LotR TCG Card Strategies - #13

Fool of a Took!

Like most cards, there's an obvious strategy to this one: You can draw extra minions into your hand. but I won't talk about the obvious strategy. ;-)

How can you really make this work for you? Well, you mostly need extra minions in the late-game, and coincidentally that's when you'll have enough Twilight to pay for them. hmmm... late game... end of the draw deck... I got it: Goblin Sneaks!

I'm sure you immediately realize you can get more use from the Sneaks if you put them on Goblin Swarms. Wait, if you're using Swarms you won't need Fool to draw the extra minions. Does that mean Swarms is a better card? No, because Fool of a Took is immune to all those cards that will destroy Conditions.

OK, so you have set up a number of Goblins at the bottom of your deck with no non-Moria cards mixed in. How do you get rid of the cards on top of them? One obvious way is to use They Are Coming. Discarding 3 or 6 extra cards a turn will let you draw through your deck a lot faster. It also lets you replay those Goblin Sneaks.

The best way to get thru your deck, though, is to look at how the Free and Shadow halves of the deck work together. Goblins are already cheap and fast, but you can go through your deck even faster with the right Free cards. For example, play Dwarves. They have a lot of Conditions (which you never hold in hand for long), plenty of Skirmish actions, and cards like Delving. Notice that Gimli can also help you stack Goblins at the bottom of your deck. Cards like Risk a Little Light or Gwemegil will help you when playing other cultures.

Fool of a Took itself will give you one card no matter what it is, and you might be lucky and get a Goblin while you're at it.

Sure, you're out of Free cards by the time your combo pays off. Is that a worry? Not really. At the rate you burn thru the deck, you'll have enough Free cards to keep you alive while waiting for your combo. Then the game will end when you hit the opponent with your grand finale of Goblins, so who cares about your Fellowship at that point?

You need to spot a Hobbit to play this card. Many decks use Hobbit companions. Without those, you can spot non-Companions like Bounder, the Gaffer, or people using the Hobbit Farmer / Westfarthing combo. If the opponent is not playing any Hobbits at all, you can just discard Fool when you Reconcile. (Though that's a different strategy discussion all together.)

Besides, you gotta love any card with a exclamation point in the title. :-)