Towers Standard Sealed Deck Lists and Replays

[Merrick_H]

Also played vs. dmaz I chose the same pairing and used the other shadow.  dmaz chose Gandwarf/Sauron Tracker and Knights/Dunland

Very interesting game.  The Dunland minions are great filler and they are very good at clearing a hand of good cards.

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=Merrick H$8u1ohdrfemrnnyc4

A risky double cost dmaz greatly at site 6.  TNMBF was effective crowd control late game and it was not an easy victory by any stretch of the imagination.

[Durin's Heir]

Regarding your point about Nertea:  he is the ultimate in crowd control, but I also think he is a little too good at what he does.  The real tipping point as far as fellowship side is 6 companions due to the 8-card hand that a shadow player can have.  Nertea punishes 5 companions.  Granted there isn't likely to be a lot of twilight out there if you are only playing 5 companions, but he does punish 5 companions and is even more powerful at later sites than at the beginning of the game.  I think that we should focus our crowd control on 6 companions at this point.

I was just giving an additional idea for crowd control, but you are right, we should focus on punishing 6 or more companions... I just thought Nertea would be an awesome counter for that companion vomiting many players do at site 7 or 8...

By the way, as things are right now every deck has 5 companions besides Frodo, except for RB Rangers (6) and Smeagol & Hobbits (only 4). Therefore, by Serie 3 each player would have 11 or more companions to play (discounting repeated unique ones)... Thus, that common move of piling companions in hand and playing them all at 7 or 8 for a last throw will be very usual, unless we give strong crowd control presence. There Nertea, MoDG could come in handy...

With respect to your pushing for an ent deck, I think that we have seen that an ent deck, particularly when paired with gandalf is very powerful, regardless of how much it is nerfed.  The fact that you have 8-10 base strength high vitality companions makes them hard to kill and hard to swarm.  Additionally Ents were not one of the highest voted fellowships in the poll.  I realize that this same argument can be made against some of the shadow choices that were made, however we were also looking, as was said earlier to increase the variety in fellowships/shadows and usability of the card pool. 

Most Ents without Ent Moot would have 8 strength base, just as a mounted Elite Rider, or a Knight or generic Rohirrim with a weapon. There are only 2 pumps for Ents in TS or Movie Block, and both have a strong overpopullation peril: Boomed and Trumpeted requires to spot as many UB Hobbits as you can (we all know Merry & Pippin are awful fighters), and Roused requires the same with Ents (and an ugly exertion). TMAYOD can be a nice support, but Gandalf can get exhausted very quickly in absense of Ent Moot (and vitality enhancements: Ent Draught, Narya, his Staff).

Additionally, there are only 2 cards that can give them Damage bonuses to clear the table: Treebeard, Guardian of the Forest and Boomed and Trumpeted, while Dwarves, Rohan and even RB Rangers have lots of possessions, conditions, events for that purpose. Even with Ent Moot won't overwhelm anything...

They have high vitality but no healing mechanism; Gandalf can help with that (Have Patience). And many exertion requirements: Roused, Crack Into Rubble, Treebeard and Birchseed's ability, Unhasty circumventing...

A last point: pool. They flood the twilight pool like no one else.


Considering all that, and the general need of strong crowd control (as pointed above), any nerfed Ents deck won't be more threatening than a full possession Rohirrim deck: those Damage+1, exerting, 9 or 10 base strength mounted guys with lots of (very powerful) available pumps plus TMAYOD... clearing everything in their path. And healing over and over again.

Having the two different flavors of Rohan gives people two opportunities to get two different gandalfs while having the chance to pull additional gandalfs in the boosters while not making those decks the obvious choice.

The only significant different flavor between those Rohan decks is completely extrinsic: Gandalf + TMAYOD. Just try the Valiant deck without that (add other Rohan things in his place), and you all will agree there's little to vary when we talk about Rohan alone...

TMAYOD would be a resource available to Rohan if we include a deck for Gandalf. And the newly space Gandalf leaves in the Valiant deck can be used to merge those two themes into one deck, as my draft illustrates. There's no need to build another one; however those LUBS must be removed, and Rohirrim Bow replaced with pumps, Rohirrim Javelin or other possessions (Heavy Chain or Rohirrim Shield)... And nerf it further if is needed.

[Merrick_H]

I was just giving an additional idea for crowd control, but you are right, we should focus on punishing 6 or more companions... I just thought Nertea would be an awesome counter for that companion vomiting many players do at site 7 or 8...

By the way, as things are right now every deck has 5 companions besides Frodo, except for RB Rangers (6) and Smeagol & Hobbits (only 4). Therefore, by Serie 3 each player would have 11 or more companions to play (discounting repeated unique ones)... Thus, that common move of piling companions in hand and playing them all at 7 or 8 for a last throw will be very usual, unless we give strong crowd control presence. There Nertea, MoDG could come in handy...

The only time I really see "companion vomiting" is generally in Towers Sealed is series 3/4 after you get ents and can cycle through them easily with the discarding hobbits and Southron Commander.  Even then it can be VERY risky due to the nature of the sauron swarm capabilities.  Outside of Rohan/Gondor (and those decks don't merge too well as has been said before) going to > 6 companions and straying outside of 2 cultures is going to make the Orc Insurgent super powered.  Additionally, if you watch my last replay, I couldn't go to >6 comps due to TNMBF being on the table!  People underrate that card severely.  It has won me a TON of games in sealed because it allows me to slow down my opponent and set the pace of the engagement.  Finally, if you are hording companions in your hand to drop at 7/8 and run, you likely aren't going through your deck that quickly and are going to have issues slowing down your opponent.  That also doesn't account for cards like the Orc Inquisitor and the Dunland discard dudes that mess with your hand.  They are seriously annoying.

Most Ents without Ent Moot would have 8 strength base, just as a mounted Elite Rider, or a Knight or generic Rohirrim with a weapon. There are only 2 pumps for Ents in TS or Movie Block, and both have a strong overpopullation peril: Boomed and Trumpeted requires to spot as many UB Hobbits as you can (we all know Merry & Pippin are awful fighters), and Roused requires the same with Ents (and an ugly exertion). TMAYOD can be a nice support, but Gandalf can get exhausted very quickly in absense of Ent Moot (and vitality enhancements: Ent Draught, Narya, his Staff).

Additionally, there are only 2 cards that can give them Damage bonuses to clear the table: Treebeard, Guardian of the Forest and Boomed and Trumpeted, while Dwarves, Rohan and even RB Rangers have lots of possessions, conditions, events for that purpose. Even with Ent Moot won't overwhelm anything...

They have high vitality but no healing mechanism; Gandalf can help with that (Have Patience). And many exertion requirements: Roused, Crack Into Rubble, Treebeard and Birchseed's ability, Unhasty circumventing...

A last point: pool. They flood the twilight pool like no one else.

Warning:  I'm going to be VERY blunt here.  I don't want to have a Gandalf support deck.  Gandalf is too good of a character to have a deck built around him.  Frankly, I think that providing Gandalf in the Gandwarf deck with Have Patience, Sleep Caradhras and 2x Mysterious Wizard and a Barliman Butterbur for fetching one of those back is borderline too powerful.  I want to give people the capability of picking a deck with Gandalf in it if they get some really good Gandalf cards and no Gandalf in their boosters, but I don't want to outfit them with Gandalf and all of his toolbox because with all his tools he is too powerful of a character for a sealed environment. 

Ents are interesting, but we have an ent starter in the Towers Sealed league already.  We don't want this to feel like Towers Sealed all over again.

Considering all that, and the general need of strong crowd control (as pointed above), any nerfed Ents deck won't be more threatening than a full possession Rohirrim deck: those Damage+1, exerting, 9 or 10 base strength mounted guys with lots of (very powerful) available pumps plus TMAYOD... clearing everything in their path. And healing over and over again.

I agree with dmaz - this is an opportunity to make Rohan somewhat powerful, which isn't the case in Towers Sealed.  Keep in mind, none of the shadows or fellowships mesh perfectly, which means that each player is going to have to make hard choices - "do I pick deck x because it somewhat complements my fellowship or do I pick deck Y because it has some really good cards that complement my booster pulls?" 

Good deck builders generally keep their decks very close to 30/30 and rarely as high as 35/35 for the sake of consistency.  I think you will find that people who make their decks too big are going to have a hard time pulling off the awesome combos that they see in the current deck pairings.  This wasn't so much of an issue with the original starter decks as you had extra card slots since they were 60-card decks with 11 of them being sites, frodo and a ring.  With the packages we are putting out there, they are already finely tuned at 30 cards per side.  Disrupting that balance too much will make for inefficient deck building and I think people will start to realize that.

The only significant different flavor between those Rohan decks is completely extrinsic: Gandalf + TMAYOD. Just try the Valiant deck without that (add other Rohan things in his place), and you all will agree there's little to vary when we talk about Rohan alone...

TMAYOD would be a resource available to Rohan if we include a deck for Gandalf. And the newly space Gandalf leaves in the Valiant deck can be used to merge those two themes into one deck, as my draft illustrates. There's no need to build another one; however those LUBS must be removed, and Rohirrim Bow replaced with pumps, Rohirrim Javelin or other possessions (Heavy Chain or Rohirrim Shield)... And nerf it further if is needed.

Have you played with the two decks at all?  Have you play tested them or are you just looking at them on paper?  They play completely differently.  With one, you play everything up front, dump a lot of twilight and attempt to blast your opponent (Rohan Allies)  We nerfed it to some degree by pulling mounts and weapons to dial it back a bit. The TMAYOD/Valiant Rohan deck holds onto possessions until the maneuver phase where they heal Eowyn/Allies and dump a lot of pool, making a double move a little more risky for the sake of a much easier single move.  Combining the two decks will be hard to do effectively, AND they have a HUGE weakness to burden adding since they don't have ANY ringbound companions outside of Frodo.

[Merrick_H]

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=Merrick H$kklfzos4uhykp2vu

dmaz vs Merrick_H Gandwarf/Sauron & Knights/Dunland vs. Rohan/Archery & UB Rangers/Nazgul

The original archery deck needs some form of anti-6.  Period.

With the amount of time that dmaz spent above 6 companions and having 9 in the deck to be meat shields, there definitely needs to be some anti-6 in the archery deck as there is none now.  I would recommend dropping a Uruk crossbow Troop for 1 enquea.

Otherwise it went pretty well.  Very few mistakes made by either party.  Rohan healing isn't that bad and the dwarves messed with the draw deck.  Not too many possessions were drawn, so it seems pretty reasonable.

[Durin's Heir]

The only time I really see "companion vomiting" is generally in Towers Sealed is series 3/4 after you get ents and can cycle through them easily with the discarding hobbits and Southron Commander.  Even then it can be VERY risky due to the nature of the sauron swarm capabilities.  Outside of Rohan/Gondor (and those decks don't merge too well as has been said before) going to > 6 companions and straying outside of 2 cultures is going to make the Orc Insurgent super powered.  Additionally, if you watch my last replay, I couldn't go to >6 comps due to TNMBF being on the table!  People underrate that card severely.  It has won me a TON of games in sealed because it allows me to slow down my opponent and set the pace of the engagement.  Finally, if you are hording companions in your hand to drop at 7/8 and run, you likely aren't going through your deck that quickly and are going to have issues slowing down your opponent.  That also doesn't account for cards like the Orc Inquisitor and the Dunland discard dudes that mess with your hand.  They are seriously annoying.

I see it frequently in King Block Sealed, even sometimes in Serie 1. But you are right with Orc Inquisitor and the Dunlendings... it was just an additional option I saw.
By the way, Rohan and Gondor can merge a little if you use An Honorable Charge and mounted theme allies (Leod and Weland)... just a little.

Warning:  I'm going to be VERY blunt here.  I don't want to have a Gandalf support deck.  Gandalf is too good of a character to have a deck built around him.  Frankly, I think that providing Gandalf in the Gandwarf deck with Have Patience, Sleep Caradhras and 2x Mysterious Wizard and a Barliman Butterbur for fetching one of those back is borderline too powerful.  I want to give people the capability of picking a deck with Gandalf in it if they get some really good Gandalf cards and no Gandalf in their boosters, but I don't want to outfit them with Gandalf and all of his toolbox because with all his tools he is too powerful of a character for a sealed environment.

If we limit carefully the powerful tools (Have Patience, Roll of Thunder, Task Was Not Done, Depart Silently, Wielder of the Flame), and give more presence to small or situation-dependant tricks like Strength of Spirit, Risk A Little Light, Unknown Perils, Treachery Deeper Than You Know, Speak "Friend" and Enter, Keep Your Forked Tongue, You Cannot Pass!...
I just cannot see the problem here. Sleep Caradhras and Deep in Thought can sweep the table, then let's remove them from this draft. If TMAYOD is the problem, why should we include it in a Rohan deck but not in a Gandalf one?

The Gandalf presence in the Valiant Rohan deck is far more powerful than the one in Gandwarves... Sleep Caradhras is the only strong card in favour of Dwarves.

And please remember: Gandalf is an event-based character. That means 2 things: he needs strong presence in a deck to have many tricks and cover many threats, and those tricks can very well clog the hand. In Fellowship Sealed most players ditch Intimidate or Strength of Spirit at regroup not for being a useless card, but simply 'cause they can't use it at the moment. 2x copies of him may be enough punishment for having too many of his events on a mixed deck, unless you pull more copies from boosters...

Ents are interesting, but we have an ent starter in the Towers Sealed league already.  We don't want this to feel like Towers Sealed all over again.

This just can't have the feel of Towers Block Sealed, by no means, even if we did a copy-paste of EoF's Witch King deck: this format is combined with Fellowship Block metagame... thus it's crowd control options. And this Ents deck won't have 6 non-Unhasty Ents but a maximum of 4, and half must be Unhasty... neither will have those discardable Merry & Pippin. It's very different from many points of view. And won't be clearing the table often, unlike Rohan, Dwarves or RB Rangers....

I agree with dmaz - this is an opportunity to make Rohan somewhat powerful, which isn't the case in Towers Sealed.  Keep in mind, none of the shadows or fellowships mesh perfectly, which means that each player is going to have to make hard choices - "do I pick deck x because it somewhat complements my fellowship or do I pick deck Y because it has some really good cards that complement my booster pulls?" 

Good deck builders generally keep their decks very close to 30/30 and rarely as high as 35/35 for the sake of consistency.  I think you will find that people who make their decks too big are going to have a hard time pulling off the awesome combos that they see in the current deck pairings.  This wasn't so much of an issue with the original starter decks as you had extra card slots since they were 60-card decks with 11 of them being sites, frodo and a ring.  With the packages we are putting out there, they are already finely tuned at 30 cards per side.  Disrupting that balance too much will make for inefficient deck building and I think people will start to realize that....

.... Combining the two decks will be hard to do effectively, AND they have a HUGE weakness to burden adding since they don't have ANY ringbound companions outside of Frodo.

Decks MUST have some weakness, burden shadows are the main natural threat to any Rohan deck. In Constructed Movie Block people use Sam, SoH, but that should be included in the No-no card list...
(In the first post of this thread, you can add the No-no card list, for public utility... Add Filibert Bolger too...)

You can easily combine those 2 decks very effectively in a small build. It took me just a while to build this with the pre-existing decks... Just add the 5-card TMAYOD pack (2x Gandy, 2x TMAYOD and 1x Staff), remove redundant stuff...

(32 cards)
1x Eomer, Sister-son of Theoden
1x Eowyn, Daughter of Eomund (starting)
1x Theoden, King of the Golden Hall (starting)
1x Household Guard
2x Gandalf, The White Wizard
1x Guma, Plains Farmer
1x Ecglaf, Courageous Farmer
1x Hlafwine, Village Farmhand
1x Weland, Smith of the Riddermark
1x Brego
2x Horse of Rohan or Rider's Mount
1x Herugrim
2x Rider's Spear
2x Rohirrim Javelin
1x Wizard Staff
2x Hobbit Sword
1x Armory
3x An Honorable Charge
1x Have Patience
2x Severed His Bonds
2x Trust Me As You Once Did
2x Well Stored

You can easlily trim it even more if we consider TMAYOD covers Frodo protection very well and Armory isn't necessary.... 31 or even 30 cards.
2x Well Stored and Eomer provide strong healing to those 4 allies. You can replay those Javelins (or any Bow you pull) with Ecglaf over and over again, for that purpose Guma can heal him a second time per turn.
3x An Honorable Charge, Hlafwine and 2x TMAYOD for pumping... Weland can heal Gandalf if mounted (twice if Guma heals Weland), and Hlafwine can be healed each turn too. Thus there won't be much need of event pumps...


You can build exacly the same deck (except for Eomer, SSoT) coupling my Rohan Valiant + Allies draft with any Gandalf deck at Serie 2 we build, as far as it has 2x TMAYOD, 1x Wizard Staff, 1x Have Patience and at least 2x Gandalf, The White Wizard.

I too agree with Dmaz, we have the chance to give Rohan a great deck here. Look at the merged draft I made, it IS powerful, maybe to the point we need to nerf it. And this coupled possibility with Trust Me support is even more powerful...


By the way, that Uruk Besiegers/Valiant Rohirrim couples very well with the Ally Rohan/Archery in the Shadow side too: Uruk Crossbow Troop feeds machines... Saruman's Ambition... Hate and Anger.

Have you played with the two decks at all?  Have you play tested them or are you just looking at them on paper?  They play completely differently.  With one, you play everything up front, dump a lot of twilight and attempt to blast your opponent (Rohan Allies)  We nerfed it to some degree by pulling mounts and weapons to dial it back a bit. The TMAYOD/Valiant Rohan deck holds onto possessions until the maneuver phase where they heal Eowyn/Allies and dump a lot of pool, making a double move a little more risky for the sake of a much easier single move.

Actually I watched some of the first replays, and have experience with the Eowyn starter in Towers Sealed (which works the way you describe)... I can see the difference, but they aren't completely different: they heal companions, play possessions, exert minions, pump fighters and clean the table very often for a second move. No, I haven't tested these exact decks by myself, if that matters...

There's always the option of throwing every possession in fellowship phase instead of maneuver, and you can't set up Elite Rider or Eomer that way... you need to transfer possessions with a class to play another one with the same class on the same character, and that means twilight. In abstract, rarely you will add more than in the maneuver phase (as only Herugrim and Horse of Rohan cost more than )... That's significative but not a HUGE difference. It's an advantage really, and no one forces you to not play at fellowship...

There's a way of reducing that maneuver twilight to almost : Gandalf's Wisdom. It's not part of my interest that combo anyway...

[Merrick_H]

I'm fine with Rohan taking 2 separate series to get built up to the deck that you show there. That is one reason why they are in series 1 and series 3.  You are forced to commit yourself to them early when there may be better shadows out there.  If you wind up seeing a lot of Rohan in the first series, by all means play Nazgul or Easterlings in the next series.

Again, I don't want there to be a Gandalf toolbox deck.  I want people to have to chose to take Gandalf because they have awesome cards for him rather than because there are awesome Gandalf cards in the deck.  I want there to have to be hard choices as to which deck you build around because of the cards you pick up, not because of the cards that are inherently in the deck that make it a no-brainer to pick up.  Gandalf + tools makes a no brainer situation because he is ultimately splashable in ANY deck that you want to put him in.  He is a 4/7/4 companion that can skirmish and has capabilities that when used correctly really give an edge to your deck.

Again - I don't want to give people those capabilities.  I'd like to see people design their deck around the cards they get and if it makes sense to pick up Gandalf in a starter because you got some awesome support for him, great!

If you design an Ent Deck, you would realistically have to put it in series 3 because that is where most of the support comes up.  By that point people would have a pretty wide range of cards and strategies.  I don't want someone to pick up a Gandalf deck just because it gives them Gandalf + toolbox.  Realistically, you can drop gandalf to a 6-7 card toolbox that will hose most people.

2x gandalf
1-2x Trust Me as You Once Did
1x Barliman Butterbur PP
1x Have Patience
1x Sleep Caradhras OR GST

We are darn close to that in the current Gandwarf deck, which is why I'm on the fence about recommending that we cut Barliman.  That way if you want Trust Me as You Once Did, you have to go Gandwarf/Rohan series 3.

[Merrick_H]

2 games with bigredmf his Rohan/Archery & RBR/Easterling & Gollum deck combo vs my Rohan/Archery & UBR/Nazgul combo

Only game 2 is shown as game 1 was a bad blowout at 5 because of a nice little swarm

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=Merrick H$x66iii9itm2a7vtv

This only confirms my suspicion that the Rohan/archery deck needs access to Enquea.

Made the change to the deck lists.  Dropped 1 Uruk Crossbow Troop and added 1x Enquea LoM

[Durin's Heir]

2 games with bigredmf his Rohan/Archery & RBR/Easterling & Gollum deck combo vs my Rohan/Archery & UBR/Nazgul combo

Only game 2 is shown as game 1 was a bad blowout at 5 because of a nice little swarm

http://www.gempukku.com/gemp-lotr/game.html?replayId=Merrick H$x66iii9itm2a7vtv

This only confirms my suspicion that the Rohan/archery deck needs access to Enquea.

Made the change to the deck lists.  Dropped 1 Uruk Crossbow Troop and added 1x Enquea LoM

The Constructed version I played some months ago had that problem too... 36 cards and even heavier archery, but prior to adding 2x Shotgun Enquea it lost half of the times. After that change, it killed almost everything. At site 9 often Frodo faced alone 7 or more minions...

[Merrick_H]

Proposal:

Let's work with Durns Heir's new S2S list and see how powerful it is.

I'd also propose the following rearrangement of fellowships:

Proposed Pairings by Series
Serie 1:
Gandalf & Dwarves/Sauron Trackers (Grind)
Rohan Allies/Moria & Isengard Archery
Three Hunters/Uruk Trackers

Serie 2:
Knights/Dunland Discard
Gandalf & Rohan/Twilight Nazgul
Ringbound Companions/Easterlings & Gollum

Serie 3:
Shoulder to Shoulder/Southrons
Hobbits & Smeagol/Rohirrim Traitors
Unbound Rangers/Berserkers

This solves some of the issues of having Gondor be the only choice in Series 2.  It also means that people can choose Rohan both series, but they miss out on ALL burden removal and condition removal.  They are great skirmishers and have some healing potential, but are really weak on the burden front without a lucky pull of Faramir or some other RB companion.

Thoughts?

[Durin's Heir]

I posted this on the other thread, it should be discussed here...

Just look at this scenario: Serie 2, choose to aid Faramir's Rangers in their errand into Ithilien Forest, help Knights of Osgiliath to recover and defend their long lost ruined capitol, or join an Elven Army and stand firm at Helm's Gate... EPIC.

Actually your arrangement shares the same basis as mine, so very well could be Gandalf & Rohan in Serie 2 instead of Naith Elves... Equally epic.

That way Naith Elves & Gimli would be in Serie 3 where they can get better booster pulls (Realms of Elf Lords and EoF have plenty of good elven stuff), and the deck shouldn't need too much nerfing from it's original draft (Lend Us Your Aid would be out anyway).


I still think there should be a Gandalf + Ents deck, but with this last input and discussion I started to like that idea of Rohan and Gandalf at Serie 2... it reminds me the spirit of the book/movie.

The aspect I dislike of that Rohan & Gandalf deck is the fact Valiant Rohirrim can merge with Ally Rohan quite easily (my Valiant + Villagers draft illustrates that)... then the Gandalf TMAYOD deck should have another theme to merge. Maybe even another Rohan theme... Who knows.
If, hypothetically, we build an Ents & Gandalf deck, it should be in Serie 3 for flavor and booster pulls. Thus the Naith Elves & Gimli deck would fit nicely in Serie 2 instead of Gandalf & Rohan.

Those are two very different scenarios: 1) Gandalf & Rohan at Serie 2, Naith Elves at Serie 3; or 2) Naith Elves at Serie 2, Gandalf + Ents at Serie 3. But in both cases UB Rangers would be moved to Serie 3, solving the 'only Gondor at Serie 2' problem.

[BigRedMF]

If the Shoulder deck is taking advantage of minion wounds, why wouldn't it be a better pairing with berserkers? The rangers are better at fighting Southrons (Sword of Gondor), so to me these two pairing make more sense. Spitting out twilight in the manuever phase is exactly what Southrons want, so I would NOT consider the Shoulder deck to be "strong" against the Southrons, even though they can move wounds around.

[Durin's Heir]

If the Shoulder deck is taking advantage of minion wounds, why wouldn't it be a better pairing with berserkers? The rangers are better at fighting Southrons (Sword of Gondor), so to me these two pairing make more sense. Spitting out twilight in the manuever phase is exactly what Southrons want, so I would NOT consider the Shoulder deck to be "strong" against the Southrons, even though they can move wounds around.

Naith Shoulders against Berserkers, even more epic! But I'm still trying to find a place for Ents here, ergo Gandy and Treebeard would... only hypothetically... fight those Uruks at Serie 3.

Your reasonings are quite logical, each Free Peoples must fight with some ease its own Shadow, and Gondor fights Southrons better. They can heal (Defender of Minas Tirith, King in Exile and Athelas), win skirmishes and clear the board, choke (quite important against Southrons)...

As UB Rangers will be at Serie 3 along with Smeagol & Hobbits, I think NSttS and ATfNBS can make a great premiere for choking mechanisms...

[dmaz]

Proposal:

Let's work with Durns Heir's new S2S list and see how powerful it is.

I'd also propose the following rearrangement of fellowships:

Proposed Pairings by Series
Serie 1:
Gandalf & Dwarves/Sauron Trackers (Grind)
Rohan Allies/Moria & Isengard Archery
Three Hunters/Uruk Trackers

Serie 2:
Knights/Dunland Discard
Gandalf & Rohan/Twilight Nazgul
Ringbound Companions/Easterlings & Gollum

Serie 3:
Shoulder to Shoulder/Southrons
Hobbits & Smeagol/Rohirrim Traitors
Unbound Rangers/Berserkers

This solves some of the issues of having Gondor be the only choice in Series 2.  It also means that people can choose Rohan both series, but they miss out on ALL burden removal and condition removal.  They are great skirmishers and have some healing potential, but are really weak on the burden front without a lucky pull of Faramir or some other RB companion.

Thoughts?

I'm in support of this

At this point in the development, I think we should still be open to tweaking the current decks, and switching certain fellowship/shadow matchups if need be.

I would be against developing entire new decks though. As a few have pointed out, I think we did a good job of representing the decks that got the most interest in the poll.

I think one of the only exceptions was adding the Dunland deck (which not as many people were interested in). But, in this case, it was much more attractive to add some base cards for Dunland rather than pure Moria or Stupid Swarm.

[Merrick_H]

S2S should be paired with Southrons because the southrons can take advantage of the extra twilight. There is no rule that the fellowship should be able to handle the shadow and it wasn't followed in all of Decipher's starters.  We don't even really do it consistently here.  How do Hobbits handle Rohirrim traitors well?  How do Knights handle Dunland Discard well?  How does Gandalf/Rohan handle Twilight Nazgul well?  Twilight nazgul love maneuver twilight...

Additionally I don't want to see the VERY natural pairing of both 3-Hunters + Uruk Trackers and S2S + Berserkers.  That is too much overlap for my comfort.

[BigRedMF]

S2S should be paired with Southrons because the southrons can take advantage of the extra twilight. There is no rule that the fellowship should be able to handle the shadow and it wasn't followed in all of Decipher's starters.  We don't even really do it consistently here.  How do Hobbits handle Rohirrim traitors well?  How do Knights handle Dunland Discard well?  How does Gandalf/Rohan handle Twilight Nazgul well?  Twilight nazgul love maneuver twilight...

Additionally I don't want to see the VERY natural pairing of both 3-Hunters + Uruk Trackers and S2S + Berserkers.  That is too much overlap for my comfort.

I agree with your last statement. However in response to your post, in general, it has been mentioned many times over that  the freeps side of a deck generally works well against the paired shadow (not the other way around, mind you). There was mention of Wingfoot vs Dunland, Rohan vs Uruks, Gandalf vs Conditions, RBR vs burdens, even UB rangers vs Twilight Nazgul bc they have Athelas. I'd be very surprised if you missed all those posts/comments along the way. I believe you even made a post yourself explaining why we paired the FP and Shadows that we did.

But as I said first, I agree with not making it too easy to combine both FP and Shadow with a single deck choice.