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| Celebrimbor |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 3:41 pm |
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--- description ---
The forgotten art of splash characters, and a look at the 15 best ones to use.
--- end description ---
The Art of Splashing Companions
The History of Splashing
Splashing is a very fundamental part of LOTR. In fact, back in the days of fellowship block, splashing companions was an absolute must because the companion pool was very small. It was almost impossible to make a moderately competent deck without including a splash companion.
When Tower Block was released, “mono-culture” types of decks quickly evolved. Gameplay was permanently changed, demoting the splashing of companions to an “optional” choice. But it still is very popular, and powerful, and even professional way to go in building a winning deck.
What is a splash character?
Here are a few facts about splash characters:
1. It must have no spotting requirements. This goes for playing that companion, as well as using its special abilities. If you must spot a specific culture or character to play it, it won’t be useable in most decks. After all, it’s called a “splash companion” isn’t it?
2. The abilities in its gametext should be helpful to your strategy, no matter what you’re playing (note there are some exceptions to this rule). Radagast, the Brown is a good example that meets this requirement.
So in essence, a splash companion works as a “toolbox”. In other words, an important character that will help you in almost every kind of deck, regardless what you’re playing.
The Best Splash Companions:
Using the two requirements above, I composed a long list (the top 15, to be exact) of the splashiest companions available. I also ranked them numerically.
1. Gandalf, Leader of the Company:
For the best splash companion, I chose one that helps every single companion in the fellowship. And that card is... Gandalf, Leader of the Company!
Depending on the region number, he either pumps his own strength, or each other companion’s strength! He meets both requirements #1 and #2, which means he is more splashable than Eowyn, lady of Ithilien. This is why he made it to the top, as he is waaay more easy to splash than any other companion.
99% of the time Gandalf comes with a trick or two up his sleeve. In other words, Gandalf with one of his many “packages” can easily compensate for any weakness in your deck:
1) Gandalf’s burden-removal package. This usually is composed of Glamdring, Foe-hammer and multiple copies of watch and wait. This package is mostly used with Ents, but can be used with anything.
2) Gandalf’s hospitable package. Healing is an absolute must with fellowships that exert themselves to death. Gandalf has some awesome healing cards to get your exerting companions to use their abilities all over again. Have patience heals an unbound companion twice for only three twilight. Strength of Spirit, when you exert a companion, places no token for the exertion, but the action still takes place! I also want to include Salve, because it can prevent a deadly wound to your companion.
3) Gandalf’s fighting warrior package. The old wizard brings out a whole bunch of wounding and strength bonus cards from his long and mysterious sleeves. These are commonly known as “spells”. Terrible and Evil, Servant of the Secret Fire, and Grown suddenly tall are only a few of these, which make Gandalf your most aggressive companion.
2. Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien:
But Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien is the best wounding companion that exists, and better yet, a splashable card! Eowyn can be seen in almost every kind of wounding deck you’ll come across. Eowyn, too, has her own “package” and is very commonly beefed up with a mount and Spear of the mark.
Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien does have some weaknesses. One, targeted archery can be a problem, with cards such as Desert Lord, or Mumak Commander, Giant Among the Swertings. Also, decks relying heavily on abusing her as much possible could possibly fall to anything preventing your skirmish special abilities, such as Cavern Entrance.
Eowyn did not comply to rule #2, because she is not the companion for every single kind of deck. Basically, she would only work well with wounding strategies. After all, can you imagine Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien in a Sudden Fury Hobbit token deck?
3. Radagast, the Brown:
This is a Wizard that did not appear in the LOTR Trilogy movies (wetta). He was introduced into gameplay as a splashable  companion.
Radagast gives the move limit a solid +1. But each time you move during the regroup phase he gives your opponent the chance to discard two cards from hand, and draw two cards, which is equivalent to two muster minions.
In today’s game, Radagast is used mainly for two important reasons:
1) The most obvious, running like crazy. If your free peoples can handle moving to three consecutive sites in a row, nothing is more annoying to any shadow player than not being able to stop you from waltzing to site 9!
2) The more abstract reason, discarding. For example, a good dwarf-discarding build should have the ability to wipe an opponent’s draw deck by site 6, providing a triple-move with almost no minions played along the way. Radagast, The Brown actually helps your opponent discard himself to pieces, which is tempting because he’ll have bad hands from all the discarding going on.
Grimbeorn, Beorning Chieftain - Grimbeorn is able to pump his strength up equal to any minion you can discard from your hand. This is cool, because if your fellowship is taking an untimely beating, he can impromptu-style change into a tank companion, safeguarding your companions.
Grimbeorn can make a respectable splash in any deck. I categorized him in the runners-up companions first, but then decided he was a lot better than Sam, Steadfast Companion and Gandalf, Greyhame.
4. Aragorn, Thorongil:
Aragorn, Thorongil offers a new way to put exertions on minions. The first card ever to exert multiple minions with threats! He is hunter 2, and his ability adds a threat to exert a minion with strength less than his strength.
Provided that you have substantial threat removal (such as hearts raised), Thorongil is a monster. He is an ideal splash companion to use in most wounding decks, Refuge for instance.
Thorongil has become one of the most popular and powerful splash companions out there, partly because he doesn’t have to exert himself to use his abilities. Thus, Desert Lord and Mumak Commander, Giant among the Swertings find it harder to get a foothold on him.
5. Gildor Inglorion, of the House of Finrod:
This is an Elf companion that has the potential, if you can spot more minions than companions, to make each of your companions an archer! That’s an enormously powerful effect, especially if you’re playing up against swarm decks.
6. Legolas, Greenleaf:
With three vitality, Legolas can sacrifice his adding to the fellowship archery total, to place up to two wounds on minions, any way you want. In today’s game he is a classic choice to be able to take out a minion or two unexpectedly. He gets even more dangerous bearing The Tale of Gil-galad, providing a vitality bonus.
Legolas has a weakness against direct exertions/wounds. Again, cards such as Desert Lord and Mumak Commander, Giant among the Swertings will succeed in shutting him down.
7. Gandalf, Returned:
The release of the Rise of Saruman introduced the latest Gandalf craze. Gandalf, Returned when played pulls any of his possessions from your draw deck to play on him. Thus, set-up is really easy, as getting Glamdring, Foe-hammer out real early is almost too good.
There’s more! Each time he wins a skirmish, Gandalf can reinforce any Free Peoples culture token! This automatically makes him a must to include in any token deck.
8. Gandalf, the White Rider:
Gandalf, the White Rider is the greatest for skirmish protection. He can replace any unbound companion’s skirmish, preventing untimely wounds to that character.
He also pumps himself up +3 strength when using his action, helping you find some other way to finish off the deprived minion.
9. Pippin, Hobbit of some Intelligence:
Pippin has the ability, when you play him, to remove a burden, or to heal a companion. This is very handy, as you can bid higher than usual, then when you play him in your starting fellowship, you can reduce the burdens.
Usually Pippin comes with the “Pippin Engine”, currently one of the best packages to include in any deck. This package is as follows:
Pippin, Hobbit of Some Intelligence
Make Haste x4
Daddy Twofoot, Next-door Neighbor x2
Home and Hearth x3 - x4
This is an incredibly efficient burden removal combo, and can be included in any deck with ease, no matter what you’re playing.
10. Merry, Friend to Sam:
Another great Hobbit splash! Merry can, if he’s not assigned to a skirmish, exert twice to add his entire strength to any companion. That’s a potential of 5 strength if he’s bearing a sword, being an ultimate strength pump for any other companion.
Merry can have a solid vitality bonus with Escape. Now with five vitality, he can add his strength to a companion two times instead of one. 
11. Arwen, Queen of Elves and Men:
Able to reduce the strength of each minion skirmishing her for each wounded minion you can spot, Arwen is a great splash in most wounding decks. She can literally overwhelm cards such as Trolls and other very strong minions.
Today most players equip Arwen with Sword of the Fallen, to make her effect more broken.
12. Aragorn, Ranger of the North:
Aragorn can exert multiple times to make himself Defender +1. Since he has four vitality, he can do this 3 times, enabling him to skirmish four minions! This basically blows a hole in almost any sort of swarm.
Not only that, but against decks using huge minions (like trolls, Uruks) Aragorn could easily sacrifice himself fighting 4 big minions. Like he did in the FOTR movie, he took on about 20 Uruks, but fought through unscratched??
13. Derufin - One of the only standard-legal possession-discarding cards left! (besides For the Mark! and Throne of Minas Tirith). Provided that you have exactly 5 cards in hand, Derufin exerts himself during the regroup phase to discard any possession, machine or engine from play.
With lots of new possessions arriving with the Rise of Saruman, Derufin will probably get to see a lot more games.
14. Sam, Steadfast Friend:
If your free people’s strategy relies greatly on your companion’s resistance, this is one of the best cards to use.
Sam makes each other companion resistance +1, which proves very useful to take advantage of. Since the resistance boost he provides also includes the Ring-bearer, Sam is “right on the spot”.
15. Sam, Son of Hamfast:
This is the most splashable burden removal companion! Sam’s fellowship action says “Fellowship: Exert Sam to remove a burden”. And he meets both splashing requirements, making him extremely easy to use.
Sam has a major drawback, though. He is X-listed in almost every format except for Open, because of his too awesome of a game text. This is the only reason why he took last place.
Runners-up Companions:
These are the splashable companions that didn’t quite make the top 15 cut:
Gandalf, Leader of Men - This is a really neat Gandalf, because he only costs  when in your starting fellowship. He doesn’t do anything else, though, which doesn’t make him worthy enough to make the cut.
Haethen, Veteran Fighter - Hehe, I call him sock-eye, as he looks like he took quite a beating. Okay, Haethen’s game text prevents all wounds to him during fierce skirmish phases involving him. This could be very beneficial, as he will be almost impossible to kill as long as he doesn’t get overwhelmed.
Eowyn, Lady of Rohan - Say hello to the former most popular splash companion. When the TT was released, Lady of Rohan was splashed into most decks, primarily to stop Shotgun Enquea. But since their are now more ways to prevent wounds than using this card, she didn’t make the cut.
Gandalf, Greyhame - Greyhame has the great ability to play unbound companions back from your discard pile. This is excellent, the ability to play back any unbound companion from your discard pile will annoy any shadow player.
In today’s game, Gandalf, Greyhame, though not very common, is used with unbound hobbits that discard themselves. More frequently, he is used to undo what Fierce and Despair does to your fellowship, or any type of companion-discarding strategy.
Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver - Pippin’s skirmish text makes you return him to your hand to wound a roaming minion twice. This is also really cool because against archery decks, because you can use him as a very efficient pincushion, returning him to your hand, hence removing his wounds.
Pippin was originally in the top 15, but the little Halfling was moved down, because he can only wound roaming minions.
Conclusion
Remember that it is not absolutely necessary that every single deck included a splash character. Some mono-culture decks can function completely fine without one.
However, I can confidently conclude that most decks should have a splash companion, if you have any empty space to put one in. Here are some indicators that you need a splash companion:
1) You are losing consistently against one type of strategy. For example, if you can kill every troll in the world, but burdens always find a way to corrupt you, you need a splash. Running the Pippin Engine would be ideal for handling this.
2) You lose to almost every matchup you can try. This is obviously a bad indicator. A solid splash might help, but most of the time this means you need a re-design on your deck.
3) You have a “mono-culture” deck. It’s easy to find a splash companion that will work with most of these kinds of decks. As I said above, you don’t have to splash, but it’ll be a lot easier to counter, and possibly eliminate, a specific weakness.
It is very important to know your deck’s weaknesses. A well-placed splash companion can usually cover that weakness, and march you down the path of triumph!
If you think of any companions that need to be added or moved, I’ll see if I can change the article accordingly, also if the companion(s) are worthy of the change. All suggestions and comments welcome!
- Celebrimbor |
| Last edited by Celebrimbor on Mon Apr 09, 2007 4:09 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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| PorterTroll |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:01 pm |
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Joined: 23 Jun 2006
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| When Grimbeorn pumps himself up, he defeats powerful minions, and when he defeats powerfule minions he preserves the other members of your fellowship, isn’t that helpful? |
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| Celebrimbor |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:04 pm |
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Hmm, Grimbeorn, I was thinking possibly moving him up. Because I was the only person writing the article, I didn’t know what others would think regarding which companions were the best.
EDIT: hasn’t it been a long time since we’ve seen you on the forums? |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:59 pm |
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| nice article. a 5! |
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| Glamdring |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:46 pm |
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Joined: 13 Oct 2006
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sickofpalantirs wrote: nice article. a 5!
Yeah it was a good article! A GP  from me since I can’t vote.
EDIT: SOP, did you forget to give a 5? |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:25 pm |
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.
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yeah...  |
Sop's haves/ top wants
(mm)"SoP: you will always be the Official CC Spammer in my heart"
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Spammers really are amazing creatures. You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month. And yet, after a hundred years, they can still surprise you. |
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| corvus |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:45 pm |
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Joined: 13 Oct 2006
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OK, this was an article we needed. But i do disagree on some things:
Aragorn (should be #1!!!) Legolas and Derufin are way too low, as is Eowyn (4C)
No one splashes that Sam, Steadfast Friend... c’mon!
Gildor is waay too high, Grimbeorn should be at about # 3-4.
That’s all.  edit wherever you agree. |
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| Anonymous Prodigy |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:49 pm |
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Joined: 10 Jan 2006
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Aragorn, Thorongil should definitely be moved up to at least #5, if not higher IMO. The article looks very good!  I will read the entire article and review more thoroughly later. |
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| bobtheorc |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:01 pm |
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| Celebrimbor |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:18 pm |
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| When I get some time on my hands, I’m gonna move Grimbeorn and Thorongil up, and move down the Sam. Sam isn’t as good as I thought. |
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