing out on so many of the cards that make Hobbit decks so powerful and fun. They get Gaffer Gamgee and The Shirefolk and Rosie Cotton and Drinking Song, sure. But they lose out on both versions of Frodo Baggins and Fast Hitch, which is arguably the card that made the archetype so enticing. (A 1-cost Unexpected Courage that also stacks with Unexpected Courage? Yes please!)

Roguethirteen suggested in the Cardboard of the Rings Discord that it felt like FFG set themselves up to release more starter decks, including a Hobbit one, and my knee-jerk thought was there wasn't quite enough Hobbit content to make a full deck out of. But when I started looking at the cards, I realized I was wrong-- you could make a fairly strong, thematic hobbit deck almost entirely out of cards that never made it into the revised cardpool (and turbocharge the Hobbit archetype for revised-only players in the process).

So that's what I'm aiming to do here. I've tried to hew fairly close to the original starter decks, which each included 82 cards and 4 or 5 heroes. I'm at 87 cards and 6 heroes-- I could easily get down to 82 by cutting The One Ring and the four Master attachments, but I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to get them into the pool (since Frodo is the canonical carrier of the ring). You could also cut Bilbo Baggins, but with ALeP getting him some new tech (and the mono-Lore Hobbit deck being such a fun option), I wanted to include him.

Every other card includes 3 copies to maximize deckbuilding possibilities (except for Tom Bombadil, who functions just fine with a single copy as long as you have the full set of Tom Bombadillo!s.

I probably don't need to explain the inclusion of most of the cards since they're obviously Hobbit-themed. (A bunch of Hobbit allies, some cards that only attach to Hobbits, some events that require Hobbits to play.) To explain the exceptions:

This seemed like a great chance to introduce some of the better Secrecy cards to the pool (since Hobbits are the lowest-threat faction and thus best positioned to make use of them). For my money, the four best secrecy cards are Timely Aid, Resourceful (which finally gives RCO players a solid non-Steward of Gondor resource accelerator), Celduin Traveler, and Ithilien Lookout. I've also added Out of Sight as it's extremely useful for Hobbits in particular (and pairs nicely with Hobbit-sense since you can more reliably count on seeing one or the other).

Because two of the best Hobbit allies (Halfling Bounder and Halfast Gamgee) need cleared sidequests to reach their full potential, I introduced two of the remaining five to the pool. I strongly considered Prepare for Battle (and it would likely be a better fit if we were viewing this as a standalone deck), but The Storm Comes is too fantastic for RCO players not to have their hands on it. Meanwhile, Keep Watch is one of the greatest pieces of tech for Hero Beorn.

Why is Beorn here? Aside from the fact that he came from the Hobbit boxes and is closely tied to Bilbo Baggins, he actually works really nicely with the Hobbit archetype (provided you're okay giving up secrecy). Hobbits typically struggle with mustering large attack values to deal with bosses, dealing with early-game combat against low-engagement enemies, and quests with lots of archery or other direct damage. Wanna guess what three things Beorn is awesome at?

The other perhaps puzzling inclusions are Gandalf and Treebeard. They were two of the best allies that hadn't been reprinted, so this was a great chance to get them into the RCO pool. Additionally, they work well mechanically (again, the faction wants attack, burly defenders, and HP, and these are the best allies in the pool at all three) and thematically (he's literally called "Hobbit Gandalf", y'all, and it was hobbits that roused the ents against Isengard).

Thorongil is another weird one that kind of just works-- it's a great chance to paste Lore Pippin onto his spirit counterpart since the two work so beautifully together, or else you can paste Spirit Frodo onto the leadership version to give yourself some defensive buffer.

For draw, we have Peace, and Thought, which (beyond having Bilbo in the art!) has always been Hobbit-coded to me because the faction's Fast Hitches completely negate its downside. And again, it was too good of a card to not have in the revised pool.

Drinking Song is the only card that's already in the revised pool, but makes this deck work a lot better as a deck and IMO is one of the most valuable cards to get extra copies of when deckbuilding (on par with Daeron's Runes).

The deck works very well as a standalone (though it could really benefit from Merry and those three copies of The Shirefolk in the revised pool to help preserve its secrecy discounts and offset Hobbit Gandalf's threat). But most importantly, it gives all of the different Hobbit decks the pieces they were lacking to hit the top tier, and adds a bunch of deckbuilding options beyond just Hobbits (secrecy, sidequests, and a few glaring omissions).

A brief list of stuff I wanted, but ultimately cut:

• Love of Tales + Fireside Song + All the Songs
• Defender of the West (great with Hobbit Gandalf in multiplayer)
• Spare Pipe + Smoke and Think
• Short Cut (always fun with Mithril Shirt)
• Keen-eyed Took (is bad)
• Dúnedain Wanderer and Rivendell Scout
• Leaf Brooch + Courage Awakened / Swift and Silent / Noiseless Movement
• Silver Lamp + Small Target
• The Master Ring / The Ring of Power / The Ruling Ring