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Moria Swarm |
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Moria Swarm Shadow Side
41 Cards: This version of the Moria Swarm deck is played in such a way that the Shadow side is what will win the game. It relies as little on the Shadow pool as possible, and should not be played to 'dump' Shadow cards. Rather, the Free Peoples side should move cautiously, allowing the player to build up a good Shadow hand, where they can put out as many as six or seven minions for a relatively small cost. One of the key points to doing this is to play any Goblin Domains, Armories, or Swarms that are drawn as early as possible. Then, anytime a minion can be played who will win a skirmish (ei. Flankers, or Scavengers with Scimitars if they don't have archery) they should, and then should always stack on the swarms. It is not important to prevent someone from making a second move until very late in the game. Rather, bait them into making that move until you have enough minions and enough Shadow to play until there are 3-4 minions on Frodo. If the Fellowship is at Site 6 or higher, the Power is the only thing that will save him then. To play this deck, one should pair it with a Free Peoples side that can play all of its cards each turn, can absorb some damage and push often enough to keep the pressure on their Free Peoples to race ahead. A booster heavy Ranger deck or a Gandalf deck might make good matches. The player should remember however that the idea of the deck is not to win with Free Peoples, but rather to wait until it can overwhelm the Ring-Bearer. Sites that are important to this deck: Great Chasm (4), Dimrill Dale (6), Anduin Wilderland (7), Shores of Nen Hithoel (8), Summit of Amon Hen (9). These sites will all allow the Shadow side in this deck to maximize damage against the Free Peoples player. Bid to go second, and stay slightly behind the other player so these sites come out. Ideally, an overwhelming move should be made at Site 7 if possible, because there is no archery phase there. Finally, use the Goblin Sneaks to stack as many minions below the deck as possible, so that there is a better chance of playing these minions as well as anything on the swarms or in your hand at the last site, should they survive that long. This deck is intended primarily for 2-player use, but is large enough that it should have the staying power to manage a multiplayer game. However, it should be played very carefully, allowing the other players to do most of the work of killing each other off, aiding just enough to put an attempt over the top, but saving most of its strength for eliminating the last player. << Back to Lord of the Rings Moria Cycling Shadow Side
List of Cards: I have not created am actual deck list here, as this Shadow side is not designed to win directly. Rather, it should be combined with a Free Peoples deck that relies heavily on card draw. Such decks would include Elven ally decks or Dwarven decks, which are very card itnensive, and tend to be large. The reason to couple such a deck with a Shadow side of this nature is that it should be possible to play or discard every Shadow card from your hand almost every Shadow phase. The primary cards that allow this cycling ability are They Are Coming (one of the most powerful cards in the game), Threat of the Unknown, and the Goblin Scavengers/Scimitar combo. These provide both a powerful discard engine and a strong card drawing engine. In fact, if the Fellowship paired with this side is ahead, it may often be worth discarding a couple of minions or other cards that aren't useful at the time to play a Scavenger from the discard, pulling a Scimitar, and drawing another card. Another possibility to add to the deck is Plundered Armories, allowing the Scimitars to jump from Orc to Orc if their owner dies, thereby allowing increased card draws... It would probably be preferable with this deck to bid to go first, and attempt to use the high cycling ability to allow the Free Peoples to continually push to the full move limit each turn. As with other Moria decks, this one is less effective against Fellowships of five or more characters, but actually becomes stronger in multiplayer play, as there should be 7-8 Free Peoples cards to work with at the start of each Fellowship Phase. If, like me, you dislike the Moria culture, or would prefer to try other approaches to cycling cards, look in my Card Cycling page to see ideas on how to make other cultures cycle effectively. This doesn't mean that they must be played this way, but if the point of the Shadow side is to support the Free Peoples side, I have found it works better to do something along these lines. << Back to Lord of the Rings
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