Worlds 2025 Deck: Party Hard!

[Goblin King]

Party Harder!
An Unexpected Party Deck inspired by Nigel Buckle
“Dwalin and Balin here already, I see,” said Kili. “Let us join the throng!”
“Throng!” thought Mr. Baggins. “I don’t like the sound of that…” The Hobbit
Those who have been around this game a long time, or those with very good Underdeep mining skills for the Internet may remember a long-time player/designer and writer for this game named Nigel Buckle. (He’s still around, by the way, now designing amazing games like Star Trek: Captain’s Chair.) He wrote the most impressive deck lists! Impressive in their detail of how the cards function and contribute to the deck . Every card in the deck was explained. This is my attempt to do something similar.
One of my favorite decks that Nigel created was called An Unexpected Party (copyright 2004). It was very much a theme deck, meaning it catered to the role-playing aspects of MECCG, rather than the ultra-competitive nature of a tournament deck. But why dwarves? For that, I turn to the source material.
I didn’t encounter The Hobbit for the first time until after I’d fully devoured the Lord of the Rings a couple of times. I’d learned it was out there, of course, but its reputation as a “children’s book” kept me away from it (after all, I was in middle school at the time). But when I did finally pick it up, I read the chapter, The Unexpected Party, and was immediately determined to read the whole book. Later, I realized that Tolkien was writing the chapter as one big gag to introduce a bunch of characters (dwarves) so that the readers would not get too lost with all the names being thrown around. The gag was so good, Tolkien decided to do it again in the same book! (But the second time the joke is on Beorn in the chapter titled Queer Lodgings.)
The theme is dwarves, and the theme card is An Unexpected Party - the main idea of the deck is to build a big party of dwarves (or two!) and collect multiple marshalling points at a couple sites using Thorough Search. With a large company expect lots of hazards, but you should have enough spare characters to tap to support, and A Friend or Three should give a huge bonus.
Ideal Starting Company (4):
• Thrain II controlling
o Kili
• Balin controlling
• Oin
• [Minor Items: Elven Cloaks (x2)]
Draft Thrain first, then Balin, then Kili, then Oin. All of your other characters in the pool are to act as replacements if your ideal characters are duplicated in the draft.
Character Pool (10):
• Dain II (back up for Thrain otherwise out of the deck
• Gimli (back up in my deck incase my opponent plays Thorin otherwise out of the deck)
• Thorin II
• Gloin (back-up for Balin)
• Kili
• Fili (back-up for Kili)
• Bofur
• Bifur
• Bombur
• Dwalin
Characters for the Deck:
• Alatar (x2), Radagast (x1)
• Thorin II
• Gloin
• Kili
• Fili
• Bifur
• Bofur
• Bombur
• Ori
• Dori
• Nori

Resources (30)
• MP cards (13)
• Items (8):
• Durin's Axe
• Orcrist
• Dwarven Axe (x3)
• Torque of Hues
• Scroll of Isildur
• The Arkenstone
Allies (2):
• Gollum
• Goldberry
Factions (3):
• Blue Mountain Dwarves
• Petty Dwarves
• Rangers of the North
Support cards (17):
• A Chance Meeting
• A Friend or 3 (x2)
• An Unexpected Party (x3)
• Dodge
• Longbottom Leaf (x2)
• Many Foes He Fought
• Marvels Told
• Risky Blow (x2)
• The Dwarves are Upon You (x2)
• Thorough Search (x2)
Durin's Axe: Crucial item for the deck - as it's equivalent to a greater item in the hands of a dwarf - watch the corruption though.
Orcrist : For the wizard.
Dwarven Axe: Like having a permanent Risky Blow bonus on any of your lesser dwarves
Scroll of Isildur: Purely in here as a spoiler vs Ring Dunk opponents
Torque of Hues: Put it on a small dwarf and cancel one attack on your massive party every time. The Arkenstone: Another crucial item, watch the corruption.
Gollum: mainly in the deck as another scout his low prowess means it might spend most of the game wounded - but it's easy to play him at Goblin Gate.
Gwahir: An ally who can get you out of snowstorms
Blue Mountain Dwarves: A nice 3 MP faction.
Petty Dwarves: Relatively easy to bring in with one of your dwarves.
Rangers of the North: A nice 3 MP faction
The Sites you use for the items will depend on what hazards you see played – Normally you like to go to places with orc automatic attacks because of the dwarf bonuses.
Barrow Downs (major items)
Carn Dum (greater items)
Glittering Caves (major items)
Himring (major items)
Moria (greater items)
Mount Gram (major items)
Mount Gundabad (greater items)
Ruined Signal Tower (major items)
The Stones (greater items)
Ideally you want to play 2 MP cards at an item site, the first item, then Thorough Search for a major item.
An Unexpected Party: Crucial Theme card for the deck - once it's in play you can have a huge company of dwarves! You can also create a second large company with your wizard and Thorin as his follower and additional dwarves with 1 or 2 mind.
A Chance Meeting: Speeds your deck up, once you have An Unexpected Party in play.
A Friend or 3: Useful defense against corruption, or help to recruit the factions, especially as your companies are likely to be large.
Long Bottom Leaf: Essential sideboard card, use it to bring in the resources you need
Many Foes He Fought: Useful for getting a dwarf with a weapon to face multiple attacks, especially automatic attacks if you want to get another character into the site untapped. It's also useful for throwing a low mind character against a nasty creature if you think you can't beat it, or don't want to take the risk (such as an enhanced Corsairs of Umbar, etc)
Risky Blow: Staple combat enhancer
The Dwarves are Upon You: With a big party of dwarves this card can be awesome.
Thorough Search: Essential speed card for the deck, allows you to play a second (major) item at a site.
Sideboard (Resources/Characters):
• Dwalin
• A Friend or 3
• Dark Quarrels
• Escape
• Forwarned is Forearmed
• Gwaihir
• Marvels Told
• Many Foes He Fought
• Ori
• Promptings of Wisdom
• The Dwarves are Upon You
• The Hunt
• The Old Thrush
The idea of the deck is to build one or two strong companies and collect a number of items. Allies and factions round out the points. The sideboard has a number of useful resources (access by tapping your wizard or use a Longbottom Leaf).Don't be surprised if your opponent stops playing hazard creatures on your companies, especially once you get some weapons into play.
The Hunt and The Old Thrush are usually brought into the deck late in the game, when Alatar has Orcrist. Once you get both cards in hand, his favorite target is Mouth of Sauron for 3 Kill Points.
The deck works best based out of Rivendell/Grey Havens - don't bother to cross the Misty Mountains (except to get an eagle ally), use the sites in the West and Angmar, although you might have to visit the mountains for greater items if necessary.

Hazard Deck (30) * = creature or ½ creature # = vs Hero or Fallen Wizard Only (13)
• *Adunaphel#
• *Assassin (x3)#
• *Corpse Candle (x3)
• *Ghosts
• *Mouth of Sauron
• *Rain Drake (x3)#
• *Ren the Unclean#
• *Uvatha The Horseman
• Alone and Unadvised
• Echoes of the Song (x3)#
• Foolish Words
• Greed (x2)
• Lure of Expedience (x2)
• Lure of Nature (x2)
• Lure of the Senses (x3)
• Something Else At Work (x2)#
Adunaphel: Tap the critical character.
Assassin: Coverage against decks that recruit factions/allies rather than collect items.
Corpse Candle: Only play this against companies with lots of corruption, you'll be giving up a kill MP but hopefully eliminating characters (and removing their items) with the corruption checks.
Ghosts: An additional corruption point and a check for anyone wounded by this creature.
Rain Drake (x3): Main anti-costal sea hazard, also quite playable elsewhere.
Ren the Unclean: Mainly to stop your opponent playing him! But consider tapping Ren to force corruption checks if your opponent has more corruption than you
The Mouth of Sauron: Staple hazard, get back a hazard card that's proving effective
Uvatha The Horseman: Get back a creature (such as The Mouth) or tap to sideboard
Alone and Unadvised: Great against small companies.
Echoes of the Song: Crucial card for forcing corruption checks or to make a fallen wizard discard a staging point.
Foolish Words: Another anti-faction card, and also another target for your opponent's Marvel's Told - hopefully he'll waste it removing this rather than a corruption card.
Greed: Play it on-guard!
Lure of Expedience: Staple corruption card (consider revealing it on-guard in response to the play of an item)
Lure of Nature: Great corruption card, don't expect it to stay on the character long; fortunately your dwarves are immune.
Lure of the Senses: Good corruption card and one of the few that works against hobbits.
Something Else At Work: Anti-One Ring card (-1 to a ring test roll) that can also be useful against Fallen Wizards
The hazard deck is corruption, mainly because your dwarves suffer from corruption, so if your opponent is playing a corruption deck (using Balance of Things, Traitor, etc) then you can benefit from them too. Plus corruption is fast and your resource strategy means you have to hold cards (Thorough Searches, items, characters).
Hazard Switched Out vs. Minion (13)
• *Elf-Lord Revealed in Wrath (x2)
• *Elves Upon Errantry (x2)
• *Ents in Search of Entwives (x3)
• *Gandalf the White Rider
• *Lady of the Golden Wood
• *Witch-King of Angmar
• Alone and Unadvised
• Foolish Words
• River (x3)

Sideboard (hazards): # = Only vs Hero (7)
• Bane of the Ithil-Stone
• Call of Home
• Despair of the Heart
• Earcaraxe Ahunt#
• Foolish Words#
• Lure of Nature#
• Mordor in Arms#
• Muster Disperses
• Rolled Down to the Sea#
• Seized by Terror
• Siege#
• The Will of The Ring#
• Traitor
• Twilight
Sideboard (hazards: Minion Only (7)
• Alone and Unadvised
• Foolish Words
• Fled Into Darkness (x2)
• Heedless Revelry (x2)
• The Way is Shut
Fallen Wizard
• Blind to the West
• Cruel Claw Perceived
• Cast from the Order
• Fool’s Bane
• Ire of the East
• Longing for the West x2
• Mask Torn
• Nature’s Revenge
• Pon-Ora Pon
• Twisted Tales