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Author Topic: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited  (Read 9765 times)

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December 03, 2014, 04:40:28 AM
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Shelobplayer

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Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« on: December 03, 2014, 04:40:28 AM »
Figured I post this list since I haven't seen a version quite like this before.

BOGS builds were always the ones required the most tricky plays to deal with in my opinion for two reasons: the most commonly used silver bullets were almost all completely ineffective against them and simply overpowering them in the first 2 regions were almost impossible due to their choking capabilities and highly efficient sitepath control. Their weakness always lied in the last region where the choking was not enough anymore. This list tries to fix that weakness:

Ring-bearer: Smeagol, Bearer of Great Secrets
Ring: The One Ring, The Ring of Doom

Adventure deck:
Anduin Banks
Buckland Homestead
Anduin Confluence
Steward's Tomb
Mithlond
Fords of Isen
The Prancing Pony
Dammed Gate-stream
Imladris

Free Peoples Draw Deck: (starting fellowship marked with *)
1x Quickbeam, Bregalad*
4x Faramir, Son of Denethor
1x Gamling, Defender of the Hornburg*
1x Merry, In the Bloom of Health*
1x Pippin, In the Bloom of Health*
1x Armor
1x Flaming Brand
1x Gondorian Blade
1x Great Shield
1x Erkenbrand's Horn
1x Clever Hobbits
4x Naked Waste
3x Nasty
4x Not Listening
2x One Good Turn Deserves Another
4x Something Slimy
4x Still Far Ahead
1x Watch and Wait
1x Follow Smeagol
1x Gladden Homestead
4x Nice Fish
1x Safe Passage
4x There's Another Way
1x Stewards' Legacy
1x New Chapter
1x Alatar, Final Envoy
1x Gwaihir, The Windlord
1x Meneldor, Misty Mountain Eagle
1x Pallando, Far-travelling One
1x Radagast, Tender of Beasts
2x Deagol, Fateful Finder
1x Elendil's Army
1x Faramir's Company
1x Gondorian Servant, Denethor's Handman
1x Rohirrim Doorwarden

Shadow Draw Deck:
1x Gollum, Her Sneak
1x Gollum, Old Villain
1x Gollum, Skulker
1x Shelob, Her Ladyship
1x Grima, Chief Counselor
1x Grima, Servant of Another Master
1x Grima, Wormtongue
1x The Balrog, Demon of Might
1x Southron Leader
3x Morgul Squealer
3x The Witch-king, Morgul King
2x Úlairë Cantëa, Faster Than Winds
2x Úlairë Enquëa, Lieutenant of Morgul
1x Úlairë Enquëa, Sixth of the Nine Riders
3x Úlairë Lemenya, Eternally Threatening
4x Úlairë Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders
3x Úlairë Nertëa, Dark Horseman
1x Web
2x Ships of Great Draught
1x The Pale Blade, Sword of Flame
1x Winged Mount
3x Ring of Terror
4x Captured by the Ring
3x Sudden Strike
3x Too Great and Terrible
3x Evil-smelling Fens
1x Final Strike
1x Incited
4x Not Easily Avoided
3x Saruman, Servant of Sauron

Yeah, it's using New Chapter, if you are a hater I suggest you close this browser tab now. So on site one I do the loop to get the followers out, as usual. On early sites Quicbeam is a potent fighter and also a way to get Watch and Wait on Faramir  if needed as soon as he arrives (by either just drawing him or pulling with the Pony). Gamling can pull Armor, Flaming Brand and Great shield for Faramir, ideally all 3 before he gets ditched for Smeagol's penalty, making us more resilient to specific strategies and also fueling Rohirrim Doorwarden. I'm playing a full set of Not Easily Avoided in the shadow side to further improve consistency, remember, they can be used to fetch both FP and shadow cards. Also using a single copy of Incited (fetched by Sudden Strike or Not Easily Avoided when required) for recursion. Fords of Isen is the best possible site one can get for site 9, also that's where Gondorian Servant and Radagast become essentially free +5 resistance allowing Smeagol to endure ridiculous amounts of punishment.

I'm not set on the ring choice and the adventure deck yet. There are arguments for both Ring of Doom and The Great Ring, and the adventure deck may need Cavern Entrance instead of Steward's Tomb as well as Mount Doom instead of Prancing Pony, but I'd need to play more games with this list to decide.

The fellowship is amazing against shadow sides like the ones I'm using, made to attack the metagame, as it is very hard to find an angle of attack against it with them, however it can be vulnerable to very simple stuff like Hate, Easterling Captain or archery.

Two fairly simple concepts fused together, yet I haven't seen anyone using a list like this in my 13 years of playing this game. Haters gonna hate.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2014, 05:01:16 AM by Shelobplayer »

December 03, 2014, 11:33:20 AM
Reply #1

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2014, 11:33:20 AM »
Yeah, it's using New Chapter, if you are a hater I suggest you close this browser tab now. So on site one I do the loop to get the followers out, as usual.

I am a bit of a hater. My hate had dissipated somewhat once I figured out how to beat most Horn Decks (generally a combination of archery and other cards will get the job done)... but against this incarnation, nothing I've done seems effective, so I'm back to feeling that the Horn Filter is in general not fair play.

I'm not set on the ring choice and the adventure deck yet. There are arguments for both Ring of Doom and The Great Ring, and the adventure deck may need Cavern Entrance instead of Steward's Tomb as well as Mount Doom instead of Prancing Pony, but I'd need to play more games with this list to decide.

If you don't run Prancing Pony, how do you get Faramir? Just draw him?

The fellowship is amazing against shadow sides like the ones I'm using, made to attack the metagame, as it is very hard to find an angle of attack against it with them,

Indeed it is! The best thing I've been able to think of is Southron Leader, which if set up properly can kill Faramir in one go if Stewards' Legacy isn't out. But since you're aware that I use him, you either just don't play out 4 cultures, or are quick to get rid of the extra cultures as soon as you can. It might be that my only recourse is to play NO minions at all until I am perfectly set up to kill Faramir, but that's more likely to clog my hand big-time. Still, it seems like playing no minions is the only way to assure that 4 cultures are still on the table by the time I'm ready to play Southron Leader.

...unless, like I said, you simply use your pre-knowledge of what's in my deck to decide not to play out Rohirrim Doorwarden, which again I don't view as fair play.

however it can be vulnerable to very simple stuff like Hate, Easterling Captain or archery.

I can see Hate getting the job done (which is not compatible with my deck), but I don't see what Easterling Captain can do against you, since Faramir prevents his ability.

Haters gonna hate.

Hate hate hate! :)

I'll hate on it until I see a way of having a decent chance at beating it.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2014, 11:37:53 AM by sgtdraino »
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 03, 2014, 02:26:39 PM
Reply #2

Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2014, 02:26:39 PM »
I am a bit of a hater. My hate had dissipated somewhat once I figured out how to beat most Horn Decks (generally a combination of archery and other cards will get the job done)... but against this incarnation, nothing I've done seems effective, so I'm back to feeling that the Horn Filter is in general not fair play.

Funny. I'm pretty sure I've never lost a single game against horn filter on GEMP. Calling a deck unfair in this format is nonsense in my opinion, it's more like rock-paper-scissors: for example I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to win a game against a properly built corsair deck or Orkish Scout with this as they don't care about choke much. I played 16 games with this and my losses are against Easterling Captain (site 2 twiligt flood is fatal against them as I don't have faramir yet),  [Men] archery and Hate. All these shadows are easily roflstomped by Madril or Powerful Guide, the two most common power fellowships of expanded. I also bet that my old movie block uruk swarm would kill this freeps on site 7 consistently (I did see someone actually using it on gemp recently).

You say horn is not fair game based on one single matchup. I highly disagree, just try a different shadow and you'll see.

December 03, 2014, 03:12:13 PM
Reply #3

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2014, 03:12:13 PM »
Funny. I'm pretty sure I've never lost a single game against horn filter on GEMP. Calling a deck unfair in this format is nonsense in my opinion,

The unfairness is primarily due to the filter aspect. I'd previously discounted it, because like you, I've rarely lost to horn decks because the fellowship side tends to have weaknesses. I feel like you've significantly reduced those weaknesses with your current setup.

for example I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to win a game against a properly built corsair deck or Orkish Scout with this as they don't care about choke much.

It is still difficult for me to fathom an Orkish Scout kill, considering how strong your guys can get with the followers, in addition to the various tricks Smeagol can do. Corsairs are mostly weak, and generally only generate twilight on the double. I guess maybe they could eventually get out 4x Black Sails and then get out 4+ guys, but again I'm not convinced this would be enough to swarm you with the Follower backup, and no skirmish events or abilities against Faramir.

I played 16 games with this and my losses are against Easterling Captain (site 2 twiligt flood is fatal against them as I don't have faramir yet), 

I still don't get this. Site 2 twilight flood gets you an enormous Easterling Captain, but so what? Just kill off two meat shields. It seems to me that after the first couple of moves, everyone is expendable except for Faramir.

[Men] archery and Hate.

I could see those being a problem potentially, but you're pretty good at cycling that Mithlond around. Still, the general point of a Horn Filter deck is to setup a Shadow kill anyway. All your Freeps have to do is live long enough for the Shadow to wipe out the opponent, and I think your Fellowship is pretty good at doing that, particularly if you decide to just single move the whole game.

I also bet that my old movie block uruk swarm would kill this freeps on site 7 consistently (I did see someone actually using it on gemp recently).

Can you remind me how it works? You're doing some pretty decent choking after the first few turns, as I recall.

You say horn is not fair game based on one single matchup.

I say the Horn Filter is not fair because it filters a significantly large number of Free Peoples cards out of your deck. That's always been the case with Horn Filters.
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 03, 2014, 10:06:48 PM
Reply #4

Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2014, 10:06:48 PM »
Any decent hate deck plays Isengard Ruinded + follower Saruman, cycling Mithlond won't save Faramir from that (Isengard Ruined in general ruins my deck, Hate is just icing on the cake).

Easterling Captain pumps any easterling not just himself, and on site 2 I'm weak.

My movie uruks used Ithil Stone and Cirith Ungol Sentinel with Uruk Regular as core for swarming backed up by Uruk Captain and Uruk Lieutenant and a couple of other cheap uruks with Gríma, Greed and Saruman's Power. I'm sure in exapnded a few [Uruk] culture minions would make a great fit too as Regular and Captain do not resrict you to [Isengard] uruks only.

You say Horn is unfair because of filtering, yet you say yourself that you have no problem beating other horn decks (which I might add filter way better than mine, since I only pull 10 followers compared to their 20+ with a 120 cards deck instead of a 60-70 cards one), and your problem is that you can't touch my FP side... so which one is it?

December 04, 2014, 05:24:57 AM
Reply #5

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2014, 05:24:57 AM »
Any decent hate deck plays Isengard Ruinded + follower Saruman, cycling Mithlond won't save Faramir from that (Isengard Ruined in general ruins my deck, Hate is just icing on the cake).

The times I've played you, most of the time you are the only one playing sites.

Easterling Captain pumps any easterling not just himself, and on site 2 I'm weak.

At site 2 you've got 5 guys and 10 followers. Captain really gets enough guys, burdens, and twilight to kill Smeagol?

How about this, can you post some links of games that you've lost? I'd like to see how it goes down.

You say Horn is unfair because of filtering, yet you say yourself that you have no problem beating other horn decks (which I might add filter way better than mine, since I only pull 10 followers compared to their 20+ with a 120 cards deck instead of a 60-70 cards one), and your problem is that you can't touch my FP side... so which one is it?

As I said before, the unfairness of a Horn Filter is normally mitigated by a weak Fellowship. This is not the case with your deck.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2014, 05:33:57 AM by sgtdraino »
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 04, 2014, 06:42:28 AM
Reply #6

Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2014, 06:42:28 AM »
Is there a way to get replay links for games if they are not showing anymore on the game history tab? If not I'm afraid I can't. Not playing this deck a whole lot for obvious reasons (that'd be ppl playing their movie/standard decks in expanded crying 24/7).

The unfairness of the filter aspect in my case is mitigated by filtering only 10% of my deck with the loop instead of the 50% of an actual horn filter list.

I'd say any shadow that has a game plan other than just playing hosers have a shot at killing my freeps. An easy and fairly popular example would be troll swarm: I give 10 twilight on a move in region 3, the opponent plays keyward + warg gets back 16 twilight plays 3 fierce dmg + 1 trolls. A lot of builds have a good shot against it, the only problem is that for a shadow to be viable in expanded it has to be viable against Madril and Powerful Guide (and Gil-Galad loops to some extent) which eventually leads to rock-paper-scissors state, which is usually the case in any competitive card game. Taking MTG for example as the most widely played and successful one: general consensus is that agro beats control, control beats combo and combo beats agro, and from that point the trick lies in understanding the metagame.

Overall this would only be the 3rd list I play that I'd take to a tournament where there is actually something at steak other than some virtual cards, because it can lose to random stuff. It has amazing consistency, yes, but it's extremely predictable and lacks both the raw power and the answers that any [Gandalf] splash build has. It gets autowin against some well tuned decks, but has sever disadvantage against a fair number of strategies that are simply stomped by Gandalf supported freeps (not to mention that it wouldn't even pass the LTTG test - which was actually a thing you had to respect back in GCCG times lol - ppl actually played Resolute Hobbit + Ring of Rings fairly often)

Don't get me wrong I see where you are comming from, I just highly disagree with anyone crying that this or that are broken and unfair in expanded. In my opinion a card or strategy can only be called broken if it wraps the format around it, like Lady Redeemed in movie (btw that card being the sole reason for me not playing that format anymore). When I was an active movie player the number of shadows I was playing were limited to a single one because of that card and that's not nearly the case with horn in expanded.

The only thing that puts this deck in a slightly better position that others in my opinion is that it technically guarantees that you survives to the 3rd region giving the shadow side more time to cripple/kill. That's the same as is the case with any BOGS build, only difference is that mine can actually win the race to 9 in addition of doing that.

Some people enjoy expanded playing casual games, I enjoy it the more cutthroat it is (which is the reason why I post my list, so others can copy them or take them as starting point). If I want to play casual I play multiplayer or highlander, which are unfortunately not availabe online anymore since GCCG shut down, but oh well.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2014, 06:50:41 AM by Shelobplayer »

December 04, 2014, 10:45:35 AM
Reply #7

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2014, 10:45:35 AM »
Is there a way to get replay links for games if they are not showing anymore on the game history tab? If not I'm afraid I can't.

Nope. I guess you'll just have to wait until you lose again.

The unfairness of the filter aspect in my case is mitigated by filtering only 10% of my deck with the loop instead of the 50% of an actual horn filter list.

First, the initial starting fellowship and subsequent loop filters 15% of your deck (30% of your FP cards), not 10%. In subsequent turns Gamling can pull 3 more possessions while Deagol gets your last possession, and your remaining 3x Something Slimy gets you another 3 conditions. You are running heavy site manipulation, so Prancing Pony will get you Faramir in short order. Then, as you have demonstrated yourself, you can use one of your 4x Not Easily Avoided from your Shadow side to filter out practically every remaining FP card as fast or as slow as you wish, including the afforementioned 3x Something Slimy you grab your conditions with. Not Easily Avoided is itself quickly accessed either by drawing it (4x), or pulling it out using 3x Sudden Strike. So, yes indeedy, you can filter 50% of your deck in just a few turns, you just do it slightly differently than a pure Horn Filter. The only cards you can't pull out of your draw deck, are the remaining 3x copies of Faramir.

Don't get me wrong I see where you are comming from, I just highly disagree with anyone crying that this or that are broken and unfair in expanded.

I wouldn't call it broken, because as you've pointed out it does have a tendency to lose to various random stuff. But I would call it unfair simply because of its massive filtering properties. I call pure Horn Filter decks unfair as well, even though it's been a long time since I've lost to one.

The only thing that puts this deck in a slightly better position that others in my opinion is that it technically guarantees that you survives to the 3rd region giving the shadow side more time to cripple/kill. That's the same as is the case with any BOGS build, only difference is that mine can actually win the race to 9 in addition of doing that.

And with those additions, I feel like it's crossed the line into the realm of an unfair advantage. Now, maybe this is just because it's new, and we just haven't figured out an effective counter-strategy yet. Time will tell. But for now, I see it as similar to what you said about GLR: There tends to be just a few shadow strategies that are effective against it, and the ones that are don't tend to be effective against many other top tier strategies.

But I do have a couple of ideas yet to try: The latest is Desert Warrior. I got to thinking about what you said regarding Faramir getting killed by Hate. Maybe I can set up a situation where Faramir is exhausted, play 2x Desert Warrior, and bingo they murder him. Thoughts?

Some people enjoy expanded playing casual games, I enjoy it the more cutthroat it is (which is the reason why I post my list, so others can copy them or take them as starting point).

To a degree, I'm the same way. I'm infamous for playing pretty much just one deck, one that is published here for all to see, and continually trying to improve it. I largely give up the element of surprise, because anyone who plays me will by-and-large know what's in my deck. The challenge for me is to win in spite of them having the advantage of knowing my deck, while their's is mostly an unknown quantity for me.
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 04, 2014, 12:54:38 PM
Reply #8

Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #8 on: December 04, 2014, 12:54:38 PM »
I think Desert Warrior is complete garbage against any other deck. Not sure how good it is against this list, and if your plan is to play two of them against a choke deck with a 100+ cards deck, you'll have to run just about a full set. Not to mention that 2x desert warrior costs 10 twilight to play and activate, hardly a threat tbh: one wound on Faramir, one on Sméagol, that's exactly the same as Gothmog after Great Shield, only 4 twilight more expensive.

December 04, 2014, 04:45:29 PM
Reply #9

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2014, 04:45:29 PM »
Yah, our latest game has convinced me. I think I'm better off just adding more copies of Southron Leader. If I could have simply gotten gollum at any point during our last game, I think I could have pulled it off.
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 06, 2014, 10:17:45 AM
Reply #10

sgtdraino

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2014, 10:17:45 AM »
I took a look at Orkish Dreg, not really that impressed. He's kind of expensive, you gotta spot another [Orc] guy to use him, and even if you can spot 4 FP cultures, that's still only two exertions. With your deck, I'm assuming as soon as you see him come out you'll ditch the Rohan Follower bringing you down to 3 cultures, so it would take 2 minions just to get one exertion on you.

For my own deck, I run exactly 4 cultures, so once again he gets 2 exertions from one of these guys. If I think that's going to be a real problem, I can get rid of Smeagol stuff, then (like you) he only get's one exertion. But really, I think the reason we don't see that guy much in general play, is that there tends to be other [Orc] guys that are much better and more dependable at exerting dudes, chief among them Rallying Orc and Pitiless Orc. Besides which, most of the time when I see a [Orc] deck centered on exerting guys, it's because it's running Demoralized swarm, in which case I just exhaust all my guys before they can, and voila, they have no twilight to do anything with, and their basic guys are too weak to kill me.
"I would have followed you, my brother... my captain... my king." - Boromir

December 06, 2014, 11:37:28 AM
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Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2014, 11:37:28 AM »
I'd not play [Orc] as a solo colture. Kind of the same as I don't play corsairs as mono [Raider] either. 2 Dreg can easily go into a deck with half decent cycling.

I'm trying to brew something new now with Orkish Camp and Gloin, Son of Groin (+ Gamling pulling him a Doorwarden on site 1), definitely gonna have 2-3 dregs there.

December 13, 2014, 04:07:59 AM
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Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2014, 04:07:59 AM »
posted in the wrong thread [facepalm]

EDIT: okay... since I already made a post here: I'm done with my league games, played 5 out of the 10 with this deck, and it's record is only 3-2, which doesn't sound all that format breaking (although I blame one loss on horrid draw - no Faramir till site 5 against ninja gollum). The other loss was against forest nazguls.

My other horn build on the other hand ended in 4-0. If I could start the league all over again, I'd only play that list, but I wanted to see if this one is as broken as Sgtdraino says.

The last game I played with my PG list and for some unknown reason I assigned Black Assassin to Gandalf and conceded...
« Last Edit: December 13, 2014, 08:03:30 AM by Shelobplayer »

September 17, 2015, 09:02:38 PM
Reply #13

Dan, The Man of Laketown

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #13 on: September 17, 2015, 09:02:38 PM »
Very interesting read from you two! I am curious however, which deck you won 4-0, the one you posted at the very beginning of this thread?:
My other horn build on the other hand ended in 4-0. If I could start the league all over again, I'd only play that list, but I wanted to see if this one is as broken as Sgtdraino says.

Thanks!

September 22, 2015, 10:57:03 AM
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Shelobplayer

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Re: Bearer of Great Secrets revisited
« Reply #14 on: September 22, 2015, 10:57:03 AM »
Very interesting read from you two! I am curious however, which deck you won 4-0, the one you posted at the very beginning of this thread?:
My other horn build on the other hand ended in 4-0. If I could start the league all over again, I'd only play that list, but I wanted to see if this one is as broken as Sgtdraino says.

Thanks!

Here it is:
http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,9085.0.html

The record of this one in league play is something like 15-1, would have to check, haven't been on GEMP in a while.