Wounding Loop Enquea

[NappyKorn]

Before reading and replying please note that I would rather not have replies asking what if you face a certain type of deck, or if you face this type of deck you will be killed. No deck is flawless and if you are posting about what if you face a... then you haven't a clue about LOtR because everyone that plays knows nothing is indestructable and perfect. Feel free to reply about what you think of the deck in question and what might make the below mentioned combo easier to pull off.

Shadow (32 cards)
4x *Ring of Rancor (9R44) 
2x Dark Temptation (12R163) 
4x Gates Of The Dead City (3R81) 
3x More Unbearable (7C184) 
4x *The Witch-king, Black Lord (12R183) 
4x *Ulaire Attea, Wraith on Wings (7R210) 
4x *Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul (1U231)
4x *Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders (11S222) 
4x Morgul Brute (7R188) 

Site Path
All I see that is needed is Slag Mounds the rest can be tuned towards your freeps.

Anyway the idea is this, use Gates of the Dead City to add budens via Brute and Attea (if you can pull off initiative with More Unbearable) hence exerting companion like crazy. When you get your 5 burdens needed for Enquea to work properly (but of course 6 comps can make the job easier but have to assume you wont be seeing 6) Play him at Slag Mounds bearing the Ring of Rancor. Use his text to wounds a companion (hopefully exhausted companion thanks to Gates of the Dead City) each time a companion is killed at Slag Mounds that adds an extra burden, peel that extra burden with the Ring of Rancor to heal Enquea and repeat. I added in Nelya simple to play a site with a great shadow number for twilight purposes and then replace it with Slag Mounds.

My question is this is there an easier way to get the burdens other than the Attea/Initiative/Ring Combo? If so please explain but I am not trying to turn this in to some sort of super corruption deck I would rather keep it as a way to kill the comps during the maneuver phase and assign several minions (perhaps Enquea and a few Brutes) to the RB for a potential overwhelm.

Another question is this my deck is small at just 32 cards, but perhaps a filter/cycling Freeps would help it still yet. I was also thinking of using a site manipulating Freeps to help retrieve Slag Mounds incase I get to hasty an mess up the first attempt. I was thinking maybe a smeagol/One Good Turn Deserves Another/There's Another Way engine. Bid enough to go 2nd then play slag mounds when ready, then on your move you can use One Good Turn to replace Slag mounds or if that isn't in hand use There's Another Way during the regroup phase to pick it back up.

Serious replies only please I don't want posts like what if you play against this deck or that deck and no posts like why don't you just scrape the deck and use my idea cause its better.

Thanks in advance to the serious posters  .

Edited 4 niceness:

I also did a revamp of the deck below after a greatly appreciated review by ES

I also appreciate the below post by NB, edited a few cards that he mentioned could help

[Elessar's Socks]

Just suggesting a few cards and strategies and you can cherry-pick ideas. And actually this might be all over the place because everything winds up relating to each other.

For burdens offhand I can think of Keening Wail and Sense of Obligation. KW is as straightforward as you can get but the one-shot tactic can run afoul of burden removal. SoO can stick around racking up burdens, but in that case I'd use self-assigning minions like Ulaire Nertea, DH and Ulaire Toldea, MoM.

As you know condition removal can put a damper on More Unbearable. One pop from that disgusting Namarie and there goes a few turns, and unfortunately that knocks out Attea as well. I'd definitely recommend Morannon Plains to speed things up. Again self-assigning minions would work well here to increase the chances of someone surviving to the regroup phase.

Alternatively--and I've no idea how well this would work--Streaming to the Field could be used instead for initiative. You've got the Brutes already, so adding Morgul Destroyers too might do the trick. And if your opponent is using an ARB and keeps adding threats with the Destroyer, then Dark Horseman sticks a hoof into his/her face could add a couple of burdens. Nice part is that you don't have to worry about anything past the maneuver phase--take that, archery! But yeah... it's sort of out there.

Awesome idea with Machine Gun Enquea. To up the nastiness, stock Not Easily Destroyed. Great way of controlling large fellowships, and once you get to 5 burdens, Ring of Rancor + Not Easily Destroyed + Slag Mounds is going to be a scary sight.

Usually I'd skip site recs, but since it's important here (bet you knew these already):

Courtyard Parapet
Morannon Plains? - good for MU, hurts otherwise
Neekerbreekers' Bog
Slag Mounds
Redhorn Pass? - bad for MU, good to keep SoS around

To consolidate the suggested builds (truly mix 'n' match!):

More Unbearable + Attea + Nertea
Sense of Obligation + Keening Wail (against RB decks) + Nertea/Toldea
Streaming to the Field + Attea + Morgul Orcs

Now I want to playtest some of these too, just to make sure I offered something halfway sensible. *LOL*

[NappyKorn]

Thanks ES exactly what I was looking for. I might give KW a try but being such a high cost event (even with toil). You need enough minions to exert or just hope you have the 7 twilight to spend, but worth a try. I actually though about tossing in NED, but another twilight costing card. I could add some kind of gollum twilight adding engine but then the deck get far to complicated. Anyway thanks for your input I will try to incorporate a few of those ideas into my deck.

BTW I though Courtyard Parapet was x-listed, let me know if I'm wrong as I wanted to use it for sure.

[Elessar's Socks]

Courtyard Parapet is still legal in Expanded.

NED is totally worth the twilight! You'll thank me later!

Haha, not long ago I was trying Enquea with a Gollum threat engine (and Led Astray for site recursion). The idea was to replay Neekerbreeker's Bog until everyone was close to exhaustion, and then drop Morgul King with Enquea. Since the threats couldn't be assigned to the Ring-bearer everyone else would drop like flies. Still have to work out some kinks... but it was fun!

[NappyKorn]

just changed it a bit with a morcs theme, hoping I can get a game on sda soon to try it out, but it seems the only players anymore are TJ and SM  . If you are interested in the revision I can post it here and you can check it out seems a bit more effective this way but only a playtest can determine that I guess

[Elessar's Socks]

Considering I was fiddling with the Morcs version just now as well... sure I'm interested. Maybe we can compare notes. Mind you I don't have much experience with this, so other folks can chime in too.

[NappyKorn]

ok here goes nothing.

Shadow (35) 
3x *Ring of Rancor (9R44) 
2x *Flung Into the Fray (8U71) 
3x *Streaming to the Field (8U78) 
4x Gates Of The Dead City (3R81) 
4x *Ulaire Attea, Wraith on Wings (7R210) 
4x *Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul (1U231) 
2x *Ulaire Nertea, Dark Horseman (19P38) 
4x Morgul Brute (7R188) 
3x Morgul Destroyer (7U190) 
3x Morgul Spearman (7C201) 
3x Morgul Squealer (8R77) 

Streaming to the Field helps get iniative with cheap Morcs in play hence helping you get Attea to pile on the burdens and hopefully triggering some in play Gates of the Dead City. Brute of course can help get burdens or wound the RB. Flung into the Fray and Squealer help bring those great little Brutes back into play. Used Destroyers for the possible threats for when Enquea kills you either get more burdens via the RB taking them for wounds or other comps falling at the Slag Mounds. Use the same Enquea/Ring of Rancor at slag mounds combo to wipe the board clean and force Enquea and the remaining morcs on a potentially exhausted RB. Add in a few Nertea, Dark Horseman just because he can easily get ahold of the RB to help prevent wounds instead of burdens later or if he wins the skirmish they can add the burdens for wounds and help you out anyway. Ley me know what you think ES and maybe post your version as well, would like to see what you have come up wth as well.

Sites I choose:

Courtyard Parapet
Steward's Tomb
Slag Mounds

*Rest are geared toward the freeps I decided to run with it.

[Elessar's Socks]

... Now I'm thinking maybe I should've used some Squealers, too. My version tends to run out of steam at the end against a 9-companion fellowship. You've pretty much covered the strat so here it is:

30 cards.

4 Morgul Brute
4 Morgul Destroyer
4 Morgul Whelp
3 Ulaire Attea, Wraith on Wings
4 Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul

4 Ring of Rancor

1 Flung Into the Fray
1 Not Easily Destroyed
1 Out of Sight and Shot
4 Streaming to the Field

I see you've kept the Gates and found room for Nertea, too. Nice! Hopefully the Morc version will be less vulnerable to condition removal, plus there's always the chance of piling a bunch of Orcs on the Ring-bearer. When I get the chance I think I'll try your version as well.

[NappyKorn]

cool I like yours as well was looking for a more compact version. When you get to test yours let me know how it went and I will do the same when mine gets the chance

[SomeRandomDude]

Wow...that's a little harsh...

The ironic thing here is that I once had a deck like this that I couldn't quite get to work...

So I have nothing to say on the deck except that Morc Archery is a sweet idea, I'd eun 4x the initiative and burden guy, perhaps Nelya to abuse the Neekerbreekers. Now to get my hand on some Morcs...

[Elessar's Socks]

Well... I have a newfound respect for Ulaire Attea, Wraith on Wings.

Took a crack at archery with your deck. At one end Attea and the Brutes were adding burdens, and at the other Enquea was gunning down Elves and decreasing Galadriel's resistance--much fun! Maybe some numbers can be tweaked (possibly increasing Rancor and Streaming to 4, decreasing Flung Into the Fray, etc.), but you'll be in a far better position to judge.

[NappyKorn]

so the deck worked huh? Yeah after looking at attea I thought he would be a pretty good way to grab some burdens if I could find a way to get initiative easily . Were you able to get the Combo to pull off at any point of the game? It shouldn't be to hard after you manage the 5 burdens since you really only need 2 cards and the ability to play the site you need. I agree with you maybe I should go back to the 4x Ring of Rancor, but Flung Into the Fray is a way to get an extra minion into play (like a brute) and exert a comp if there are any not exhausted. Once I get a chance to test it I will know what needs to be done LOL. Thanks for the update ES .