The Way Into Mordor - Sméagol (5/13: Pitifully Anxious To Please)

[DáinIronfoot]

Tweaked 'em both according to reviews. Thanks, guys!

Sorry for the great delay...again. Been clobbered by a lack of time (due to various forces, some perhaps supernatural) and a bad case of writer's block when I HAVE had time. But today the curtain seemed to be lifted, and I've decided that to move forward, I may need to backtrack a bit. Back to the future, as it were.

I have started by completely rewriting the least popular version of Sméagol:

•Sméagol, Sly Wanderer
Companion
Strength: 3
Vitality: 4
Signet: Frodo
Ring-bound. To play, add a burden.
Skirmish: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, spot 3 Ring-bound companions and discard Sméagol to exhaust a minion.
"‘Follow Sméagol very carefully, and you may go a long way, quite a long way, before He catches you....'"

The original Sly Wanderer, as you can see simply by going back to the first post in this thread, had a built-in move limit increaser (like Radagast, The Brown), which was mostly well-received, but the second ability (exhausting himself to prevent overwhelming) made him "basically immortal", as FM put it. In general, people thought the card was OP, and it's hard for me to argue. Upon further review, the abilities don't really seem to go together anyway, making for a cluttered and clumsy-looking card. And the adding of a burden AND a threat to play him was unpopular, at best.

So...back to the future! I realized as I'm planning ahead that I want to bring back some of the self-discarding tricks Sméagol had in past Decipher sets. It makes a lot of sense for him, since he disappears at points throughout the storyline before coming back to aid (or hinder, depending on the point in the story) Frodo and Sam once more. So voila! A self-discarding Sméagol returns. Might not seem overly useful by itself, but there are other cards to help out, too. Like these!

Nice Little Hobbitses
Event • Maneuver or Skirmish
Choose one: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, discard him to play a Hobbit from your discard pile; or discard a Hobbit that is not assigned to a skirmish to play Sméagol from your discard pile.
"‘We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess.'"

Self-discarding Hobbits (and ways to replay them) are big again in this set as well.

•Up To Tricks
Condition • Support Area
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions.
Each time you play Sméagol, you may remove a threat or reinforce a culture token.
"‘No time to lose. We must go, yes, we must go at once. No time to lose!'"

[Gerontius]

Good cards!
There are some insane combos you could do if you used these in a deck with You Must Help Us, Sting Bane of the Eight Legs, and others but these on their own are pretty well balanced!

[DáinIronfoot]

Good cards!
There are some insane combos you could do if you used these in a deck with You Must Help Us, Sting Bane of the Eight Legs, and others but these on their own are pretty well balanced!

True, but keep in mind that Slippery Sneak is already able to discard itself (and thus combo with YMHU and others), so this isn't a completely new concept. But yes, it certainly ups the ante a little bit.

Thanks for the review! Always happy to see fresh faces pop up in the DC threads.

[lem0nhead]

•Sméagol, Sly Wanderer
Companion
Strength: 3
Vitality: 4
Signet: Frodo
Ring-bound. To play, add a burden.
Skirmish: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, spot 3 Ring-bound companions and discard Sméagol to exhaust a minion.
"‘Follow Sméagol very carefully, and you may go a long way, quite a long way, before He catches you....'"

Why 3 rb comps? Shouldnt it be 2, frodo and sam? Or is that including himself? Other than that hes ok.

Nice Little Hobbitses
Event • Maneuver or Skirmish
Choose one: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, discard him to play a Hobbit from your discard pile; or discard a Hobbit that is not assigned to a skirmish to play Sméagol from your discard pile.
"‘We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess.'"

Make it free, doesnt need cost me thinks.

•Up To Tricks
Condition • Support Area
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions.
Each time you play Sméagol, you may remove a threat or reinforce a culture token.
"‘No time to lose. We must go, yes, we must go at once. No time to lose!'"

Ok.

[Thranduil]

•Sméagol, Sly Wanderer
Companion
Strength: 3
Vitality: 4
Signet: Frodo
Ring-bound. To play, add a burden.
Skirmish: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, spot 3 Ring-bound companions and discard Sméagol to exhaust a minion.
"‘Follow Sméagol very carefully, and you may go a long way, quite a long way, before He catches you....'"

He seems fair enough. I like him more than the other one for sure. I'm not sure he needs to not be assigned to a skirmish, but I like it.

Nice Little Hobbitses
Event • Maneuver or Skirmish
Choose one: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, discard him to play a Hobbit from your discard pile; or discard a Hobbit that is not assigned to a skirmish to play Sméagol from your discard pile.
"‘We'll be nice to them, very nice, if they'll be nice to us, won't we, yes, yess.'"

Good card! Seems pretty simple: in Towers block there were 2 companion discarding strategies that had nothing to do with each other, so this card makes a lot of sense!

•Up To Tricks
Condition • Support Area
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions.
Each time you play Sméagol, you may remove a threat or reinforce a culture token.
"‘No time to lose. We must go, yes, we must go at once. No time to lose!'"

I think I would choose 1 of those 2 effects, reducing the cost to . Then I might make another condition for the other effect, but it seems unnecessary to have both.

Thranduil

[DáinIronfoot]

•Sméagol, Sly Wanderer
Companion
Strength: 3
Vitality: 4
Signet: Frodo
Ring-bound. To play, add a burden.
Skirmish: If Sméagol is not assigned to a skirmish, spot 3 Ring-bound companions and discard Sméagol to exhaust a minion.
"‘Follow Sméagol very carefully, and you may go a long way, quite a long way, before He catches you....'"

Why 3 rb comps? Shouldnt it be 2, frodo and sam? Or is that including himself? Other than that hes ok.

It includes himself. So yes, works great with Frodo/Sam/Sméagol fellowships.

My war with writer's block continues, but for today, the battle is mine. Continuing with the same theme as before....

Hunting
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol from play or from hand to heal a companion (twice if that companion is Ring-bound). Then you may add a burden to take this card back into hand.
"‘Your new motto's 'always ready to help'. Could you find anything fit for a hungry hobbit?'"

Also continuing with Ring-bound companion love, as you can see. Sméagol's got a lot of that in this set.

Not Far, Not Far
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol to remove a burden for each Ring-bound Hobbit you can spot.
"‘But he'll come back, you'll see. The promise will hold yet a while. And he won't leave his Precious, anyway.'"

Always thought Sméagol should have had a LITTLE more burden removal potential than just Not Listening. Considering this essentially does what Bilbo, Aged Ring-bearer does and is a one-time shot, I think it's balanced enough. Hopefully you agree...?

Where Have You Been To?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Stealth.
Play Sméagol from your discard pile to replace a site in the fellowship's current region with a site from your adventure deck.
"‘Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak.'"

Of course, you need a couple ways to replay Sméagol once you've discarded him. And what better thing to tie that into than site control?

[lem0nhead]

Hunting
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol from play or from hand to heal a companion (twice if that companion is Ring-bound). Then you may add a burden to take this card back into hand.
"‘Your new motto's 'always ready to help'. Could you find anything fit for a hungry hobbit?'"

Nice but as its regroup could easily be free.

Not Far, Not Far
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol to remove a burden for each Ring-bound Hobbit you can spot.
"‘But he'll come back, you'll see. The promise will hold yet a while. And he won't leave his Precious, anyway.'"

Hmmm ill let it go cos i like it, but i disagree with you DI smeagol shouldnt remove burdens imho. He is so embedded in the whole burden, ring surviving, gollum thing i doubt he relieves burdens at all.

Where Have You Been To?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Stealth.
Play Sméagol from your discard pile to replace a site in the fellowship's current region with a site from your adventure deck.
"‘Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak.'"

Yeah sweetness.

[Thranduil]

Hunting
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol from play or from hand to heal a companion (twice if that companion is Ring-bound). Then you may add a burden to take this card back into hand.
"‘Your new motto's 'always ready to help'. Could you find anything fit for a hungry hobbit?'"

I think this card is a bit too clunky because of the "from play or from hand" and the parentheses; I would keep 1 and not the other. I might make it "Discard Sméagol or Gollum from play to heal a Ring-bound companion twice" or possibly with the parentheses. And also Hunting seems to be a bit of an evil title for a Sméagol card; how about "Hunting for Fish" or "Hunting for Food"?

Not Far, Not Far
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol to remove a burden for each Ring-bound Hobbit you can spot.
"‘But he'll come back, you'll see. The promise will hold yet a while. And he won't leave his Precious, anyway.'"

Should Sméagol be able to easily remove burdens? I think (especially in the film) Sméagol does have a calming effect on Frodo which could be represented as burden removal, but this is very much not the case with Sam, which begs the question why this removes a burden for each Ring-bound Hobbit. Not sure what I'd do about that. Perhaps remove a fixed number of burdens and/or spotting Frodo. Not sure.

Where Have You Been To?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Stealth.
Play Sméagol from your discard pile to replace a site in the fellowship's current region with a site from your adventure deck.
"‘Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak.'"

So this is like Captured by the Ring for Sméagol? Given that you have to add a burden every time you play Sméagol, I think this is fine.

Thranduil

[sickofpalantirs]

Hunting
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol from play or from hand to heal a companion (twice if that companion is Ring-bound). Then you may add a burden to take this card back into hand.
"‘Your new motto's 'always ready to help'. Could you find anything fit for a hungry hobbit?'"
fine.

Not Far, Not Far
Event • Regroup
Discard Sméagol to remove a burden for each Ring-bound Hobbit you can spot.
"‘But he'll come back, you'll see. The promise will hold yet a while. And he won't leave his Precious, anyway.'"
fine.

Where Have You Been To?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Stealth.
Play Sméagol from your discard pile to replace a site in the fellowship's current region with a site from your adventure deck.
"‘Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak.'"

nice...maybe cost 1 though.

it seems in my allergized fog all I could think of to say is fine...

[Anonymous Prodigy]

Not Far, Not Far should cost IMO. The others look good.

[DáinIronfoot]

Uh...yeah. Even I'm tired of my excuses by now. So I won't even bother this time. I'll just get right to the cards instead.

My idea was to do some Sméagol telepathy, and that's where these started, but as you'll see they quickly took up a different theme instead. I guess I was hungry when I made these or something. Enjoy!

Is It Tasty?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Exert Sméagol to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is Sméagol's vitality. Take into hand each revealed card and each revealed card of the Ring-bearer's culture. Place each other card revealed beneath your draw deck.
"‘We are famisshed, yes famisshed we are, precious. What is it they eats? Have they nice fisshes?'"

•So Juicy Sweet
Condition • Support Area
Fellowship: Spot Sméagol and exert a Ring-bound companion to place a card of that companion's culture from hand beneath your draw deck.
"‘The rock and pool, / is nice and cool, / so juicy sweet. / Our only wish, / to catch a fish, / so juicy sweet!'"

Stewed Rabbits
Possession
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions (or a Ring-bound Hobbit). Bearer must be Sméagol.
Regroup: Discard this possession to heal a Ring-bound companion.
"‘They are young, they are tender, they are nice. Eat them, eat them!'"

[Thranduil]

My idea was to do some Sméagol telepathy, and that's where these started, but as you'll see they quickly took up a different theme instead. I guess I was hungry when I made these or something. Enjoy!

#$&*@! it, these cards are making me hungry...

Is It Tasty?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Exert Sméagol to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is Sméagol's vitality. Take into hand each revealed card and each revealed card of the Ring-bearer's culture. Place each other card revealed beneath your draw deck.
"‘We are famisshed, yes famisshed we are, precious. What is it they eats? Have they nice fisshes?'"

Is the vitality calculated before or after the card is played? I think that's bit too complicated and it's not immediately obvious, which is bad, and I would just make it a fixed number, say 3. Cool otherwise.

•So Juicy Sweet
Condition • Fellowship
Spot Sméagol and exert a Ring-bound companion to place a card of that companion's culture from hand beneath your draw deck.
"‘The rock and pool, / is nice and cool, / so juicy sweet. / Our only wish, / to catch a fish, / so juicy sweet!'"

Umm... A unique fellowship condition? I'm a bit confused... Assuming it's a fellowship event, it's alright. Not fantastic, but fair enough.

Stewed Rabbits
Possession
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions (or a Ring-bound Hobbit). Bearer must be Sméagol.
Regroup: Discard this possession to heal a Ring-bound companion.
"‘They are young, they are tender, they are nice. Eat them, eat them!'"

I thought the point was Sméagol didn't want Stewed Rabbits? These should be raw, surely!

Thranduil

[DáinIronfoot]

The Way Into Mordor - Sméagol (2/23: We are famissshed, precious....)•So Juicy Sweet
Condition • Fellowship
Spot Sméagol and exert a Ring-bound companion to place a card of that companion's culture from hand beneath your draw deck.
"‘The rock and pool, / is nice and cool, / so juicy sweet. / Our only wish, / to catch a fish, / so juicy sweet!'"

Umm... A unique fellowship condition? I'm a bit confused... Assuming it's a fellowship event, it's alright. Not fantastic, but fair enough.

Wow...hungry AND tired, apparently. Fixed, but not in the way you were likely expecting....

[Elf_Lvr]

Uh...yeah. Even I'm tired of my excuses by now. So I won't even bother this time. I'll just get right to the cards instead.

I think I know what you mean. I can't imagine how busy I'll be once (and if) I get to have a family - life seems busy enough already!

Is It Tasty?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Exert Sméagol to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is Sméagol's vitality. Take into hand each revealed card and each revealed card of the Ring-bearer's culture. Place each other card revealed beneath your draw deck.
"‘We are famisshed, yes famisshed we are, precious. What is it they eats? Have they nice fisshes?'"

Very, very awesome. I'm not sure if it'd be too powerful - in a [gollum]/[Shire] hybrid this could easily just take every revealed card.

•So Juicy Sweet
Condition • Support Area
Fellowship: Spot Sméagol and exert a Ring-bound companion to place a card of that companion's culture from hand beneath your draw deck.
"‘The rock and pool, / is nice and cool, / so juicy sweet. / Our only wish, / to catch a fish, / so juicy sweet!'"

Interesting.

Stewed Rabbits
Possession
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions (or a Ring-bound Hobbit). Bearer must be Sméagol.
Regroup: Discard this possession to heal a Ring-bound companion.
"‘They are young, they are tender, they are nice. Eat them, eat them!'"

I think if you can spot 3 Ring-bound guys, one will most likely be a Hobbit, so you could just cut the first part of the spotting text, unless you really, really love TT rangers.

It's an okay card - but I'd use Nice Fish any day - tokens and more healing potential (as well as being a condition for Clever Hobbits) trumps this card in a lot of ways for [gollum] decks, you know?

[lem0nhead]

Is It Tasty?
Event • Fellowship or Regroup
Exert Sméagol to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is Sméagol's vitality. Take into hand each revealed card and each revealed card of the Ring-bearer's culture. Place each other card revealed beneath your draw deck.
"‘We are famisshed, yes famisshed we are, precious. What is it they eats? Have they nice fisshes?'"

Is X his vitality before the exert or after? Its ok.

•So Juicy Sweet
Condition • Support Area
Fellowship: Spot Sméagol and exert a Ring-bound companion to place a card of that companion's culture from hand beneath your draw deck.
"‘The rock and pool, / is nice and cool, / so juicy sweet. / Our only wish, / to catch a fish, / so juicy sweet!'"

Ok but dont reckon it needs be unique.

Stewed Rabbits
Possession
To play, spot 3 Ring-bound companions (or a Ring-bound Hobbit). Bearer must be Sméagol.
Regroup: Discard this possession to heal a Ring-bound companion.
"‘They are young, they are tender, they are nice. Eat them, eat them!'"

Unless he gets an advantage from bearing possessions this isnt worth using really.