Gandalf wakes up in his Helm's Deep nightmare!

[Gil-Estel]

So it seems that certain trends spread on GCCG. You see a deck, you build a deck. I saw Berserkers, and the damage they can do. Ouchie.
The trick is simple. Start Gandalf, Isildur and Cirion -don't you just love to play a character you never play? Burn Cirion, thank him for the service and take whatever you need. Elendil and Aragorn for example. If you happen to have 2 SftF on hand at start, crab the other cheap dude, Targon, so he can be burned the next turn. Gandalf is here to set things up and give some support. You have pumps, condition discard and a little bit of healing, but primairely, a lot of vitality.
Try to make a double move every time. 1-3, 3-5 (now use Anduril's text), 5-7, 7-9. That would be great. Moving fast has the advantage of your opponent not playing all he might want, cause he wants to have fellowship cards as well. And if he runs close behind you: AWESOME!
Berserkes have great stopping power. I mean, if you see all the 0 costing engines on the table, is it encouraging to run? I guess not sir. Wit SftF you don't clogg to much, cause you will get whatever you need, and you can play everything when needed. 4x sappling is key vs enquea and Deep in Thought vs Greed if it shows. Use your support wisely!

Considerations:

- 1 Enquea (since I have Greed)
+ Grima WT (vs much played lame Durin)
*The One Ring, Answer To All Riddles (4R1)
*Isildur, Bearer of Heirlooms (RB)(9R+33)

Sites
(1R)Steps of Edoras (7U334)
(2R)Rohirrim Camp (7U336)
(3R)Hall of the Kings (7U339)
(4R)Pelennor Prarie (10U118)
(5R)Steward's Tomb (10U119)
(6R)Minas Tirith Sixth Circle (7U351)
(7R)Osgiliath Channel (8U120)
(8R)Morgulduin (7U358)
(9R)Dagorlad (7U360)

Fellowship (34)
1x *Anduril, Flame of the West (7R79)
1x *Gandalf's Staff (2R22)
1x *Narsil, Blade of the Faithful (9R+34)
1x *Narya (3R34)
1x *Ring of Barahir (6R55)
1x *Scroll of Isildur (9R36)
1x *Seeing Stone of Minas Arnor (9R37)
4x Sapling of the White Tree (9R35)
1x *Aragorn, Elessar Telcontar (10R25)
1x *Boromir, Lord of Gondor (1R96)
1x *Cirion (7C82)
1x *Denethor, Wizened Steward (7C86)
1x *Elendil, The Tall (9R+32)
1x *Faramir, Son of Denethor (4C117)
1x *Gandalf, Leader of Men (8R15)
1x *Targon (7C124)
1x *Noble Leaders (7R112)
1x Deep In Thought (3C30)
1x Grown Suddenly Tall (4R92)
2x Roll of Thunder (4U99)
4x Saved From The Fire (8R20)
3x Sharpen Your Swords (7U47)
1x *Blade of Gondor (1R95)
1x Armor (1C92)
1x Coat of Mail (1C101)

Shadow (34)
1x *Devilry of Orthanc (5R49)
2x Battering Ram (5U44)
2x Greed (1R125)
4x Scaling Ladder (5U57)
4x Siege Engine (5U60)
3x *Berserk Butcher (6R60)
2x *Berserk Rager (5U45)
4x *Berserk Savage (5R46)
4x *Berserk Slayer (5R47)
2x *Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul (1U231)
2x Uruk Engineer (5C61)
4x Uruk Sapper (5C62)

[Cw0rk]

I would replace Coat of Mail by Footman's Armor.

And yes, you really want to have Grima, WT in there so you can remove 1 Ulaire Enquea.

[Kralik]

I would replace Coat of Mail by Footman's Armor.

I've always failed to see why Footman's Armor is better.

Str 7 RB:
Coat of Mail to Overwhelm: 21
Footman's Armor Equivalent: Two Cards / 22

Str 9 RB:
Coat of Mail to Overwhelm: 27
Footman's Armor Equivalent: Two Cards  / 26 or Three Cards / 30

Str 15 RB (Isildur with Narsil and Ring On):
Coat of Mail to Overwhelm: 45
Footman's Armor Equivalent: Four Cards / 46

Why play with something that requires you to ditch so many cards to use it effectively? Give me Coat of Mail or Heavy Chain any day so I don't have to rely on having cards to spare. With an otherwise naked Isildur and Answer to All Riddles, you have to discard 3 cards before you see any advantage at all.

[Cw0rk]

Ah you are right Kralik. I didn't see he used Narsil, then it makes more sense to use Coat of Mail.

However, I like Footman's Armor because I usually don't equip my Isildur RB and if you move to site 9 with 8 cards in hand, you are in pretty good shape to win the game.

[Kralik]

However, I like Footman's Armor because I usually don't equip my Isildur RB and if you move to site 9 with 8 cards in hand, you are in pretty good shape to win the game.

Point.

Pros and cons I suppose.

[Cw0rk]

I can see Knights as a major threat to your shadow. Saruman's Power would be nice, but it would also discard all your machines.

[legolas3333]

no, cause siege engine could prevent them from being discarded, i actually would add saruman's power to your shadow because you can save your machines

[ket_the_jet]

I know your conceit about starting Cirion, but why not Vorondil? At least he is strength 7 if you don't get that first-turn Saved From the Fire.

I know you like the Saved From the Fire set-up, but it seems like Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith and Faramir, Captain of Gondor would make for a better filtering. Grab your Aragorn or Boromir and a Noble Leaders at site three. You can use Beacon of Minas Tirith to hold onto Denethor as well.

It could be really evil to use Drawing His Eye after allowing the Shadow player to draw some extra cards. And really fun.

Without the Saved From the Fire stuff, you could run a Gandalf, Manager of Wizards or Gandalf, Defender of the West (or whichever one you find most effective) with the usual stuff (Gandalf's sword, stick, and one-timers that dump conditions and possessions).

If you do decide to keep going with the Saved From the Fire theme, I'd try to cut some cards. I like my Saved decks to be right at 30-30 for the 37% chance to grab it on the first hand (assuming you start two companions, you have a 58 card deck).*

I don't know what I would cut from your Free Peoples side, but on the Shadow I don't it necessary to run more than three copies of Berserk Slayer, Berserk Butcher, and Berserk Savage.  Cutting a copy of each and replacing the two copies of Uruk Engineer with a copy of Uruk Captain puts you at 30 cards on that side. Plus, with two copies of Greed, I'd say you can cut both Shotgun Enquea for a copy of Grima, Wormtongue and a Saruman's Power.

Oh, one more thought, it seems like your goal is to have Narsil, Blade of the Faithful as potent and powerful as possible. Maybe you should run The Shards of Narsil and Still Sharp rather than Sharpen Your Swords, which won't be as useful if Gandalf becomes, well, dead. Granted, you'd have to grab the Shards of Narsil early, but Saved From the Fire or Denethor will get that for you by site three. Also allows you to save Noble Leaders or an extra companion for when you may really need it/him!

Hope any of these thoughts helped.
-wtk


_____________________________ _
*Thank you Stat Trek for the percentage. Just in case you were curious, the chances of grabbing Saved From the Fire on a mulligan is still 31%. The figure I used were 58 cards, 8 (and later, 6) cards in sample size, 4 for number of successes in population, and 1 for number of successes in sample.

[Kralik]

Actually, statistics are much better than that.

For the first of your 8 cards draws, the probability of NOT getting Saved From the Fire is 54/58.
For the second card draw, the probability of still NOT getting it after the first draw is 53/57.
The third card draw is 52/56... and so on. By the eighth draw we're at 47/51.

So the odds of NOT getting it are: (54! / 46!) / (58! / 50!) = about 54%*
The odds of getting at least one are 1 minus that, so 1 - 0.54 = 46%.

Testing it about 40 times on GCCG, it would hover near 50/50 or so. Sometimes a little in favor of not getting it, sometimes a little in favor of getting it. At 20 tests it was close to the percentages above. The end result of 40 tests was that 23/40 got it -- 57.5% -- surprising! But, keep in mind that as the number of tests approaches infinity, the statistics will approach the predicted percentages. I didn't particularly feel like testing it 10,000 times.

*That is: (54*53*52*51*50*49*48*47)/(58*57*56*55*54*53*52*51)

[ket_the_jet]

for the math. Thanks for the correction!
-wtk

[Cw0rk]

no, cause siege engine could prevent them from being discarded, i actually would add saruman's power to your shadow because you can save your machines

Siege engine will work only if your opponent tries to discard your machine, not if you use Saruman's power.

I also thought he could swap Cirion for Vorondil but, if he doesn't start the game, Dunland could  cause a problem if he didn't get SftF, but anyway, the probabilities of not having SftF after having play the shadow cards should be low.

Well, Kralik, thank you for refreshing what I've learned in  stats class.

[ket_the_jet]

Ah, bravo c-work. I was going on memory for Siege Engine.

And speaking of going on memory, let me tell you a story about William's last semester at college. While passing all of my other classes with flying colors, William had a D+ going into the final exam of his only math class he took in college (also necessary to graduate).

I needed a 75% or better on the exam. I hardly slept the night before, because if I wasn't going to graduate on time, I didn't want it to be over one #$&*@! class (and a math class at that).

Anyways, got a 105% (even got the bonus right!) on the test and passed the class with a C--even better than the C- I needed to pass.

I never did return to that professor's office to pick up that test. I assume I got the test completely right, but I also don't want to know if that professor was just being really nice in getting my #$&*@! graduated on time.

Anyways, if you are a teacher, buy a beer. Enjoy, and think of this story.
-wtk

[Mager]

This fellowship is pretty much invulnerable in any match-up. nice work

[Pepin The Breve]

This fellowship is pretty much invulnerable in any match-up. nice work

Dont' forget rule number 1 in lotr tcg: No fellowship is invunerable!

[ket_the_jet]

I still don't see why you use Cirion instead of Vorondil.
-wtk