DC tournament rules for alignments

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Shapeshifter
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According to the Council of Lorien Tournament Policy there is Hero alignment, Minion alignment and Fallen-wizard alignment.
Hero alignment includes Wizard players. Minion alignment includes Ringwraith, Sauron, and Balrog players. Fallen-wizard alignment includes Fallen-wizard players. As new avatars come out in future expansions, they will specify to which alignment the avatars belong.
You may bring two decks of the same alignment to the tournament. One must be dedicated for play against minion opponents, and the other against hero opponents. Either deck may be used against a Fallen-wizard.
All the quotes above refer to non-DC tournaments. Now I was wondering among which avatars I may choose if I want to bring two different decks with two different avatars - one against white player, one against minion and grey players.
I couldn’t find any clear reference in the GENERAL RULINGS FOR DREAM-CARD GAMES AND EVENTS to what is considered an alignment in DC tournaments. Only this:
Black, grey, and white players. Black players are aligned with Sauron. White players are
defending the Free Peoples. Grey players are infused with Morgoth’s malice, yet serve their own
interests; they are still considered minion players. Thus the following applies for the alignments:
- Black players: Sauron (including avatarless minion) and Ringwraith players;
- Grey players: Balrog, Dragon-lord, and avatar-War-lord players;
- White players: Wizard (including avatarless hero), Fallen-wizard, and Lord players.
Nb. A black player may play (a manifestation of) The Lidless Eye against a grey player.
Example: Let's say I have a Dwarf-lord deck I want to play against minion and grey players.

Question No. 1: What is my alignment?
a) Dwarf-lord
b) Lord player
c) White player

Question No. 2: Which avatars am I allowed to play in my 2nd deck against white players?
a) any Dwarf-lord
b) any Dwarf-, Elf-, and Atani-lord?
c) any white player avatar (including Fallen-wizards, Wizards and avatarless Hero)?
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Shapeshifter
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No one has a clue?

Reading this:
When playing a Lord avatar, assume you are a Fallen-wizard player, unless specified otherwise below.
there might be another possible answer for question 2:

d) any Dwarf-, Elf-, and Atani-lord or Fallen Wizard

My hunch would be that the answers are: b) and b)
That is just a gut feeling, though.


Considering that at DC tournaments usually cross alignment pairings are being made, my questions seem to be of less importance. Most people still prefer playing as white players, though, therefore we always have pairings white against white at DC tournaments.
Vastor Peredhil
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Hi Karsten,

I would draw comparison from FWs,
Question No. 1: What is my alignment?
a) Dwarf-lord
b) Lord player
c) White player
if you were FW in that example c would also apply to you, but tournement rules only allow to switch to another FW, in that regard that FW play completely different from each other, but still have more in common in play as maybe a Dwarf-lord and an Atani-lord (eg. Thrain and Imrahil)

I would say you can only select any other Dwarf-lord also theme wise maybe another solution could be viewed in the future (as a lord within the same territory or something along these line= or any other avatar within the same territory of same overall aligenment (white players, grey players, black players)

but maybe others view this differently, but I would keep the above rule for now

yours Nicolai
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Shapeshifter
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Yes, that would make sense, theme wise at least.

One could argue as well, however, that there are special rules for Heros, Minions, Fallen Wizards, Balrog, Lords, War-lords, Dragon-lords. All of those could therefore be seen as different alignments.
According to non DC-rules a Balrog player is considered minion, though. In DC environment Balrog players are seen as grey players. So probably a Balrog player could not switch to minion in his other deck in DC, correct?
Hmm, what about War-lords then? Is War-lord considered a separate alignment? Still minion, correct?
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Thorsten the Traveller
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It's not really defined what an alignment is (let me know if I'm wrong). But the CoL-rule you quote does apply the term to the avatars.

White/Grey/Black player are not alignments, but keywords also allocated to the various avatars.
These were introduced in the first place to distinguish (for resources and tournament play) between Balrog/Warlord players on the one hand, and Ringwraith/Sauron players on the other. Since these were dubbed black and grey, almost by default the rest became white players. But to be honest, so far we have not (or barely?) used the white player keyword on cards.

Lord-players are considered Fallen-wizard players. We did not make any rule thus-far to deviate from the CoL rule. So technically you could play both a FW and a Lord deck (1 vs. hero and 1 vs. minion). We could decide otherwise, if theme is deemed paramount, but so far we haven't.

I would not be against a rule that states you must stick to playing either a Lord deck vs. both hero and minion (but any Lord will do), or a FW.


nb. for those participating in the DCGO tournament at Lure, like the previous years, it's a tournament that includes DC cards only from First Folk (Firstborn and Durin's Folk) and The Necromancer sets!
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
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