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AnxiousChieftain
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:27 am
Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 3947 Location: Maryland
--- description ---
A look a one of LOTR TCG’s most versatile companions: Smeagol.
--- end description ---

Smeagol is one of the most versatile companions in the Lord of the Rings TCG, rivaling even Gandalf. His uses are many, which is why many decks now include him. I will explain in this article some of the many things he can do.

First off, one of Smeagol’s advantages over Gandalf as a do-it-all companion is his twilight cost: 0. This means that he can be added to any deck, without messing up your starting fellowship, or having to include extra copies of him so you get him faster. Of course, you still have to add a burden to play him, but the cost is often worth it.

Another of Smeagol’s advantages is the site Dammed Gate Stream. This site allows you to play any Smeagol card from your deck, so it ensures you get a key condition early. You don’t have to go first to use it; just play it as the second or third site (depending on if you want to double-move) and it works just as fine.

With the War of the Ring block, the site path became much more important than in earlier blocks, so his many site manipulation cards suddenly became very powerful. The most commonly used of these cards is Follow Smeagol, which allows you to continually play the next site, and it can be played with Dammed Gate Stream. Follow Smeagol’s main weakness is that it is vulnerable to condition removal.

Other site manipulation cards include the two events Still Far Ahead and One Good Turn Deserves Another. They are identical, except that Still Far Ahead makes the Shadow number of that site -1, and One Good Turn Deserves Another lets you add a burden to take the event back into hand. One Good Turn Deserves Another is used more often, since you can use it to play many more sites than Still Far Ahead, but Still Far Ahead is better if your Ring-bearer can’t handle burdens well.

There’s Another Way is a wickedly good card to recycle your sites. Use a good site, such as Caras Galadhon, and then during regroup discard There’s Another Way to stick the site back in your adventure deck, to be played again.

One commonly used combo is Smeagol, Always Helps and Don’t Look at Them. Smeagol adds 2 threats to exhaust a minion and assign the minion to him, and then Don’t Look at Them drops 3 cards from hand to finish the minion off. However, due to the fact that Don’t Look at Them can be discarded, some players opt to use Where Shall We Go, which packs a more powerful punch if you decide not to add 2 threats. However, Where Shall We Go requires initiative to play.

Not Listening is a very effective way of removing burdens (and healing Smeagol). You must win the skirmish to play Not Listening, but that’s not hard with all the wounding cards Smeagol has.

Smeagol, Poor Creature is not used much, but his ability is excellent if you just need a card that can easily cycle through your hand. He doesn’t even need to be skirmishing to use his ability, which is a bonus.

Smeagol also dabbles in discarding himself, and then playing himself from the discard pile. The card Never discards him to remove 2 threats, a very useful ability. No Help For It discards him to remove 3 burdens, which is very helpful considering that Smeagol can add a fair amount of burdens. You Must Help Us is an awesome way to play Smeagol from your discard pile, as it heals each Ring-bound Hobbit twice as well. Frodo, Master of the Precious and Days Growing Dark are other, more costly ways to play him back from your discard pile.

Sneaking is a very neat way to cancel Smeagol’s skirmish. With Smeagol, Always Helps it is easy o have more vitality than the minion Smeagol is skirmishing. Also, Sneaking can heal Smeagol, if you cannot cancel the skirmish.

In Bloodlines, we get a taste of a Smeagol-token strategy. Gladden Homestead is the card that stores the tokens, and it has a wonderfully mean ability to not only remove conditions, but clog up your opponent’s hand. Fishing Boat makes use of the extra tokens on Gladden Homestead, and it can even steal tokens from the Shadow card Larder. Out of All Knowledge is a strength boost, and can also reinforce tokens.

With all his uses, it isn’t surprising that decks are made with Smeagol as the only companion. But that, my friends, is an article for another time.
Last edited by AnxiousChieftain on Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:00 am; edited 1 time in totalMODS RULE. - lem0nhead
hblika
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:37 am
Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Posts: 287 Location: Norway
Good work! Finally a real article posted, and not just a decklist Smile
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Cleston
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:06 pm
Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil
when i first started reading your article, i thought: "great, finally some one will talk about those ncie cards we got fr sméagol in bloodliens!!!".

the, you don't even mention those (fishing boat, gladden homestead, etc). I believe you didn't mention them, and i think it was a pity. Your article covers in a great way the most seen sméagol strategies, but what about the new stuff?

Perhaps it would help looots if you editted and added that part of "what can we expect from bloodlines".

anyway, keep them coming!
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AnxiousChieftain
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 10:01 am
Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 3947 Location: Maryland
This article now talks a bit about the Smeagol cards in Bloodlines. Thanks to Cleston for the idea.
MODS RULE. - lem0nhead
Sam-Wise
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:57 pm
Joined: 12 May 2007 Posts: 163 Location: Shire
Judicious. Razz
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NBarden
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 5:20 pm
Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 5468 Location: I don't know...
Sam-Wise wrote:
Judicious. Razz


And why did you bump a two year old article?
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sickofpalantirs
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:54 pm
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 wasn’t even on when this was posted. I had just found out about CC and placed my first order...

if thoughts could kill samwise...
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lem0nhead
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:55 am
Joined: 02 Apr 2007 Posts: 2981 Location: Blood Island
sickofpalantirs wrote:

if thoughts could kill samwise...


Yes IF only....
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macheteman
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:29 am
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: The Jungle
lem0nhead wrote:
sickofpalantirs wrote:

if thoughts could kill samwise...


Yes IF only....


Laughing gp, that was good lem0n!
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Felipe Musco
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:09 am
Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 2434 Location: Florianópolis, SC, Brasil
Yeah, because by bumping old articles, you make it difficult to follow and keep up with the NEW articles being posted every week... Rolling Eyes
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