The March 2005 Online PSQ Review
March 25, 2005
There’s no doubt about it: Dwarves are the fellowship to beat these days.
After dominating Decipher’s Premier Series: Las Vegas event a few weeks ago, the Dwarves went on to make a strong showing at the March 2005 online Premier Series Qualifier, taking five of the top eight slots. Spider_777 led the charge with his Dwarf/Corsair deck, netting himself a first-place finish.
But what is it that makes the Dwarves so good? Surely some of their appeal must lie in their beards, but facial hair can’t possibly account for all of their success. In order to better understand why Dwarves have been dominating lately, let’s take a look at the meta game. An analysis of the top 8 PSQ decks for this month gives me the following statistics:
- There were five Dwarven fellowships.
- The top two Shadows were both Corsairs.
- Gandalf showed up thrice.
- There were no Morgul Orc (or “Morc”) decks.
- Only one deck had a corruption Shadow.
With those facts in mind, let’s see what Spider_777’s first-place deck looked like.
Ring-bearer and One Ring
Gimli, Bearer of Grudges
The One Ring, Answer to All Riddles
Free Peoples (32)
1 Linnar, Dwarven Lord (Starting)
1 Durin III, Dwarven Lord (Starting)
1 Grimir, Dwarven Emissary
1 Thrarin, Smith of Erebor
1 Faramir, Son of Denethor
4 Gandalf, Leader of the Company
1 Ring of Guile
1 Ring of Accretion
2 Ring of Fury
3 Axe of Khazad-dum
3 Dwarven Bracers
1 Glamdring, Foe-Hammer
4 Dwarven Skill
2 Proud and Able
2 Sharp Defense
2 Blood Runs Chill
2 Terrible and Evil
Shadow (32)
4 Castamir of Umbar
4 Black Numenorean
4 Corsair Marauder
4 Corsair Plunderer
4 Black Sails of Umbar
2 Ships of Great Draught
4 Raider Halberd
3 Red Wrath
1 Bold Men and Grim
2 Quelled
Adventure Deck
(0) Anduin Banks
(0) Crags of Emyn Muil
(1) Neekerbreekers’ Bog
(2) Barazinbar
(2) Moria Stairway
(2) Helm’s Gate
(3) Moria Guardroom
(3) Trollshaw Forest
(3) The Prancing Pony
The winning deck used a Dwarven fellowship, which is no big surprise. But what is it about this deck that puts it ahead of the competition? Once again, I shall use my powers of bullet-list formatting to look at the differences between Spider_777’s PSQ fellowship and all of the other Dwarf decks that made the top eight.
First of all, let’s discuss his choice of Rings. The One Ring, The Ring of Rings tends to be the primary Ring for alternate (non-Frodo) Ring-bearers, as it provides a much-needed resistance bonus. So why did Spider_777 opt to use The One Ring, Answer to All Riddles? I think what it comes down to was an excellent meta call on the part of the winner. There was only a single corruption deck in the top eight, and the unusual choice in Rings combined with the decision to use Sharp Defense and Dwarven Skill over Honed leads me to believe that Spider_777 knew that burdens weren’t going to be a big issue this time around. Using Answer to All Riddles would allow him to play Blood Runs Chill and pay the Toil cost of Dwarven Skill more often, and could provide a temporary strength-boost if things got dicey. I believe these were the primary factors in Spider_777 choosing the Ring that he did, and it clearly paid off.
 Then again, maybe he chose Answer to All Riddles because he just likes the color blue. Either way, it worked.
In addition to an obscure choice in Rings, there was also the total lack of No Pauses, No Spills in the winning deck. Having the thinnest deck in the top eight means that card-drawing isn’t as important as it otherwise might be, and the vitality saved by not using No Pauses, No Spills may have contributed to the decision to run Dwarven Skill over Honed.
To round out the differences between this Dwarven fellowship and the others, Spider_777’s deck used Gandalf, Leader of the Company with only three Gandalf-culture support cards. This means that the grumpy wizard was most likely used primarily for his strength bonus to the fellowship, but brought a few tricks to the table as well. By having such a low number of support cards for Gandalf, Spider_777 reduced his chances of getting clogged with cards that he couldn’t use before drawing a copy of this popular companion.
But these helpful variations from the Dwarf decks that everyone else was playing weren't the only key to Spider_777's success - he had one heck of a Shadow side, too.
 Corsair decks got the top two spots, so there’s no arguing that this was the Shadow of choice. Both players ran two copies of Quelled, which was a very important factor – every Dwarf deck in the top eight ran two copies of Proud and Able, while Sudden Fury and Noble Leaders showed up in the remaining three decks. There were two things that put Spider_777’s build ahead of Ellington's though: Red Wrath, and the simple matter of deck size. By keeping to a trim sixty-four cards, Spider_777 had a good chance of drawing into the dreaded Castamir of Umbar/Raider Halberd combo at site two (which often times leads to two dead companions). Red Wrath, I believe, is more effective against Dwarves than Wind That Sped Ships, simply because you’re more likely to wound a Dwarf to death than you are to overwhelm it.
There were only a few minor differences between the first and second-place Shadow sides, but these variations allowed Spider_777 to pull off a Shadow kill at site nine against Ellington.
So what’s in store for next month’s PSQ? I’d expect to see many Dwarf decks once again, being that they placed first through fourth this month. Corsairs are also likely to rear their ugly heads, simply because they’re one of the best (if not the absolute best) anti-Dwarf Shadows out there. Morcs stand a decent chance, especially with the popularity of No Pauses, No Spills, which tends to put a wound on Gimli, Bearer of Grudges – the only viable Ring-bearer for a Dwarf deck. Morcs love putting wounds on the Ring-bearer, and they surely wouldn’t complain if the Free Peoples player was contributing to this cause. Argument Ready to Hand can crush Morc decks, but it didn’t see much play this time around, and will probably be used even less frequently with the inexplicable absence of Morcs in this month’s PSQ.
I would expect the Dwarven fellowships to start including a copy or two of From the Armory to deal with Red Wrath, as sixth-place-finisher UlaireEnquea’s deck did last weekend. If this is the case, then Defending the Keep could also find its way into Dwarf decks, as Shadow condition-removal (in the form of Quelled for Corsairs) proved to be important this month. Eowyn, Lady of Rohan will likely be included in Dwarf builds also, as another means of protecting against the Wrath.
With that in mind, I believe that many Corsair players will decide that Red Wrath is superior to Wind That Sped Ships in the current meta.
Another possible fellowship would be anything big (by which I mean a fellowship that runs with more than five companions in play) with a dash of Gandalf. Specifically, a Gondor/Gandalf build could do very well against both Orc-culture decks (of which there were three in the top eight this month) and Corsairs. With the loss of Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul to Standard-format rotation, Corsairs have no “crowd control.” Using a big fellowship of strong companions like Aragorn, Strider and Elendil, The Tall to take bumps, Sapling of the White Tree to prevent wounds, and Gandalf, Leader of the Company to remove conditions, burdens, and possessions, this type of deck could easily handle today’s popular Shadows.
Good luck to everyone in next month’s Online PSQ, and check back in thirty days for another in-depth analysis of the winner’s deck and the meta game!
-Zach “Rubber Chicken” Shephard
If you'd like a .ldc deckfile of Spider_777's PSQ deck or those of any of the top 8 players, Click Here!
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