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| Finlans |
![]() Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:30 am |
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
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--- description ---
The article discusses the idea of using Saved From the Fire to burn Smeagol to pump your shadow side. Included is a sample decklist.
--- end description ---
What was everybody’s all-time favourite character in the LOTR films? That’s right, good old Gollum! The thing that makes this culture unique is: both the shadow and free peoples’ cards belong to the same culture. Common knowledge is that this means that you can retrieve Smeagol’s toys like Follow Smeagol with Incited when your shadow side wins skirmishes and Gollum is lurking around. Very nice. In this article I will focus on a less used strategy – burning Smeagol with Saved From the Fire to set up you ninja Gollum shadow.
With the coming of Pallando, one of the istari, we have seen the decline in usefulness of condition based shadows. Especially ninja Gollum has taken a hit since it requires a combo of conditions to work properly. Often Pallando hinders the set up of the combo so badly that it never gets to develop into its potential. So why wait for the cards to come up when you could just take what you need now and kill the bearer of Pallando?
The basic build for this strategy would be to have a standard ent deck. That being, standard with just one extra card: a Smeagol of your choice in the starting fellowship. With shadow, one can use any ninja Gollum deck type, but because of the special trick, fewer copies of key conditions can be used.
Here is a sample deck for illustration purposes:
(there are countless variations of ninja Gollum so use a variation that suits your meta best. Also, please note that this deck is offline standard, so I did not include any hunters cards or exclude cards that are from the TT block)
Site Path
Buckland Homestead (0)
Crags of Emyn Muil (0)
Courtyard Parapet (0)
Neekerbreeker’s Bog (1)
Ettenmoors (1)
Pelennor flat (1)
City of Kings (3)
Heights of Isengard (3)
Pinnacle of Zirakzigil (3)
Shadow
Minions
1 x Gollum, Stinker
1 x Gollum, Mad Thing
1 x Gollum, Vile Creature
3 x Shelob, Her Ladyship
2 x Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders
2 x The Witch King, Black Lord
Conditions
2 x Incited
2 x They Stole It
2 x Promise Keeping
1 x Fat one Wants It
1 x Hidden Even From Her
Possessions
2 x Web
Events
2 x You’re a Liar and a Thief
1 x Nasty, Foul Hobbitses
2 x We Must Have It
1 x Horribly Strong
3 x Captured by the Ring
3 x Hobbitses are dead
Total 32 cards
Free peoples
Frodo, protected by many
The One Ring, Such a Weight to Carry
Companions
1 x Gandalf, leader of men (start)
1 x Forest guardian (start)
1 x Smeagol, Slinker (start)
1 x Gandalf, Leader of the Company
1 x Treebeard, Keeper of the Watchwood
1 x Skinbark, Fladrif
1 x Radagast, the Brown
2 x Erland, Dale Counselor
Conditions
4 x Strange Meeting
1 x Sent Back
1 x Watch and Wait
1 x Traveller’s Homestead
Possessions
1 x Sting, Baggings Heirloom
1 x Glamdring, Foe Hammer
Followers
2 x Pallando, Far-traveling One
1 x Alatar, Final Envoy
Events
4 x Saved From the Fire
1 x Out of High Airs
1 x Borne Far Away
3 x Flame of Anor
2 x Look to my Coming
Adjust deck list according to your meta (add Roll of Thunder if they like corsairs, Jarnsmid if they will try to corrupt you etc.)
I will write only shortly about how to play this particular deck as the article is about the overall strategy of using saved from the fire to pull Gollum cards. Use the shadow accordingly, manipulate sites to trigger neekerbreekers bog don’t play minions if playing them doesn’t benefit the situation etc.
Strategy for this deck type goes as follows: Bid to go 2nd. Once you get your first saved from to fire evaluate the situation: which of your side needs more support now, the FP or the shadow? If you can survive with the FP for a little while more, burn poor Smeagol and get the cards you still need for your combo (the combo being: they stole it, promise keeping, incited, You’re a Liar and a Thief) or supplement it with fat one wants it, web or even a pump. If your FP is suffering, burn Forest guardian or Gandalf and get 2 cards plus another saved from the fire to burn Smeagol next turn.
If you are not dying, obtain Borne Far away with saved from the fire as quickly as you can, replace one of the Erland cards with the dead Smeagol, and play and burn Smeagol again with another Saved. It is even possible to never burn Smeagol, in that case he’s just an extra companion.
When you play keep in mind that ninja Gollum needs a fast early card cycling. Especially this build as your goal is to cripple them by site 6. So do not save up too many of those Gandalf events. 2 Copies of Erland are included to ensure you get one early. You can always get events back with Erland once the shadow is properly set up.
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| Last edited by Finlans on Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:31 pm |
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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.
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| Humm interesting idea and I never thought fo it you get a 4 |
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| ingold55 |
![]() Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:15 pm |
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
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Location: Out on the front line
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one thing to point out...Quote: What was is everybody’s all-time favourite character in the LOTR films?
you either need to drop the is, drop the was, or add a / between the was and is. so it would look something like this. Was/is or yet another idea is to add "and still is".
i liked the article.  |
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| Finlans |
![]() Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:01 am |
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
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| Thanks for the comments. Edited! |
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:24 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 3361
Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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| Very good use of the Gollum/Smeagol duality with Saved From the Fire. It’s one of those wonderful all-purpose cards that fits in anywhere, although this is the best use so far that I know of for it. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 2:18 am |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Saved From the Fire + Ninja Gollum is definitely killer. Good article too.  |
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| GondorianDotCom |
![]() Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 12:19 pm |
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Joined: 03 May 2006
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Nice article.
On Your Doorstep is another card that can be used on your Free People’s turn to set up your Shadow turn. Exert Smeagol and place any Gollum culture card from discard on top of your draw deck. I tried this in my Gandalf ringbearer with Gollum shadow deck and it can work quite well, dependent on how long you plan to keep the poor wretch alive. |
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| Finlans |
![]() Posted: Thu May 04, 2006 2:29 am |
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Joined: 23 Feb 2006
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Quote: On Your Doorstep is another card that can be used on your Free People’s turn to set up your Shadow turn.
That’s right. If you plan on using smeagol as a key character in your FP it’s better than saved from the fire. 
But if you want to set up fast, saved from the fire is better as you usually use 4 copies of it and thus can usually get it out on your 1st or 2nd move. Also some rarely used version of smeagol can be used to set up the gollum shadow. One smeagol let’s you discard itself to get a minion to hand from discard. Then you can use the frodo that adds a burden to play smeagol from discard. That combo rarely sees play... |
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| sperzdechly |
![]() Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 3:37 pm |
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Joined: 05 May 2006
Posts: 131
Location: Warsaw (Poland)
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| Interesting topic, well written article. Intriguing...I like it! |
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| AdultLink |
![]() Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 11:42 am |
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Joined: 15 Dec 2005
Posts: 253
Location: Hyrule
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| Nice article Finlas! Well done. It wasn’t as fresh as I would have liked, but the saved from the fire design with Gollum seems to have been talked about for a long time now. A little more meat to the strategy would have been a little better too, otherwise it looks like an article that came from the Decklist section of the forum. Great job though! |
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