Did You Know...

[menace64]

...that, of all Movie Block expansions, Mount Doom has the most minions, coming in at 42? And, with only 24, Mines of Moria and Realms of the Elf-lords both tie for fewest?

Also, did you know that Realms of th Elf-lords gave us the fewest companions of any Movie Block expansion, with a whopping total of only 5; which is considerably lower than the 20 created for Battle of Helm's Deep?

[Gil-Estel]

...you have way too much time?

[legolas3333]

I have to much time

one afternoon I used zorbecs to figure out the power curve of sets specifically regarding strength, averaging over blocks, fotr block trails the hunters block by only .7 average strength but if you include hunter bonuses as strength it is greater by 2.2 strength. minions also stayed the same strength increasing by only .3 strength from fotr block to hunters block, Unless you include hunter bonuses in which case it is greater by 3.4 strength

[rubbercarp]

I find that breakdown really interesting!

[MR. Lurtzy]

As do I. Have any more?

[albatross]

While the average minion's strength might have only gone up slightly (excepting Hunter), I think a better measure of power creep is unit of strength per twilight cost.

[menace64]

Web has the shortest title of all cards; several tie close for second: Fear, Hate, Warg, Held, Rout, Deor, Coif, and Nurn.

At first I thought Nine-fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom and Robin Smallburrow, Shirriff Cock-Robin shared the award for longest card title (not accounting for commas and spaces). But I went ahead and checked out the other long card titles, and - in fact - the winner is The Palantir of Orthanc, Recovered Seeing Stone, which beat out the following three by just one character: Barliman Butterbur, Prancing Pony Proprietor; The Palantir of Orthanc, Seventh Seeing-stone; Watcher in the Water, Many-tentacled Creature.

[Gil-Estel]

But then again, I love stupid facts, so please proceed.

[MR. Lurtzy]

Continue.

[legolas3333]

Ok I'm working on that right now it could take a while...

EDIT I redid my calculations (i realize that sounds nerdy but it is what i did) and came up with a different average strength for each block, this is because i took out masterworks, RFs and Promos, but I managed to get a figure for both average minion twilight cost and average minion strengh for each block and these are the results (I'm working on the companion version which will take another hour-ish)

FotR Block      
Average Cost = 3.68      
Average Strength = 8.39      

TTT Block      
Average Cost = 3.88      
Average Strength = 8.89      

RotK Block      
Average Cost = 4.04      
Average Strength = 9.5      

WotR Block      
Average Cost = 3.92      
Average Strength = 9.03      

TH Block      
Average Cost = 3.93      
Average Strength = 9.53      

Out Of Block*
Average Cost = 4.96
Average Strength = 9.87

*Out of block is sets 9,14,16, and 19

So obviously the biggest jumps were TTT to Rotk and WotR to Hunters... I did not include hunter bonuses in this version but I may change that later

[Witchkingx5]

But besides that, there are some points that must be said:

Dunlendings have low cost, high strength, and low vitality. But cards from WotR Block have same or higher strenth and higher vitality. And there's also cards like Dunlending Renegade.

As for King Block... lots of Trolls, Olog-Hai of Mordor, Great Hill Troll, Troll of Cirith Gorgor, and so on. It would be nice to also calculate the average vitality, and, to gain a number that reaches the "complete" strength-cost-ratio, so here's what I've got:

strength-cost-ratio:

FotR: 2.28

TTT: 2.29

RotK: 2.15

WotR: 2.30

TH: 2.42

Which shows how they made the cards, but still isn't prefect:

Example 1:

Goblin Runner:
Twilight Cost: 1
Strength: 5

The Cave troll of Moria, SotBP:

Twilight Cost: 10
Strength: 15

So we have a strength-cost-ratio of 5 as for Goblin Runner, and as for the Cave Troll, it's 1.5. This seems pretty weird (besides ignoring Goblin Runner 's ability), but there's another point I mentioned before: Vitality. So let's make a strength-vitality-cost-ratio:

Example 2:

Goblin Runner:
Twilight Cost: 1
Strength: 5
Vitality: 1

The Cave troll of Moria, SotBP:

Twilight Cost: 10
Strength: 15
Vitality: 4

But even now, the Goblin Runer seems to be a very much better card. And there are several points to prove that this isn't as correct as it should be, so here are some other points:

1) Site number:

The lower the Site number, the earlier you can play that minion for less twilight, and it also becomes less unaffected by cards like What are They?

2) Synergy:

Let's say, we invent a culture with just one, but really cheap and thus strong minion:

  Minion without a name 
Minion
Strength: 7
Vitality: 1
Site: 1

This would be a perfect cards for a Moria Swarm, wouldn't it?... if it was a Goblin. Like this, I don't think anyone would play this guy, except in a Shadowe mixed deck with like Sauron, Dunlending Renegade etc. It has no synergy. There's no way to pump this guy, to take him back to hand. Also, you can only include him in a Deck, where there already is a strategy, cus' you're only allowed to play 4 of those. Which makes him pretty useless.

3) Fierce:

If a minion with Fierce is able to survive, it can attack once more. Like that, it ca be as strong as two minions.

4) damage +1:

Whenever a minion with damage +1 wins a skirmish, it adds one extra wound/ burden. Like that, it can be as strong as 2 minions.

5) Assignement:

If you would just use the strength-cost-ratio, you would say: "why should I play the cave troll? 3 Goblin Runners have same strength, and they even cost less!"  Well, as most comps have 6+ strength, your opponent could just assign a Goblin Runner to each of his comps and win all the Skirmishes. But when you drop a Cave troll, your opponent is in serious trouble if the situation is the same as described above. And, in addition to that, the Cave Troll is fierce and damage+1, which means he can dealsame damage as 2*2 = 4 "normal" minions!

6) Archery:

Again, if we use the situation of the 3 Goblin Runners and the Cave troll, you could think:" Okay, well, as my opponent has 3 archers, I could either drop the Cave Troll or 4 Goblin Runners. Both possibilites percieve the same: I can soak up 3 archery wounds and still have a minion out!" I don't think I have to explain why you shouldn't do this.

7) Ability:

Even if all the stats of a minion seems to be better than of another, there's still the final point, the ability of a minion. Orkish Lackey is a perfect example. Weak, but if used well, cruel with his wounding ability. Some other highlits of that section: The Balrog, Durin's Bane (strength-cost-ratio of 1.42), Sauron, The Lord of the Rings, Sauron, Dark lord of Mordor, Ugluk, Ugly Fellow and many, many others. Those were just the first cards that came to my mind.

Finally, I'm not sure if I was able to show all arguments, but I hope I was able make everybody clear, that you cannot actually valuate the average strength or overpoweredness of a Block by just counting Strength and Twilight Cost. But besides that, I like statistics very much, and I hope I know why now.

[legolas3333]

Ok it is generally agreed that the two biggest power curves were between RotK and SoG and between BL and TH can anyone think of a way to prove this?

As far as strength goes, the hunters is ahead by a lot and that's not even including hunter bonuses. So I think we can agree that the hunters block has a huge edge in terms of strength.

[Kralik]

Power creep is hard to measure since it's not just twilight, strength and vitality but also key words and abilities. Cirdan's twi/str/vit matches Gandy but his ability is incredibly strong. Aside from the hunter keyword, you also need to factor in Enduring. Castamir comes to mind. Also compare a card like Orc Slaughterer to most of 's Fellowship offerings... yikes! Put that guy on Gothmog's Warg!

[stimpy]

It can be difficult to quantify exactly the power creep, but I think these calculations provide a good base point. I mean, there's really no other way to put a number to the overall strength of minions and take into account the game texts...

For me, one of the easy ways to see the creep in action is to compare Uruk Guard (1R147) with Uruk-hai Guard (12R156).

[menace64]

Of all the minion races, the Orc culture has found its way onto the most cards, topping out at 267; Men comes relatively close with 217 and Uruk-hai gets third place at 172.

The Hobbit race has the lowest representation – having only 1 – and Half-Orc and Maia each have 2.

Men holds the record for longest continual appearance, showing up in 12 consecutive sets (The Two Towers all the way through The Hunters; if you exclude The Wraith Collection, Men is only *not* present in two sets, being Fellowship of the Ring and Realms of the Elf-lords; but then again, if we exclude the small deluxe sets then the only set to be without Orcs is The Two Towers).

795 minions were printed, a full third of which are Orcs. And even though Sauron is the main antagonist of the trilogy, he accounts for only 0.25% of the total minion card pool, having only 2 versions.

As for the rest:
Gollum: 11 cards, 1.4% of card pool
Balrog: 5 cards, 0.6%
Creatures: 6 cards, 0.7%
Half-troll: 2 cards, 0.25%
Hobbit: 1 card, 0.1%
Maia: 2 cards, 0.25%
Men: 217 cards, 27%
Nazgul: 73 cards, 9.1%
Orc: 267 cards, 33%
Spider: 4 cards, 0.5%
Troll: 15 cards, 1.8%
Uruk-hai: 172 cards, 21.6%
Wizard: 11 cards, 1.4%
Wraith: 9 cards, 1.1%

What surprises me most is that there were 73 Nazgul cards. I never thought we got that many. And it always seemed as if there were a lot more Uruks than other races, but I guess that's because when we got them we got a huge boatload of them (The Two Towers, Rise of Saruman).

Did anything surprise you here?