The Great Eye and Shelob's Lair

[FingolfinFinwe]

Does anyone know if the originally planned sets The Great Eye and Shelob's Lair were actually ever created in some form?  Curious if they had the cards designed/playtested at all.  I'm thinking no art since I'd guess some sort of info would have leaked out after Deciphers demise.  But it would have been cool to see what they had in store, even if just basic added mechanisms.

[Dictionary]

I don't know.

I did have a theory that The Great Eye might have had an Archer in it, but I don't even know if that lines up properly with the dates of prior events.

[FingolfinFinwe]

That's probably a good bet considering the erratum on Frenzy of Arrows.

[Phallen Cassidy]

Considering how late Age's End was released compared to the original release calendar (and how few cards it contained), I have a sneaking suspicion that anything they had was put into that. There's also those Triumph and Menace cards they made for the online game (http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00w01 through http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00w13 along with http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00d08c) with some sort of algorithm to determine when a player could use those keywords. Other than that, my bet is they didn't have much of anything.

[Not a Zombie]

It would be cool to program the Triumph and Menace series into Gemp and see how they played.

[Dictionary]

There's also those Triumph and Menace cards they made for the online game (http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00w01 through http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00w13 along with http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/lotr00d08c) with some sort of algorithm to determine when a player could use those keywords.

Weren't they from earlier on though?

It would be cool to program the Triumph and Menace series into Gemp and see how they played.

Yeah, might be interesting to just put them into the "Revised Towers Standard" format. I'm not sure how balanced they were. Enemy of the Hand is crazy even without his Triumph ability; he doesn't have a spotting requirement (Or Unhasty).

[FingolfinFinwe]

Yeah those Triumph/Menace cards were silly.  Why not make something interesting as a promo instead of stuff too OP to play... But I do like the pictures chosen - makes me sad that we never got more than 2x real versions of the Cave Troll 

[Dictionary]

Yeah those Triumph/Menace cards were silly.  Why not make something interesting as a promo instead of stuff too OP to play... But I do like the pictures chosen - makes me sad that we never got more than 2x real versions of the Cave Troll 

Yeah, they are interesting. As are the LOTRO cards that were players had to build up

I do have another thought on Great Eye/Shelob's Lair - If they had implemented them, they'd have had to rotate out King cards. I find that really hard to wrap my head around, since that's where the power creep starts. But the new Standard wouldn't have allowed Grond/Corsairs/Cirdan etc. Plus, what would they have done for Reflections?

[Phallen Cassidy]

I think I saw it written somewhere that, while Reflections was released around the same time as King, it was not part of that set and would not be rotated out. It would be interesting to have a format in which Knights, Elvents, and the Pre-Shadows Shadow Sides are either totally crippled or entirely remade. Shire would lose Great Elf Warrior, Saved from the Fire would no longer be usable for deck filtering... It would've been interesting.

[FingolfinFinwe]

For some reason that sounds familiar about Reflections.

Regarding rotation, I don't think I'd have been too overly upset about anything, maybe aside from Saved from the Fire since it opens up so many interesting fellowship options.