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Cobra
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 3:18 pm
Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA
--- description ---
Analysis of the best ways to make sure your opponent obeys LOTR TCG’s most famous "unwritten rule" -- the five-companion limit.
--- end description ---

This is one of my old feature articles, which is being added to the forum database to help us keep our strategy section more organized. This article is NOT eligible for the contest, but feel free to rate and review it!

The "Rule of Nine" states that, in the spirit of the Lord of the Rings books and movies, an LOTR TCG fellowship can have no more than nine companions. But there is another rule limiting fellowship size that is just as important: the "Rule of Five."

Since the beginning of LOTR TCG, the five-companion fellowship has been an accepted standard. This limit is not enforced by the actual game rules, and you won’t find the "Rule of Five" in any official LOTR TCG rulebook. But there are quite a few cards designed to hurt six-companion fellowships, and hurt them badly. One of the oldest examples is Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul, who could instantly kill a companion of the Shadow player’s choice. Enquea could be splashed into any Shadow deck (and usually was), which gave the "Rule of Five" the force of law among many players. Fans of large fellowships were forced to pack expensive counter-cards like Terrible and Evil to survive.

The approach of Black Rider caused some worry in the LOTR TCG community. The Fellowship Block was about to rotate out of Standard play, and Enquea would go with it. How could the five-companion limit, so crucial to balanced gameplay, be maintained? There were some old Raider cards, such as Southron Commander, which forced the Free Peoples player to either discard companions or assign minions to the Ring-bearer; but with strong Reflections Ring-bearers seeing a lot of play, those cards wouldn’t be very effective. There were also a few possibilities from Shadows. Men and Orcs could do reasonably well with cards like Fletcher of Harad, Frenzied Orc, and Demoralized. Wraiths and Uruks also had some six-companion hate, but their new cards didn’t hold a candle to the old ones.

Luckily, Decipher was well aware of all of this, and the Black Rider set offered new options for enforcing the "Rule of Five" -- not one splashable card this time, but a variety of cards so that each Shadow culture would have a unique method of dealing with big fellowships. For example, each culture got a cheap condition that provided some sort of bonus against six companions, and had some extra text as well: Hemmed In, Shingle In a Storm, Unending Life, and Great Cost. These conditions are cost-effective and non-unique, and the latter three have "stackable" text, so these cards can be used in multiples to force the Free Peoples player to drop his extra companions in a hurry.

However, the new conditions have one significant flaw: they leave the crucial decisions entirely up to the Free Peoples player. The good guys get to choose whether or not to sacrifice companions, and which companions to sacrifice. While Enquea was running rampant, that sixth companion was a real risk -- it could result in the untimely death of your fellowship’s most important companion. But against one of the new conditions, the worst that can happen is the death of your fellowship’s least important companion.

Since Uruks and Wraiths needed an extra edge to return to their former fellowship-limiting glory, those cultures each received an extra enforcement card. Broken in Defeat is a basic skirmish pump with a twist: if six companions are in play, it can be returned to your hand and played again and again (as long as the twilight pool allows) to win almost any skirmish. Ulaire Cantea, Black Assassin can spot six companions to instantly "assassinate" the one he’s fighting -- twice in a turn, if necessary. Unlike the conditions mentioned above, these cards can sometimes allow you to choose your victim, either through the element of surprise (Broken in Defeat) or by spotting enough burdens or resistance reducers (Black Assassin). They are also more generally useful than the conditions -- if you can’t spot six companions, you still have a skirmish pump or a fierce minion. So if you’re playing an Uruk or Wraith deck, including a few copies of Broken in Defeat or Ulaire Cantea, Black Assassin is the best way to go.

If you’re playing Orcs, you’ll probably be playing Demoralized anyway, so against six or more companions you’ll have a ton of extra twilight. Make sure you can use it! Great Cost is also a good option, and can be used as fodder for the Ordnance Grunt if nothing else.

If you’re playing Men you might need to get creative, especially if you have a Shadow archery deck that’s potentially weak against large fellowships. Try using pathfinding cards in combination with Anduin Banks. For example, if your opponent moves ahead of you, play the Banks to make him take extra archery wounds. Use a pathfinding card like Traveled Leader or even Anduril, Flame of the West to play another site for your own fellowship. You can then make your opponent move to Anduin Banks again, absorbing even more archery fire. With careful timing, it’s possible to force your opponent to take many extra wounds at three or four sites in a row, more than compensating for the vitality of the extra companions, while avoiding the arrows yourself.
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