- @Dictionary: My friend, your response was very nice, I'm sorry to answer so lately. When developing a DC my idea is always to fit the lore first, then fit the current format rules and keywords, then try to innovate the gameplay.
Negating strength from weapons will render weak many tank guys (like Elendil), while making others much easier to defeat (like Éomer or Gimli). The assignment skill can replace
Saruman SotE (so you can use another Saruman), or even synergize with it to assure a specific unbound guy will face your wizard's
malice. Combined with strength reduction (
Men Will Fall),
Of Many Colours will have better chances not only to survive but also to kill companions with one strike. It has counters however: The Voice of Saruman will now protect the Deceived Wizard conditions, which then will stay on the board unlike the minion versions.
You guessed right, these Deceived Wizard minions will often require
conditions to discard (although this
Radagast can spot a good wizard). So they will force you to pack expendable conditions, the best of them being
Saruman's Ambition (costs
, no spotting requirements and cheapens your
events). That seems like a disadvantage, but looks are deceiving: the minion
Alatar and
Pallando will orbit around that card! I'll try to post them soon, they work by replaying and discarding
events and
conditions...
About the Palantír, it helps also with event heavy
decks.
ARfM and other
shadow phase events will be adding twilight to play more minions/tricks, while the twilight made by events of other phases (yours or not) will serve other purposes (like
Uruk-Hai Rampage). I'll post some shadow phase
events to help the evil Wizards, so the Palantír will get more importance than what seems to have.
- @Floydos's additions are very good, regardless of his recurrent miswritings (but this is not the Oxford English Dictionary fanpage
). Those cards look great as counters to a specific culture, the way Decipher designed
Curse From Mordor,
Memory of Many Things or
Goblin Warrior. That can be changed to be more general... or not. Specific counters work well to balance the meta. If the idea is to make them more general, I'd do this:
Grima's Whispering
Event • Shadow
Spot
Saruman
or Grima to make an Man strength +2 and fierce (
and you may cancel the first sentence of his game text if is Théoden Deceived) until the regroup phase.
A generic but predictable pump for
Men, which also unleashes Théoden Deceived if he's the target. As said before, being a shadow phase event allows the Palantír to add twilight
.
Old and Tired
Condition
Strength -1To play,
exert an
Man. Plays on a Free Peoples man.
Response: If a possession is played on bearer, play
a Wizard from your discard pile (and discard that possession if bearer is Théoden); Gandalf may exert twice instead. Discard this condition.
For anyone but works better on Théoden (An Already Troubled Mind can play this on any unbound companion, so only a FP man is a mere formality). Also reduces 1 strength now. Cost raised to
and an exertion to prevent stacking many copies at once on the same companion.
Saruman's Puppet should have a higher vitality, and a line to protect
men from archery (but different from the first line that prevents him from figthing). But seems very nice anyways. I'd change the skirmish skill to negate the text of any FP man, an non-
men might exert to prevent that.
•Théoden Deceived, Saruman's Puppet
Minion • Man
Strenght: 6
Vitality: 3
Site number: 3
To play spot Saruman or Grima.
Théoden cannot be assigned to skirmishes by any player.
Men cannot take archery wounds.Skirmish: Exert Théoden Deceived to cancel all gametext of a man until the regroup phase.
That man can exert (if isn't man) to prevent that.So we would have 2 different versions of Théoden Deceived.