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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:58 am |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
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Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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--- description ---
Moria Swarm...is there anything that can update it? As it turns out, the answer lies in a small slimy dude and his nasty eight-legged friend...
--- end description ---
If you know me, you know my favorite old-school culture was  . And when Decipher rotated it out after one block, well, that wasn’t a very popular action. Result? The good ol’ swarm was upstaged by decks such as Corsair Bomb, Dunland Beatdown and Evil Man Archery. Why? Excepting Host of Moria, Legion of the Underdeeps, no new cards came out for this culture, and then it was assimilated into the  culture. So if you still want to play it, you’ll find that your options are relatively limited. And while the swarm is still a nice decktype, it doesn’t float in the world of Durin III, Dwarven Lord and the Ents. Something needs to happen to freshen it up. Something big...and a little unusual...
I’m going to go on what appears to be something of a tangent here-you’ll see what this has to do with soon. Anyway, it’s all about Shelob, Her Ladyship. Most awesome ability ever created for the Shadow. You play Gollum, you play Shelob, Her Ladyship. Bam! There’s one companion disabled until the regroup phase! Durin III pummeling your Gollum into the dust? Shelob, Her Ladyship! Faramir, son of Denethor rendering Not This Time! useless? Shelob, Her Ladyship! It’s almost like the Swiss Army Knife of the minions! And it is here that we find our solution to the swarm problem-too many companions? Use Shelob, Her Ladyship to effectively cut the number by one! If you have a Gollum, a Shelob, a Goblin Runner and 2x Goblin Backstabber out, you can actually swarm a 5-companion fellowship by neutralizing one of the companions. And if the Ring-bearer still survives, you have an enduring fierce minion to wipe up the map.
There’s also some other nice features about  that fit right into the swarm. The first one: recursion. Gollum has a multitude of events that play him from the discard pile, and he’s also got one of the best recursion cards around: Web. With this one, you can save Shelob and Gollum to play when the time is just right. Take your time and set up, then unleash your swarm when you’re ready! There’s also another nice feature about this culture: Captured by the Ring. Because this card kicks in to add threats, Aragorn’s Bow, Ranger’s Longbow is a whole lot less effective against the swarm-even though archery has always been the foe of swarm. And if Shelob picks off one of the companions, those threats will just pump up the wounds.
The one objection that can be raised is that Shelob is a hefty 8-cost minion. While that’s true, let’s compare Her Ladyship to some of the other big baddies commonly used:
-Any of the monstrous Balrogs: They’re all incredibly expensive, now that the old The Bridge of Khazad-Dum is gone. The cheapest you can get one for is  , obviously above Shelob’s cost. The question: is the Balrog more valuable than Shelob? Definitely, he’s more powerful, unless Shelob gets exerted four or five times. However, he can still only tie up one companion per skirmish phase. Shelob can tie up two.
-Cave Troll of Moria, Scourge of the Black Pit: At best, when played with Troll’s Keyward, a whopping 15 strength, damage +1, fierce minion for  . Not a bad deal! Again, more powerful than Shelob, unless she’s exerted a few times. The only problem here is playablity. Mr. Cave Troll can only be played by Dark Places or from your hand, and so you’ve either spent  extra or clogged your hand with him and a Troll’s Keyward. With Shelob, all you need to do is pull a Web and stack her with Gollum.
-Host of Moria, Legion of the Underdeeps:  for a 15 strength minion, and that’s pretty good, especially with the recursion ability. But this guy isn’t fierce, and the key here is sending a fierce minion out to clean up. And again, this guy can at best tie up a single companion, and that’s only for one skirmish phase. Shelob can tie up three companions in the course of both skirmish phases.
By now, I’m sure there’s people saying, "Okay, that sounds nice-let’s have a deck!" That’s a good idea, so let’s look at what we need to do to construct the deck. At heart, it’s still a deck-it just has a few extra tools in its box. So here’s what we need for this Shadow: in order to get the cards we need, we need cycling, and this can be found with Goblin Scimitar and They Are Coming. The latter card also provides a nice means of goblin recursion. But we can only put in 4x Goblin Scimitar, so we’ll have to have Goblin Scavengers to play that again and again. And since we’re going to be replaying weapons, we should put in Goblin Armory. Not only will this help to add twilight to play Shelob, but it will also help absorb some of the targeted archery used by the Free Peoples. Don’t forget Goblin Runner for more twilight, and, finally, Host of Thousands for core recursion. With the portion done, let’s move on to the part.
One problem that arises with Gollum decks is the fact that most rely on Web to replay Shelob. Now, if Web happens to have been discarded by a timely Blood Runs Chill, we’re in a little sticky mess, aren’t we? Gollum can still be easily played from the discard pile by cards such as So Polite and Captured by the Ring, but Shelob can’t be brought back by those cards. For this solution, we’ll have to turn to Towers Block, with a "stinkin’ good" card: Evil-Smelling Fens. If Shelob gets in the deck three times, and you can pull her back four times, not including Web, that’s a Shelob at every site (and a car in every garage)! This should be quite enough to keep your opponent crying for mercy.
Now that that’s settled, let’s look at our Gollums. Because we aren’t trying for a Ninja Gollum deck, the Gollums should be mostly the same, so that we get reliable results. One attractive option is clearly Gollum, Mad Thing because of his strength-addition possibilities. Another excellent Gollum, however, is Gollum, Hopeless. You’ll never need to worry about having enough strength to overwhelm Gimli, Bearer of Grudges if Gollum, Hopeless is assigned to the Ring-bearer...and besides, Hopeless has 4 Vitality. Coming in third place is Gollum, Stinker with his nice burden addition and resulting strength boost. However, it’s not quite as easy to win skirmishes with a 5 strength Gollum, so let’s go with Gollum, Hopeless. If you want to go the Stinker way, I’d advise using cards like Heavy Burden and Not Yet Vanquished to round out your burden addition.
There’s just one final problem: what happens if our opponent breaks the Rule of 5? This will make it very hard to get a workable swarm set up, since swarming nine companions requires nine minons...or more. Well, let’s use some of those great Rule of 5 enforcers! Anduin Banks is an excellent way to punish rulebreakers, and City Gates keeps adding to those threats. Furthermore, we have one of the most powerful Anti-9 cards in existence: Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul. With this beauty, we can take out an otherwise healthy companion, triggering those threat wounds! And then, if the site is Anduin Banks, the Free Peoples still has to deal with 4-8 archery, depending on how big the fellowship was. And all of this before the skirmish phase even starts!
So, now it’s time to build that deck! We’ll use the section I mentioned already, and add in Goblin Warrior to take care of Proud and Able, a common Dwarf staple-and we’ll be facing plenty of dwarves in Expanded! If you want, throw in Drums in the Deep, directed towards the same purpose. To mess up those really big fellowships, add Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul. Moving on to the side of things, we’ll use 3x Gollum, Hopeless and 3x Shelob, Her Ladyship. Evil-Smelling Fens, as I said, is key for Shelob recursion, as is Web. Captured by the Ring and So Polite help us play Gollum, and that finishes up our minions!
Shadow (44 Cards)
Conditions (8 Cards)
4x Evil-smelling Fens
2x Goblin Armory
2x They Are Coming
Events (10 Cards)
3x Captured by the Ring
4x Host of Thousands
3x So Polite
Minions (20 Cards)
3x Gollum, Hopeless
3x Shelob, Her Ladyship
4x Goblin Runner
3x Goblin Scavengers
3x Goblin Warrior
2x Moria Scout
2x Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul
Possessions (6 Cards)
4x Goblin Scimitar
2x Web
Matchups
Archery: Possibly the easiest threat to take out. Targeted archery is only good for knocking out Shelob, and then your opponent still can’t assign the spotted companion to a skirmish. Swarm wins again. Untargeted archery? Even easier! Pile the wounds on Shelob, and stick some on Gollum, if need be. Moria Scout can also absorb 1 archery. Shelob’s a monster with all those wounds, and the swarm survives what used to be its worst nightmare!
Dwarves: Blood Runs Chill is the most powerful card around, and it certainly can wreak havoc on this deck. However, you should be able to have six conditions out, not to mention Web and any leftover minions, and the dwarves can’t get much more than damage +6 without Proud and Able (discarded by Goblin Warrior). The key when playing dwarves: ARB downside. Captured by the Ring tacks on threats, and Gimli, Bearer of Grudges can’t keep adding them forever. When I played one Dwarven deck, I was able to get a minion on Gimli twice during the game-and that was before Site 5! The burdens will pile up after that, and it’ll be either corruption or swarm for your minions.
Ents: Oh, boy, can you say "pesky, pesky, pesky"? These ents flood the twilight pool, but there’s just so many of them! The answer here is "Rule of 5" cards-specifically, Anduin Banks, Ulaire Enquea and City Gates. The Ents will slowly crumble and fade-although you may run into a few problems with Pallando...however, you’ll still be able to keep Web even if you lose Evil-Smelling Fens, so She’s still replayable. It might be a tough win, but you can still pull it out!
Hobbit "Beatdown": They may be pumping their Hobbits up to fantastic strengths, but Shelob, Her Ladyship can ensure that Sam, Great Elf Warrior doesn’t interfere with your plans. Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot of skirmishing giants, and No Visitors can’t do anything about five minions on the Ring-Bearer!
Ithilien Blade: Easy as pie. Like in Targeted Archery, Shelob might bite the dust, but then there’s just too many minions to discard them all. Gollum will be sure to make all the minions roaming, courtesy of Captured By the Ring, but So Polite will throw in so much twilight that you can get by with plenty of minions to spare. Furthermore, enforcing the Rule of 5 is also a must here. Ulaire Enquea, after killing a companion, triggers all those delicious threat wounds, and Frodo inevitably bites the dust again!
So, if you want a slightly bizarre but very effective shadow for Expanded, you just might want to have a look at this off-the-wall use of Gollum. Viva swarm! Viva ! Now go out there and try it! |
| Last edited by CarpeGuitarrem on Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:30 am; edited 6 times in total"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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| Anonymous Prodigy |
![]() Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:05 pm |
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Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 4197
Location: United States
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| I’m not even going to say what I think of this deck considering I lost to it about ten minutes ago. |
| I had to put something here. |
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| elf lvr |
![]() Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:22 pm |
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 3065
Location: Rivendell
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It looks like a sweet deck... a really sweet deck. But why goblin pursuer? There are definately better minions out there. Moria Scout, for one, to help out against elves or any archery deck you might face. Or backstabbers, simlpy for being awesome.
Unfortunately, I must say that Shelob will not ’wipe up the map’ as you claim. Even if she takes two wounds in her first skirmish, she will only have 12 in her fierce one. Hardly a threat to a good fellowship, even if the best companion is temporarily out of order. I do get that the purpose of shelob is for an archery soaker and to take out a key companion, but you just shouldn’t say she’s gonna clean up. If you wanted to do that, Balrog or Cave troll would be more worth it. Of course, the deck is swarms, soooo
I really like the idea of using as a splash for swarms decks. Good job!
Also, I think IB is going to be more of a problem than you give it credit for. With a usually 9-companion fellowship, and all that ability to take out minions... and if you’re playing expanded (which you obviously are) Citadel of Minas Tirith will let them heal to do it all over again! And unless you can add 9 threats FAST, then Aragorn’s Bow is gonna screw your first swarm, at least, over. They might add one or two threats for one or two minions, then another two, and another two, instead of totally wiping out one swarm, they can make each of your swarms easy to live through.
However, a very good article, easy to read, and an interesting idea! I will wait before voting, but probably a 4 or 5 from me. |
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 |
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:27 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 3361
Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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Anonymous Prodigy wrote: I’m not even going to say what I think of this deck considering I lost to it about ten minutes ago.
You fell a victim to my deck playtesting. I was going to make sure this one worked right.
I’ll consider altering my minions. Goblin Backstabber is overrated, I think, and I don’t see that many  decks running around. Then again, Eowyn wounding uses elves...I’ll take out Pursuer and toss in Moria Scout. |
| "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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| PorterTroll |
![]() Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:11 pm |
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Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 1193
Location: not sure yet
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Woah! Nice! Way to revive Moria!  |
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| sickofpalantirs |
![]() Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 7:27 am |
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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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| I good article overall I liked it. |
 Sop's haves/ top wants
(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.  |
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
![]() Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:20 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
Posts: 3361
Location: Franciscan University of Steubenville
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| I’m going to change my Gollum to Gollum, Hopeless, because Dwarves are the major force in Expanded, and if Gollum, Mad Thing isn’t assigned, he stays Strength 5. As opposed to...strength 8 or so-more if there’s events. |
| "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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| bobtheorc |
![]() Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:47 pm |
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Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 1218
Location: Wow, its hot in Iowa
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| hblika |
![]() Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 4:23 am |
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Joined: 20 Jul 2005
Posts: 287
Location: Norway
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First of all, make sure what you write is correct! Are you sure Pallando can discard Web? How can Faramir, Captain of Gondor render Not This Time useless?
Allthough the Shelob/Gollum package might seem like a nice idea, it doesn’t really do much good to a Moria swarm deck. It doesn’t matter if Durin III is strength 212, or if Faramir, Son of Denethor prevents you from using skirmish special abilities during that skirmish. With Moria, all you care about are numbers. The number of minions that is. As long as you can get out enough minions on the Ring-bearer, what the rest of the companions can do don’t matter. For the first 2/3 of the game you will have to spend 10 twilight for Gollum/Shelob (ties up 3 companions). For that amount of twilight, you could easily play 4-8 Moria minions (and more if you have a few armories in play). |
| I'm not stupid. I'm just unlucky when I'm thinking. |
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| Pipeweed |
![]() Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 4:01 pm |
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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
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Location: Earth (I think)
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