What are some anti-Troll Super Swarm strategies?

[sgtdraino]

The latest thorn in my side is Orc culture Troll Super Swarm. I'm sure you've all encountered a variant of it before:

Pitiless Orc to make your guys exert
Demoralized to get twilight
Mountain-Troll to play the swarm from discard
Isengard Underling coupled with Bound to Its Fate for absurd burdening
Goblin Hordes to rinse and repeat
The rest is icing on the cake.

Now, obviously such decks are pretty reliant upon their conditions, and in the past I've been pretty good at getting rid of those conditions... but lately I seem to be encountering a variant of this deck that can pretty reliably generate a super-swarm with just one or two Demoralized out, in a single turn. The player will hold back his copies of Demoralized so they can't all get canceled at once, and will only play them when he thinks he has a good shot at the super-swarm, such that towards the end of the game, you'll eventually end up facing nearly ever minion in his deck at once. And since all the cards used to do the swarm are played in that single Shadow phase, there is little opportunity to break that cycle and stop the super-swarm from happening.

So what are some strategies/cards that people can use to help protect their freeps from Troll Super Swarm?

I'd like this thread to be a repository for such strategies. Your help is appreciated!

[Not a Zombie]

First, I'd love to see a replay link to one of these games. To the point, use Gandalf, Traveled leader, and Caras Galadhon. Add some skirmish healing and you'll be set for all but burdens!

[sgtdraino]

First, I'd love to see a replay link to one of these games.

Here ya go:

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=sgtdraino$uubpt0sw47de8jwi

To the point, use Gandalf, Traveled leader, and Caras Galadhon. Add some skirmish healing and you'll be set for all but burdens!

That might possibly help, but of course often such decks employ Mount Doom to prevent specifically that.

One option could be The Faithful Stone, though sometimes these decks can produce a super-swarm and still have twilight left over to take care of the Stone. Still, 4x The Faithful Stone might be the best bet.

Then there's Shadowplay with Unheeded to take out the Pitiless Orc before he can exert you... but chances are he'll just play another one.

Storied Homestead could cancel the Mountain-Troll's special ability, but not for the duration of the phase.

In the past, I've used Steward's Legacy to stop the Mountain-Troll, by targeting him when a Pitiless Orc allows me to exert Faramir... but at this point Troll Super Swarm players are wise to this, and don't play the Mountain-Troll until after they've played all their Pitiless Orcs, OR play their Pitiless Orcs after they've played every other minion they can. Ideally, what I need is some kind of response action that allows me to exert Faramir, and so activate Steward's Legacy to stop the Mountain-Troll... but I don't think there is any.

Three Monstrous Trolls could put a small dent in his twilight generation, but not much I'd think.

Thoughts?

[Shelobplayer]

Stewards' Legacy with Faramir can disable the Mountain Troll after the first Pitiless Orc hits the board (and it is a great card anyway, especially with Captain of Ithilien), and if you keep your fellowship at 5 and discard their conditions it shouldn't be too troublesome to deal with that deck.

[Not a Zombie]

New Authority could do Faramir's job for you without needing them to play their orc. Only works once though...

[ToPaxyGourouni]

1. Shield of the white tree to shuffle their hand they have been gathering up for so many sites.

2. Keep your companions exhausted. Lurkers are str 8-9 with very few notable exceptions. Keep your company exhausted and they can't excert you. Ergo, they can't get any tokens.

3. Dwarfs and Balin avenged is probably your best bet.

[sgtdraino]

1. Shield of the white tree to shuffle their hand they have been gathering up for so many sites.

2. Keep your companions exhausted. Lurkers are str 8-9 with very few notable exceptions. Keep your company exhausted and they can't excert you. Ergo, they can't get any tokens.

3. Dwarfs and Balin avenged is probably your best bet.

These are some great suggestions. Shield of the White Tree could work well, although their objective is to cycle through their deck pretty quickly. It will delay them for a bit, but eventually they'll just draw the cards they need again... especially if they're almost out of draw deck.

"Keep your companions exhausted" is probably your best suggestion. Seems counter-intuitive, but speaking from personal experience, this actually can work. The big bomb usually hits around Site 7, so whenever you think it's about to go off, just exhaust as many guys as possible the turn before, and they will have difficulty in generating enough twilight to wipe you out. And once they've shot their wad, that's generally it for them. For me, Soldier's Cache has been the best bet for exhausting most of my guys at Site 6, while also giving me useful tokens to pile up on conditions like The Faithful Stone.

Balin Avenged looks like a real show-stopper for them, although obviously you have to be running Dwarfs to use this.

A few more notes: These kinds of decks also like Unforgiving Depths to stick you at the Cavern Entrance for their bomb, and then also Orkish Camp to make sure you can't change it back. What to do? From my experience, on top of exhausting your own guys, you really do need to avoid that cavern entrance. So, before the bomb goes off, it's pretty important to get a Traveled Leader in your hand, as well as some form of Condition hate that works in Maneuver. I like Deep in Thought and/or Gladden Homestead.

It also seems to me that A New Light would really wreck their plans.