[UEP, accepted] Altered conditions for discarding Mode cards

[Jambo]

Name: Altered conditions for discarding the Black Rider and Fell Rider Ringwraith mode cards

Status: Accepted

Proposal maintainer: Jamie Pollock

Categories: Balance

Errata:
Black Rider
Discard this card and any other Ringwraith followers in the company during any of your following organization phases the company is at a Darkhaven after having moved from a non-Darkhaven site to a Darkhaven. Cannot be duplicated on a given company.

Fell Rider
Discard this card during any of your following organization phases the company is at a Darkhaven after having moved from a non-Darkhaven site to a Darkhaven. Cannot be duplicated on a given company.

Problem: One of the problems with active Ringwraith strategies as I see it, is quite often one of hand clogging resulting from the multitude of cards necessary to successfully negotiate a move to and from a Darkhaven (mode card, Forced March, unleashed card, untappers e.g. The Ring Leaves its Mark and of course the actual MP resource card). For active Ringwraith strats the contents of the resource deck is based largely on the Ringwraith and this all or nothing strategy is often doomed to fail as it's too easy to prevent.

Solution: If the mode cards were discarded using the errata above, then Ringwraiths could effectively drop the mode card from the hand and not necessarily have to move to a non-Darkhaven site immediately.  This would help the card flow of an active Ringwraith deck by reducing the number of cards needing to be withheld in the hand.  This will also help an active Ringwraith deal with roadblock, since a Ringwraith returned to a site of origin is not considered to have moved from a non-Darkhaven site to a Darkhaven and therefore won't satisfy the conditions for discarding the mode card.  At the moment roadblock completely destroys an active Ringwraith stat, as the failure to move results in the discarding of the mode card on the following organisation phase.

Pros: More flexibility for the typical active Ringwraith deck with a hand size of 8 cards.  We might even see Hoarmurath nip out for breath of fresh air...

Cons: ?

Rationale: The rationale behind this UEP is that the mode card will then only be discarded once it has been used as intended, i.e. to move to a non-darkhaven site.  This will help promote and make active Ringwraith decks more viable.

Discussion: Edited to remove the Heralded Lord errata 29 July 2005.

Voting:
Jamie: YES
Kris: YES
Benjamin: YES
Leon: YES
Adrian: YES
Michiel: YES

SUMMARY: YES=6, NO=0, TOTAL=6, %=100

Voting started at: 22 July 2005

Voting ends at: 22 Aug 2005

[Jambo]

My vote is yes of course.

[Tegarend]

I like it. Write me down for a YES, too.

[Jaded]

Doesn't it eliminate use of "Foced March"?

[Jambo]

Jaded, no is the answer.

Using this UEP, if your Ringwraith moved from a non-Darkhaven site to a Darkhaven and remained there, then the mode card would still be discarded on the following organisation phase.

The main use of Forced March for a Ringwriath is to allow the wraith to move from a non-Darkhaven site to Darkhaven and then on to another non-Darkhaven site in the same turn, thereby circumventing the discarding clause of the mode card...  This UEP doesn't change that.

[Jaded]

Sorry, I missed the part of the text  :oops:

[Bandobras Took]

I'll vote yes.  Anything to make active Ringwraith strategies less of a pain in the butt.

[Leon]

YES for me too, rws ought to be useful for anything other than sideboarding and their special abilities

[Sly Southerner]

Yes, good idea.  :D

Will this make the no mode card movement to Barad-dur UEP obsolete?

[Sly Southerner]

Another thought I just had is how will this affect game balance? Most RW sit around at a haven and dont gather MP. If active RW strategies become common (a good idea in principle) will this give minions a big advantage by having an extra big character to gain more MP?

[Jambo]

Another thought I just had is how will this affect game balance? Most RW sit around at a haven and dont gather MP. If active RW strategies become common (a good idea in principle) will this give minions a big advantage by having an extra big character to gain more MP?

Good question.  I think if active RW strats other than Akhorahil's Malady deck were that good at the moment, then they'd already be prevalent in the tournament scene.  As it is, squatting RWs with Bade for Rule, While the Yellow Face Sleeps and using We Have Come to Kill, have proven to be far more effective and their presence is already well-established.

The fact that Khamul, the Witch-king and other RW have never been used competitively probably says a lot for the effectiveness of running an active RW strat. You see, regardless of this UEP, the number of support cards required for an active RW strat remains large and still means it's likely to the main strategy for the deck (e.g. Mode cards, Forced March, The Ring Leaves Its Mark, Unleashed cards). We all know how easy a 1 character company can be tapped out and how a moving avatar can suddenly turn out to be a dead avatar.

[Jambo]

Will this make the no mode card movement to Barad-dur UEP obsolete?

How do you mean?

You still don't need a mode card to move to Barad-dur.  If you have a mode card and move to Barad-dur then you'll lose the mode card upon returning to Minas Morgul, as you'll be moving from a non-Darkhaven site to Darkhaven.

[Lord Leuber]

Strangely enough, Heralded Lord is the one mode card that can be duplicated in a company (as far as I see). Well, maybe not that strangely, because normally giving -4 or -6 prowess to a RW isn't such a good idea. However, with this UEP you could stick 3 Heralded Lords in your deck, playing them at ease and end up with as much as 15 DI permanently for your haven squatting RW (6 character MP's).

My point being, if you really want to bring "balance", just add the can't be duplicated clause to Heralded Lord as well. If so, I'll vote yes, otherwise I'm not sure yet...

[Jambo]

Actually, that's a very important point that you've raised there.  In fact by doing this for heralded lord, this is actually likely to have the opposite effect as intended and make some squatting Ringwraiths even more useful and powerful by simply allowing the player to dump a heralded lord card on the ringwraith for a permanent increase in DI.  This extra DI could be used to bring in high MP characters and or easily raise darkhaven factions.

The fact heralded lord appears to be able to be duplicated is also most strange!

As a result I've removed the Heralded Lord errata from this UEP.  Please  feel free to modify your votes as appropriate.

[Lord Leuber]

If Heralded Lord is removed from the UEP, it's certainly a yes for me!