I used to play
the Lord of the Rings Online game (from Worlds Apart) quite a bit, and I recently logged back in and started playing the occasional game again. I'd stopped playing at set 12, so I didn't have any of the newer cards. I'd also never had a huge online collection, so I only ever had enough cards to make a single deck, and if I wanted to change decks, I basically had to trade my old one away to make a new one.
Anyway, I've been playing in a variety of different formats online (Fellowship block, Highlander, all sorts of stuff), and I've actually done reasonably well in Standard and Expanded, considering my inferior cards. I basically end up having to make gutsy (some might say "stupid") double-moves and hope that my opponent didn't get a very good shadow draw on the reconcile. My fellowship can stay alive reasonably well (Gondor/Gandalf), but my Shadow just isn't up to par.
Now, why is this relevant to this topic? I'll tell ya why:
I just got done playing a Standard game with a guy that had a very impressive collection of Hunters Block cards.
It was one of the least-fun games I've ever played. Total NPE.
On his first turn, he used
Gamling, Defender of the Hornburg to play
Erkenbrand's Horn. He also dropped a copy of
New Chapter.
He then proceeded to play every single Follower in his deck. 16 followers at site 1. I don't know if this is a well-known combo or anything, as I've never really played with or against Hunters Block stuff, but it was nasty.
On top of that, he was using
Pippin, Brave Decoy -- this allowed him to just transfer every single Follower he had onto Pippin, then have Pippin fight all of his skirmishes. It was kinda ridiculous.
I actually thought I'd have somewhat of a chance because my Shadow was Corruption Orcs and he didn't appear to be playing any events. But once he played Jarnsmid, I knew I was dead, because Jarnsmid could fight every turn and have Pippin take over to thwomp my Orcs.
Still, it was his Shadow that ended up killing me. Uruk Hunters tore me up in a way I didn't know I could be torn up.
Long story short: When playing set 7-12 stuff against Hunters Block stuff, you REALLY get to see the difference in power levels.