Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit & Sam, Loyal Attendant

Overview

This is a Food-token engine wearing a party hat. Sam bakes a Food at the start of every one of your combats and discounts every Food's crack to ; Frodo converts the lifegain into Ring temptations and, quickly, into a card per attack. Around them, the 99 turns every token event into more than it says on the card: five multipliers (Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, Elspeth, Storm Slayer, plus the adders Peregrin Took, Bilbo, and Academy Manufactor) inflate the batches, and a drain suite (Mirkwood Bats, Nadier's Nightblade, Kambal, The Sackville-Bagginses, Agent of the Iron Throne) taxes the table for every token that enters, leaves, or gets eaten.

The deck wins by taking the line the game presents — there is no forced primary line:

• Drain them out. The passive payoffs chip constantly, and Exsanguinate / Torment of Hailfire / Debt to the Deathless convert a pile of Treasures (Bilbo, Nuka-Cola, Tireless Provisioner, Smothering Tithe, Lotho) or Food-mana (Ninja Pizza, Cryptolith Rite) into a table-ending X.
• Combo. Peregrin Took + Nuka-Cola Vending Machine with three Foods is infinite draw — lethal on the spot with any drain piece out (see Combos).
• Go wide. Farmer Cotton, Second Harvest, and Elspeth flood the board; Rosie Cotton and Belladonna Took grow it; Pippin's sacrifice-four-Foods pump (+3/+3 and haste) turns a board of Halflings into a real swing.

The mana is even three-color (28/26/28 sources vs. 28/23/26 pip demand) with a low curve — 25 two-drops and 22 three-drops — so most games are about sequencing engine pieces, not finding them.

Mulligan Guide

The keep question is "can you have Sam online with a token engine running by turn 3?"

Keep a hand with all of:

• 3 lands, or 2 plus a rock/dork (Delighted Halfling, Arcane Signet, a Talisman)
• Sam on curve — castable turn 2–3
• One engine or payoff piece — a token multiplier, a Food producer beyond Sam, or a drain/draw payoff (Trail of Crumbs, The Gaffer, Mirkwood Bats, Kambal)

Snap-keep dork → turn-2 Sam → turn-3 Frodo with a multiplier or payoff behind it. That hand draws cards from turn 4 onward.

Mulligan hands that are all payoff and no Food production, all mana and no engine, or four-plus-drop-heavy — the curve tops at 5 for a reason, and a hand that does nothing until turn 4 wastes the deck's best asset, its speed. Smothering Tithe or The One Ring alone is not a keep — they're accelerants for a party that has to already be happening.

Game Plan

Turns 1–3: set the table

• Sam first, Frodo second. Sam is the engine (Food every combat, everything cracks for ); Frodo is the payoff. Turn-2 Sam into turn-3 Frodo means Frodo's first attack already has a Food banked to crack.
• Delighted Halfling's second mode makes either commander uncounterable — spend it on whichever one the table is most likely to fight.
• Start attacking with Frodo every turn it's safe — he has vigilance, and the temptation count is a game-long resource. Attack #1 is temptation #1 (no draw yet); attack #2 checks "two or more this game" including its own temptation, so it draws. Call of the Ring and The Ring Goes South accelerate the count — with Call down, even Frodo's first attack can already be draw-on.

Turns 4–6: stack the pantry

• Layer multipliers and payoffs in whichever order the board demands: a doubler before a Farmer Cotton or Second Harvest turn, a drain piece before a big token turn, Kambal early against other token decks (he copies their tokens, tapped, once per turn — Treasures and Clues included).
• The Gaffer mirrors Frodo's clause on your end step — one cracked Food per turn is two cards (Frodo's attack, Gaffer's end step) plus every temptation payoff.
• Hold interaction open. The removal suite is deep (Swords, Path, Go for the Throat, Mortify, Anguished Unmaking, Assassin's Trophy) and Deadly Rollick and Flawless Maneuver are free with a commander out — which is always.
• Board wipes are yours to cast through: The Battle of Bywater and Fell the Mighty (targeting your own 2-power creature) both spare a board that's almost entirely power ≤ 2 — only Tireless Provisioner (3/2), a grown Banquet Guests, and anything Rosie/Belladonna/Elspeth have pumped past 2 are at risk. Bywater then hands you a Food per surviving creature, through your multipliers.

Closing: take what the game gives you

• The X-spell. Ninja Pizza and Cryptolith Rite turn the token pile into mana; Exsanguinate and Debt to the Deathless also gain you the total, and Torment of Hailfire strips whatever life doesn't pay for.
• The combo, when Peregrin, Nuka-Cola, and three Foods line up — with Eladamri's Call able to fetch Peregrin (or any missing creature payoff) at instant speed.
• The swing. Pippin taps and eats four Foods for +3/+3 and haste on the team (sorcery-only — plan the turn); Thousand-Year Elixir lets a fresh Pippin do it immediately. Elspeth's 0 adds counters and flying.
• On the big turn, Bilbo's Gambit with the gift promised is your Silence: bounce their answer and nobody casts spells for the rest of the turn.

How Frodo, Sam, and the Ring actually work

• Frodo's intervening "if." "Whenever Frodo attacks, if you gained 3 or more life this turn" is checked at declare — no 3 life gained yet means no trigger at all, and there is no window to respond. The 3 life can come from anything, any time earlier in the turn (a cracked Food, Kambal's drain, Nadier's Nightblade, a Merry lifelink Soldier connecting), and life loss is irrelevant — The One Ring's burden, shock lands, and Talisman pings never turn him off. He also doesn't care whether he was on the battlefield when you gained it.
• The temptation flow. Each temptation: the emblem gains its next tier (top to bottom, permanent), then you must choose a Ring-bearer if you control a creature. The tiers: ① Ring-bearer is legendary and can't be blocked by creatures with greater power → ② Ring-bearer attacks: loot → ③ a creature that blocks the Ring-bearer is sacrificed at end of combat → ④ Ring-bearer connects with a player: each opponent loses 3.
• You can re-choose Frodo mid-trigger. Even if Sam has been holding the Ring, Frodo's own attack trigger tempts you first and checks "is Frodo your Ring-bearer" after — choose him during the temptation and the draw check passes.
• Keep Frodo small. Tier ① blocks-by-greater-power evasion means a 1/3 Frodo slips past nearly everything, and tier ③ punishes whatever does block. Rosie's counters belong on Banquet Guests or Rapacious Guest, not on Frodo.
• Sam's discount is for Foods' own abilities. The token's ", , Sacrifice: gain 3" becomes — but Peregrin's draw, Banquet Guests' indestructible, and Nuka-Cola's activation are their abilities, not a Food's, and cost full price. (Peregrin's is free anyway.)
• Sam's Food lands before attackers. Beginning of combat is a full step before declare — the Food arrives, you can crack it (artifacts have no summoning sickness), and then declare Frodo with the trigger live.

Key Loops & Interactions

• Apply Peregrin before your doublers. Token replacement effects stack in the order you choose. Peregrin first turns "create a Treasure" into "Treasure + Food," and then Doubling Season/Procession/Parallel Lives/Elspeth double the whole batch — the bonus Food gets doubled too. Bilbo (Food → Food + Treasure) and Academy Manufactor (any Clue/Food/Treasure → one of each) chain into the same pile. Three pieces on board turn Sam's one combat Food into a shelf of artifacts.
• Every token event is a drain with the payoffs out. Mirkwood Bats triggers per token created and per token sacrificed; Nadier's Nightblade on any token leaving; Kambal once per batch (entering); The Sackville-Bagginses per token sacrificed; Agent of the Iron Throne gives your commanders "artifact or creature you control dies → each opponent loses 1" — so with either Hobbit out, every cracked Food drains. Second Harvest at instant speed with a wide board fires all of it at once.
• Belladonna counts resolutions, not tokens. A batch of five tokens is one resolution. Spread token creation across the turn — Sam's combat Food, a cracked-Food Nuka-Cola trigger, a second-main Ninja Pizza Food — and you collect all three tiers: life, card, team-wide counters.
• The draw web runs without Frodo. The Gaffer (3 life gained → end-step card), Trail of Crumbs ( per Food sacrificed → dig 2 for a permanent), The Great Henge (nontoken creature → counter + card, and Banquet Guests makes Henge cheap), The One Ring, Deadly Dispute, The Sackville-Bagginses. Losing a commander slows the party; it doesn't end it.
• Samwise Gamgee is the recursion engine. Every nontoken creature you play banks a Food, and three Foods buy back any historic card — which in this deck is nearly everything: all the legends, every artifact, The One Ring included.
• Lobelia eats Foods for cards or drain. Sacrificing a Food (or any artifact) to her either plays one of the exiled top-of-library cards free that turn or drains 2 and gains 2 — the gain counts toward Frodo's 3.
• Merry turns artifact batches into lifelink bodies. Once per turn, any artifact entering (every Food, Treasure, Clue, Signet) makes a lifelink Soldier — another route to 3 life through combat.
• Rapacious Guest grows with the menu. Menace, +1/+1 per Food you sacrifice, Food per combat-damage connection, and drains its power on death — a clean home for Rosie's counters.
• The Notary Hobbits are three bodies and a mana engine. The two copies enter as tokens — they trigger Belladonna, Kambal's drain, and Rosie on arrival — and all three tap for per Halfling you control, which on a wide board rivals Cryptolith Rite for X-spell fuel.
• Treasure firehose. Smothering Tithe and Lotho mint off opponents' actions; Tireless Provisioner off your lands; Bilbo off every Food. This is what makes the X-spells lethal rather than large.
• The Ring Goes South is ramp and a temptation. X = your legendary creature count — with the deck's sixteen legends, hitting 3–4 lands is routine — and the temptation ticks Frodo's counter.
• Protection package. Flawless Maneuver (free), Teferi's Protection, Mithril Coat (flash, attaches to a legend on entry), Lightning Greaves. Mithril Coat on Sam keeps the engine running through wipes you didn't cast.

Combos

One combo lives in the list. It's a late-game "take what you're given" line, not the deck's identity — but know it cold, because Eladamri's Call and Trail of Crumbs can assemble it on demand.

Peregrin Took + Nuka-Cola Vending Machine — infinite draw

Needs: both on the battlefield, plus any three Foods. Produces: infinite card draw, infinite draw triggers, near-infinite tapped Treasures (and Foods that immediately re-enter the loop).

1. Activate Peregrin Took's ability by sacrificing three Foods (it costs no mana).
2. Nuka-Cola Vending Machine triggers three times — one per Food sacrificed — each creating a tapped Treasure.
3. Peregrin's replacement adds a Food to each of those three creation events: three tapped Treasures and three Foods. Your Foods are back. (Tapped Foods are fine — Peregrin's cost sacrifices them, it doesn't tap them.)
4. Peregrin's ability resolves; draw a card. Repeat from step 1.

Turning the draw into a win, same turn:

• Mirkwood Bats makes the loop itself lethal — it drains on every token created and every Food sacrificed, so each iteration hits each opponent for 6+. Nadier's Nightblade (Foods leaving), Kambal (each entering batch), and The Sackville-Bagginses (each token sacrificed, targeted) do the same job.
• No drain piece? Draw the deck and cast one — the loop's Treasures enter tapped, so the same-turn X-spell needs mana from elsewhere (Ninja Pizza Foods, Cryptolith Rite, lands). Otherwise pass with protection up and win on untap.
• Academy Manufactor or any doubler makes each iteration net extra Foods, Clues, and Treasures on top — the loop only gets more absurd, never worse.

Common Pitfalls

• Cracking the Food after attackers are declared. The single most common misplay this deck allows. Frodo's trigger is checked at declare — beginning of combat is your window, and it's why you keep open going to combat.
• Choosing the wrong Ring-bearer out of habit. Every temptation forces a choice; Frodo's draw checks that he holds it at that moment. If a non-Frodo temptation resolves (Call of the Ring's upkeep, The Ring Goes South), choose Frodo anyway unless you have a concrete reason not to.
• Pumping Frodo. Counters on Frodo shrink his tier-① evasion — "can't be blocked by creatures with greater power" wants him at 1 power. Feed Rosie's counters to Banquet Guests or Rapacious Guest instead.
• Wiping your own party. Bywater and Fell the Mighty are one-sided only while your creatures stay small — count your own powers after a Belladonna/Elspeth/Rosie turn before casting, and remember Tireless Provisioner and Banquet Guests are usually in the blast radius.
• Counting the combo's Treasures as live mana. They enter tapped. The same-turn kill comes from a drain permanent, not from Exsanguinate off loop-Treasures.
• Expecting Sam's discount everywhere. Only Foods' own activated abilities get the -off — not Peregrin, not Nuka-Cola, not Banquet Guests.
• Dumping all token creation into one batch. Belladonna's second and third tiers need second and third resolutions — sequence Food/token creation across steps when her counters matter.