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| Pipeweed |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:21 pm |
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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 1010
Location: Earth (I think)
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--- description ---
Using some of the newer cards from The Hunters, this article will attempt to give a finer look at the Ninja Gollum strategy utilizing threats for massive wounding and exerting.
--- end description ---
“...swiftly but warily, creeping on behind, a slinking shadow among the stones.”
Ninja Gollum was once considered one of the most powerful Shadow sides to play, but since the rotation of Towers Block, quite a few players insist that Ninja Gollum is dead. But with the release of Hunters and the new cards upon us, we Ninja Gollum junkies have delved into a new strategy for Ninja Gollum based on threats.
The Differences:
The differences between the old and the new Ninja Gollum are very simple. The old Ninja Gollum revolved manly around discarding cards to They Stole It, to then wound with Promise Keeping. The new Ninja Gollum revolves around threats and exertions. Rather than discard cards, you add threats with cards like Fat One Wants It, and then exert Gollum and remove threats to wound companions.
What Ninja Gollum Can Do:
Some of you may be wondering how Ninja Gollum succeeds in being a shadow-kill deck well here are three things:
Wounding: This is the biggest one of all. Ninja Gollum since the dawn of its creation has focused on wounding the opponent’s fellowship to death, you choosing which companions die first. It’s funny to see the looks on some player’s faces when they see that your little 5 strength toad has just wiped out half their fellowship in one turn.
Corruption: This is not such a viable option with the rotation of Gollum, Stinker, but can still be very possible with cards like Gollum, Mad Thing and Heavy Burden. In this article we will not delve much into the corruption side of Ninja Gollum, but if you are playing expanded, it can be a great option with Gollum, Stinker.
Letting You Run: Ninja Gollum is very well paired with a fellowship that is made to run for site 9. The constant flow of wounds will slow your opponent’s fellowship down, even if you don’t kill very many companions. This will enable you to get two or three sites ahead and assure an easy victory.
Analyzing Our Cards:
As we analyze the cards to build our Ninja Gollum deck, we divide the cards into 4 groups:
 Minions
Events/Conditions
Possessions
Other Cards
Lets get started
Minions
Gollum, Dark as Darkness – A no-brainer. This is the first Gollum you should consider for any Ninja Gollum deck. His shadow ability is great. It is in fact possible to kill your opponent’s Ring-bearer in one turn using this little toad.
Gollum, Vile Creature – In the past he has been overlooked for Ninja Gollum decks, but with NG now relying more heavily on threats, his ability is great.
Gollum, Hopeless – A lot of people are using alternate Ring-bearers like Isildur and Gimli nowadays, and pumping them up to base strengths of 10-11 or more. That’s where this guy comes in. A ten strength minion with Not This Time! and Promise Keeping on the board is almost a dream come true.
Gollum, Mad Thing – Not as viable of an option for standard NG nowadays, but still useful. Hopeless is usually a better choice.
Shelob, Her Ladyship – We won’t even look at the other Shelobs, because it should be pretty obvious that this is the one to use. Goodbye Gil-galad, Elendil or Aragorn
Events/Conditions
Not This Time! – This is the card that replaced They Stole It, and it is one whopper of a card. Paired with Fat One Wants It, you have a nice little threat engine, and especially if you play Gollum back in the Shadow phase with Hidden Even From Her.
Promise Keeping – This is still a critical card for the Ninja Gollum strategy. Think about it: Exert Gollum twice, and remove two threats with Not This Time! to get 2 wounds on a companion, and Promise Keeping finishes them off. Perfect!
Incited – This is key for getting back events like Horribly Strong
Horribly Strong – One of my favorite Ninja Gollum cards. It’s even better if you play him back right away with Hidden Even From Her.
Captured By The Ring – This is so obvious that I won’t even say anything about it.
Little Snuffler – Ah! This is a nice card. Paired with Gollum, DaD’s ability, two of these can kill an alternate Ring-bearer on the first turn.
Sudden Strike – A great card from Hunters. If you aren’t drawing into Shelob, you can pull her from the deck, and then get a Web as well.
Unseen Foe – This is great for getting those extra and/or final wounds on tank companions.
Chasm’s Edge – Wow! Great card, especially with all the Ring-bound Hobbits people are playing nowadays. It also helps Gollum win skirmishes for those other wounds.
Fat One Wants It –This is a crucial part of your threat engine.
Plotting – This is good if you desperately need to kill some companions, but don’t pack too many of these, or you will clog your deck. Remember, you can always pull them back with Incited.
Hidden Even From Her – I like this card. Nuff said.
Possessions
Web – This is the only possession you’ll need, and you’ll only want one of them. It is only for emergencies, and you can pull it with Sudden Strike too.
Other Cards
Black Gate Sentry – A nice minion to splash in for more wounds, and notice, his ability wounds. It does not exert.
Mumak Commander, Giant Among the Swertings – A big minion that you will most likely only be playing in regions 2 or 3. Again, more wounds.
Building The Deck
Now we have analyzed our cards, and you may be thinking about cards like Enquea and Desert Lord, but remember, we are building this deck for Standard Format, so we do not want to add those. Let’s think about our deck.
We will want to add 1 copy of Gollum, Dark as Darkness and 1 of Gollum, Vile Creature, and one of Gollum, Hopeless. This gives us some options for many different decks we may be facing. We will add 3 Shelob, Her Ladyship. Only 3 though, and you will see why later.
For events/conditions, we will add 3 Not This Time! and 3 Promise Keeping for the first part of our wounding engine. Then we will add 3 copies of Fat One Wants It for added threats. 4 Captured By The Ring is a must, and we will want 3 copies of Little Snuffler too, because it is a great wounding card. For card recursion, we will add 2 copies of Incited and then add 2 Sudden Strike. This is the reason we only have 3 Shelobs. We can pull her with Sudden Strike too, and then get a Web and stack her. We will add 2 Unseen Foe because it is tech against tank fellowships, 2 Horribly Strong for more wounding, 2 Hidden Even From Her, 3 Chasm’s Edge, and 2 Plotting for more threats.
We will then add 1 Web for emergencies, and add 1 of each Black Gate Sentry and Mumak Commander, Giant among the Swertings. Let’s take a look at our deck now:
40
Minions
Gollum, Dark As Darkness
Gollum, Vile Creature
Gollum, Hopeless
Shelob, Her Ladyship x3
Mumak Commander, Giant among the Swertings
Black Gate Sentry
Events
Little Snuffler x3
Sudden Strike x2
Unseen Foe x2
Horribly Strong x2
Captured By The Ring x4
Conditions
Not This Time! x3
Promise Keeping x3
Plotting x2
Incited x2
Chasm’s Edge x3
Hidden Even From Her x2
Fat One Wants It x3
Possessions
Web
Our deck is a little big at the moment, let’s try to trim it down to 34 or 35 cards. We’ll begin by dropping one Fat One Wants It. It is a unique card, and we can use captured by the ring for threats until we draw into it. Let’s also drop our Mumak Commander, Giant among the swertings. He is a good minion, but he is expensive, and we have enough wounding cards already. Finally, let’s drop 1 Plotting,, and all of our Chasm’s Edge. The Plotting is only a one time thing really, and we will not be able to add that many threats with it, because of all the threats from Captured by the ring and fat one wants it. The Chasm’s Edge is nice, but it is not necessary. Now our deck looks like this:
34
Minions
Gollum, Dark As Darkness
Gollum, Vile Creature
Gollum, Hopeless
Shelob, Her Ladyship x3
Black Gate Sentry
Events
Little Snuffler x3
Sudden Strike x2
Unseen Foe x2
Horribly Strong x2
Captured By The Ring x4
Conditions
Not This Time! x3
Promise Keeping x3
Plotting x1
Incited x2
Hidden Even From Her x2
Fat One Wants It x2
Possessions
Web
Strategy:
Waiting is crucial in this deck. You are going to want to wait to play Gollum until you are set up a little bit, otherwise he will just get killed and not have much to show for it. I usually wait until I have at least 1 of my conditions out, and a event in my hand. After that, it is pretty easy.
You will be adding a lot of threats with Fat one wants it and captured by the ring. Do not be afraid to use those threats with Gollum, Vile Creature. You will be generating more. Be careful about the use of your Unseen Foe. If it looks like your opponent has more to build up with, save it for a turn or two and then drop a bomb.
A good NG bomb for me usually looks something like this:
Not This Time!
Promise Keeping
Shelob, Her Ladyship
Gollum, Dark as Darkness
Fat One Wants It
Little Snuffler
Incited
4-5 threats
With that on the table, there’s not much that your opponent can do. Just be patient with your cards, and remember that you can bring a lot of them back with Incited. Hidden Even From Her is great no matter how you look at it. It makes Gollum fierce, and lets you play him back if your opponent balloons up to 6 or more companions.
Ideal Sites:
Neekerbreekers’ Bog
Mere of Dead Faces
Anduin Banks
Weaknesses:
Ninja Gollum is not without its weaknesses. Here they are:
Condition Discarding: This is the biggest of all. If your opponent plays a Grown Suddenly Tall (in expanded) then you are done for. You might be able to barely survive if you have an Incited or two in your deck, but that is about it.
Shadow Phase Wounding: Cards like Shadowplay + Unheeded hurt bad, because they are both response actions essentially, and you don’t have time to play Gollum back.
Skirmish Cancelling: This is a classic way, but not as effective now with the newer sites. Cancelling skirmishes used to hurt NG real bad sometimes though.
Massive Healing: Massive healing is one thing that NG hates. It means that you will never be able to kill a companion without really having to get rid of all your threats to do it.
Well, I hope that this was an informative sequel/article and feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers,
Pipeweed |
Last edited by Pipeweed on Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:35 pm; edited 14 times in totalPipeweed's Haves/Wants: 100 NEW RARES!!
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Cycle Engine
Joe Meets God: A Humorous Article on a Budget
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| PorterTroll |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:44 pm |
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Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 1193
Location: not sure yet
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grrrr....i hate shelob her ladyship! my friend is always using it so my strength 18 damage +2 Durin III cant skirmish! 
i advise you not to ’drop’ mumak commander, giant among the swertings, instead drop black gate sentry. against an archery deck, the sentry wont be of any use anyway, but with the mumak commander, you can still get in some wounding before the archery kills him. also, its only 1 twilight more for it, and the mumak commander has a higher strength as well.
i am very pleased that you could make a good ninja gollum deck for standard format! this is very impressive, maybe ninja gollum isn’t dead after all...............but even so, these new standard ninja gollum decks aren’t nearly as good as the old ones. very nice article, it had great format and was very informative, ill wait to vote though. |
Last edited by PorterTroll on Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:52 pm; edited 2 times in total"Don't be a Douche, Stop Piracy!"~Tenacious D
"One of my movies was called "True Lies." It's what the Democrats should have called their convention."~Arnold Schwarzenegger |
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| Pipeweed |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 1:45 pm |
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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 1010
Location: Earth (I think)
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 2:22 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 3361
Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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Good job! I love this article! I’m not so sure I like smilies in a strategy article, but it’s very fun and informative to read. I also like the fact that you started with an "ideal" 40-card deck, and then trimmed it down to 34 cards. 5! |
| "ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm) |
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| SnowBalrog |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:11 pm |
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Joined: 26 Sep 2005
Posts: 63
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
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I think you did a great job on this article.. it covers the bases, and gives a decklist.. My main complaint is that you beat me to it!  I would like to suggest Treacherous Little Toad to help make those wounds stick. Also in terms of Threat adding, Cantea, FtW and Ulaire Lemenya, Eternally Threatening are good splash minions. Granted it’s hard to find room, but just something else to mention. 5 and a Gold Piece! |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:28 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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| overall a good article smilies did seem a little out of place my main quibble si thta it just seemed liked you picked cards and put them in a deck but it is not major so you will definitly get a 4 |
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| Pipeweed |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:28 pm |
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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:34 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
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Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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You mean Treacherous Little Toad, don’t you?  |
| "ok, change of plans. the Cobracards christmas party is coming to my house, and we’re gunna teach FM how to hunt." (mm) |
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| Pipeweed |
![]() Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:35 pm |
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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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| elf lvr |
![]() Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:25 am |
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 3065
Location: Rivendell
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| glad you posted the weaknesses also. very well-written, explanatory, it explained the basics and went into different strategies, i just loved it. a 5 from me. |
Happy Hunting! Elf Lvr
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