By Tristan Marsman

Yet another Premier Series Qualifier has gone by in the online gaming world, where things like spilling drinks over your cards and your opponent staring you down belong to the past.

Merboy went in for the kill last week and brought the big prize home. He used a solid card-cycling deck, applying his fellowship turn to set up a better hand for the shadow kill. Beginning with his Free Peoples cards I would like to mention that the all new Isildur, Heir of Elendil (more on him later) is in his starting fellowship. The extra card draw could definitely mean that extra minion in your hand to kill off your opponent’s fellowship (how often do we not curse Worlds Apart's evil shuffling gnome not giving you that extra minion?). Dwarven pumps such as Out of Darkness and Durability add to the extra card draws during Merboy’s fellowship turn, allowing for even greater card-cycling efficiency. Certainly a nice addition that jumped out at me is Closer and Closer He Bent, allowing the player to cycle his or her Free Peoples cards in the fellowship turn. If we take a closer look at his Free Peoples side, I must say that it’s quite a gamble to sacrifice so much Free Peoples safety for a greater card cycling ability. I’d imagine a quickly set up Shadow coming at these companions from an opponent’s side of the table could spell trouble. For Merboy, it paid off as he ploughed on and won the PSQ. Shows you what I know.

I wanted to invest a few more lines, possibly a paragraph, to Isildur. To see him in a winning deck has come, to me, as quite a surprise. I would classify myself with those people who at first disliked the new Isildur. Having his Resistance reduced to 0 would mean a death before possibly even skirmishing, leaving the Ring-bearer open to the minions who are wondering why Isildur just dropped dead on the floor. I figured the extra card draw could not outweigh the cost of having an alternate "death condition" for a companion. I would also stress that, especially online, a lot more diversity is present in the decks used during Premier events. This leads to players who use Our Foes Are Weak in an Uruk Hai resistance deck or Wielding the Ring in an (Evil) Men archery deck. At any rate, it seems that Merboy was not afraid of getting Isildur "corrupted" by his gametext and dares to start with Smeagol as well, adding insult as well as one extra burden. It seems that I may have underestimated the new Isildur.

On to Merboy's Shadow side, we’ll see a culture benefiting from the Free Peoples’ card cycling. The Orc culture has always been one associated with swarms and has the ability to take into hand more minions of your choice (Goblin Hordes) on a hand already stacked with Shadow cards. Abundant with minions like Persistent Orc and the toil Champion Orc, any Free Peoples party facing Orcs can expect to see swarms early on in the game. All in all a deck that uses the old principle of "circle et impera" (cycle and conquer – I just made that up for those of you who care about purity of language) to set up a great hand for, in this case, the shadow side.

Moving on to another notable deck, I’d like to mention lyonscc’s deck. He uses a burden Ulaire Enquea, Thrall of the One deck just as it should be played. A solid Dwarven choke to go with his Shadow, using card draws (this time focusing on No Pauses, No Spills) to set up his Shadow hand. Now, for lyonscc it was even more important to have a good hand since Burden Enquea is so sensitive to the combo. An ideal situation would be to play an Enquea, and have enough twilight left to play Between Nazgul and Prey. Definitely a fine line to walk. The reason I mention this deck is that it can be hard to play against (just as it’s hard to play with). Many people running a Gimli Ring-bearer will get scared the moment that pesky Enquea starts rearing its transparent head.

The thing to remember when playing this deck is that it’s scared of choke. Lyonscc added some more minions, such as Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow, to get back Between Nazgul and Prey) to what I usually see in this type of deck and that’s not a bad idea. If the burden strategy goes wrong, lyonscc will always have the ability to at least play something against his opponent whereas some Enquea burden decks either play Enquea every few turns or simply lose the game. Back to the choke. This sort of deck would normally need 10 twilight in order to get the burden engine rolling. Let’s say some Sense of Obligations hit the proverbial table a few turns ago and it’s now up to the assignment actions to circumvent those for optimal burden addage... (probably not a word). That’s 6 to play Thrall of the One and 4 to use Between Nazgul and Prey. Denying this deck that 10 twilight is a great way of countering it for at least a few turns in the lower regions. Keep in mind though that, as soon as you have 6 or more burdens, the Canteas, Black Assassin can normally (depending on companion resistance) take over the assignment for burdens circumventing Sense of Obligation. At this point, 5 twilight would be enough.

Letting companions die to either get rid of more twilight when moving or to lose some Senses of Obligation a bit sooner than waiting for your condition removal (if any) is also not a shame. Hobbit players could consider letting their unbound Hobbits go to the Grey Haven in favor of Between Nazgul and Prey not working at optimal efficiency.

And then there is, of course, there's Crashing Cavalry. I'd personally give this card 3/10 for stopping Enquea and Between Nazgul and Prey. Although the idea is fun, it's ineffective. Let me explain why, before I get virtually lynched. Doing it "the Elven way" will cost you a few card slots (how many do you want to have in your deck to be truly safe against this Enquea?). Then, you have to play it in the fellowship phase since, get this, it's a condition. If there's anything those Nazgul buggers can handle, it's specific condition played in the Fellowship phase. Sure, a Free Peoples condition swarm (Hobbits using all sorts of Promises, Sudden Furies and what not comes to mind) will be a bit more difficult, but conditions such as Crashing Cavalry are easily picked out and removed if the Nazgul player feels the need. The site, Buckland Homestead, jumps to mind immediately. Then, there's Minas Morgul Answers (featured 4 times in lyoncc's deck) to exert Thrall of the One an extra time and discard a condition while we're at it. I can honestly say that Crashing Cavalry will not stay on the table for very long if it poses a big enough threat. Sure, I may add it can be used against cards other than enduring Nazgul, like, eh... Mordor Orcs and maybe a stray Saruman, Agent of the Dark Lord but overall, expect Crashing Cavalry's uses to ebb away. Nice picture though.

Back to the deck itself, a difficult deck to play with or against, lyonscc did very well at 7th place. I must say that, as someone who has played with this deck, it’s a burden (I crack myself up) getting those burdens on every turn because of the combo-sensitivity of the entire Shadow side. But really, it's a good meta-choice against the more easily corrupted Dwarves.

Congratulations to all those playing in the Online PSQ and thank you for a fun event. The PSE is in a week. I hope to see you all there!

July 2005 PSQ Top Eight Decklists:

1. 1st Place: Merboy
2. 2nd Place: Ellington
3. 3rd Place: lukasz_rz
4. 4th Place: Miranda
5. 5th Place: Zoeckler
6. 6th Place: LimpAbizkiT
7. 7th Place: lyonscc
8. 8th Place: MonkeyUnit

-Tristan Marsman