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Mythdracon
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 3:06 am
Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 439 Location:
These need to be edited. Look them over and tell me what to do to make them nigh invincible please. Pretend these are tournament decks your best friend desperately needs your wise counsel on. Very Happy

Elven Events with Gollum and Shelob:

RINGBEARER
Galadriel, Bearer of Wisdom
The One Ring, Ring of Rings

FREE PEOPLES (34):
Elladan, Son of Elrond
Elrohir, Son of Elrond
Celeborn, the Wise x2
Cirdan, the Shipwright x2
Elven Bow x4
Seclusion x3
Attunement x4
Final Shot x4
Fleet-Footed
Still Needed x4
Shadow Between
Many Miles
Glimpse of Fate x2
Sword of the Fallen x2
Elve Marksmanship x2

SHADOW (34):
Gollum, Dark as Darkness
Gollum, Mad Thing
Shelob, Her Ladyship x3
Web x2
Captured by the Ring x3
Fat One Wants It x2
Final Strike x2
Not This Time! x2
Hidden Even From Her x2
Incited x2
Led Astray x3
Little Snuffler x3
Promise Keeping x2
Horribly Strong x3
Sudden Strike x2
Plotting (kinda silly to put it here, I suppose, since adding 9 threats is almost impossible)

Recently I tried this deck against a friend and it got beaten badly. Celeborn was overwhelmed in an early skirmish, the bows didn’t show up early enough, and then one of the twins died due to taking 2 wounds from an Uruk.

Help, please?

----------------------------------------------

Ring-bound Hobbits with Followers and ’The Dark Lord’s Gang (modified)

RINGBEARER

Frodo, Resolute Hobbit
The One Ring, Such A Weight To Carry

FREE PEOPLES (36):
Bilbo, Aged Ring-bearer
Sam, Great Elf Warrior
Habits of Home x3
A Promise x4
Concerning Hobbits x2
Impatient And Angry x2
Fates Entwined x3
Humble Homestead
Daddy Twofoot, Next-Door Neighbor
Frodo Gamgee, Son of Samwise
Hobbiton Brewer, Maker of Fine Ales
Hobbiton Farmer, Lover of Pipeweed
The Gaffer, Master Gardener
Hobbit Sword x2
Rabbit Stew (Age’s End)
Sting, Weapon of Heritage
Mithril-Coat, Dwarf-Mail
New Chapter
No Visitors x2
Salt From the Shire x2
Sudden Fury x3
The More, the Merrier
Tom Bombadil’s Hat

SHADOW (36):
Incited
Chasm’s Edge
Not Yet Vanquished
Fat One Wants It
Final Strike
Gollum, Skulker
Gollum, Stinker
Gollum, Threatening Guide (Age’s End)
Ithil Stone x2
So Polite
Led Astray x3
Sweeter Meats x2
Heavy Burden
Captured By The Ring x4
Evil-Smelling Fens x2
Sauron, the Lord of the Rings x4
Scepter of the Dark Lord x2
The Witch-King, Black Lord
Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul x3
Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders x3

This deck has won some and lost some. The Fellowship does decently except against very large minions like Orcs. Usually when I double move there are too many of them to handle. This happens even if I lose a skirmish (placing one token each on the 2 copies of Sudden Fury), or even if I win a skirmish (healing a hobbit four times with 2 copies of Fates Entwined if I win with Frodo or Bilbo). Frodo goes dangerously close to corruption due to the reliance on followers (especially Frodo Gamgee for the +3 strength). I recently ended up with Bilbo and Sam dead. Sad. The hobbits also have a LOT of trouble removing conditions. Like Blade Tip. Or Black Breath. Sad

I won recently with a Shadow victory thanks to having all the Nazgul out with Gollum and Sauron. But usually the Shadow ends up not doing too much, especially to larger fellowships. Smeagol can exhaust and then wound Sauron to finish him off, and even with Sweeter Meats out it’s impossible to prevent this happening all the time. Rangers usually discard Sauron, as do hobbits with followers. Gollum almost never wins a skirmish since he’s too low on strength (the most I had was 12 strength with Threatening Guide and Chasm’s Edge out, and this was at the very end of the game).


---------------

Shadow side: Deceived Wizards

Shadow (32):

Desert Lord x4
Alatar Deceived x3
Pallando Deceived x3
Radagast Deceived x3
New Power Rising
Leechcraft x2
Agents of Orthanc x2
Grima, Wormtongue
Men Will Fall x4
Staff of Saruman, Fallen Istar’s Stave x2
Saruman’s Staff, Wizard’s Device x2
Saruman, Of Many Colors x4
Throne of Isengard

The problem with this deck that it’s directly against Men or Wizards, but almost useless against large fellowships of Ents, Elves or Ringbound hobbits with followers and Grimbeorn.

----------------

REQUESTS FOR ALMOST UNBEATABLE DECKLISTS (i.e. CHAMPION level):

Also, could someone compose almost-unbeatable decklists along the following themes for me? I will pay you with gold. Lots of gold, over several days. And approval. Also, links to decklists that have won awards (like lots of stars on the Strategy Article Contest) also work. =D

-Arwen, Aragorn, Last Alliance of Men and Elves with Arwen’s Fate
-King of the Dead, Aragorn
-Corsairs
-Evil Men
-Helm’s Deep Elves, Gimli and Legolas with their rare token conditions
-Helm’s Deep Alliance of Aragorn, Rohan, Elves and Gimli
-Easterling Corruption (using largely Easterlings from TTT block)
-FOTR (all members of the Fellowship)
-Elven telepathy
-Dwarven card-stacking conditions
-Twilight Nazgul and corruption (Return To Its Master etc)
-Smeagol and Ringbound hobbits + Gollum (with good card flow due to both Smeagol/Gollum working together)
-Rohan And Gandalf (Theoden with Hearken to Me, Erkenbrand, etc)
-Gandalf Ringbearer with Followers, Grimbeorn and other Gandalf Men
-Nazgul with Moving This Way and/or A Shadow Rising
MR. Lurtzy
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 4:28 am
Joined: 30 May 2007 Posts: 423 Location: Living with the Governator
for 1st deck, if they are dying to easily, try skirmish events that boost strength or use archery. Don’t mix the two too much or the deck will be much weaker.

for 2nd deck, try to get some cards that cancel skirmishes (can’t think of any at the moment) or make more of a choke deck where stronger minions can’t be played. Also, don’t double move if you couldn’t handle the minions the first time. Wink

for 3rd deck, you can’t really do much. Just use it against wizards and men. It’d be really hard to make a deceived minion deck that’s good against anything else. I’d stick with what’s it is intended to be good at. Thumbs Up

unbeatable deck? well that would have to be "my" deck that I kinda just stole from 2 really great articles.

Ring-bearer and Ring
Frodo, Resolute Hobbit
The One Ring, The Ring of Rings

Free Peoples
Aldred, Eored Soldier (starting)
Gamling, Defender of the Hornburg (starting)
Merry, Swordthain (starting)
Smeagol, Scout and Guide (starting)
Erkenbrand’s Horn
Gamling’s Horn
New Chapter x3 (for the sake of evenness)
Something Slimy
Elendil’s Army
Faramir’s Company
Gondorian Servant, Denethor’s Handman
Deagol, Fateful Finder
Meneldor, Misty Mountain Eagle
Gwaihir, The Windlord
Alatar, Final Envoy
Pallando, Far-travelling One
Radagast, Tender of Beasts
Daddy Twofoot, Next-door Neighbor
Frodo Gamgee, Son of Samwise
The Gaffer, Master Gardener
Hobbiton Brewer, Maker of Fine Ales
Hobbiton Farmer, Lover of Pipeweed
Uruviel, Woodland Maid
Dinendal, Mirkwood Archer
Rohirrim Doorwarden
Rohan Stable Master x4
Rohan Worker x4
Freeps Strategy expained here

3x Ulaire Enquea, Thrall of the One
2x Ulaire Cantea, Thrall of the One
2x Ulaire Nelya, Thrall of the One
2x Ulaire Lemenya, Thrall of the One
2x The Witch-king, Captain of the Nine Riders
1x Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul
2x Morgul Squealer
2x Ring of Rancor
2x Shadowy Mount
4x Lingering Shadow
4x Gates of the Dead City
2x Keening Wail
2x Dark Swooping Shadows
4x Dark Fell About Him
Shadow strategy explained here

I have used this once or twice and it owns. Hope that helps a wee bit!
'On and on old war shall go,
Without respite my blood will flow
O’er your eyes ‘til they cannot see
The impossibility of victory.'

MR. Lurtzy's Have/Wants
Elessar's Socks
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:57 am
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 349 Location:
Guess I’ll try Ninja Gollum. Very Happy

The way I think about it is how to maximize the number of wounds while keeping the deck as efficient as possible. So these are the two major guidelines I follow:

1. Focus on skirmish-based wounding to get full use out of Promise Keeping.
2. Maximize the number of threats because they can turn into wounds.

The first guideline is why I’d forgo cards like Little Snuffler and Horribly Strong and instead stockpile skirmish-based cards like Not This Time!, They Stole It, and You’re a Liar and a Thief:

3x Promise Keeping
2x Not This Time! (which requires threats)
3x They Stole It
3x You’re a Liar and a Thief

And what better way to increase the number of wounds than by making Gollum fierce?

2x Hidden Even From Her

With access to TSI in Open/Expanded, it shouldn’t be too difficult to win both skirmishes through wounding alone (as TSI and NTT use different resources). However it’d be helpful to leave the strength option open in case we’re running low on cards in hand, or don’t want to sacrifice what we’re holding to TSI:

4x Slippery as Fishes

The second guideline is more straightforward:

2x Fat One Wants It
4x Captured by the Ring (which pulls Gollum)

I’d leave out Plotting because of the risk of removing all the threats we already have.

At this point it’d be great to get some minions in here. The two versions of Gollum I use are:

1x Gollum, Threatening Guide (which generates threats)
1x Gollum, Stinker

Threatening Guide is my primary hitter. He adds a threat each time he wins a skirmish (second guideline), which will be there for the fierce skirmish--very convenient with NTT. Stinker is my backup plan in case I can’t take down the entire fellowship in time. In that case I’d switch tactics and try to corrupt the Ring-bearer. He can be a nasty surprise if the Ring-bearer has been absorbing threats as burdens to bypass Promise Keeping.

I don’t use Mad Thing now because in most cases I’d prefer the threat from Threatening Guide. A situation where Mad Thing would win but Threatening Guide would lose seems like a narrow enough window that it’s hard for me to justify keeping him.

We’ll need essentially more copies of Gollum to play him consistently and possibly every site. That calls for the counterpart to CbtR which can also pull him from the draw deck:

3x We Must Have It (which can raise Gollum’s strength)

And one final piece I should mention that can help out any NG deck:

3x Not Easily Avoided

Not Easily Avoided is great for deck efficiency by pulling anything we’re missing--straight from the draw deck--and helping us set up fast. It’s also fun to burn extra twilight to grab extra copies of YaLaaT. The second ability is another way to increase Gollum’s strength, but this time it works on Shelob as well.

I think NEA has also supplanted Sudden Strike.

So in full a deck might look like this:

34 cards.

1 Gollum, Stinker
1 Gollum, Threatening Guide
1 Shelob, Her Ladyship

1 Web

2 Fat One Wants It
2 Hidden Even From Her
1 Incited
3 Not Easily Avoided
2 Not This Time!
3 Promise Keeping
4 Slippery as Fishes
3 They Stole It

4 Captured by the Ring
3 We Must Have It
3 You’re a Liar and a Thief

I have only one copy of Shelob here but more might be a good idea. A second Incited would also be safer in case it’s accidentally discarded to NEA. Space can be taken from SaF, or since 34 cards is about the minimum for a deck using TSI, possibly increasing the size. At this size though I usually get what I need very quickly.

Hope that helps!
Mythdracon
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:19 am
Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 439 Location:
Thanks for the help! Could you tell me which sets each card is from, though, so I can trade for them more easily? My friend here sorts cards by set. Smile

Does no one know of any good Battle of Helm’s Deep scenario-like decks though?

And what about decks to counter Fellowship archery or rangers who use ’What Are they?’ to discard minions? My friend keeps using lame elves and rangers. -_-

The followers deck does look lame (which is great 8D), but the problem is I don’t have a lot of those cards. :S
MR. Lurtzy
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:49 am
Joined: 30 May 2007 Posts: 423 Location: Living with the Governator
You are actually making a real deck (not on sda)? Well in that case, I’d still use the shadow that I listed (tis why I wanted it so badly) but for freeps, elven is great (you prolly know this first-hand) or dwarves. Using dwarf beatdown is one of the most powerful freeps period. I don’t use them so I don’t have a deck to list, but if you search the strategy articles or even this forum, you’re bound to find one. Besides, cycling dwarves with auto-corrupt is extremely effective.

For BoHD, I’d say elves (again) from that set, focussing on archery and berserkers and siege engines with tokens for shadow.

The Balrog, Demon of Might skips the archery phase if underground, so that can cripplye a archery deck, and for rangers, either using those new men who aren’t roaming or haradrim archery would be effective IMWO.
Last edited by MR. Lurtzy on Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:06 am; edited 1 time in total'On and on old war shall go,
Without respite my blood will flow
O’er your eyes ‘til they cannot see
The impossibility of victory.'

MR. Lurtzy's Have/Wants
Elessar's Socks
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:55 am
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 349 Location:
Guess here’s a good opportunity to try out Kralik’s autolinker. Very Happy

1 Gollum, Stinker (5R5)
1 Gollum, Threatening Guide (19P10)
1 Shelob, Her Ladyship (10R23)

1 Web (8C30)

2 Fat One Wants It (7R57)
2 Hidden Even From Her (8C22)
1 Incited (11R44)
3 Not Easily Avoided (18R32)
2 Not This Time! (15R47)
3 Promise Keeping (8R24)
4 Slippery as Fishes (9R+29)
3 They Stole It (6R46)

4 Captured by the Ring (7C53)
3 We Must Have It (5C30)
3 You’re a Liar and a Thief (6C47)

Holy smokes, it works!! Shocked

Knights, archery, and Ithilien Blade can be a problem. Shelob can absorb archery, which is one reason I was thinking more copies might be in order. For Ithilien Blade you actually had a nice counter already in the form of Final Strike. Still doesn’t get by Madril DoO/What Are They? though. It’s not a good match-up, but packing extra copies might give you a fighting chance.

For the Freeps I use Dwarves with Isildur HoE thrown in.

EDIT - Added the events. 24 cards was kinda small for a NG deck.
Mythdracon
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:47 am
Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 439 Location:
Looks good! But the problem would be getting Not Easily Avoided and Slippery As Fishes, I suppose. And yeah, rangers could just discard Shelob, as her site no. is so high by default. :S

Ninja Gollum aside, is there any Shadow match up that SLAYS rangers? Or lame Archery elves? I know Evil Men can use Pavise for this, and Orcs with Broad-bladed Sword, but rarely have I seen Shadow sides that can actually smite Elves who have 6 archery default, more if using events like Many Miles.

Once again, thanks for your help! Keep the assistance coming. I needs it. O_o
NappyKorn
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:44 am
Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 552 Location: USA
Mythdracon wrote:
Looks good! But the problem would be getting Not Easily Avoided and Slippery as Fishes, I suppose. And yeah, rangers could just discard Shelob, as her site no. is so high by default. :S

Ninja Gollum aside, is there any Shadow match up that SLAYS rangers? Or lame Archery elves? I know Evil Men can use Pavise for this, and Orcs with Broad-bladed Sword, but rarely have I seen Shadow sides that can actually smite Elves who have 6 archery default, more if using events like Many Miles.

Once again, thanks for your help! Keep the assistance coming. I needs it. O_o


You will Never find a deck that is completely flawless, even though some are pretty close. As for your elven Problem I have a deck for them. Of course you probably won’t see many skirmish as they will die to archery they setup and kill before the archery phase. I run a Men site control with Rapt Hillman bearing Pavise. Then after enough sites drop drop a few White Hand Invader followed by a Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul. With enough sites controlled you can exhausts the fellowship then gothmog forces then to add wounds killing some or getting them closer to corruption. As GE knows with a elven deck you most the time (if not always) run Galadriel, Bearer of Wisdow as your RB. And after enough burdens for wounds and a few dead comps she is corrupted Thumbs Up. Anyway if you are interested in a decklist I will send you a link to the thread I posted or I can just copy and paste the list here.

Edit I can also send you my version of the Decieved Wizards, Elevents, Smeagol Bearer with Ring-bound Hobbits paired with Ninja Gollum, and a Gandalf Ring-bearer deck. Just let me know which you want or if you want to check them all out.
No Room
Collection 4 Sale
Deck Wants
MR. Lurtzy
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:11 pm
Joined: 30 May 2007 Posts: 423 Location: Living with the Governator
The Balrog, Demon of Might skips the archery phase. That would be devasting to archer decks. Read my posts! Wink
'On and on old war shall go,
Without respite my blood will flow
O’er your eyes ‘til they cannot see
The impossibility of victory.'

MR. Lurtzy's Have/Wants
NappyKorn
Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:13 pm
Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 552 Location: USA
MR. Lurtzy wrote:
The Balrog, Demon of Might skips the archery phase. That would be devasting to archer decks. Read my posts! Wink


Balrog, Demon of Might only skips the Archery and Maneuver phase if the fellowship is at an underground site. Of course most Elven deck run Galadriel as their bearer and that means not a very high starting bid. None the less you better have underground sites and a really good way of keeping Balrog at those sites.
No Room
Collection 4 Sale
Deck Wants

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