Removing Forces of Mordor from the Fellowship Block R-list on Gemp

[Phallen Cassidy]

This is a conversation that has come up a few times, but I've never seen a satisfactory answer. As best as I can tell, the only reason this card is on the Fellowship Block R-list is because of the language around the R-list in the CRDs:

OPEN & BLOCK FORMAT RESTRICTED LIST
No more than one copy of each of these cards may be included in a deck for an Open or Block format tournament.

Of course, the X and R lists were created after Fellowship Block was no longer the standard tournament format. We've opted to allow RB skirmishes to be cancelled because it was allowed at the time, so why do we have an R-list for Fellowship Block? I'm not the first person to make this argument, but I might be the first willing to do something about it. Can anyone tell me why opening this card up would be a bad idea?

[Zurcamos]

We've probably already discussed this at some point, Phallen, but it's always bugged me that this restriction is a thing on Gemp. It makes no sense to me, and I'm in full support of removing it. Yeah, the card will probably be overused for a while and probably make some people grumpy for a while, but that's not a good reason to keep things as they are.

[Gerontius]

Does anyone know the original rationale for r-listing it back in the day? It seems like it could be fairly strong with the set 5 orcs especially- I'm curious when it made its way into the r-list.

In fellowship block it seems like it could allow a Tol Brandir swarm deck, but I'm not sure if that would veer into NPE territory. To me, a viable non-grind strategy sounds like a win.

[Legion]

I agree. Top Brandir Swarm would only need one forces anyway, as it otherwise just clogs the hand. In fact I can't think of many people who played it at all in their swarmy Sauron decks.

I used to use it in my orc banner deck and that was good, but by no means broken. Secret Sentinels was fast more obnoxious.

I did not realise the R list was brought in later. If that is the case, I'd argue it should be removed.

[5tein]

My friend and I were debating this just the other day as we revised our house rules for Expanded Fellowship.

Forces of Mordor was only excluded as part of the first X-List in April of 2003 -- after TTT and BoHD were released. You can read Decipher's justification for the exclusion of Forces of Mordor:

1C248 Forces of Mordor

This card was written before the swarm dimension was added to the Sauron culture. As such, it is too powerful in those decks.

This supports what you've suggested (and matches my recollection of the meta), that FoM is really only "broken" in combination with Sauron swarm mechanics introduced in TTT and BoHD.

If you look back further, there is further evidence that Forces of Mordor was not excluded prior to this: Forces of Mordor is not listed in The Lord of the Rings™ TCG Tournament Legal Cardlist, updated 2/6/03

That said, Decipher did decide to restrict Forces of Mordor in all block formats later; see the 2005 Current Rulings.

[Not a Zombie]

It seems to me that in general, shadow sides need help in FOTR block anyway. I'm all for allowing it.

[Cw0rk]

I sometimes play a FOTR Block swarm deck on GEMP and use one copy of it. Even if you would remove it from the R-List, I still may end up using only one copy (if not two at most). As Legion says, it would clog my hand.

I have never seen anyone but me play FOTR Block swarm deck on GEMP, so it would only be a good thing if others tried it as well.

[TelTura]

I am also totally behind this.  Practically 100% of all other format details are true to the original Decipher version of the format at the time it was played, and there is no reason to deviate here.  Particularly when there are much more obnoxious cards that were later banned but not retroactively applied to FOTR the way that Forces of Mordor has inexplicably been.

[JamesCB]

I, personally, am not a big fan of banning or restricting cards. If Forces of Mordor stinks so bad, then I would say to the people complaining about it, either find a counter, use it yourself, or, if it makes you that mad, quit. Goblin Armory's plus Goblin Scavengers can generate tons of twilight (more than knows how to use) as well. Frankly, the R-list sees a little ridiculous to me. Even in a 27/30 deck (starting with Pippin, Merry, and Sam) drawing 1 card out of 57 is not crazy likely (to be exact, you have a 15% chance on your first 8 cards). I almost never have 1 copy of a card in my deck, it's just borderline useless.
If FoM really needs nerfed so bad, maybe you change it to exerting X minions.

[Phallen Cassidy]

There haven't been any dissenting opinions so I'll see if this can be done for the next reset. If you don't think this is a good idea, speak now! I imagine if there are any issues after the fact they'll be brought up.