This summer, after I lost to Arco's dwarves in Utrecht, I decided to go hunt for Dragon-gold myself to find out what makes the simple concept so strong. I found it is a strong concept indeed and I won the tournament I played with this deck in Delft. Most effective where: 1. The decks' speed, and 2. It's invulnerability to all sorts of hazards: there are usually some dwarves around that can be missed. I still wouldn't really know what hazards to play against this type of deck (still having an answer to other decks one faces in a tournament.) Suggestions are allways welcome.

The deck's speed did however slow down to a disappointing crawl in the third match of the tournament. My opponent (Jean-Paul Keulen) had Radagast out first and guess what: this time the Smoke Rings had both been in my opening hand, all items where in the bottom half of the deck and even most of the hazards seemed to have sorted themselves out, starting from the top with the least usefull ones (given the circumstances). What can you say. After all, Middle-earth isn't just about skill and that's part of the fun.

It did make for a great match since Jean-Paul started of slowly too (his share of bad luck coming from the dice). We were both waiting for things to come and I got a bit worried when his 'things' came first. At the end however I did have the good fortune to see his Oin (with Emerald of the Mariner and Orcrist) feel very lonely and therefore I won the game 4-2.