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Author Topic: White Hand Sieger Revisited  (Read 3524 times)

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July 01, 2018, 03:27:34 AM
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Dictionary

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White Hand Sieger Revisited
« on: July 01, 2018, 03:27:34 AM »
Some older topics for reference:
http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,8378.0.html
http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,316.0.html
http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,244.msg4554.html#msg4554

I'm going to try and structure this post clearly, since I have quite a lot to say. This is something that I've been thinking about for quite some time, and I would be interested in hearing others' opinions.

It seems clear to me is that the wording of White Hand Sieger can be read in two different ways. Corsair Grappling Hook is from the same set and uses the phrasing "You may control a site". May control = you may take control, therefore must control = you must take control. Most of this has been discussed already, so I'll try not to repeat it here.

In the absence of any official clarification from Decipher, it seems that the decision in the past has been to go with the "What Decipher intended" interpretation (Also used for Whisper in the Dark and Diversion). It's hard to believe Decipher would've made the minion a twilight cost 0 common if they were viewing the ability this way (Incidentally, many fans did read it this way when it was first spoiled). I don't disagree with this as such, but I would like to bring up another perspective which I could not find specific mention of in older posts. That is "What is better for the game" perspective. In other words, what effect do the varying interpretations have on playing the game itself?

Before I go into this in detail I would like to clear up two possible misconceptions. First, I am not suggesting that we change any official rules that we use to play the game; I bring this up only because this specific card is ambiguous in its wording. I would not use this logic against any card where we clearly know its intentions/capabilities and as such, this argument can only be used if a rules consensus for a card cannot be reached. Second, there is a big problem with this perspective being a highly subjective one. I believe that a case can be made here which I will try to split into chunks which are as objective as possible. Of course, the "What Decipher intended" perspective is also quite subjective, and in the cases of cards like Whisper in the Dark and Diversion relies on the fact that one of the interpretations renders the card unplayable. This actually ties in with my argument which is that arguing that a card cannot be played is not particularly good for the game.
What I am essentially going to be arguing here is that interpreting White Hand Sieger as a weak swarm minion based on site control makes it an almost useless card in the formats that it is legal in, whereas interpreting it as a site controlling minion would not only make it a very useful card, but would also make the very weak Uruk site control strategies much more solid and increase the overall relevance of the [Uruk] culture.

It is very important here to remember that this is a set 18 card. If the card were from Towers or similar, I certainly would not make this argument. But compared with the earlier released Rapt Hillman and other [Men] minions, I don't see White Hand Sieger as being significantly game breaking. Now, to go into some more detail:

1) The [Uruk] culture is significantly less strategy diverse than the [Orc] or [Men] cultures. I pretty much exclusively only see one strategy for this culture (Hunters), while other cultures usually have at least half a dozen available strategies in Expanded. Additionally the other strategies are not really that different to Hunters. Pretty much every [Uruk] strategy is beatdown in some shape or form, and most of them are inferior to [Orc] Trolls.

2) The [Uruk] culture is (Perhaps consequently) generally weaker than the [Orc] or [Men] cultures, and other cultures besides. In fact, I'd probably argue [Uruk] and [Isengard] are the weakest two shadow cultures in Expanded. Beatdown can be difficult to achieve when there are such a huge variety of ways to avoid skirmishing, as well as very powerful skirmishers. With sites controlled, uruks can reap some very powerful rewards to help with this (White Hand Veteran, White Hand Aggressor, Uruk Assault Band), but their ability to control sites is terrible. I have an uruk site control deck in Expanded, but it uses [Men] Men to grab sites because Uruk site control is simply too unreliable, based either on building up condition tokens that won't hang around long enough, or winning skirmishes with weak minions. All that assumes the opponent can't even liberate sites, which can even give [Men] Men pause, let alone Uruks.

3) [Men] site control is infinitely superior to all other forms of site control. I really don't think Sieger is outrageous in comparison. Rapt Hillman can grab more sites, Engrossed Hillman is just as hard to stop and none of them are super easy to splash. Sieger helps uruks tremendously, but other shadows not so much.

I don't think swarm potential is an issue either, even with the minion being so easy to play. Uruks are pretty expensive generally, and Expanded has massive amounts of swarm protection for fellowships. Sieger's text also self-limits him, as he can't be played if there are no sites to take control of.

So, to summarise, I essentially think that interpreting White Hand Sieger as a site controller would make the game more balanced, though I may not have considered certain elements. Given that his text can be read one way or another, this seems like the logical one to go with for that reason IMO.
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July 01, 2018, 07:40:50 AM
Reply #1

FingolfinFinwe

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Re: White Hand Sieger Revisited
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2018, 07:40:50 AM »
Thanks for the write up!  I wonder if that interpretation would make Uruk-hai site control too powerful?  I definitely do think the original intent was for swarm, as if they meant it to take control of a site they would have left out the 'must' altogether.  Pretty certain it would have read as:

Damage +1. To play, spot an [Uruk-hai] minion and take control of a site.

July 01, 2018, 09:16:49 AM
Reply #2

menace64

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Re: White Hand Sieger Revisited
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2018, 09:16:49 AM »
Quote from: Fingolfinfinwe
I wonder if that interpretation would make Uruk-hai site control too powerful?  I definitely do think the original intent was for swarm, as if they meant it to take control of a site they would have left out the 'must' altogether.  Pretty certain it would have read as:

Damage +1. To play, spot an [Uruk-hai] minion and take control of a site.

We can't make those sorts of arguments, since the writing quality of sets by TaD was so atrocious that many cards are simply, to use the word, indecipherable: there's no case to be made that the sole set designer intended Sieger to work one way or another, because the wording is that bad.

Honestly Dictionary, yours is the first case that I've read that really changes my mind. I've just-as-readily ignored 80% of the cards in sets 17-19, but [Uruk] is awful and this Sieger may as well be good rather than #$&*@!.

July 04, 2018, 08:14:36 AM
Reply #3

Dictionary

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Re: White Hand Sieger Revisited
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2018, 08:14:36 AM »
Thanks for the write up!  I wonder if that interpretation would make Uruk-hai site control too powerful?
Possibly, but I'd be surprised if they became stronger than current top-tier shadows such as Nazgul.

Quote
Honestly Dictionary, yours is the first case that I've read that really changes my mind. I've just-as-readily ignored 80% of the cards in sets 17-19, but Uruk-hai is awful and this Sieger may as well be good rather than #$&*@!.
I can't auto-quote you for some reason :o Your words mean a lot to me, I know you've been around here since the beginning. It really is a poorly-written card. It's almost like it's been written in regular English rather than card language, like when they had Axe Strike say "bearing an axe"
Visit LOTR TCG wiki for strategy articles and extra card details, contributed by various community members. All set 1 cards finished.