The Summer 2005 Online PSE Review
August 17, 2005
July 30 and 31 saw the second major online tournament since the release of Bloodlines. The Summer 2005 Premiere Series Event was a two-day tour de force, featuring 77 of the finest LOTR players in an all-day slugfest. At the end, 16 players advanced to day two, an elimination-format tournament. When the dust settled, Kenneth “Ellington” Ellingsen emerged victorious and proved once again why he's the #1 rated player on Lord of the Rings Online TCG.
For this tournament, instead of the tried-and-true Dwarf Free Peoples side, Ellington decided to go with a Gandalf/Ent deck with Pallando. This deck's been running around ever since Bloodlines was released online, and its greatest strength is Treebeard + Pallando, a 13-strength beast of a combo that can discard up to three conditions per turn (five at Heights of Isengard). It can also shut down burden decks with Watch and Wait. Gandalf/Ent is a killer matchup versus Forest Nazgűl, and does just fine against other decktypes as well.
Recently, I spoke to Ellington about his tournament experience.
POET: What made you decide to go with a Gandalf/Ent deck with your Corsairs instead of your old favorite, Dwarves, for day 2 of this event?
ELLINGTON: Ents/Gandy is a more flexible fellowship when it comes to best out of three matches. Dwarves can't double vs. some shadow sides, so I'd have to depend on a shadow kill. With Ents, I had the option to double/triple vs. any shadow.
The problem with Ents is that you get an occational bad draw (no Saved From the Fire early). Since top 16 is played best out of three, I can take that one loss from a bad draw and still win my other two games. I prefer Dwarves day one because it's an incredibly strong fellowship if you play them well (8-0 and 7-1 PSE Utrecht, 8-0 Online PSE).
POET: Your version only has one Pallando and no other followers, while other versions are loaded up with them. Why is that?
ELLINGTON: My deck is designed to be tight. If I'd played more cards, the chance that
you can't draw Saved early (which is really THE card to draw early) is reduced. (Hint, hint to Mary Kirby) I got Traveled Leader to fetch me the site that discards conditions when a Gandy companion wins (even multiple times with 4x Traveled), so I don't need more than one Pallando. Besides, vs. decks that rely on conditions, I usually fetch Pallando with my first Saved.
POET: What effect, if any, has Bloodlines had on the meta thus far, as far as you've seen?
ELLINGTON: Well, Orc swarm with Massing Strength has been played a bit, as well as Evil Men with or without archery. (I think that deck is really bad, but that's just my opinion). As for fellowships, Ents got a great boost with Pallando and the new pumps and elves got a slight boost with Celeborn. I don't think Bloodlines would have made a big impact on Worlds, as you still have the tier-1 decks like Dwarves, Corsairs/Forest Nazgűl, etc. even without BL cards. Sure, new Enquea helps, but he's not that important.
POET: Any tough matchups this time around?
ELLINGTON: No, not really. I dominated my last matches vs. Dwarf/Orc swarm and Dwarf/Dunland. Their shadow was useless vs my Ents, so I could just relax and do a shadow kill. My hardest match was against Chris Lyons who discarded my Treebeard with Fierce in Despair early. Luckily he made some mistakes and lost his Elendil to my Fierce in Despair later.
POET: Who's your pick to win Worlds this year?
ELLINGTON: Well, I would say a European. I've played in a lot of tourneys in the US and Europe, and I think it's much harder to do well in Europe, as the decks and players seem to be better over here. Just look at Sully. He won the NA continentals, but he didn't even place top 16 in either tourney in Utrecht. I think I'll go for Miranda De Vree or Tristan Marsman, unless he plays his silly Evil men deck.
POET: Thanks, Ellington!
As if Gandalf hadn't already made his presence felt in this tournament scene, this PSE brought forth a whopping 8 out of 16 decks featuring Gandalf. Most chose to start Gandalf, Leader of Men and packed Saved From the Fire to get the good Gandalf, Leader of the Company out quickly, but some packed four copies of Gandalf and hoped to draw one early. One deck, KnightBlade's 12th place deck, even risked starting Gandalf.
The remaining Free Peoples sides included the standard Dwarf/Smeagol package, useful for lots of card drawing and setting up the swarm; Black Barney's 5th place Hobbit deck that starts Rosie Cotton, a great matchup against Corsairs and Nazgűl; and LimpAbizkiT's 3rd place Solo Smeagol deck, boosted by Bloodlines's Fishing Boat and Gladden Homestead.
Bloodlines has not had a major effect on the minion metagame so far, especially compared to the paradigm shift that was Black Rider. Still, there are two cards that have boosted Orc decks to an unimaginable degree. The first is a rare: Forced March. Like No Retreat for the Dunland culture, Forced March makes the opponent move again, often with disastrous results. A favorite use of this card is to dash the fellowship on the Crags of Emyn Muil. The best part about Forced March is that all the minions can be dead and the card still works in the regroup phase.
The second Orc card happens to be a common: Massing Strength. Another ugly card in an Orc swarm deck, it ensures that the Orc on the Ringbearer will have strength in the stratosphere.
Out of the sixteen different Day 2 minion sides, six of them were Orc Swarm variants, with most choosing to go with Forced March or Massing Strength. Merboy's 15th place deck used both. There was much variation in the remaining 10 decks: three Forest Nazgűl, three Corsairs, one Burden Nazgűl, and a trio of old favorites in the second through fourth spots: Dunland, Easterlings and Morcs. When all else fails, you gotta go with what works.
Here's Ellington's winning deck, followed by links to the top 16.
Ring-bearer and One Ring
Frodo, Protected by Many
The One Ring, The Ring of Rings
Free Peoples (33)
1 Forest Guardian
1 Skinbark, Fladrif
1 Ent Horde
1 Gandalf, Leader of Men
1 Radagast, The Brown
1 Treebeard, Keeper of the Watchwood
1 Gandalf, Leader of the Company
1 Erland, Dale Counselor
1 Sent Back
4 G for Grand
2 Watch and Wait
3 Terrible and Evil
4 Saved From the Fire
4 Traveled Leader
4 The Flame of Anor
1 Pallando, Far-travelling One
1 Glamdring, Foe-hammer
1 Sting, Weapon of Heritage
Shadow (33)
3 Corsair Marauder
4 Corsair Plunderer
3 Black Númenorean
4 Castamir of Umbar
1 Fierce in Despair
4 Wind that Sped Ships
3 Quelled
4 Black Sails of Umbar
4 Corsair War Galley
3 Ships of Great Draught
Adventure Deck
(0) Anduin Banks
(1) Neekerbreekers' Bog
(1) Cavern Entrance
(2) Caras Galadhon
(0) Wold Battlefield
(0) Hobbiton Market
(1) Pinnacle of Zirakzigil
(3) North Undeep
(3) Heights of Isengard
Summer 2005 PSE Top Sixteen Decklists:
- Ellington – Free Peoples: Gandalf/Ents. Shadow: Corsairs.
- Rancor60 – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Dunland.
- LimpAbizkiT – Free Peoples: Solo Smeagol. Shadow: Easterlings.
- RedWrath – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Morcs.
- Black Barney – Free Peoples: Hobbits. Shadow: Forest Nazgűl swarm.
- sexybugger – Free Peoples: Gandalf/Ents. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Forced March).
- BerndReinartz – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Massing Strength).
- DanFF444 – Free Peoples: Gondor/Gandalf. Shadow: Forest Nazgűl.
- Gaurhir – Free Peoples: Gondor/Gandalf/Smeagol. Shadow: Burden Nazgűl.
- Judas – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Massing Strength).
- UlaireEnquea – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Corsairs.
- KnightBlade – Free Peoples: Gondor/Gandalf. Shadow: Forest Nazgűl.
- Zoeckler – Free Peoples: Hobbits/Gandalf. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Forced March).
- MonkeyUnit – Free Peoples: Gandalf/Ents. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Massing Strength).
- Merboy – Free Peoples: Dwarf/Smeagol. Shadow: Orc Swarm (Forced March + Massing Strength).
- lyonscc – Free Peoples: Gondor/Gandalf. Shadow: Corsairs.
-Steve Horton
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