Tom Bombadil

## Overview

*Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! Hop along! Fal lal the willow! Tom Bom! Jolly Tom! Tom Bombadillo!*

*Hey! Come merry dol! Derry dol! Come dashing! Actions on the stasis zone, and all your minions smashing.*

*Rhymes and rhymes do magic tricks, so drastic! Chain them up, Ol' Merry-o! And make all things fantastic.*

Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow, and also one of the [TBA] factions featured in the [TBA] expansion. Tom Bombadil uses the power of the Rhymes in the deck to manipulate various effects of cards, providing a huge field of options for every play. Creativity is encouraged.

## Details

### General

* Name: Tom Bombadil
* Author: CaptainCosmic
* Lead Playtester and co-author: ludichrisness
* Complexity: 4/5
* Version: 1.2
* Last Updated: September 24th, 2023

### Mechanics

* Stasis
* Subtypes

## Cards

Imgur album here.

Tom Bombadil has 5 unique minions and 15 actions compared to the usual 10 and 10. The faction has a total minion power of 15, significantly lower than the usual 30; with an average power of 3 per minion. Among the actions there are:

* 3 play-on-minion actions: Bright Blue Jacket, Older Than The Old, Yellow Boots.
* 0 play-on-base actions.
* 4 self-stasis actions: By Fire, Sun And Moon; By The Reed And Willow; By Water, Wood And Hill; Ring A Dong Dillo!
* 8 standard actions (5 that directly affect one or more minions, **in bold**): 2x A Merry Fellow, **He Is The Master,** **2x Hey Dol! Merry Dol!,** **2x His Feet Are Faster,** His Songs Are Stronger Songs.
* 3 actions that directly increase a minion's power: He Is The Master, 2x Hey Dol! Merry Dol!

### Minions (5)

* **1x Barrow-Wight (3):** Draw up to six cards, then shuffle the same number of cards drawn minus one from your hand into your deck.
* **1x Fatty Lumpkin (3):** Talent: Move this minion and another of your minions here to another base.
* **1x Goldberry (3):** Talent: Return one of your actions in play (including actions in stasis) to your hand. Play a Rhyme or an action that can be played on a base or on a minion as an extra action.
* **1x Old Man Willow (3):** Ongoing: Once per turn, before you place a +1 power counter on a minion here, you may place a +1 power counter on a different minion you control.
* **1x Tom Bombadil (3):** Talent: Play an extra action. Special: Before this base scores, return this minion to its owner's hand.

### Actions (15)

* **2x A Merry Fellow:** Search your deck or discard pile for a minion of power 3 or less and place it into your hand.
* **2x Hey Dol! Merry Dol!:** Place a +1 power counter on one of your minions. Draw a card. Play an extra action.
* **2x His Feet Are Faster:** Move one of your minions. Special: You may play this card before a base scores. Special: You may play this when one of your minions would be destroyed to return the minion to its owner's hand instead.
* **1x Bright Blue Jacket:** Play on your minion. Ongoing: Before you move this minion, you may shuffle a card from your discard pile into your deck.
* **1x By Fire, Sun And Moon (Rhyme):** Place two stasis counters on this card. Place one stasis counter on each other Rhyme in play. Special: While this card is in stasis, whenever you place a +1 power counter on a minion, you may give it +2 power until the end of the turn instead. When you play this card from stasis, shuffle it into your deck.
* **1x By The Reed And Willow (Rhyme):** Place two stasis counters on this card. Place one stasis counter on each other Rhyme in play. Special: While this card is in stasis, whenever you move a minion, you may place a +1 power counter on one of your minions instead. When you play this card from stasis, shuffle it into your deck.
* **1x By Water, Wood And Hill (Rhyme):** Place two stasis counters on this card. Place one stasis counter on each other Rhyme in play. Special: While this card is in stasis, whenever you draw one or more cards from your deck, you may move one of your minions instead of drawing one of those cards. When you play this card from stasis, shuffle it into your deck.
* **1x He Is The Master:** Draw four cards, minus one for each Rhyme you have in play. For each card you do not draw, choose a different minion you control and place a +1 power counter on it.
* **1x His Songs Are Stronger Songs:** Search your deck or hand for a Rhyme and play it. Place one stasis counter on each Rhyme in play.
* **1x Older Than The Old:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: Your other minions here cannot be affected by other player's actions. Talent: Draw a card OR place a +1 power counter on another minion here.
* **1x Ring A Dong Dillo! (Rhyme):** Place two stasis counters on this card. Place one stasis counter on each other Rhyme in play. Special: While this card is in stasis, whenever you return a minion or action to your hand, you may move it instead. When you play this card from stasis, shuffle it into your deck.
* **1x Yellow Boots:** Play on your minion. Ongoing: Once per turn, before you move this minion, you may either draw a card or return this minion to your hand.

### Bases

* **(18) The Withywindle (3 0 0):** After this base scores, the runner-up chooses another base to score immediately.
* **(23) The Old Forest (4 3 2):** At the start of each turn, place a +1 power counter on this card. After a minion is played here, transfer all counters on this card to it.

## Clarifications

**By Water, Wood And Hill:** If you chose not to draw a card that was searched for, looked at, revealed or drawn off the top of your deck, you proceed as if you drew it, counting it as "the rest" (either shuffle the card into your deck or place it back on the top or bottom of the deck, whatever the card prompting the draw instructs you to do).

**Bright Blue Jacket, Old Man Willow, Yellow Boots:** "Before you do X, you may do Y" allows you to do Y first, regardless of your decision to change X for a different effect by the use of Rhymes. You can still change the effect of Y if a Rhyme allows you to do so.

**By Fire, Sun And Moon; By The Reed And Willow; By Water, Wood And Hill; Ring A Dong Dillo!:** When the Rhymes are played from stasis, they're shuffled into your deck without placing stasis counters on the other Rhymes that are still in play.

**Goldberry:** The talent is treated as two separate sentences, this way if the first part of the talent fails to be fulfilled (due to not being a qualifying action for the talent, or the return being reclassified by Ring A Dong Dillo!) you can still do what the second sentence says.

## Strategy

### General

The Rhyme cards on this deck provide a lot of flexibility to most cards in the game, as they can reclassify card effects while the Rhymes themselves are in stasis. Rhymes' effect reclassifying can be chain-applied, for example you can reclassify card draw into movement with By Water, Wood And Hill and then reclassify that movement into a +1 power counter placement with By The Reed And Willow, thus having the net effect of turning card draw into a +1 power counter.

The faction is notably minion-starved, with only five minion. However, it also has two cards which can access directly to any of them; each minion provides unique value to the faction's gameplan, so being able to get the right one for the occasion is a strong upside. Their minions are easily accessible by other existing cards in the published game. Being all 3-power minions, they have all the benefits of it, but they're also vulnerable to removal. Older Than The Old is a strong protection card, meant to keep the faction's engine minions in play, as well as to provide a reliable way to use the Rhymes. His Feet Are Faster has a second Special that can be used as an emergency reaction when one of your minions would be destroyed.

### Partner suggestions

#### Custom

* **Quantum Physicists:** With the Rhymes, Planck becomes a potential terminal 7 power drop (9 if combined with Dirac's special and the three Rhyme combo). The abundance of movement options from Quantum Physicists can take huge advantage of Bright Blue Jacket, Yellow Boots and By The Reed And Willow. Tunneling adds to the board recalcitrance Tom Bombadil's minions need. Many Worlds can become a free hand dump on the board. Goldberry can reposition Double Slits as needed, and Double Slits' reactions themselves can be reclassified by the Rhymes.
* **Mariachi:** Goldberry can easily relocate and/or interchange Songs as needed. She can also reset a La Cucaracha after using its talent, which can be useful in some cases. De La Sierra Morena and Las Mañanitas can easily kick off a Rhyme chain as a talent. Power Serenata adds to Tom Bombadil's already strong board prevalence. Toño's reactive ability becomes more uncertain with the Rhymes. One weakness of this combo is the lack of removal and thus the difficulty of getting a solo score, but it is compensated with big burst plays and heavy board presence.

## Author notes

* The font used for the cards of this faction is Tom Bombadil.
* The faction's characters and card names are based on those in The Fellowship Of The Ring's first book's chapters 6 through 8, as well as on the songs and poems in them.

Do you know how ~~orcs~~ this faction came into being? It took inspiration on some aspects of other custom factions (namely Mariachi, Warmages and Painters). I wanted to go full on wackiness for this faction, as Tom Bombadil's power has remained a mystery to this day (and hopefully it will stay that way). Mechanically, I am very intrigued on the possibilities stasis provides. I wanted to build a faction centered around an unstable engine and the minigame of managing said engine. Ludichrisness helped me a ton with the development and playtesting for this faction, he was who pumped up the fun factor of Tom Bombadil, and you can see this faction has the ludi signature on some of its card desings. Thanks a bunch!

- Cosmic.