Editing Clever Hobbits (7U54)

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{{CardTabs|Gollum}}

[[{{ROOTPAGENAME}}]] is a {{C|Gollum}} [[Event]] from the [[Return of the King]] set.

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= Strategy =
'''Clever Hobbits''' has two separate uses, as a powerful but expensive [[pump]] event for [[Smeagol]]-focused decks like [[Solo Smeagol]], and as a powerful [[hate]] card against [[Ninja Gollum]]. It can even do both effects at the same time, because they are the same effect.

The most obvious use of Clever Hobbits is consuming your own {{C|Gollum}} Free Peoples [[condition]]s to help Sméagol survive a single difficult [[skirmish]]. Generally you'd only bother with this in [[Solo Smeagol]], but it might apply to any [[Rogue|rogue]] deck that relies on keeping Sméagol alive and winning skirmishes with him. Most versions of Solo Sméagol even run multiple copies of largely disposable [[condition]]s, like {{Card|Poor Wretch}}, {{Card|There's Another Way}}, and sometimes even {{Card|Never}}. All of those can be tossed with Clever Hobbits to pump up Sméagol to keep him alive. However, not only do you lose the (small) benefit of those conditions, but these decks also run {{Card|Nasty}}. As a result, Clever Hobbits is mainly used as a trump card in Solo Sméagol, to get through particularly tough turns.

Unless you're playing against a {{C|Gollum}} Shadow deck. Clever Hobbits can also discard your opponent's {{C|Gollum}} Shadow cards. [[Gollum]]-based Shadow decks, particularly [[Ninja Gollum]], often rely on key conditions like {{Card|They Stole it}}, {{Card|Promise Keeping}}, {{Card|Hidden Even From Her}}, {{Card|Incited}}, {{Card|Not This Time!}}, {{Card|Not Easily Avoided}}, and more. Ninja Gollum will often build up a huge [[support area]] full of important cards, and you can wipe out all of them at once with Clever Hobbits. The only defense against this is two copies of {{Card|Deceit}}: the second one protects the first one, the first one protects the second one, then they protect all of the other {{C|Gollum}} conditions in turn. But even then, you're likely to lose some conditions if there isn't a fair amount of [[twilight cost|twilight]] already in the pool. (A single copy of Deceit simply gets discarded first with no helpful effect.)

You can even play Clever Hobbits as anti-[[Ninja Gollum]] [[hate]] in a deck that isn't running Sméagol at all. You don't need to play it during Sméagol's skirmish, so you can wipe out your opponent's {{C|Gollum}} conditions at will, or [[cycle]] it out of your hand anytime for a negligible cost. If you're really worried about your Ninja Gollum [[matchup]] (and you can't run some more-useful card like {{Card|Gimli's Helm}}, {{Card|From the Armory}}, {{Card|Deep in Thought}}, or {{Card|Galadriel, Lady Redeemed}}), then Clever Hobbits is an option to wipe out their built-up support area at least once.

= Strengths and Weaknesses =
== Synergizes With... ==

* {{Card|Smeagol, Bearer of Great Secrets}} often uses this to survive hard turns in [[Solo Smeagol]]
* There are lots of cheap chaff {{C|Gollum}} Free Peoples [[condition]]s, like {{Card|Poor Wretch}}, {{Card|There's Another Way}}, and {{Card|Never}}. You can also use it to throw away excess copies of {{Card|Don't Look At Them}} and {{Card|Follow Smeagol}}.

== Strong Versus... ==

* {{C|Gollum}} Shadow conditions. [[Ninja Gollum]] generally plays many conditions and few [[minion]]s, so it suffers badly when they're discarded.

== Weak Versus... ==

* Two copies of {{Card|Deceit}}, although this is somewhat debatable depending on how you interpret the card's wording. (See below.)

= Rulings =
[[Decipher]] never officially ruled whether "any number" can be a number higher than the number of {{C|Gollum}} conditions you can actually [[spot]], to overcome two copies of {{Card|Deceit}} in play. Player discussions [https://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,8217.15.html have been contentious] and didn't result in any consensus.

Currently on [[GEMP]], you cannot pick more conditions than there are in play, so two copies of Deceit are useful as long as you can afford the twilight cost to protect your other conditions. The [[PC Errata]] version of {{Card|Deceit}} makes it [[unique]], mooting this argument.