![[Gandalf]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/gandalf.png "Gandalf")
Powerful Guide: 4.5
I've lost to this deck many times, the reason I can't give it a full 5 though is because it seems to be weak to any kind of wounding outside of the skirmish phase. I do agree that if are building any kind of shadow that is supposed to do its business during the skirmish phase, you are either toast or will have a VERY hard row to hoe. However, massive archery, combined with heavy site manipulation can overcome the decent vitality and three traveled leaders that this deck probably packs (imo 
)
You may be right about massive Archery. But I can tell you that maneuver wounding tends to not be as effective, as he'll just prevent wounds and kill your guys with spells, or cancel their special abilities with
Perspective.
Bearer of Obligation: 3.5
I've both beaten and lost to this kind of deck. I think it has potential when they can get set up very fast. Whereas Powerful Guide generally runs a heavy card-pool, I've seen a BoO deck that was relatively light and set itself up very quickly. You don't need too many cards to make it work, I think...
The downside of adding burdens every time you move seems really steep, but I've seen several players use a deck like this extremely effectively. The advantages are numerous: You get to start with several good characters
in addition to Gandalf, your Ring-bearer is hard to overwhelm but has no skirmish penalty, and you can pile stuff on him and he can't be targeted by Grima. As long as you're able to play the movement penalty most of the time, you should be fine. My strategy against these decks used to be that I just wouldn't play anything, and let them move themselves to corruption... but these days it seems like they are always pretty much ready to discard the cards and prevent the burdens.
G For Grand Tanks: 2
I wish I could give this more credit...but I beat it before using a simple nazgul cycle deck while testing a weird fellowship side. He was also using that condition that uses tokens from exertions to boost strength in skirmishes...If you pack Grima's/Orthanc Champion+Saruman's Power, you can just run over the fellowship with just basic Nazgul. The Witch King with Toil works nicely.
It's got two major weak points in that if you either kill Gandalf or bomb his conditions, he's severely crippled. If I get bad draws these decks can be a problem for me... but generally not.
Snuffler Support: 1
Never played this one...but it seems like any deck that uses a response Ring could just walk through this, right?
Right. Granted, most decks don't... but enough of them do that I don't really see this as a very good strategy. I'd think you'd lose every 3rd or 4th game at least, and it doesn't seem to me like a very fun deck to play with. It's just one big gimmick.
Ent Horde: 4
I used to play this fellowship. I'm going to give it a 4 because I feel like it can be made strong enough to fight a lot of the downsides you might encounter. I didn't play a very huge deck so I was able to get it fully set up almost every time by site 3. If you are able to just walk without adding any other twilight during fellowship (I didn't play Mellon!) your opponent doesn't really have enough twilight to make best use of cards like Morgul Squealer or Ulaire Enquea, Sixth of the Nine Riders. You just pick and choose which guys to kill off and keep trucking. I think it's a solid strategy compared to things like the Gil-Galad looping as you can build the deck to rely on 0 condition and 0 possessions. It's always nice creating dead cards for your opponent's shadow.
Most of the
Ent Horde decks I encounter still seem to pile in considerable twilight. They play Gandalf, put out conditions,
SFTF, etc. Now, probably the
smartest way to go, is to do what you were saying: Don't play anything else that costs any twilight except for events. I do remember getting really clobbered by an
Ent Horde/Mellon! deck one time, though.
![[Elven]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/elven.png "Elven")
Telepathy: 3
It always seems like some of these try to get a little too fancy for their own good, and reach too far into other strategies. Also, whereas pure Telepathy would just focus on healing and winning skirmishes, any shadow that dances around their strengths would just wreak havoc.
Of course the keystone with many telepathy decks is
Manager of Wizards + Gil-galad +
Forearmed. I generally have found these quite challenging. The key to beating them seems to be to either disable or kill
Manager of Wizards.
Archery: 1.5
Maybe I'm being too harsh on this deck...I just feel like there's A LOT of shadows that just crap all over it.
In general you aren't going to get your optimal 8 - 10 archery piling out there every move. From what I've seen, at best, these decks can put out a solid 6 or 7 archery surprisingly quickly if they are built well. However they won't if you are up against condition hate, OR if your opponent just loves to absorb it. There are a lot of solid decks with Enduring minions, not to mention corruption. There are many shadows that will actually love the fact that they have heavy archery. Shelob just eats it up.
Archery decks can be powerful, but generally IMO aren't very dependable. Most of them rely on various conditions in the support area that up the Archery total... and once you bomb those they're in trouble.
Gil-galad Looping: 4
If your shadow side commands threats even fairly well, these decks don't actually give you much trouble, though it is strong.
A properly set up Gil-galad Loop can remove all threats in Regroup.
The Twins: 2.5
These seem to try to combine with Telepathy quite often, but get lost against any shadow that doesn't care about winning skirmishes. Corruption, direct wounding, archery, site manipulation, swarm bombs...take your pick.
They tend to be a challenge for me, but that's because I mostly kill with big powerful minions (which the Twins can beat) or
shotgun Enquea (and the Twins often don't go over 5 companions). I could see a dedicated direct wounding deck taking them out pretty quick, though.
Elf Discard: 3
I guess it gets a three just because it combines elements of Gil-galad's deck. To me, it's still a "gimmick" deck...it tries to accomplish it's win indirectly (discarding). I say it's more effective to go for the throat.
In my experience these don't technically try to accomplish wins directly through discarding. The recycling
Ancient Enmity is moreso intended to cripple any sort of strategy you have, because it nails the cards you value the most (the ones in your hand) rather than random cards off the draw deck. I've had these routinely dump
Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver,
OGTDA, and other useful things out of my hand that I had been counting on to get me through the game. Once you get dinged by 3 or 4 recycled
Ancient Enmity, you get to the point where you don't want to play any minions that can't definitely win the skirmish, because then you lose all the cards in your hand. But if you don't play minions, they walk right over you. So it creates a pretty effective catch-22 scenario.
![[Gondor]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/gondor.png "Gondor")
Token Tanks: 3
I really like the idea, and it has potential, but the weaknesses you already mentioned at this point are something to be overcome.
Yep. Any deck that depends on conditions, yet has no effective way to protect those conditions, is at a serious disadvantage in Expanded Format, IMO.
Madril: 5
One of the most powerful, imo. This deck has serious moving power, and is flexible to be combined with Gandalf/others to cover its weaknesses. I guess its versatility combined with raw power is why I gave it such a high score.
It takes a LOT of work to make Madril truly effective. It's like I've said before, I stock 3x
Ships of Great Draught in my deck, and I can't remember the last time I lost to a Madril deck. There are so many ways around him, and most of those ways are pretty easy to pull off. When I go up against Madril, Madril is usually dead by Site 3. Now, of course I play a Madril deck myself, and it generally takes quite a bit more than
Ships of Great Draught to beat me... but that's only because beating Madril does not equate to beating
me. The vast majority of Madril decks out there rely so much on Madril that, once he's out of the picture, the deck falls quite quickly. That is not the case for me. It will quite likely slow me down, but it's not an automatic win.
Three Hunters: 1
Cute idea...just doesn't cut the mustard.
Here again, too dependent on conditions that they can't protect... with the added disadvantage of also being prone to
Wormtongue. Maybe these guys should add Some
Wise Guide in?
Wraiths: 1.5
I gave it slightly higher than 1...I think that it DOES perform well against specific shadows, as opposed to just general good performance.
Same problem as above. They really need their condition that makes them unkillable, but one well-placed condition bomb ruins their day.
Knights: 3
Even when up against condition hate, the ones I've seen are so heavy in fortifications, and have the ability to play from discard sometimes, that they can usually cycle and keep tanking. A decent, solid deck.
For me, it's once again the same problem as above. They can only recycle their conditions with
other conditions, so if you bomb them all at once, it's usually game over.
Last Ruling Steward: 3.5
Seems extremely strong from what I've seen. I can't put it on the same level as some other decks though because the deck would seem to fall apart if you just kill Denethor. I guess same could be said about Madril, BUT Madril has the ability to completely dispose of threatening minions in maneuver as opposed to simply exerting them.
In practice I find it very difficult to target Denethor specifically, because he'll exhaust any guy that might possibly hurt him, and then finish that guy off (if necessary) with directed Archery. Tough deck.
Gondor Choke: 2
I've tried this with Faramir RB as well as a few other ways. If you prepare for Grima you can do fairly decent. It does lack running power sometimes.
Severely disadvantaged against Super Archery and
Dark Horseman.
![[Rohan]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/rohan.png "Rohan")
Merry Men: 3
Annoying as heck. Cool solid strategy. Well balanced though weak to condition hate. If your racks get discarded you still have decently strong companions to truck on.
Every time I try to build one of these, I always end up with, like, 200 cards. I don't know how they fit all their stuff into them! But I've seen some effective ones!
Horn Filter: 2.5
Works...but all your opponent needs to do is pack 1 of 3 simple sites (1 of which is very popular) to give you some serious trouble. I really don't like decks that completely fall apart if your opponent just decides to include a certain site.
It's funny, I remember when I (and others) viewed this as the most broken strategy in Expanded Format, and now it looks like we all regard it as pretty mediocre!
Rohan Hunters: 3
In general, just a solid base strategy. You aren't necessarily relying too much on anything but your characters' power. Hunters can double move sometimes, and a lot of the later Rohan possessions are pretty strong. Doesn't have a certain "Super-Powered" strategy like Madril, but still beefy.
These guys can be surprisingly strong, IMO. And they gain some really powerful abilities by assigning guys to the Ring-bearer. Shelobplayer's deck is excellent, though I still feel like there may be room for improvement. Perhaps I should copy his deck and play with it myself for a while.
![[Dwarven]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/dwarven.png "Dwarven")
Dwarf Choke: 4.5
I find this deck to be hard to overcome if you don't draw the right cards with your shadow. I find I'm always scrounging for my Gollum/Shelob and my Grima/Saruman's Power. They can set up Preparations with Slacked Thirsts to prepare for Grima, and you need to have a Saruman's Power first to stop that. In general you lose a lot of time at sites 4 and 5 with your shadow just trying to break through. Tough deck for sure.
I'm surprised you guys haven't rated this one higher. Yes, if they're just running a few Dwarfs they tend to fall to
Dark Horseman... but the smart ones will run at least one other guy, like Smeagol or Gandalf, and then they become a lot harder to corrupt.
Dwarf Discard: 3
I'm generally happy when my opponent takes up space in his deck dedicated to discarding. I want to give the strategy by itself a 2, but because it's already paired with cards from such a strong strategy (Dwarf Choke), it needs to be recognized a little.
Yep, I will often see this paired with Dwarf Choke. I was tempted to lump them together, but I do occasionally see Dwarf Choke decks that don't really dedicate to discard, and/or bigger Dwarf fellowships that do discard.
Condition Dwarfs: 3
I kinda wish you'd commented on this one. I think it's pretty strong! probably the best angle is to resist the temptation to use Gimli as Ring-bearer, and go with
Gimli, Feared Axeman. I've seen these things pull of some pretty crazy stuff with their conditions! Sure there's the usual heal-every-dwarf-every-time-they-move, but once I saw a HUGE Realm of the Dwarrowdelf deck, and he'd just keep discarding cards until he won the skirmish!
Counter of Foes: 1
I love seeing Counter of Foes' face sputter and spew itself into the dead pile in the Movie sealed after he gets Grima'd or Saruman's Powered. There are much smarter ways to get companions to 20+ strength.
This. Anything sensitive to condition bombs is at a disadvantage in Expanded.
![[Shire]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/shire.png "Shire")
Hobbit Hospital: 4
Pretty darn strong. You do need an early Saruman's Power to cripple some of the conditions before they get too many Scourings out. Versatile shadows can at least slow it down, but it's a tough one.
An early
Dark Horseman or
Mauhur, Relentless Hunter can also ruin their day.
Merry, Friend to Sam tends to be pretty key to this deck, followed by
Bilbo, Aged Ring-bearer. Take them out in that order, and its usually only a matter of time.
Brave Decoy: 2.5
Cool deck. Like you said, can be shut down with the right site.
The obvious solution being: Don't let your opponent dictate what site you end up on. Maybe mix it with some Smeagol and/or Gandalf site manipulation, and throw in
G for Grand for an even more pumped Pippin.
Shadowplay: 3
I think these can be really challenging, especially if they're protecting their conditions. They can choke pretty well, too.
No Visitors: 3
Doesn't always need the followers to work for one or two sites...but if your opponent is playing the right sites and has site manipulation you will end up with dead hobbits.
Well, the nasty thing about
No Visitors, is that stuff like
Cavern Entrance doesn't work against that. You pretty much need to skip Maneuver to stop his followers, and he probably won't give you enough twilight to play The Balrog.
Bearer of Great Secrets: 3
A little stronger than some strategies...but can really crap the bed against certain shadows. That's the problem with some of these choke/tank up the ringbearer deck...if your opponent gets lucky at one site and breaks through your defense, there is nothing to fall back on...
I've found this one to be pretty strong when I'm playing against it... but it might just be strong against my deck. I haven't tried to play it much myself. Ditto for Smeagol Choke. The ability to save up all those events he can play from discard at the very end is so often very hard to get past.
Condition Ninja Gollum: 4
Pretty strong...just barely gave this a 4 though. I think it's a little stronger in Movie.
I'm curious, why do you think it's stronger in Movie? In Expanded they've got
Deceit, but in Movie those conditions are unprotected, are they not?
Event Ninja Gollum: 3
Any versatile Fellowship that has healing mechanics or site control mechanics can do decent against this.
Well, the tricky bits are the surprises, that generally happen either in Shadow or Regroup. Stuff like
Horribly Strong,
Unseen Foe, and
You're a Liar and a Thief, grabbed with
Not Easily Avoided, and recycled with
Incited.
Sudden Strike: 5
The nastiest and most versatile of all of the Gollum decks.
Heh heh
![[Dunland]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/dunland.png "Dunland")
Freca Site Control: 1.5
Strong, but too many of the top tier fellowships can trounce this. Even if you get 5 sites under control, most of the top tier fellowships will STILL walk through all of your beefed up minions.
I think the key to effectiveness with this is
Over the Isen. All you need is one site under control, and then you can pick and choose who gets assigned where.
![[Wraith]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/wraith.png "Wraith")
Forest Nazguls: 4.5
Imo, could be the best option for Nazgul in expanded...mainly because it has heavy site manipulation, which in turn benefits the strategy of the deck. You can put out a lot of Nazgul with each move.
Yep. It often amazes me how many fierce powerful guys they can spew out! My Madril deck often finds these to be the biggest challenge, not because of any clever way around Madril, but simply because they play out too many powerful fierce guys for me to handle.
![[Moria]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/moria.png "Moria")
Goblin Armory: 2.5
Eeks it out above a 2 just because it cycles so well.
I'm amazed this strategy is as popular as it is in Expanded, considering how ineffective I find it to be. I'm also amazed at how few of these seem to pack in The Balrog. I wonder if maybe a lot of players who use this, are bringing it in from Fellowship because it's what they're familiar with?
Fool of a Took!: 3.5
I want to be able to give my own idea a 4 but not until I've worked out the bugs This deck went 8-2 in the Expanded league and 7-3 in casual, so it's definitely got something to it. I'm going to start from scratch with it again, this time including the balrog's whip that lets you reveal the FP hand and discard all of their low cost events 
....if I can do that I think its only big weakness would be Powerful Guide.
I feel like there should be some way to improve it... but I can't think of one at the moment.
Tentacles: 2
The strategy is cool, and maybe it works amazing when combined with the right fellowship...but just to judge it on it's own power as a shadow side, I don't see it standing up well to a lot of these tier 1 fellowships. Many of these strong fellowships pack a lot of Saved from the Fire...you don't want to lose just because your opponent can burn his least useful companion and run...
I still think you're underestimating the deviousness of
The Number Must Be Few combo. Sure he can potentially burn a guy... but then you have fewer guys and can more easily get swarmed, especially at the later sites.
Lost to the Goblins: 2.5
This bomb is actually quite harder to set up than the Sandyman Bomb. Fool of a Took! let's you pull everything that's a minion into your hand with no limit. This can get huge. With Lost to the Goblins you need 3 or maybe even 4 in hand to get it to work. That and you'll need 8 - 10 minions (or more) on your deck. I've been able to win with only 6 or 7 (playing the rest from hand) with the Fool of a Took! version. I've tried it and don't see it being very capable.
I've seen these set themselves up pretty effectively using a Horn filter. The rest of the deck is just Moria Shadow cards and
Gollum, Dark as Darkness. Then they just start cycling, putting stuff on the bottom with
Goblin Sneak,
Host of Thousands, recycled with
Host of Moria. Once they get 12 cards on the bottom, they just draw and cycle until they've got all four
Lost to the Goblins, three Moria Minions, and
Gollum, Dark as Darkness. In theory, this will always work, it's just a matter of drawing until you've got it. Of course, still like
Wise Guide can really kick it in the teeth.
Demoralized Bomb: 4
I wish I had kept the replay (maybe I have it I'll have to look) of my Ent Horde deck going up against a Demoralized Bomb. Around site 7 or 8 he got the full bomb to go off in all its glory. I still survived due to the burden for +3 ring. For this deck to work it also needs to invest heavily in site control...at which point it becomes hard to balance. Nice deck, but as its a bomb, it can be prepared for.
I don't think it needs a very heavy investment in site manipulation (which I assume is what you meant), since it can change sites using one of its minions. I've seen these bombs go off flawlessly and kill me in one turn, by playing everything they needed directly from their hand. They used two
Demoralized, and they held and played them both on the turn that they set the bomb off, so I had no chance to discard them. I think the two best ways to beat these, are to either recycle
A New Light to get that
Mountain-troll out of his hand, or (in a pinch) just exhaust all of your guys before he sets the bomb off. If you time it right, he'll have already discarded most of his minions, and with all of your guys exhausted, he has no means to generate twilight to get them back again.
Warg Super Swarm: 4.5
Really tough shadow to go up against, whatever you play. The added dynamics that the wargs give for race hate is nice too.
These tend to not cause me too much trouble, thanks to
Throne of Minas Tirith. By the time they're done doing their thing, all the minions are usually exhausted, so I can just kill them with the Throne. The one tricky bit is their ability to exert to discard conditions in Shadow. For me, I try to get some tokens up on
Storied Homestead asap to stop this.
Orc Direct Wounding: 3
Hurts...but basic site manipulation can make quick work of them if you have a strong base strength fellowship.
Also
Stewards Legacy with Faramir or Boromir, and Thorondir.
Demoralized Rapid Reloading: 2.5
There's a difference between a Rainbow Swiss Army Knife shadow (which uses a large base pool of Gollum cards to pull magic bullet minions), and a combo deck. Combo decks where cultures mix are sometimes crappy in their draws.
I dunno, with this setup you only really need 4x
Rapid Reload, 4x Mouth of Sauron,
Messenger of Mordor, and the rest can be
Demoralized and
![[Orc]](https://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/Smileys/classic/orc.png "Orc")
stuff, most likely direct wounding Orcs.
Corsairs: 3.5
Just barely a 3.5 and not a 4...a beefed up fellowship can handle a fierce Castamir fatty no problem if he only exerts once or twice. The downside to their strength being enduring is that any kind of direct wounding in maneuver or archery will take them down . I'd like my strong minions to have enough vitality to fight, thank you very much.
The worst thing about these is
Corsair Marauder. The smart ones will also employ
Fierce in Despair to knock your fellowship down to nothing.
Southron Direct Wounding: 4
A little nastier than Corsairs and you have more control.
At least they don't take my possessions! For me at least, I can usually ultimately deal with these. The smart ones will sprinkle in
Shotgun Enquea.
Beasterlings: 4
These are strong and annoying, even if you are able to remove the burdens every turn. It's fairly easy for you to have a little threat control with the Raider culture, so using GOTM to remove burdens might prove troublesome for your opponent's fellowship.
As we already mentioned,
Easterling Pillager can be murder on a large fellowship.
Easterling Corsairs: 3
IMO these are better than Beasterlings, because they also take vital possessions, and recycle Pillager more effectively.
Skull Men Super Archery: 3.5
Strong lasting power, also a fair number of weaknesses. Decent.
Probably good against certain fellowships, but generally don't cause me too many problems.
Hard Core Site Control: 4
After playtesting this a little more, I'm convinced that this could be the fastest and most reliable form of site control in Expanded. When Gollum keeps bringing back either Southron Archer, White Hand Invader, or Gothmog (whichever you need), and ships of great draught can cycle your southron archers back in...this can deal out A LOT of wounds every site. It's biggest weakness is massive site liberation, so if for some reason you are up against a Rohan deck that incorporates a lot of that, you might have difficulty. However, often times I've been sitting there, site after site, with the possibility of controlling 3 or 4 sites, but I already have as many as I can have...I do think Hobbit Hospital could give this deck a run for its money, if he is using a Ring that can absorb archery.
Also I feel like a weakness could be the deck itself if your draws are unbalanced :/ At least ships helps a little to dump the southrons and get them back!
I think this as the potential to be very effective! Concentrate on those three minions from other cultures that really abuse those controlled sites, and I think you've got a winning deck. I don't even think Rohan can do much about it, because I think you can control sites so quickly, you'll be able to take advantage before they get a chance to liberate.
Wizard Conditions: 2.5
Fun to play, often strong. So many Expanded decks play Gandalf and these decks can really harass him. It is very weak to any condition control.
Bingo.
Uruk Hunters: 3.5
These can be tough...when they stick to simply fighting and don't rely on too many events or conditions they pack a big punch.
The two big advantages they have, is that they still work with
Greed (which I'm amazed I don't see more often), and that horrific event
Broken in Defeat, which spells a really bad day for big fellowships.
Assignment Uruks: 3
This gave me a chance to do a little research as it's the once deck out of these I've either never played or watched. Seems decent.
They're interesting! They didn't do to much to my deck, but I could see how they could be effective.
Besiegers: 3
I was between 3 and 3.5 for this one. I went with 3 just because I've had so many games where I've just walked right through them after discarding all of their conditions just twice. The deck is almost push-over if you keep them from using their conditions. A couple strength 16 Trolls that are fierce are not really a big deal if you have any kind of decent fellowship.
Of course the smart ones stock up on
Dead Marshes.
Tracker Orcs: 3.5
Their use of direct wounding is often brutal in Expanded when splashed with a little bit of site manipulation. If you can keep the wounds either on people, or keep them exerting/getting wounded, your Hates will pack way more punch than they ever did FotR through Movie block.
Yep. Before I started using
Wise Guide, these guys caused me LOTS of trouble. The smart ones would also employ
A Host Avails Little. Thank goodness for
Wise Guide!
Sauron Discard: 2
In my experience you can usually outrun these before they get you too low. Especially in Expanded...these decks are usually large...
They can be effective against smaller (i.e. normal sized) decks, which don't leave much margin for error in their strategy. But for the big swinging decks like mine, it just improves my cycling!
Orc Bowmen Direct Wounding: 2
Competitive in maybe FotR - TS...I don't think this can hold up at all in Expanded. Simple condition control cleans their clock.
It all depends on how quick I get that condition bomb, or whether I can keep
Mithlond cycling enough to keep me healthy.
I'm glad I went through and did this...it's motivating me to play-test my original ideas as well as develop some other ones I haven't listed yet here.
Excellent, looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
I'm going to be out of town for about a week, and will only have access via my ipad, so updates to Post #1 will probably not happen until I'm back. I'll still be reading and responding though!
Topic: Expanded Meta (Top Tier and/or Commonly Seen Deck Strategies) (Read 41390 times)