Gollum and the Nazgul

This Deck was build by Matt Clemans and was published first on "Lord of the Rings Online (lotrtcg.decipher.com)".

Gollum and the Nazgul

Deck listing:

Hints & strategie notes for this Deck

Let's talk about sub-optimal assignments. A sub-optimal assignment is when you force your opponent to choose to assign their characters in a less-than-desirable way. If you have a fully loaded fellowship facing a bunch of Moria orcs, for example, you will likely put the strongest orcs on the strongest companions in an effort to kill as many orcs as possible. This way, you don't have to deal with as many orcs being placed on Goblin Swarms and you are safer for the possible double move. If, however, you can make choosing assignments much harder for the Free People's player, then you can increase the chances that they will make a fatal mistake.

This deck focuses on sub-optimal assignments. It uses Gollum and a contingent of Nazgul to present the FP player with many hard choices each turn. Gollum, Stinker is central to this deck. With four copies of Gollum and three of We Must Have It, you should be able to play Gollum almost every turn. With Bill Ferny and a few well timed pump cards, you should be able to add a fair number of burdens. If your opponent tries to put Gollum on his larger companions, he'll still have to worry about the Nazgul he's facing. Ulaire Cantea can remove weapons from your opponents companions, often forcing him on weaker, unarmed characters as well. Ulaire Otsea causes additional problems. While not a threat by himself, the possibility of allowing you to transfer a Blade Tip to the ringbearer should give your opponent pause. Otsea is also a Twilight Nazgul for It Wants To Be Found.

All these sub-optimal assignments should result in burdens for your opponent. With these burdens, you can put the final nail in the coffin for your opponent. Many people will tell you that corruption is not a viable tournament strategy. One reason for this is that there are enough cards that take advantage of a small number of burdens that you can do enough damage with five burdens to cripple or kill a fellowship before you are able to corrupt the ringbearer. This tends to be the primary focus of burden decks - to get and keep the opponent at about five burdens in order to maximize the damage your minions can do.

The majority of minions in this deck can take advantage of burdens. Gollum himself gets stronger for every burden you can spot. As he wins, he will get even stronger and be able to add more burdens. Also, for each burden from two to five a new card in your deck gets more powerful. If you can spot 4 burdens, Ulaire Toldea with a Nazgul Sword becomes a strength twelve Damage +1 minion that you can assign. Not many fellowships can deal with that for very long.