Unofficial Rulebook Discussion #23 (Oct 3 - Oct 16) -- Errata (Group #1)

[Tbiesty]

Discussion #23  (Initial Discussion: Oct 3 - Oct 5, Playtesting: Oct 6 - Oct 14, Review and Decide: Oct 15 - Oct 16)

This is part of the series of discussions and rulings for an "Unofficial Rulebook".  This discussion involves defining errata for banned cards.  (Players may either choose to use or not use this rulebook.  It simply allows players another "well-defined and thought-out" option as far as how to play.)

Steps:

1) During the Initial Discussion step, we will start with a proposed errata for each card.  Please provide comments, suggestions, alternative ideas, etc.
2) During the Playtesting step, errata ideas that were suggested during the Initial Discussion should be playtested as much as possible. Record findings here.
3) During the Review and Decide step, we will review and decide which errata for each card serves as the best solution.  (The "Unofficial Rulebook" will be updated with the result.)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember: The key is to change it just enough to not be "broken" or "overpowered"; we are not creating a whole new card, just tweaking the original.

Card #1:
GALADRIEL, LADY OF LIGHT
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) At the start of each of your turns, heal another ally whose home is site 6. Fellowship: Exert Galadriel to play an Elf. That Elf's twilight cost is -2.

Card #2:
SARUMAN'S SNOWS
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Spell. Weather. To play, exert 2 minions. Plays on a site. No player may play skirmish events at this site. Discard this condition at the end of the turn.

Card #3:
ULAIRE NERTEA, MESSENGER OF DOL GULDUR
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) When you play Ulaire Nertea, you may spot 5 companions and another minion to play a minion from your discard pile.

Card #4:
SAM, SON OF HAMFAST
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Fellowship: If Frodo is the Ring-bearer, exert Sam to remove a burden. Response: If Frodo dies, make Sam the Ring-bearer (resistance 5).

Card #5:
STING
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Bearer must be Frodo. Fellowship or Regroup: Exert Frodo to reveal 2 cards at random from an opponent's hand. Remove (1) for each Orc revealed (limit (4)).

------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your participation!

[hrcho]

I think you should add the twilight cost of each of these cards.

As for the cards:
Galadriel, LoL: I still think her first ability is too powerful. In combination with Lorien Bowman and Elven Protector, Uruk Hai and Orc decks are in trouble. It might be better to change it to At the start of each of your turns you may heal an ally or something similar. The other part of the proposed errata seems ok.

Saruman's Snows: With this errata it has too high a cost for its ability. It would not be played at all. Maybe something along the lines of: Free Peoples player cannot play skirmish events at this site or Free Peoples player cannot use special abilities at this site.

Ulaire Nertea, Messenger of Dol Guldur: This seems ok.

Sam, SoH: I thought of the same errata for him.

Sting: Looks ok.

[Tbiesty]

Good point about Galadriel, LoL.  Those are good alternatives for Saruman's Snows.

Initial post has been updated.

[Thranduil]

Card #1:
GALADRIEL, LADY OF LIGHT
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) At the start of each of your turns, heal an ally whose home is site 6. Fellowship: Exert Galadriel to play an Elf. That Elf's twilight cost is -1.

I think this is a bit bad now. I wonder if the ability can't be -2 or -3? I definitely think you've curbed the worst by making her only heal 1 ally a turn, but I think her other ability needs a bit more umph. What made her particularly broken was that it was free regardless of any other twilight modifiers (eg. East Road).

Or perhaps she should only be able to play one of companions or allies?

Card #2:
SARUMAN'S SNOWS
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Spell. Weather. To play, exert a minion. Plays on a site. No player may play skirmish events at this site. Discard this condition at the end of the turn.

Yes this does seem more usual.

Card #3:
ULAIRE NERTEA, MESSENGER OF DOL GULDUR
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) When you play Ulaire Nertea, for each companion over 4, you may play 1 Nazgul from your discard pile.

Obviously much much better. But even so is fairly ridiculous. I think I would be much more inclined to have him "When you play Úlairë Nertëa, if you can spot 5 companions, you may play a Nazgûl from your discard pile."

Card #4:
SAM, SON OF HAMFAST
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Fellowship: Exert Sam twice to remove a burden. Response: If Frodo dies, make Sam the Ring-bearer (resistance 5).

I'm not sure how much of the brokenness of this card is the ease of 1 exertion per burden or the ability to put him in any deck. I'm worried this again is very bad. Perhaps the right call is to add a spotting requirement instead? For example: "Fellowship: If you can spot 4 Hobbits, exert Sam to remove a burden".

Card #5:
STING
     Proposed Errata:
     (Game Text) Bearer must be Frodo. Fellowship or Regroup: Exert Frodo to reveal 4 cards at random from an opponent's hand. Remove (1) for each Orc revealed (limit (4)).

This seems fine. But, as in the original, there's not much reason not to play this card in every deck in fellowship block...

Thranduil

[Tbiesty]

Thanks!  Updated initial post.

[Tbiesty]

So these are some ideas that come to mind.  I think it will make them not as powerful, but hopefully still useful in some way.

GALADRIEL, LADY OF LIGHT
At the start of your turn, you may heal an ally whose home site is 6.
Fellowship:  Exert Galadriel to play an Elf.  That Elf's twilight cost is -1.

I thought of making her exert twice, but I don't know if that's any better.  Also I reduced her ability to be helpful, but not abusive.


SARUMAN'S SNOWS
Spell.  Weather.  To play, exert an (Isengard) minion twice.
Plays on a site.  No player may use Skrimish special abilities while at this site.
Discard this condition at the end of the turn.

This one was hard to come up with, but I think this may work.  Two exertions make it tougher to play (maybe change it to exert 2 (Isengard) minions?).  I also changed it to allow Skirmish events so it isn't as powerful either. 


ULAIRE NERTEA, MESSENGER OF DOL GULDUR
When you play Ulaire Nertea, if you spot 5 companions, you may play a Nazgul from your discard pile.

This eliminates his splashability in different decks, but still keeps his purpose mostly the same.  I also chose to only play one minion to keep it from becoming an endless supply of minions on large fellowships.  I thought of just a (Nazgul) minion in general, but replaying Morgul Brute or Morgul Destroyer over and over could be too powerful.


SAM, SON OF HAMFAST
Fellowship:  If Frodo is the Ring-Bearer, exert Sam twice to remove a burden.
Response:  If Frodo dies, make Sam the Ring-Bearer (Resistance 5).

I'm trying to keep the card's purpose the same, but reduce it's overall power.  I think only removing burdens from Frodo makes sense and exerting twice will limit his splash power.  He'll still be useful in Hobbit Decks, but not so much in other decks which was his problem.

STING
Bearer must be Frodo.
Regroup:  Exert Frodo twice to reveal an opponent's hand.  For each Orc reveled remove 1 (limit 4).

I think removing the option of using its ability during Fellowship will decrease the card's power by a lot.  I added an extra exertion just in case it wasn't enough to reduce the power of this ability.

These are just some initial thoughts.  Any ideas about them?

[ramolnar]

Proposal for Sam, Son of Hamfast
Fellowship: If Frodo is the Ring-Bearer, exert Sam to remove a burden.
Response: If Frodo dies, make Sam the Ring-Bearer (Resistance 5).

The "exert twice" attacks the wrong problem. For me, the biggest problem is cheap burden removal for alternate ringbearers. If you make him exert twice, that makes him worth one burden. It's then roughly equal to Elf-Song, and nobody would call Elf-Song broken.
In Movie Block and later environments, with this change, to take advantage of multi-for-one burden removal you have to play Frodo, the weakest ringbearer against everything except corruption. I see no problem giving a good card in flavor. Also, there really needs to be a good anti-corruption card in some culture, in the same way that Grown Suddenly Tall is a good anti-condition card that requires some commitment.

[Tbiesty]

Both of you bring up a good point about Sam. Initial post has been updated.

[ramolnar]

Proposal for Saruman's Snows
(Game Text) Spell. Weather. To play, exert a Isengard minion. Plays on a site. No player may use skirmish special abilities at this site. Discard this condition at the end of the turn.

Because of hand reconciliation, I think a special ability on the table is substantially better than an event. For instance, Cliffs of Emyn Muil is relatively close to PATHS in power, even though PATHS does a lot more, because Cliffs doesn't need to be held in hand. And The Tale of the Great Ring is so powerful that a Shadow side must have a way to deal with it, or lose. If it were an event like PATHS, it would still be good but not as good.

In making the change, I want to let the card type I believe is weaker stay live.

[ramolnar]

Proposal for Ulaire Nertea, Messenger of Dol Guldur
(Game Text) When you play Ulaire Nertea, if you spot 5 companions, you may play a minion from your discard pile.

Outside a Nazgul culture deck, this is not a generally playable card. Before banning, and in Open, this is not used for Nazgul; it's used to bring back multiple cheap minions against large fellowships. Making it one minion is just an expensive discard pile tutor. Yes, there's a 9/2, but it costs 4 and is unsupported. Corsairs and Sauron have better options. For Moria, Host of Thousands costs 0, while Host of Moria gives a better body and can play support cards. Other cultures can just play another minion in culture. Well, it might play for Shelob, but there are still choices there like Evil Smelling Fens.

What about Morgul Orcs? Are they really overpowered? I don't think so, but maybe. Because they can swarm, getting a cheapie might be too much. But that can be play-tested.

[Thranduil]

Proposal for Ulaire Nertea, Messenger of Dol Guldur
(Game Text) When you play Ulaire Nertea, if you spot 5 companions, you may play a minion from your discard pile.

Outside a Nazgul culture deck, this is not a generally playable card. Before banning, and in Open, this is not used for Nazgul; it's used to bring back multiple cheap minions against large fellowships. Making it one minion is just an expensive discard pile tutor. Yes, there's a 9/2, but it costs 4 and is unsupported. Corsairs and Sauron have better options. For Moria, Host of Thousands costs 0, while Host of Moria gives a better body and can play support cards. Other cultures can just play another minion in culture. Well, it might play for Shelob, but there are still choices there like Evil Smelling Fens.

What about Morgul Orcs? Are they really overpowered? I don't think so, but maybe. Because they can swarm, getting a cheapie might be too much. But that can be play-tested.

But the main problem with the card is that it was originally so flexible it could go in any deck. Your ruling doesn't fix that. Now I'm all for doing something like:

"When you play Úlairë Nertëa, you may spot 5 companions and another minion to play a minion from your discard pile."

Or some other kind of cultural enforcement in play so that you can play any minion from your discard pile. But you also have to remember that you can't quite compare this to Host of Thousands because you ALSO have a 9/2 minion!

Thranduil

[Tbiesty]

Reminder: Last day of Initial Discussion

By the way, I really like what we have so far. Nice job!

[Elgar]

I'm sad I missed this whole CRD discussion up to this point, but here are my 2 cents on this topic.

I think Nertea was meant to be splashed, it was overpowered by the "for each".  Making it only one minion and 5 companions needing to be spotted makes it useful but not overpowered IMO.  My proposed text would be:
When you play Ulaire Nertea, you may spot 5 companions to play a minion from your discard pile.

I like the change on Sam, but wouldn't mind seeing that expanded to shire ringbearers.

Other's seem good to me.

[Thranduil]

I think Nertea was meant to be splashed, it was overpowered by the "for each".  Making it only one minion and 5 companions needing to be spotted makes it useful but not overpowered IMO.  My proposed text would be:
When you play Ulaire Nertea, you may spot 5 companions to play a minion from your discard pile.

I think that would work well if it had a spotting requirement as well, as I said earlier.

I like the change on Sam, but wouldn't mind seeing that expanded to shire ringbearers.

I actually think the flavour should make this only apply for Frodo.

Thran

[Tbiesty]

Complete.