Frodo Baggins (Spirit)

Background

The nephew of Bilbo Baggins and his designated heir. The One Ring was left to Frodo along with Bag End when Bilbo disappeared after his 111th birthday. This all lead to Frodo carrying The Ring first to Rivendell and eventually all the way to Mount Doom where it was destroyed.

Card Theme

Frodo’s ability to cancel damage once per phase appears to represent him as the ring bearer. It makes sense that Frodo can avoid danger using The One Ring to turn invisible much like his uncle did many years before. In the books, we see Frodo do this to escape Boromir when he tried to take The Ring. Earlier he tried to do this as well to escape the Ringwraiths although they could see him as they were also bound to the Ring. The Ring also draws the attention of its master hence why its use raises the player’s threat.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Threat Reduction

Threat reduction offsets the threat gained by using Frodo’s ability. A deck packed with threat reduction can utilize it with little risk of losing due to threat. Hobbits have access to a couple nice threat reduction events, The Shirefolk and Elvenses that provide a nice amount of threat reduction for a reduced cost compared to the Core Set staple, The Galadhrim’s Greeting. Elrond’s Counsel also works well for cheap threat reduction as long as the player(s) control a Noldor. Galadriel can fulfill that requirement and provide repeatable threat reduction. The classic hero pairing with Spirit Frodo is Lore Aragorn because Aragorn can reset threat back to the starting level once per game.

Hobbit Pipe

Sam Gamgee Ally

Ring Rating

Card Talk uses the highly scientific yet arbitrary scale of 1 ring for the card to rule them all to 10 to be cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.

I rate Frodo at 3 rings. He’s a very solid defensive hero with a very useful ability. It is not difficult at all to include enough threat reduction to avoid threating out despite using it heavily. Often just pairing him with Lore Aragorn is enough. His 2 willpower can even help out in questing if need be because the damage cancelation also works on an undefended attack. The only real downside is the ability is limit once per phase. This can be problematic in later scenarios when boss enemies can get multiple attacks or multiple enemies can build up. Then other defenders with higher defense and hit points that can turn into a “super defender” like Spirit Beregond or Messanger of the King Jubayr are going to be a better choice.

• Dave – 3
• Grant – 3
• Ted – TBR
• Matt – 3

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks