I'm struck by how many singles these decks have, especially on the shadow side. With only 1 Grima, (for example) it seems you would have trouble continuously countering stacked companions/many-racial companionships. A few of these only have 1 What Did You Discover, which (although there's not a ton of benefit to having multiple copies out, it seems you would want at least 2 to aid in drawing it.
I haven't actually checked these, but most tournament decks are 30/30 - 33/33 and only going larger with heavy cycling from Moria or something. By the
end of the game there's just a few cards left in the deck if any. All of the cards you mentioned are best drawn towards the end when the opponent is more likely to have all their cards stacked / cultures out or be prepared to make riskier doubles.
Wormtongue and
Chief Counselor in particular can be game ending since you often stop your opponent in their tracks and also clog their hand up for a free double on your turn. Remember, there are only 8 moves in the game: you don't have to "continuously" do or counter anything. You just need to make sure that when you make your move it counts without tripping yourself up in all the other matchups.
Generally fear of getting hit by Grima is enough alone to keep players from doing those things similar to how the possibility of Enquea stops many players from playing (sometimes even adding) a 6th companion. Which in turn means you're less likely to use their text, making them easily the worst card in most decks.
Never add more copies of your worst card. Notice how many players take advantage of the fact that any deck could have Grima and don't run Grima at all! Economists call this a positive externality, you can bet on the benefit (no stacked / multicultural opponents) without paying the costs (deck space for an otherwise lackluster minion).
On
What Did You Discover?, you may also notice that each of the decks with have multiple copies of
Saruman's Power -- you want to spend as little of the game as possible fighting against yourself. The effect has very limited use at 1-4 since your minions are roaming and you shouldn't have a good selection of minions in your discard pile at this point anyway, then Uruk-hai always need to be able to play a strong site 5 which stops a double and ensures the stop at 6 so the earliest opportunity to really get something out of it is a double from 7-8. There's more that could be said, maybe I'll throw it up on the wiki one day
Anyway, I'm not saying that you should only ever include 1 copy (in fact I run 4x in a particular deck where the Shadow side is only there to cycle and discourage doubles), but there's good reason for singles in general and especially for the cards you've called out. Every card in a deck should have a purpose, and that purpose informs how many copies to have.
Topic: LOTR Worlds 2003 Top 16 Decklists (Read 5618 times)