My Dwarves Will Corrupt You

[Gwaihir]

This was probably my favorite deck concept when I last played three or four years ago.  I loved it because of the synergy between the free side and the shadow side, and because corruption is perhaps my favorite mechanic in the game.  Two of the key cards of this deck are ones that I don't think are generally all that exciting, but they had a big impact in this deck:  Get Off The Road and The Irresistible Shadow .  It was very successful for me.  The goal is corruption.  My free side helps me achieve that goal thanks to Nobody Tosses a Dwarf and Dwarven Axe.

Here It Is:

Ringbearer
Gimli Bearer of Grudges
The One Ring The Binding Ring

Starting Fellowship
Uri Dwarven Lord
Sam Son of Hamfast

Free Cards
3 Durin III Dwarven Lord
Gloin Friend to Thorin
3 Dwarven Axe
Dwarven Bracers
Hand Axe
Axe of Erebor
Ring of Accretion
Ring of Fury
Ring of Guile
Ring of Retribution
Book of Mazarbul
4 Lord of Moria
4 Nobody Tosses a Dwarf
4 Mines of Khazad-Dum
3 Till Durin Wakes Again
3 Honed
1 Greatest Kingdom of My People

Shadow Cards
4 Morgul Skulker
4 Grishnakh Orc Captain
4 Ulaire Nelya Ringwraith in Twilight
4 Ulaire Otsea Ringwraith in Twilight
4 Morgul Gates
4 The Ring Is Mine
4 Get Off the Road
4 It Wants to be Found
2 The Ring Draws Them
The Irresistible Shadow
Bent On Discovery

Sites
Dunharrow Plateau
West Road
The Dimholt
City of the Dead
Pelennor Flat
Minas Tirith Second Circle
Osgiliath Crossing
Morgulduin
Narchost

The goal is to force the other player to discard, discard, discard.  Nobody Tosses a Dwarf, Dwarven Axe, Get Off the Road, Grishnakh Orc Captain, Greatest Kingdom of My People, and Pelennor Flat all work toward that end.  Once these have done their job, The Irresistible Shadow wins the game.  Hopefully anyway.

The Ring is Mine and It Wants to Be Found together with Morgul Skulker recycling It Wants to Be Found and twilight Nazguls may be enough to corrupt on their own, and should have no trouble putting out the five burdens needed for The Irresistible Shadow.

Sam is there so that I can pull rings out of my Deck in a burden neutral way.  Once he has done this he has served his purpose and can die.

I am not entirely pleased with the free side, and the shadow side could use some tweaking as well I am sure.  The main focus of the deck though is to have cards pouring off of the other player's deck, and to put out many burdens.

What are your thoughts, suggestions and criticisms?

[Kralik]

I like the concept!

I would suggest putting in another copy of The Irresistible Shadow in case a) your opponent discards it or b) you never draw one. In fact, if they had discarded one and you had another in hand, you could wait to play it until it was a win situation.

The Sam trick is nice -- I use that as well in another deck.

[ket_the_jet]

Get Off the Road! I forgot that card existed.

May I recommend Ulaire Attea, the Easterling in case some oddball plays Old Noakes, Purveyor of Wisdoms. And Frodo, Courteous Halfling will bum out the Shadow side.

I used to find Desperate Measures a boring card, but now it is one of my favorites. And as long as you are adding burdens, a copy or two of Enduring Evil wouldn't hurt! Desperate Defense of the Ring would help with discarding or burdens.

I would consider Linnar, Dwarven Lord instead of Uri, Dwarven Lord. I think there are a bunch of better conditions you could play...Tales or not.

There are only two underground sites in Movie Block, and they are really early (three and four) so I don't think that Mines of Khazad-Dum and Till Durin Wakes Again are the best options. Maybe Preparations and Slaked Thirsts to win some skirmishes, making Nobody Tosses A Dwarf even more potent.
-wtk

[Cw0rk]

Did you realize Book of Mazarbul got an errata and won't work with those sites? I suggest having a Dwarven Armor for additional protection. With all the healing and Damage bonus you have I suggest adding Blood runs chill. Radagast could be good if you want to do a triple-move from site 6 to 9. All the healing you have is a good idea to be able to double move and skip sanctuaries.

The only issue I have with your shadow is that is has no stopping power. If I would play vs a deck like that I would try to double move every turn so you don't have enough time to discard all my stuff. 16 minions are not enough, especially when most of them are unique. I don't think you need all 4 Morgul Gates. Maybe you could add Ulaire Enquea, LoM to have some killing power.

[ket_the_jet]

c10ckw0rk is right: I would not even run Morgul Gates. I think that Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul, Orc Pursuer and Orc Stalker and Orc Chaser, and other tracker-type minions are all better calls.

Or, for even more burdens, Orc Officer and Enduring Evil can be a nasty trick.

I am not thinking that you have enough companions...against any sort of grind deck (Under the Watching Eye, Rout, Nazgul conditions etc.) you will be in pretty bad shape quickly.
-wtk

[Gwaihir]

Well, I had forgotten about the Book of Mazarbul limitation, but it still serves three purposes:  a possession to boost Durin III, a tale to boost Gloin, and a tale to heal with Mines of Khazad-dum.

Still digesting the comments.  Thanks for responding.

[Cw0rk]

c10ckw0rk is right: I would not even run Morgul Gates. I think that Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul, Orc Pursuer and Orc Stalker and Orc Chaser, and other tracker-type minions are all better calls.

Or, for even more burdens, Orc Officer and Enduring Evil can be a nasty trick.

I am not thinking that you have enough companions...against any sort of grind deck (Under the Watching Eye, Rout, Nazgul conditions etc.) you will be in pretty bad shape quickly.
-wtk

Those initiative orcs are quite good, however his discard deck focus on discarding cards from draw deck, not from hand, so you will hardly get initiative before site 8 or 9. I agree that Enduring Evil can be nice, as long as you don't add 4 of them... because we need more minions. I think his fellowship will do fine against wounding as it has plenty of healing. However you need Blood runs chill and some spare companions are always helpful.

Well, I had forgotten about the Book of Mazarbul limitation, but it still serves three purposes:  a possession to boost Durin III, a tale to boost Gloin, and a tale to heal with Mines of Khazad-dum.

Still digesting the comments.  Thanks for responding.

I didn't see it that way... sounds like the Book of Mazarbul is quite helpful, good idea.

[ket_the_jet]

My implication was that those Orcs would be great with Desperate Defense of the Ring.
-wtk

[azogsbane]

I love your deck concept. It's really clever.

I also agree with everyone that it needs more minions (and probably another companion). Especially, I can't see why you would use Ulaire Otsea when you have not Blade Tips. There are plenty of other twilight nazgul you could use.

[Cw0rk]

I love your deck concept. It's really clever.

I also agree with everyone that it needs more minions (and probably another companion). Especially, I can't see why you would use Ulaire Otsea when you have not Blade Tips. There are plenty of other twilight nazgul you could use.

He probably uses Otsea because it's the Twilight nazgul with the lowest twilight cost. I thing he is doing the right thing.

[ket_the_jet]

I don't mind Otsea, but I would rather see 3 Otsea and 3 Attea in the place of two Morgul Gates. The other two Morgul Gates could be dumped as well for more orcs...
-wtk

[Gwaihir]

Clockwork has it right about Otsea.  Gotta have twilight nazguls for It Wants To Be Found and he is cheap.  His job is simply to get on the table and and let me play It Wants To Be Found.

[Not a Zombie]

drop BoD, pick up ithil stone. 1 less twilight, don't need to exert a nazzie each shadow.

[Gil-Estel]

Ithil Stone is indeed the way to go, but Enquea ToTo could be added in order to exert with BoD, with which it combo's great of course. Then this: 9 cards require an orc, and you have 'only' 8 of which 4 are unique. That could cause trouble. So I would add cheap orcs, instead of the Morgul Gates. It is a great card, but something has got to give.

Other than this, it is mean

[azogsbane]

I love your deck concept. It's really clever.

I also agree with everyone that it needs more minions (and probably another companion). Especially, I can't see why you would use Ulaire Otsea when you have not Blade Tips. There are plenty of other twilight nazgul you could use.

He probably uses Otsea because it's the Twilight nazgul with the lowest twilight cost. I thing he is doing the right thing.

I see your point, but I still think that, what with all the exertions necessary for The Ring Draws Them and Bent on discovery, it would be better to have a higher vitality twilight nazgul such as Ulaire Enquea: Ringwraith in Twilight. That one might also help out occasionally with the corruption part.

[Gwaihir]

Those commenting about the need for more minions, orcs in particular were right.  I've added some cheap orcs, adjusted the nazgul (putting in the twilight witch king, twilight attea, and enduring enquea) and droped the gates.

I've played 3 games with the deck.  In the first I was doing fine with the corrupting side, though not as efficient as I would have liked, but got destroyed by a swarm of corsairs.  I added Gandalf and a few extras so I could get rid of shadow possessions and conditions.  I dropped the dwarf healing cards to find the room.

In the other two games I got corruption wins: one with Irresistable Shadow and one with 9 burdens on Isuldur (had a scroll).  In that second one, I had all 4 Nobody Tosses a Dwarf on the first turn, had to wait to the second to use them, and forced 13 discards at once.  I don't think I saw another minion the rest of the game as he was too afraid of Irresistable Shadow to play hardly anything after that.

I barely won the other game because Melilot Brandybuck kept stopping burdens.  Attea saved me there.
I'll try to post the current version of the list in the next day or so.

[azogsbane]

Nice! I'm glad it's working out. It's such a cool concept.

I once tried making a deck that discarded the opponent's draw deck. It had Nobody Tosses A Dwarf and stuff, but I lacked Irresistible Shadow and the whole corrupting part of it. So it totally sucked, to point of being utterly laughable. But hey, I had to try it.

[ket_the_jet]

Discard decks are the tits in FoTR block.
-wtk

[Gwaihir]

Updated List

Starting Fellowship
Gimli Bearer of Grudges
The One Ring The Binding Ring
Gandalf Leader of Men
Uri

Fellowship Cards
3 Durin III Dwarf Lord
Gloin Friend to Thorin
1 Sam, Son of Hamfast
3 Dwarven Axe
4 Honed
4 Nobody Tosses a Dwarf
Gimli's Battle Axe Trusted Weapon
Greatest Kingdom of my People
Ring of Fury
Ring of Accretion
Ring of Guile
2 Betrayal of Isengard
2 Deep in Thought
4 Roll of Thunder
1 Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor
1 Gandalf's Staff
1 Glamdring

Shadow
Bent on Discovery
4 It Wants to Be Found
Mmm, my homemade potato chips aren't too bad (not very crispy though)
Wraith World
2 The Ring Draws Them
2 The Witch-King, Lord of the Nazgul
1 Ulaire Attea, The Easterling
2 Ulaire Enquea, Thrall of the One
3 Ulaire Nelya, Ringwraith in Twilight
3 Ulaire Otsea, Ringwraith in Twilight
4 Get off The Road
2 Mordor Defender
4 Morgul Skulker
2 Orc Pursuer
The Irresistible Shadow
4 The Ring is Mine
2 Grishnakh, Orc Captain

Sites
Dunharrow Plateau
West Road
Hall of the Kings
City of the Dead
Pelennor Flat
Minas Tirith Second Circle
Osgiliath Crossing
Morgulduin
Narchost

[Cw0rk]

4 Roll of Thunder are way too much. Remove 2 of those.

You also need Dwarven Bracers and Hand Axe for Durin. I don't like Betrayal of Isengard.

Why do you use Mordor Defender? You could use Gorgoroth Stormer instead.

[daisukeman]

... In that second one, I had all 4 Nobody Tosses a Dwarf on the first turn, had to wait to the second to use them, and forced 13 discards at once. 
...

Does this mean you can play all 4 nobody tosses a dwarf at once, in a single skirmish?

[Witchkingx5]

Of course you can, like In the Ringwraith's Wake, and imagine the consequences on the first turn...
Dwarf-Discarding ftw!

[Gil-Estel]

It is a response action, and all response actions can be performed untill there are none left. 4 Roll of Thunder is indeed too much, imagine it being stucked in your hand and being worthless. If you had some carddiscard of some sort, it would have helpful.

[ket_the_jet]

In the Ringwraith's Wake*. For some reason WK5's link is broken.
-wtk

[azogsbane]

Wait a minute...what's with all the Honed? You don't have any Lord of Moria -- so where's the damage gonna come from. I know Gimli and Durin III are damage +1 and you have the rings, but still the most damage any of them are going to have is three, and most of the time only one or two (and sometimes zero which renders the card useless).

Seems to me that Axe Strike would be a lot better, since it's plus 2 automatically, and you do have four axes.