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Celebrimbor

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:28 pm

Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 953 Location: UNKNOWN

--- description ---
Serious Minion-Stopping Power Utilizing Aragorn, Gandalf, Smeagol...
--- end description ---

First Things First
This is my first deck posted on CC, obviously my first one in the strategy contest. I hope it does okay. Please read it through, review it, and give it a rating!

What does it do?
The main focus in this build is to either make minions useless, or prevent them from doing anything, utilizing the Shadowplay/Unheeded combo, and an arsenal of killer companions. It really excels at this, and has very few weaknesses. I chose to pair it with Forest Nazgûl, because the Freeps and the Shadow both take advantage of the Forest sites.

Adventure Path
0 Buckland Homestead
0 The Angle
0 Woody End
1 Neekerbreekers Bog
1 Hill of Sight
2 Caras Galadhon
3 Dammed Gate-Stream
3 Crossroads of the Fallen Kings
3 Trollshaw Forest

Ring-Bearer
Frodo, Protected by Many
The One Ring, The Ring of Doom

Free Peoples draw deck (33)
Companions -8
1 Aragorn, Strider Starting
1 Faramir, Captain of Gondor Starting
1 Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver Starting
1 Smeagol, Always Helps Starting
2 Gandalf, Manager of Wizards
1 Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien
1 Rohirrim Guard
1 Merry, Swordthain

Possessions (4)
Faramir’s Sword
Faramir’s Bow
Ranger’s Sword
Aragorn’s Bow

Events (4)
4 Unheeded

Conditions (16)
2 Birthday Present
1 Brooding On Tomorrow
1 Citadel of the Stars
1 Don’t Look at Them
1 Fell Deeds Awake
1 Follow Smeagol
2 Hardy Garrison
1 Light in his Mind
4 Shadowplay
2 Home and Hearth

Shadow

Minions (19)
3 The Witch-King, Captain of the Nine Riders
3 Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow
3 Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders
1 Ulaire Lemenya, Assailing Minion
1 Ulaire Attea, Second of the Nine Riders
2 Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul
1 Ulaire Otsea, Thrall of The One
1 Ulaire Cantea, Thrall of The One
1 Ulaire Cantea, Black Assassin
1 Ulaire Nertea, Thrall of The One
2 Black Rider

Possessions (2)
2 The Pale Blade, Sword of Flame

Events (3)
3 Dark Approach

Conditions (9)
4 Lost in the Woods
2 Sauron’s Gaze
2 Hatred Stirred
1 Flung Into the Fray

Strategy

Bid your preference, I usually do around 4-5. You want to go first, start Dammed Gate-Stream, pull Follow Smeagol, and then control the path. If they are playing knights, RBRs I just go second, play Neekerbreeker’s Bog or Buckland Homestead and keep recycling it with Nelya.

Use Toldea, Black Shadow’s ability to recycle Dark, and once again, I use Ulaire Nelya,third of the nine Riders to replace key sites, depending on what freeps your opponenet is playing.

Once I have a good set-up, the nazgul should be winning almost every skirmish, lost in the Woods, Sauron’s gaze help. I try to save at least one Lost in the woods for the Ring-Bearer, as bombs are easy to set up, forcing him to skirmish.

The Freeps side is awesome. I play with it all the time, and enjoy watching their shadow side crumble. Its main focus is to stop or make minions useless before they can do anything. Smeagol, Always Helps’ assignment ability + Unheeded is death to almost any minion. I add burdens w/birthday present to pull back Unheededs, then remove the burdens with Home and Hearth when I replay Merry & Pippin.

Frodo, Protected by Many - I like muster, because it provides a way to lose initiative.I can also lose initiative if four cards are in hand during reconcile. Losing initiative is like, the center of this build, as it kills minions with Hardy Garrison, removes burdens with A Light In His Mind and discards conditions with Brooding on Tomorrow.

2x Gandalf, Manager of Wizards - Yet another way to lose initiative. Use him with Brooding on Tomorrow to get rid of his conditions.

Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien: Perfect for this build, with all the wounds/exertions flying around.

Rohirrim Guard - He really fits the deck, I can discard cards from hand when he’s not skirmishing to lose initiative. Discard cards from hand to exert the minion then lose initiative, wound the minion. Note that if you are holding four cards and use this guy’s text you lose initiative BEFORE the exertion happens, then can respond to the exertion, and kill him off.

Faramir’s Sword - I find this card works wonders vs. Forest Nazgul, And means Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver will return to hand every turn.

Shadowplay and Unheeded - The Base of the deck.

Some example Matchups:

Dunland

One of only a couple difficult matchups. Dunland

Minions generally have only one vitality, which stinks and I can’t exert them with Shadowplay. If I set up right, Fell deeds awake or Citadel of the Stars should hurt them good.
Card I hate: Hides.

Gollum

any type of ninja gollum - Not hard. Too many cards in this deck that hurt the little toad and his ladyship.
Cards I hate: Shelob, her ladyship(messes up assignment), Sweeter Meats.

Raider

Corsairs - the easiest matchup in the world. I kill corsair marauder before he uses his ability, and can exhaust Castamir before he can place tokens. If they run Corsair War Galley, as soon as the first [raider]man comes into play, I lose initiative wound it with hardy garrison, and finish ’em off with a Shadowplay+Unheeded.
Southron archery - The only other difficult matchup. All of my key companions get exhausted, making it really tough.
Cards I hate: War Towers, it adds lots of threats, makes Smeagol’s assignment action useless.

Wraith

Morcs - This is just pure fun. I kill Morgul Brute and Morgul Destroyer before they add threats and burdens, and the bigger minions like Enquea, or Regiment get crunched with Don’t Look at Them.
Forest Nazgûl - Very uncomplicated to play against. Forest sites beef up Faramir with his sword, and pippin is good. I exhaust Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow, and Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders before they can do anything, and it is almost impossible to stop a cool waltz to site nine.
Cards I hate: Buckland Homestead, Morgul Regiment.

Sauron

Roaming Sauron - I love playing against these guys. Faramir and Pip become extremely powerful, and Brooding On Tomorrow obliterates Rank and File.
Sauron Discard - Not very chancey I’d be playing this type of build. But running Frodo, Courteous Halfling would be entirely worth switching.
Cards I hate: Speak no more to me, Orc Ravager.

Uruk-hai

Relatively easy. Any Uruk bomb will crumble against this build, with shadowplay targeting Uruk Captain, Uruk Regular, etc. As far as sight control goes, it just won’t work once I get Fell Deeds Awake out in play.
Cards I hate: Saruman’s Power, Invincible Uruk.

Orc

Lurker Swarm - Almost any type of swarm is easy to deal with. I kill Rallying Orc during the shadow, he can’t make me exert my companions. In addition, his conditions such as Goblin Hordes, and Demoralized are easy to get rid of.
[ork]Trolls - this is really easy. Troll’s Keyward becomes exertion fodder, and since this strategy does not add much threats, so Sméagol becomes a monster.

Men

I haven’t yet played a build like this. But I do know I can completely shut down Bill Ferny, and kill key minions off before they take advantage of the huge amount of twilight I give them and get pumped to huge amounts.

Last edited by Celebrimbor on Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:55 pm; edited 1 time in total

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:39 pm

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

ow this deck KILLS sweet people will probably complain about this being an decklist without an article. but this was good

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

(mm)"SoP: you will always be the Official CC Spammer in my heart"
"DáinIronfoot"
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. Razz

elf lvr

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:45 pm

Joined: 13 Jun 2006 Posts: 3065 Location: Rivendell

Select the "disable smilies in this post" feature to get rid of the Cool

.

Use [ gondor ] if you really want to include the culture, without the spaces in the brackets.

That being said, pretty nice job, for a first article. A nice deck, with an explaination of strategy and the cards and combos you find crucial. It’s clear you put at least some effort into this.

A small note, I’m not sure if having four cards in hand, then discarding one in reconciling, counts as losing initiative, but I’m not sure about that. Find Bib or M_H to clear that up. However, with Gandalf, MoW in there, losing initiative won’t be hard, and you can make some minions weaker in the process.

I love path control, it is soooo much fun, and you make good use of it. If you’re going to use that smeagol, though, I suggest running some ways to remove threats. Nine-Fingered Frodo and The Ring of Doom could be a good way to do this, since you return your hobbits to hand (and thus heal them) some turns. Another copy of folow smeagol would be good, esp. since your opponent might be running path control too, or if it gets discarded.

Unless site control is major in your meta, I suggest dropping fell deeds awake, citadel of the stars, and perhaps ranger’s sword (your strategy is simply wounding, after all) to put in Follow Smeagol x1, and NFFatRoD x2. You probably also don’t need Rohirrim guard to lose initiative, but I can definately see where the exertions would help...

I think corsairs could be a harder match then you give them credit for, but then again I’ve never used this style of deck.

Men

Archery would probably be another tough matchup, archers with low vitality, no exertions... could be problematic.

All in all, I like it. The strategy seems a little concise, to me, but hey, it does explain the deck well. I’ll probably give it a 3 or 4.

Happy Hunting! Elf Lvr
Winner of Best Personality in the FPCA. Thanks!
Archduke Elf Lvr - Archidoux of the Chosen Ones
AMV Maker In-Training! Check out my newest production, Katsu!- A Diedara Tribute!
And behold, EL declared it good. And there was morning, and there was evening, the first (new) day. ~ DainIronfoot

Celebrimbor

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 10:46 pm

Joined: 12 Sep 2006 Posts: 953 Location: UNKNOWN

Thanks for the tips, EL.

Dropping Ranger’s sword could be a good idea, as I should go more towards direct wounding/exertions...

As for the Nine-fingereds, I don’t think i need much threat removal, because I like to save the hobbit’s vitality for Shadowplay/Unheeded, just not to necessary.

And also another copy of Follow Smea isn’t needed, as i can pull it with dammed gate-stream. If I go second, I’d be playing on my sites, anyway.

Thanks for the advice!

sickofpalantirs

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:40 am

Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 7750 Location: somwhere, over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

oh a couple something slimy might be a good idea you have a lot of conditions.

Sop's haves/ top wants Exclamation

Glamdring

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:43 pm

Joined: 13 Oct 2006 Posts: 575 Location:

Great deck!! I really enjoyed reading it!

Thanks. I’ll give you a 5 Cool

Pipeweed

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:53 pm

Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 1010 Location: Earth (I think)