Council of Elrond

Pukel-Men hit very common sapling sites as well as the Stones, where heroes tend to get Greater Item points. There's an entire Virtual theme built around Heroes Raiding Mordor, and Pukel creatures are playable at every single site in the Mordor area.

as said before, I'm no fan of cards that force you to do nothing, it's not nice for the game.
also Unabated is not counting, so a little hand clogg is ok, because this now results in super fast hazard play. And Boder, you'd be hard pressed to find a deck that doesn't have Pukel-men in it nowadays. It would be better if we find a way to use Silent Watcher more (or invent a third one).

It only forces the character to do nothing and if a strike succeeds, usually a character is wounded or tapped and not going to do anything anyway.

If it is to strong, the discarding can count against the hl, but I did not want to include that immediately for the sake of simplicity.

well 3@12 is quite an attack, you're bound to wound someone. That doesn't mean others can't do anything, that you can't play untappers or healers, or even do things for which you dont need to tap.

Anyway, last night in some Dreams of Lore, I got this idea, which is not genious but nevertheless:
Silent Watcher: each 1@8 keyable to shadowhold or ruins in gondor: if this attack is not cancelled, nazgul creatures may be keyed to the site.

This after all was how it went down at Cirith Ungol. And if we can't make pukel a full strat, we could combine it with some other creature. Granted Nazgul have become good with TNaA V, and there's Fell Beast, but the creature limit is a well known problem in nazgul attack decks, so creating a creature that actually helps them attack is nice.

what exactly does pukel-men against heroes?

Thorsten the Traveller wrote:as said before, I'm no fan of cards that force you to do nothing, it's not nice for the game.
also Unabated is not counting, so a little hand clogg is ok, because this now results in super fast hazard play. And Boder, you'd be hard pressed to find a deck that doesn't have Pukel-men in it nowadays. It would be better if we find a way to use Silent Watcher more (or invent a third one).

that is what i meant, i'm ok with a little hand clogg. and i think that the wording is a bit strange, I mean that a single character can't do nothing during the site phase is something really new, maybe if we could find a proper wording it can be nice

I like the original No Way Forward; the wording is sufficiently clear. What confusion do you imagine might arise?

Could the link with Unabated in Malice perhaps be dropped? Forcing Balrog rares is nearly as bad as using Balrog rares for virtuals directly.

I think some card for the pukel creatures would be nice and perhaps a new Silent Watcher. I do not like linking with Nazgul.

Let's see what themes are linked:
Undead - corruption
Orc/Troll - Nazgul (scimitars, words of power and terror, fury of the iron crown)
Giant - earth attacks (virtuals)
Spider - Spawn events

I do not say this is the best idea, but perhaps:

No Way Forward
hazard permanent event
Playable on a Pukel-Creature attack. The prowess of the attack is increased by one. If the attack is not defeated, place this card with the company. Any Pukel-Creature may be keyed to Ruins and Lairs against this company. Discard if the company is ever at a haven.

This makes Pukel-creatures more playable. They are sufficiently strong and hard to cancel already, I think.

I still like the idea of the successful strike means a character can do nothing during the site phase. It's not the whole company, and it's only as successful as the Pukel-Creature is strong. Personally, I would be against making Pukel Creatures more keyable than they are; that's what Choking Shadows (non-Virtual) is for. The goal isn't to turn Middle Earth into a killing ground where people are afraid to stick their noses outside of havens.

I admit I had overlooked the individual character effect part, or overlooked, probably a pavlov's towards ''do nothing during s/p". It's ok, but not earthshaking, what is your main idea here, gamewise?

there are only 6 pukels, thus it's half strat, I agree with Took that we should not increase keyability, but hence combining them with other stuff seems fine to me. Nazguls might be aligned with orcs/trolls, but that's as events, not as creatures. Undeads are already keyable to shadows, giants are currently boosted in some v cards. I reiterate, in the books it was: Watcher calls, Nazgul comes flying down.

6 pukels?

I know only silent watcher and pukel-men!

2x3 is 6 in your deck at most