Council of Elrond

Actually, the most MPs for the absolute minimal difficulty and risk belong to Radagast, Gandalf, and Pallando, who, be it noted, get their MPs out of havens anyway. They just aren't item MPs. And the 9 MPs granted by a quick trip to the Deep Mines far outstrips the 3 you get at one haven or the other (and rare is the deck that does both), even if it is (slightly) more difficult.

Vastor Peredhil wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 2:55 pm I am all in favor of it, but I could also go on route with the DC rules for play at haven, all MPs card only playable at a haven for that alignment are worth 1 MP (so Wizard's Ring for all wizards, Orcs of Moria for Balrog, and there are some more)

just saying we need not have to have 2 different rules set, when we already came up with good solution

yours Nicolai

Well Dreamcards have a blanket rule for "Haven" resources, and it's fine it works.

Theo wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 5:43 pm Alternatively, since rezwits already plays DC, I'm not sure what his motivation is for making this proposal. Impose the DC notion of "balance" on the normal rules set? Why not just keep it in DC?

My only motivation is LEAVE them alone, there seems to be no need, they are just singling out these specific resource, with bias from a long time ago.

Bandobras Took wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 6:56 pm Actually, the most MPs for the absolute minimal difficulty and risk belong to Radagast, Gandalf, and Pallando, who, be it noted, get their MPs out of havens anyway. They just aren't item MPs. And the 9 MPs granted by a quick trip to the Deep Mines far outstrips the 3 you get at one haven or the other (and rare is the deck that does both), even if it is (slightly) more difficult.

Agreed, I've played against Radagast (allies) 4 times, and that deck is just silly 6-8 pts, and then able to do the Deep Mines dance also. But IDC, I don't think there is a reason to straight BAN something, cause in essence that's what this rule does, it STRAIGHT bans these cards.

I mean just for funzies, Saruman should be having his Palantír of Orthanc, using First of the Order with Many-coloured Robes and White Light Broken to chill at Isengard and tap every turn with no problems, but this deck is weak when you lose by 1 or 2 pts... just sayin. And mainly if you go this route you just feel cheated, all that work, and you can't get 2 MP!?

Laters...

Back in the ICE days – at least in the German tournament scene – it was very popular to let Bilbo sit at the White Towers, telling some marvels, playing the minion Palantir of Elostirion and increase your handsize by one. All with very little risk (haven, almost no corruption issues). Late in the game one could even get the minion Palantir of Orthanc from sideboard, move Bilbo (or any other company) with his 9 body and maybe a Paste to Isengard for another 3 MP. Even if Legacy of Smiths was not out this was still very good as many FW haven squatter decks are short on item MPs. In some of those FW decks the Palantir therefore was the only item MP source.

I am not completely sure about it but I would guess that this was the main reason for ICE’s errata on those Palantiri.
Of course there would have been some counters, but I don’t remember that those were in people’s and ICE’s minds, yet, those days. Here are two of the most obvious examples for strong counters:

- Lobelia/Pilfer on a lone Bilbo with a Palantir

- Neither so Ancient nor so Potent on a stored Palantir (if it was the only source of item MPs) --> this one is not an appropriate counter anymore, though, due to the outcome of last year’s ARV!

Vastor Peredhil wrote: ↑Sun May 19, 2019 2:55 pm just saying we need not have to have 2 different rules set, when we already came up with good solution

Keep in mind that there are some DC rules and/or card errata that some players do not like and would not want to see become part of the standard game rules. Also, DC rules/errata are created by the DC team, not voted on by the entire MECCG community.

Bandobras Took wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2019 5:16 pm As it stands, getting 2 MPs off of a Palantir at Towers/Isengard seems rather paltry compared to the 9 MPs available from taking a trip to the deep mines.

What are the 9 points you are referring to?

Deeper Shadow for Aiglos+Dragon Helm. Extremely common in tournament FW decks.

I'm not saying that kind of thing isn't powerful, but (in my opinion) it is far from the same level of easy.

4 cards required, 3 in hand simultaneously vs. 1 card.
Potential hazard creature attacks vs. none.
Temporal requirement: return to site of origin, tapping out company, do nothing during site phase, or conversion of site type effects; waste of one of the three necessary cards.

To some it might be slightly more vulnerable than a hero company moving to a normal Shadow-Hold Under-deeps and using one or two automatic attack cancelers (well, without the advantage of avoiding potential CvCC/influence attempts).

Thanks for the nice discussion guys.

It's not that far from the same level of easy (anti-squatting hazards are pretty common, and agents can't hit the under-deeps at all), and 3-4 times the MP reward more than makes up for it.

Bandobras Took wrote: ↑Wed Jun 26, 2019 1:43 pm Deeper Shadow for Aiglos+Dragon Helm. Extremely common in tournament FW decks.

Interesting tournaments...

Rules Digest 526 wrote: >Subject: Deeper Shadow in the Under-deeps [VAN]
>I found the following in the Balrog rules: [snip definition of underdeeps movement and card text]
>Will playing Deeper Shadow no longer be legal in the Under-deeps?
>As characters moving to or from an Under-deeps site have no site
>path, Deeper Shadow can't change anything in the non-existant
>path. Or, is there always a minimum site path of the new site
>itself? Did this come up in the earlier discussion of this card,
>or have the site path rules changed with this release?

That is correct. Deeper Shadow will no longer be legal for Under- deeps movement. I will check with ICE on the intent of the rule before posting any clarification in the CRF.
------------------------------
Van Norton

I'm not sure what the Balrog reference is. MELE is sufficient for: "A company moving to and/or from an Under-deeps site has no site path."

Note that this Rules Digest appears several months after CRF 13 which has the current Deeper Shadow clarifications/errata. Really, the "this works" wording is just laughable. At the least, the "character's site path" wording on the card suggests that the intent was to change things only for the company while it was moving, and cannot persist into the site phase when the company no longer has a site path.

Rules Digest 529 wrote:I checked with ICE, even with the rules about undeeps movement having no site path, Deeper Shadow _can_ be used to change an underdeeps Ruins & Lairs to a Shadowhold. Van Norton

Seems crazy to me!

Not that crazy:

MELE wrote:A site path is the sequence of regions between a site and its nearest Darkhaven.

Site types do not make up part of the site path. The phrase on Deeper Shadow about a Ruins & Lairs in a character's site path is nonsensical, and is to be interpreted as "new site is a Ruins & Lairs."

To each their own, I suppose.

I find it a conceptually less different to change from:

Deeper Shadow wrote:In character’s site path, change a Ruins & Lairs [ ] to a Shadow‐hold [ ] or one Wilderness [ ] to a Shadow‐land [ ]. Alternatively...

to:

Hypothetical Alternative A wrote:In character’s site path, change a Ruins & Lairs [ ] to a Shadow‐hold [ ] (as though the type of "the site the company is moving to" is part of the site path) or one Wilderness [ ] to a Shadow‐land [ ]. Alternatively...

than to:

Hypothetical Alternative B wrote:Change "In character’s site path, change one Wilderness [ ] to a Shadow‐land [ ]. Alternatively, change "the site the company is moving to" from a Ruins & Lairs [ ] to a Shadow‐hold [ ]. Alternatively...

(The phrase in quotes is from Rules Digest 69 on how the card "should be interpreted".) The second alternative clearly expands the power of the card beyond the original. But apparently this opinion was not held by ICE representatives, or was deemed acceptable/intended.

Three previous posts probably belong to other thread.

That's why ICE usually uses the phrase "X's new site."

The errata to the Palantirs for FW was in the last batch of errata along with all of the other anti-FW errata (May 1999).

Given ICE's practice of not issuing errata, there must have been some serious abuse occurring. It's not hypothetical. It happened.

Presumably, you can thank Georg Kühlmeyer's FW deck at Worlds 1998 in Jan 1999.

http://www.fallen-gandalf.net/results/worlds.html
http://www.fallen-gandalf.net/decks/WC1 ... llando.pdf

Take a look at the "important sites"


What is funny is that ICE asked for comments on solutions to FW and I don't think I saw any comments from players that were used.