Infinity Nob

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askelad 628

I finally built an infinite. Mwahaha.

This deck generates infinite resource, card draw, threat reduction, hero readying and progress consistently on round 3

The loop

we need an empty deck, at least 4 pipes in play (Hobbit Pipe and Spare Pipe), 3 copies of Galadhrim Weaver and Galadhrim Minstrel in play, a Host of Galadhrim and Smoke and Think in hand, as well as a second Host of Galadhrim on top of the discard pile, with an event underneath if possible.

Play Smoke and Think and Host of Galadhrim. When resolving Host of Galadhrim, play the weavers first then the minstrells, getting us back Host of Galadhrim, Smoke and Think and a random event. We are back at the start with an event back from the discard pile into our hand.

If the card underneath is not an event, Galadhrim Minstrel cannot get it back, but since it digs 5 cards deep we can keep looping in that state, until we get an event that lets us draw. This can be accomplished with Daeron's Runes, Deep Knowledge, Drinking Song, or Old Toby through a Good Meal or extra Smoke and Think.

We end up with our discard pile going back to our hand and can infinitely loop events, including Smoke and Think which lets us play all of it for free.

Payoff

By looping The Shirefolk, we have an infinite threat sink, which paired with Song of Eärendil lets us loop Deep Knowledge to draw everyone their decks while getting their threat to 0.

Looping Miruvor we can put infinite amounts of resource on any hero. This also gives us infinite and readying, which paired with #Ravens of the Mountain generates infinite progress.

Looping Reforged also lets us play all attachments in other players's discard piles.

Additionnal payoffs include Woodland Courier for locations, Risk Some Light to stack the encounter deck, and Will of the West to shuffle other player's discard piles back so that they can play their whole deck. The Houses of Healing could also be used to get heroes back, as well as Waters of Nimrodel to heal everything.

Getting there

To get to the loop we need our deck empty and we need 4 pipes and 9 resource of silvans in play. I used the same shell as i did in this deck, essentially replacing the "cheat big stuff in play with Smoke and Think" part of the deck with an infinite loop.

The core idea is the same, play a bunch of pipes and use massive amounts of draw and cost reduction to go through the deck quickly, usually the deck is thin enough to combo by round 3.

On those first 2 rounds however we are quite useless, secrecy helps stay clear of combat but we only quest for 6 or even 4 when we use Nob's ability, and apart from the silvans questing we have no card that is meant to interact with anything, our best contribution is playing Deep Knowledge. I would recommend playing this with friends that either plays into secrecy or are very strong in the early rounds (I would also recommend not telling them what your plan is, to mess with them).

Math is fun

excluding reforged, there are 51 cards in the deck, 7 of which are in starting hand including bilbo's pipe. So we need to draw 44 cards in 3 rounds, 47 if we count Galadhrim Weaver (but that means we have 3 extra copies of something).

We also need to pay (in the ideal scenario) :

3x Galadhrim Minstrel=6 (Good Meal pays for Old Toby)

3x Galadhrim Weaver+1x Spare Pipe (the other 2 are discounted by Nob)=4

The rest is either payed for with Smoke and Think or played post combo when resource doesn't matter. Smoke Rings and Song of Eärendil can be played before but only with Love of Tales or Good Meal available.

In term of resource we are short 1 which should come from either a free Miruvor from Nob (if we got him to trigger on all 3 rounds) or a Smoke and Think+Keen as Lances on the third round (allowing a Song of Eärendil as well). Skipping the third Spare Pipe is also an option. Love of Tales is not strictly necessary but offsets the occasionnal need for an Old Toby without Good Meal since it is our primary Galadhrim Weaver target.

In 3 rounds we draw 3 cards, and we start comboing off with 4 cards left in the deck (any Drinking Song, Daeron's Runes, Deep Knowledge, Host of Galadhrim, Old Toby,Smoke and Think left not counting towards taht limit). That's 40 cards left.

To draw we have :

1 Nob=1 (assuming we don't use him until last round)

3 Galadhrim Minstrel=3 (rarelly misses)

3 Spare Pipe=3 (rarelly misses)

3 Daeron's Runes=6 (discard Ravens of the Mountain, Will of the West and the third Song of Eärendil to get back during the combo)

3 Deep Knowledge=6

3 Drinking Song=3 (it's basically a draw 1 with a mulligan mechanic)

4 Old Toby=3+4+5+5=17 assuming we use 2 of Galadhrim Weaver on those, and one extra pipe between playing 2 of them. Sometimes a 5th copy will be played depending on Love of Tales luck.

total: 36.

So we need 4 extra draws from Hobbit Pipe and Song of Eärendil. We will defenitely get 2-3 on the third round from the Hobbit Pipes, so 1-2 extra draw from pipes on round 1-2 is sufficient.

It is also possible to play 1 copy of Host of Galadhrim early for 3 extra draw from Galadhrim Minstrel, but you should make sure Galadhrim Weaver only shuffles back card draw and Smoke and Think. Extra copies of Keen as Lances have the feature of not going to discard which lets us generate extra resource/draw as needed while stacking precious Smoke and Think on the discard pile.

The general sequencing for Galadhrim Weaver shuffles should be : shuffle back 2 Old Toby and a Smoke and Think to pay for one of them, and play 1 Host of Galadhrim pre-combo to dig, shuffling back the Smoke and Think that paid for it and either another Smoke and Think+Old Toby or a mix of Deep Knowledge/Drinking Song to make sure the deck keeps shrinking overall.

edit : This is absolutely exploiting the free to choose rule. Using Reforged on Good Meal is also house rule, cut Reforged if that is where you draw the line. During testing, i've had in 10 tests 7 going off round 3, two on round 4 and one on round 2

Nob reins supreme.

18 comments

Aug 27, 2023 Alonewolf87 1921

There is a reason why ALeP added Host of Galadhrim to its Free To Choose List :D that event can lead to some really absurd loops.

Aug 27, 2023 Alonewolf87 1921

Out of curiosity, what is Nob role here besides granting in the first rounds his discount on items and the once per round card draw?

Aug 27, 2023 askelad 628

@Alonewolf87 exactly that, a couple resource saved on Spare Pipe and an extra draw on a bad turn can make a big difference. Feel free to replace him with another hobbit (you need double for minstrells) like Fatty Bolger to deal with a dangerous enemy or Folco Boffin if for some reason you value 2

Aug 27, 2023 doomguard 1963

  1. nice idea,
  2. with 1 Song of Eärendil you can only reduce by 1 to each player. a Deep Knowledge need 2 songs out to handle it properly
  3. i think it is not so easy to nearly have the whole deck in hand in round 3

asumin you start with a hobbbitpipe and get perhaps a 2. in round 2, then play a Galadhrim Minstrel each round and play 3 Deep Knowledge and use Nob each round play 2 The Shirefolk after 2. Hobbit Pipe that makes:

  • 3 irst round
  • 3 +4 2. round
  • 3 + 2 asumin a Smoke Rings 3.round

+0-6 Daeron's Runes

21-30 +6 startinghand +1 pipe 28-37 cards seems not enough imo

Aug 27, 2023 askelad 628

@doomguard

  1. Thanks :)
  2. Song of Eärendil is non unique, you need 2 for equilibrium and 3 for threat reduction. Since it procs Love of Tales playing 2 while setting up is not a problem.
  3. i did a lot of testing, and on some occasions i had to wait for round 4 but rarely. To start off the combo you dont necessarily need an epmty deck : if some draw events, Smoke and Think or Host of Galadhrim are left in the deck you can usually get started as soon as there are few enough dead draws left in the deck. But it is quite technical which is part of the charm for me, one wrong decision can make it fail.

in your math on card draw, you need to account for Song of Eärendil and Spare Pipe replacing themselves, and most of all Old Toby, which we can play and shuffle back in, we rarely pay its cost with Good Meal and Reforged.

I'll add to the description a bit of details on how to pilot the deck and the math of it, try it out on DragnCard without loading a quest and you can get a feel for it if you like.

Aug 27, 2023 Alonewolf87 1921

Quick question: are you using Reforged on Good Meal? In case know that you can't since it's a neutral attachment (see the Stand and Fight and Gandalf ruling).

Aug 27, 2023 askelad 628

@Alonewolf87 I wasn't aware of that. I'll cut reforge then

Aug 27, 2023 doomguard 1963

@askelad, thx o.k. i will houserule Host of Galadhrim (or each card) to max 3 times a phase per player ;)

few of the real hard quests have restrictiond to reduce thread by 1 per turn (mount doom, dreadnought on hard, black gate,...)

Aug 27, 2023 askelad 628

honestly this is not meant either to play the game as intended or to care about the quest XD

don't play this deck if you apply the ALEP rulings, it doesn't work.

but it works fine without Reforged, and looping Deep Knowledge isn't strictly necessary to the combo, just convenient.

Aug 27, 2023 Marctimmins89 105

I love the loop and the deck title equally. Well done.

I'm wondering if it's worth trying to change all of my online usernames to Infinite_Nob...

Aug 28, 2023 doomguard 1963

to get it more flesh to the bone, add a Thorongil and make (MotK) Bilbo Baggins a real hero as Bilbo Baggins for some carddraw or Bilbo Baggins to get more use in questing and do dmg.

Aug 28, 2023 askelad 628

@Marctimmins89 that is some of the highest praise i have ever received, thank you.

@doomguard how do you pay the 3 ?

Aug 28, 2023 doomguard 1963

when the loop stands there is plenty, not?

Aug 28, 2023 askelad 628

ofc, but at this point the game is kind of over and it would just be for style points.

Aug 28, 2023 doomguard 1963

i not so sure, many quests are hard after 3-4 round specially if one only give a bit willpower. cards and threadreduction helps, but is no autowin.

specially if you play with 3 times per round or phase then you have to decide on what to take it first.

Aug 29, 2023 askelad 628

with Ravens of the Mountain and Miruvor you generate infinite progress. For any quest that requires extra conditions there are plenty of sideboard options to resolve them.

on 3 times per round there is no combo, by the time you play your third Smoke and Think you have barely done anything.

If you want a version that respects 3 times a phase it would look completely different, probably something like playing Path of Need every travel phase

Aug 29, 2023 doomguard 1963

many quests needs to kill a specific enemy, and then it could make problems, or where a number of enemys have to be killed, or a number of locations have to be in the victorypile. some nihtmareszenarious could be interestin and no autowin (e.g. the day and night nightmare from the angmarcycle)

but overall i do not want to put more thouhts into it. on real gameplay infinitie loops should not be played (i hope all at my tables will agree to that) and are not really fun at a table, but allow it 3 times per phase, it could make a (very) good but not op deck. (same with infinitive gloinhealing)

Aug 29, 2023 askelad 628

@doomguard Woodland Courier, Galadhon Archer, Rúmil, Waters of Nimrodel and such should cover those. Or just chain The White Council assuming your friends can win if they can dump their entire deck.

Agreed on infinite loops, i've played enough magic to know storm decks get old fast. That's why i didn't dig into it further, i got started on the idea before finding out about the free to choose rules and it only interested me as a deckbuilding exercise.

If you want to dig into something stretchy but non-infinite and actually interesting to play, i need your excellent nitpicking skills here : ringsdb.com