237-Welcome Players 41 and 42?

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dirhaval
Posts: 791
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:39 am

Some late entries came in today delivered by eagle. There may be two more players added to the crowded field.
Be warned. Shake your head now; it gets bizarre real quick.

Yes, it got crazier. Of all the optional, rule-bending, or rule-ignoring things I have done
this may be wilder than Sauron saving on sentry cost by letting the Sammath Naur be left unattended.

Documenting the Court of Ardor practice game left me wanting more dark elves. How to balance adding
one more minion player so to use the rich, well-made MECA cards and squeeze more hazards into the game.
That is when I smelled fish. Gollum appeared out of a hole. Gollum will be the 42nd avatar. Wait. It gets crazier.

As you may know, the Harad Divisional players had the worse drawing rates. May be due to the intelligence of the
player or may be with many hazards specific to territories south of Mordor; it is still up to debate.

Here we go. Court player = 40th player as usual. Dark Elves is the other, new Court player. There are 34 dark elves in MECA.
What not use them all and put more shadow-magic cards (rut of the magic) into the game? Now, the Court of Ardor players
can push Sauron out of the Power Decks forcing the Sauron player to steal a Ringwraith Power Deck slot.

The Dark Elves will too have the normal 40/40/40 deck. But will always be the 5th resource player in all mini-turns.
The Dark Elves hazard opponents will mirror the hazard opponents of the Court player. This gives the hero players
more chances to draw cards, which is always good.
Gollum will have a 20/20/20 deck since he draws cards less due to him always being the 6th hazard opponent.
That means his card drawing opportunities are half, so why not cut his deck size in half?
Gollum will also be the 5th resource player with hazard opponents mirroring that of the 4th resource player

Now for the craziest part. Gollum's hazard deck can have any hazard and play the hazard with no restrictions.
Yes, Gollum will have 15 or so unique hazard creatures including the wizards, dragons, elf-lords, and so on.
Gollum can play Master of the House even if Elrond Half-elven is in play and not eliminated. However,
only the event part of the card is used. Never can the hazard be "attack." So Smaug at Home, and Alatar the Hunter
too will be played on Turn 1 to Turn 24. Act as if the character manifestation does not exist so no discarding the hazard
when the character appears. This should cover half of Gollum's hazard deck. Thus be easy to play as the 6th hazard player.
Other hazards will be Trouble OAB, No Escape FMM, Crossing the Borders, Unhappy Blows (finally in 20 years know how to use that card
thanks to genius comments made by others here), WIll Shaken, Foul Fumes, Lands Unattended, and MEMM cards like Fake and so on.
=
SIDE NOTE ON UNHAPPY BLOWS
"any" also means zero. Why would I want to take an orc or troll to hand? First, to remove nasty hazards on him or to reduce
hazard limit on return home next turn. Oh my goodness. so obvious seeing that now.
=

Harad Division example mini-turn against the Hero Eriador Division (Gandalf, Elrond, Cirdan, Balin).

As resource players:

1.1 Akhorahil v Gan,Elr,Cir,Bal [Pallando], Gollum
1.2 Adunaphel v Elr, Cir, Bal, Gan, [Imrahil], Gollum
1.3 Indur v Cir, Bal, Gan, Elr, [Valdacli], Gollum
1.4 Court v Bal, Gan, Elr, Cir, [Guild], Gollum
1.5 Dark Elves v Bal, Gan, Elr, Cir, [Guild], Gollum
{I may have Gollum draw as does Balin however with movement}

As hazard players.
1.1 Gandalf v Akh, Adu, Ind, Court, [Necromancer], Dark Elves
1.2 Elrond v Adu, Ind, Court, Akh, [Witch-king], Dark Elves
1.3 Cirdan v Ind, Court, Akh, Adu, [Dark Dwarves], Dark Elves
1.4 Balin v Court, Akh, Adu, Ind, [Ardagor], Dark Elves
1.5 Gollum v Court, Akh, Adu, Ind, [Ardagor], Dark Elves

This is a problem with this; Dark Elves are never the first hazard player drawing cards.
Let me think about the solution; I have something in mind.
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