Return To Its Master combo kill shadow

[Shelobplayer]

Seems like our little group once again gonna start playing, so I want to try new stuff and there is this idea I always had yet never really made come to life (mostly because Wise Guide exists...). Also maybe I can get a discussion going on these boards again, they seem to be dying recently...

Admittedly I'm inspired by my MW foil Black Lords.

So the idea is a combo kill with a series of events in a weird mash of a nazgul deck. In a nutshell it's pretty simple: exhaust the RB, play Resistance Becomes Unbearable, then play Return to Its Master for the win. I made it work in movie block back in the GCCG days, but expanded can be a considerably toughr nut to crack. The upside is that the cards used to create the shell of this deck are already ridiculously strong.

The following cards would be pretty much mandatory in varying quantities:

Return to Its Master
Resistance Becomes Unbearable
----------------------------------------- these two are simple - they are the combo

Gollum, Dark as Darkness
Captured by the Ring
Evil-Smelling Fens
Sudden Strike
----------------------------------------- 2 points for a threat + 1 exert on the RB is amazing deal, ESF and Sudden Strike are just because why not if we can

The Witch-King, Black Lord
Nelya, Third of The Nine Riders (maybe mixed with Ringwraith in Twilight... but just maybe)
Toldea, Black Shadow
Attea, The Easterling
Enquea, Ringwraith in Twilight - a mixture of him and shotgun
Nertea, Dark Horseman
----------------------------------------- the most basic nazgul selection with some twilight addon so we can play RBU

Saruman, Servant of Sauron
Isengard Ruined
----------------------------------------- That's 2 exerts, RBU is the 3rd, that exhausts most ring-bearers already enabling a kill, they are also both very solid choices in general. Also playes around Wise Guide if necessary.

Too Great and Terrible
----------------------------------------- Wise Guide MUST die, Black Shadow helps here

For the rest: nazgul heathcare package in the form of Winged Mount (love this card), They Feel the Precious, Final Strike. Then some Lemenya, Eternally Threatening and Ring of Terror. Then some Morgul Squealer for megalomanics like myself who flood the pool. Some Southron Leader, Demon of Might, Grima maybe. I don't want Morgul Brute, as soon as my opponent knows what I'm up to he just adds a burden.

It's mandatory to pair this with a shadow that cycles very well, so I thought elves. The Binding Ring on Galadriel to get Nenya, and start with probably Glorfindel, Revealed in Wrath + Gamling and pull Woodhall elf. Or maybe some carazy fast filtering rohan deck.

Thoughts? Has anyone tried something like this in movie?

[Dictionary]

I recently gave most of my thoughts on Expanded RTIM here: http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,11638.0.html. What do you think?

I think it's a pretty fun build in Expanded, since Nazgul have so much more flexibility. Would you not rather run Relentless Charge than defensive cards like TFtP?

[Shelobplayer]

I pretty much never lost to archery on GEMP, as I just fetch Shelob + Web, so I don't think Relentless Charge is all that useful. Powerful Guide, Ranger's Longbow and Unheeded are scarier. Having resolved a successful assassination attempt with RTIM just to get thwarted by Powerful Guide would be sad.

I like your summary, I never actually noticed Nertea, Winged Hunter, it is interesting, but probably not worth to running a full set over Dark Horseman. I can see a 3 Dark Horseman 1 Winged Hunter split being reasonable though.

I did win with RTIM on GCCG in movie block a lot with a similar deck, I wonder how it'd play out in expanded. I'm really bad at making small decks for this format though, so there could be trouble there.

[macheesmo]

I find it funny you mention filtering here with horn when I just read you on an older post bashing it as an unfun existence in expanded. Though I wish there were more players and I dont play gemp its nice to see the growth. As an mtg player of a long time it definitely doesnt behoove someone to close themselves off from strategies that are linear.

[Phallen Cassidy]

Using Erkenbrand's Horn and the horn filter setup (New Chapter + Something Slimy to enable a loop) are typically considered different beasts. The deck you're thinking of wouldn't be possible starting Glorfindel. I don't mean to say Shelobplayer couldn'tve changed his mind on it -- the oldest posts are 15 years old at this point so I'd be surprised if anyone believed all the same things they did then -- but if he wanted to put the pedal to the metal and get the perfect Shadow hands he's hoping for, the horn filter setup would be among the most obvious pairings.

Decipher stomped out even mild loops while they were around, the loops that remained are tolerated in accordance with their power and popularity. Horn filter happens to be fairly tough and quite popular (not to mention time consuming), so it gets perhaps the most flak.