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elf lvr

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 11:57 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

--- description ---
Using the site path to boost both shadow and fellowship... the power of mountains and gollum corruption.
--- end description ---

We all know the power of a Ninja Gollum shadow. But in this article I will focus on a strategy that has taken a back seat in many Gollum decks... Corruption. Not with easterlings, no enduring or twilight nazgul either. The star will be good old Gollum himself, with a supporting cast of nasty little fierce beasties.

And for our fellowship... why, the lords of the mountains themselves, our friends the Dwarves! Even the strongest minions will fall under the axe of a dwarf fighting on his home turf!

Gollum should feel perfectly at home in the darkness beneath the mountains, in fact, it should make him even more formidable! And the legendary cycling of the dwarves should make it easy for our shadow to set up, even in a larger than normal deck.

Let’s first take a good look at the shadow. Okay, we know we have a corruption deck, but how should we add our burdens? A classic card for this is Heavy Burden. And to add those threats, put in Fat One Wants It and Captured by the Ring. Another grat burden-adder is Not Yet Vanquished. In fact, this will be the staple of our deck. And of course, Gollum himself! Gollum, Stinker is a great way to get to a corruption.

But which fierce minions to use? Well, Gollum can be fierce with Hidden Even From Her. In fact, with Gollum, Stinker, Hidden Even From Her, Not Yet Vanquished, and Heavy Burden, we can add four burdens in one turn! Or make Gollum, Mad thing fierce to make the Free Peoples player load on the strength or burdens. Another obvious choice is Shelob. Whether we use Eater of Light for awesome strength or Her Ladyship to keep the strongest companions out of the action, Shelob is a perfect minion to use. And why not throw in the most notorious fierce minion ever, The Balrog! Terror of Khazad-dum plays for the lowest twilight of any Balrog, and uses its home site, Bridge of Khazad-dum, to ensure that it survives until the fierce skirmish. Finally, add in a few Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders for more path control and our last fierce minions.

However, we still need to ensure our minions, especially Gollum, can win their skirmishes. A great card that makes use of our site path is Slippery as Fishes. With all our sites being mountain or underground, this can garuntee Gollum up to a +8 strength boost! Unabated in Malice can help pound those rainbow decks. Stack minions on web for more strength with Eater of Light, or use larder as strength for any Shelob.

If by some chance be lose our bid, we have Nelyas for path control, or we can use the ever helpful event, Led Astray. With Led Astray, we can make the site a 3 and play Gollum and the Balrog for only 8 twilight, a sure-fire amount from region 2 on. Then, we could replace the site again with Nelya to a 0-costing mountain, for an easy fellowship move next turn. And with our sites, we have Strange and Terrible, spotting Gollum or Shelob to pull a minion from our discard pile, maybe even the Balrog if we have enough twilight (gollum and Balrog would only cost 14, not hard to get in region 3).

To use web properly, we need some Wraith

orcs. Of course, there are the orcs that spot a possession to make themselves fierce. But these minions would only rarely win and die long before we got them stacked. Some good choices are Morgul Creeper, to take advantage of our burdens, Morgul Ambusher, the same thing only with our threats, and Cirith Ungol Watchman, whose ability to negate the strength and damage bonuses of possessions helps him stay alive.

Thats our shadow. Now let’s move on to our fellowship. Obviously, we need a big bid to ensure that we get our sites. Even so, I like using an Alternate Ring-Bearer, Gimli, Bearer of Grudges. True, He begins with low resistance, but in our dwarf deck, we can pump him up with damage bonuses easily. And while we’re giving him boosts, let’s make the rest of our dwarves damage + as well!

I am forsaking Linnar in this deck, opting to rely on our possessions and conditions for damage bonuses. As for the rest of our companions, good starters are Sindri, Dwarven Lord (good with Here is Good Rock) and, of course, Durin III (he’s just a beast), and Thrarin, Smith of Erebor left in our deck.

To take advantage of our mountainous site path, use Mountain Homestead. Often an overlooked condition, it can be a huge boost for our companions with 8 sites being mountains. Dwarven skill is a great strength boost, without clogging our hands like a lot of events would. For added Damage in the skirmish phase, use Here is Good Rock. This is also awesome with Sindri. Stack Honed, and then play it for even more strength. Lord of Moria just plain adds more Damage, and Proud and Able doubles the damage bonus from Thrarin, and is great with Durin and his millions of possessions. As an added defense against condition discarding, or just to help cycle, use Defending the Keep.

Now for our possessions. You can never go wrong with Hand Axe, so throw in one for each companion. A couple of Bracers wouldn’t hurt either. Give a Belt of Erebor to Durin and either Thrarin or Gimli for added Damage and Resistance. Gimli’s possession should be Axe of Erebor. With a Damage+1 bonus of the bat, it is as good as any. Stack the extra copies of Thrarin on Here is Good Rock for extra Damage, and then discard them with Axe of Erebor for more strength! And Axe of Khazad-Dum takes advantage of our site path for even more Damage bonuses! Go one step farther and put in each of the Dwarven rings, one for each companion, and you’re good to go!

You only want two different events in this deck. Dwarf-Lords, for its ability to be re-used (esp. with ring of guile) and, obviously, Honed.

So now that we have our strategy, here’s a sample decklist:

Fellowship Cards

Starting Fellowship:

Companions:

Thrarin, Smith of Erebor x3

Conditions:

Possessions/Artifacts:

Events:

Shadow Cards

Minions:

Conditions/support possessions:

Events:

Site Path:

Please, please, please keep in mind that this is a pre-hunters deck idea(except for Mount Doom), if you see any hunters cards that I should add, please let me know.

So there you have it, a good (and fun) shadow that can in many cases corrupt the opponent, and a strong fellowship that can handle almost any assault. If the shadow is failing to corrupt (you should be able to tell around site 5) start double moving. The damage bonus the dwarves give makes this very easy, and although you lose the mountain homesteads, just stack them on Here Is Good Rock for even more minion killing. A double from five to seven, and then from seven to nine, is the way to go. And with the homesteads gone and the fellowship more or less set up, the shadow player might find themselves running low on twilight!

So why not give Gollum another chance at grabbing the One Ring? And if he doesn’t, the dwarves can take it and run right to mount doom!

Happy Corrupting!

elf lvr

Last edited by elf lvr on Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:53 am; edited 1 time in total

sperzdechly

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:08 am

Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Warsaw (Poland)

I won’t be talking about Dwarves - they’re not hard to build and always really strong and hard to beat. So let’s say FP side is OK.
But Shadow side is poor. How you suppose to corrupt anybody with these cards? The only card, which adds burdens (exept Gollum himself) is Heavy burden. That’s not enough in corruption deck. If someone bid 0 and have even weak condition discard Gollum won’t survive until regroup phase to use it. My tips for you:
1. First of all - use sites adding burdens! Courtyard Parapet, Pellenor Flat, Slag Mounds, etc. and cycle them using Nelya and Led Astray (use 4 copies of this).
2. Exchange Wraith

orcs with

orcs. Grishnakh and he’s trakers band will use Desperate Defense of the Ring to add some burdens for the start, and rest will go from Gollum. They will also add some condition discard (e.g. Orc Patrol).
3. Use 4 Shelobs.
4. If you want to win skirmishes and don’t use They Stole It - use 4 Slippery and maybe 4 Chasm’s Edge.
5. Not Yet Vanquished isn’t so good card. In this deck you have fierce minions, but orcs will loose every skirmish. I would use it only with Shelob and Gollum (and maybe Nelya). You don’t need barlog in corruption deck.

I like youre style, you write nicely, keeping the structure of article. But strategy you’ve presentent is not working well. I’m wainting for your next article.

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 7:13 am

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

a couple one thing with the dwarves i don’t see any slaked thirsts and against grima wormtongue your cycling would stop and BAM thsideck wouidl crumble. also I think linnar is much better then sindri but fi you don’t want to have him, uri can be very good with with proud and able and lots fo possesions.

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

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elf lvr

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:49 am

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

[quote="sperzdechly"]

Quote:

1. First of all - use sites adding burdens! Courtyard Parapet, Pellenor Flat, Slag Mounds, etc. and cycle them using Nelya and Led Astray (use 4 copies of this).
2. Exchange Wraith

orcs with

okay
1. The entire point of the deck is to use mountain sites, however, with nelya of course I could make the site courtyard parapet, then exert to switch out with a mountain. I will add courtyard parapet to the site path.
2. Well the entire point of my deck was to use fierce minions with Not Yet Vanquished, so I couldn’t really do that without tearing up the deck. However, if you think it would be better, maybe I’ll add another article later.
3.Alright. 4 Shelobs in.
4.I will add in another SaF
5.Balrog with Shelob, Her Ladyship, and Gollum (With a little help from led astray) can be a hard play to take care of and can add a lot of burdens.

I will edit the decklist slightly. Thank you for your opinions.

sperzdechly

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 10:14 am

Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Warsaw (Poland)

1. Yes, using Nelya and Led Astray you can switch sites many times, so don;’t worry - dwarves always will be on their mountains.
3,4. I’ll bet my head, that now it’s working beter. Smile

2,5. OK, this is your vision. You can trust in Not Yet Vanquished, I wouldn’t. I suppose that most of decks would either exert/wound Gollum enough to make impossible to exert him in fierce skirmish phase, or simply kill Orcs, and win with Shelob two times. I’ve seen many Gollum decks and NYV wasn’t used to often (if it was played), so I doubt in corruption potential of this card.

I think that Nasty, Foul Hobbitses would be good card to add to your deck (with Stinker it gives 2 burdens for winning the skirmish).

elf lvr

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 1:18 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

I believe i mentioned that i didn’t rely on my orcs being fierce? in fact, none of the orcs in the deck are fierce. my fierce skirmishes are with gollum, shelob, and the balrog. maybe nelya if the fellowship player is just stupid. but no orcs. The real point is to make the free peoples player focus less on gollum, as they might have worse things to worry about (Shelob or Balrog) Gollum would never come alone. Decks with only a couple of strong companions would fall easily beneath Balrog and shelob, Her ladyship. and since gollum only costs two, he could easily come in that play. What should i take out for more led astray, though. it is really a staple of the deck and i hate only having one.

sperzdechly

Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 5:02 am

Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Warsaw (Poland)

I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake. I thought you use these orcs, who have fierce when spot a possesion. I didn’t check closely your decklist, and I should’ve done it. I’m sorry for this misunderstanding.

CarpeGuitarrem

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 7:59 pm

Joined: 07 Apr 2006 Posts: 3361 Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville

Hmm...I’m not so sure about that Shadow side. You need more strategy notes for both sides, for sure. Shelob + Balrog and Not Yet Vanquished is a nice idea...how are you going to get them all out? That’s over

there, not even including Gollum. You won’t pull that very often, unless the FP player dumps tons of cards at later sites.

"ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm)

elf lvr

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 8:08 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

alright. well, think region three. site 8. they move to a 3-costing site. I play gollum. and use led astray to add 3. that just adds one to the twilight pool. with led astray the site becomes BoKD. That makes the Balrog cost 9. so pretty much ive only needed 8 twilight so far. at site eight, shelob costs six. so, that’s fourteen. if the site was a 3, and with region 3 adding six, they need to have five companions and simply move to give me the twilight for that play.

Happy Hunting! Elf Lvr
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sickofpalantirs

Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:37 am

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

i see how that could work but you would still need would need some cards to be in your hand.

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

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