[Virtual Suggestion] Darkness Under Tree and awakened plants

[Vastor Peredhil]

Because then you have this card 3 times + 3 Unexpected Outpost (which normally do not find the way into the "normal" dream Awakend Plant hazard deck, because you wont to have all the other boosters first), well I tell you what you will get hammered.

The sole reason being that besides Concealment, Vanishment etc. there are no counters for Awakend Plants (yeah there is Trickery)



I played with a lot of dream cards, but with this booster you do not need the other Awakend Plant creatures; Huorn & Old many Willow are enough, because
a) no one exspects these hazards
b) so no one brings any counters for them
c) huorn becomes the deadliest creature in the game since it is
2 @ 11 attacker chooses and a body of 5 keyed to one single wilderness
d) with Doors you have to face at least one every turn till you kill it

e) you're dead

mfg Nicolai

[v] Darkness Under Tree
Hazard long-event
All Awakened Plant attacks receive +2 prowess, +1 attack and attacker chooses defending characters; all Awakened Plant creature attacks with no body have 5 body.
At the end of each turn, each player may take one Awakened Plant hazard creature from his discard pile and shuffle it into his play deck. If Doors of Night is in play, the Awakened Plant hazard creature may be taken from discard pile to hand. Cannot be duplicated.

[marcos]

The sole reason being that besides Concealment, Vanishment etc. there are no counters for Awakend Plants (yeah there is Trickery)

Ford/ hidden ways are enough... For heroes:

escape

And for minions:

tormented earth
ruse
diversion

and i'm sure i forgot something...

[Vastor Peredhil]

Then you need more rangers since you cannot pass the normal 3 Rivers a turn

or a way to heal at non-haven sites, also Huorn and Old-man can be keyed to quite a lot of regions by name also

mfg Nicolai

[Jambo]

Exactly, with less cards requirements this will give you space in your deck for other potentially interesting cards to use as part of your AP strategy. Say for example a tapped Hoarmurath to give +1 strike. That would be 2@12 x 2 with attacker choosing defending characters all keyed to a single wilderness. To me that's very solid! You might want some environment cards to help change region types to wildernesses for keying Old Man Willow. With 2 attacks, there's not much chance of both being cancelled. I think this would be strong enough!

You'd also have space for creatures of other varieties.

[marcos]

still, with just 1 helper card that can be easily marvels told'ed/ voices'ed, you got the same old AP that sucks....

[Jambo]

Indeed that is true, but this is a single wilderness creature, much like the land drake, light drake and small orcs are. As one of the most playable creatures it should never be strong.

Worth noting that if [v] In Darkness Bind Them is included, you will have a good way of protecting your long-event from the wiles of a MT or VoM.

[marcos]

yes, you mean with in darkness bind them V? How i'm supposed to protect an entire hazard strategy that depends on a single long event with a single "unique" card?

[Jambo]

Well if you have 3 Darkness Under Trees and other useful hazard perms it likely that one of these will get through and work with a Huorn or Old Man Willow. Just one getting through will create quite an attack keyed to a single wilderness. The time your opponent decides to use a MT or VoM, you can lob down an In Darkness Bind Them to protect it. Or if they don't cancel it, your IDBT will prevent your long-event from being discarded when it next should. Recycle any of these with UO or MoS.

[marcos]

ok, let's assume that i do what you are saying, it is obvious that the attack will get cancelled by one of that generic cancellers (or hazard reduction wich is higly played nowadays) and the hazard limit will be gone... It is still not enough, do i have to spend all my UO or MoS to make 1 single attack decent? i don't think so, a deck also needs sbing and other stuff that are made with that cards. If I spend all my cards on keeping this "enhacer" in play, i will be missing my sb and prolly my opponent will take advantage of that and avoid all my creatures... wich concludes on: a new virtual unusable hazard strat

[marcos]

The sole reason being that besides Concealment, Vanishment etc. there are no counters for Awakend Plants (yeah there is Trickery)

Ford/ hidden ways are enough... For heroes:

escape

And for minions:

tormented earth
ruse
diversion

and i'm sure i forgot something...

umm... this is what i forgot:

halfling stealth/ orc stealth
stealth/ sneakin
hoarmurat unleashed
eye never sleeping

hehe, i'm sure i still forgot some more

[Vastor Peredhil]

Well check out ths hazard portion from one of DCCDs there are no fancy rares but the effect becomes lethal, as you do not get all this fancy rare counter on the other hand.

Hazards:

#BLACK CROWS (MEFB) - CREATURE OR SHORT-EVENT
[MP: 1; P/B: 2/-]
Animals. Eight Strikes. As a creature, playable keyed to any non-Under-deeps Ruins & Lairs. As a short-event, you can bring from your discard pile to your hand a hazard you played this movement/hazard phase; cannot be duplicated in a given movement/hazard phase.

#BREGALAD (MEFB) - CREATURE
[MP: 2*; P/B: 12/9; Playable: double Wilderness]
Unique. Manifestation of Quickbeam. Awakened Plant. One Strike. Attacker chooses defending characters. Detainment and -2 prowess against hero or covert companies.

2 x #CURSE HIM, ROOT AND BRANCH! (MENW) - PERMANENT-EVENT
[MP: 2*]
Playable if your opponent is a Minion, Dwarf-Lord or Fallen-Wizard (neither Radagast or Gandalf). All awakened plant attacks are non-detainment against this player’s (resp. these players’s) companies. When such an attack is defeated, tap this card. When tapped all awakened plant attacks gain +2 prowess and +2 strikes. When this card is tapped and an awakened plant attack is defeated, place this card in opponent’s marshalling point pile. Cannot be duplicated.

2 x #DARK HEART (MEFB) - SHORT-EVENT
Playable on a site with an Awakened Plant automatic-attack. That automatic-attack cannot be canceled this turn.

3 x Ent in Search of the Entwives

#FANGORN (MEFB) - CREATURE OR SHORT-EVENT
[MP: 2*; P/B: 14/9]
Unique. Manifestation of Treebeard. Awakened Plant. Two Strikes. As a creature, playable keyed to Fangorn, Rohan, Gap of Isen, Wold & Foothills, Enedhwaith, Old Pûkel-land, Brown Lands, Anduin Vales, or Redhorn Gate or any Border-Hold or Ruins & Lairs site in these regions; detainment and -2 prowess against hero or covert companies. As a short-event, you can bring any Awakened Plant hazard creature from your discard pile to your hand.

#FINGLAS (MEFB) - CREATURE OR SHORT-EVENT
[MP: 2*; P/B: 11/8]
Unique. Manifestation of Leaflock. Awakened Plant. One Strike. As a creature playable keyed to Fangorn, Rohan, Gap of Isen, Wold & Foothills, Enedhwaith, Old Pûkel-land, Brown Lands, Anduin Vales, or Redhorn Gate or at any Border-hold or Ruins & Lairs site in these regions; detainment and -2 prowess against hero or covert companies. As a short-event, you can cancel an event resource declared earlier in the same chain of effects.

#FLADRIF (MEFB) - CREATURE
[MP: 2*; P/B: 16/9]
Unique. Manifestation of Skinbark. Awakened Plant. One Strike. Playable keyed to Fangorn, Rohan, Gap of Isen, Wold & Foothills, Anduin Vales, or Redhorn Gate or any Border-Hold or Ruins & Lairs site in these regions. Detainment and -2 prowess against hero or covert companies.

2 x Huorn

2 x Old Man Willow

2 x #PROTECTING THEIR DOMAIN (MEFB) - PERMANENT-EVENT
All creatures keyed to wilderness receive -1 prowess. All attacks by animals, spiders, and awakened plants receive +2 prowess (+3 for awakened plants keyed to wilderness). Discard when any attack by animals, spiders, or awakened plants is defeated. Cannot be duplicated.

2x SENTINEL OF THE GROVE (MEFB) - PERMANENT-EVENT
Playable on a Ruins & Lairs [R] in a Wilderness [w] that is not a Dragon's lair. The site gains an additional automatic attack: Awakened Plant - 1 strike with 10 prowess. Discard this card when the site is discarded or returned to its location deck

3x #TREE-HERDER (MEFB) - CREATURE
[MP; 1; P/B: 11/-; playable to WWW]
Awakened Plant. One strike. Detainment against any company that contains an elf or hobbit character. Unless Tree-herder's attack is canceled, all other awakened plant attacks against the company for the rest of the turn receive +1 strike and +1 prowess.

Watcher in the Water

3 x #WRATH OF THE OLVAR (MEFB) - LONG-EVENT
All awakened plant attacks receive +1 strike and attacker chooses defending characters. Cannot be duplicated.

3 x #YAVANNA’S PLEA (MEFB) - PERMANENT-EVENT
All Awakened Plant attacks receive +1 prowess and +1 body (or 4 body if the attack has no body). Discard this card when any play deck is exhausted. Cannot be duplicated.

with several boosters into a deck, there is no MT for everyone of the boosters to this strategy

mfg Nicolai

[marcos]

well, we are not planning to make 12 boosters like you have in your deck, we are planning to make just 1 prowess helper, 1 recycler (wich is unique, Radagast) and 1 improved version of huorn.

i think that if we mix the 3 cards into just 1, it will lead into an unusable startegy.

Why do unique dragons sucks as a hazard strat? because they use too many hazard limit to be played, and when a player gets to play one it is cancelled. I don't want to spend all my hazard limit to make just 1 AP attack be nice

Why do Giants sucks even with his high keyability? bause they have only 1 helper (rank upon rank). If we virtualize just 1 AP helper, they will end like giants, dragons or some other creatures that doesn't have much helpers, like trolls as Jambo said in another post

[Jambo]

Hi Marcos,

I don't really follow the logic here. You say you don't want to use all your hazard limit to make one AP worth playing, yet you also don't want to combine the effects of 3 cards into 1?! Wouldn't 3 cards into 1 make it a more usable strategy?

From what you're saying it seems like your grief with APs is more to do with the ability of the Huorn creature than the available boosters, correct? Your suggestion for Radagast the Tamer is also unique and therefore likely to be unreliable from game to game. It is of course also highly susceptible to MT or VoM and as a permanent event wouldn't be able to be protected by a IDBT card. Your Darkness Under Tree is weaker than the one I suggested and therefore less desirable in any deck.

My main concern is over the power of the [v] Huorn suggestion without boosters:

[v] Huorn:
[w]
P/B: 11/-
Creature
Awakened Plant. One strike, attacker chooses defending characters. May also be played at Druadan Forest, Old Forest, and Wellinghall. May also be played keyed to Heart of Mirkwood, Sothern Mirkwood, Western Mirkwood, and Woodland Realm; and may also be played at Ruins & Lairs [R] and Shadow-holds [S] in these regions. Any Awakened plant hazard creature can be played on a company that has faced Huorn this turn.

As arguably one of the easiest to play creatures (single wilderness, and many sites), 1@11 pick defenders is very solid, certainly compared to other single wilderness creatures. As it stands, I'd imagine many people simply sticking 3 Huorns and 3 Old Man Willows straight into the their decks without bothering with the necessary boosters.

Maybe there's a way to improve the booster card further or make it more applicable? If DoN is in play one AP does not count against the HL for instance? APs do have a significant advantage over most standard creatures, in that most decks won't be prepared for them in terms of cancellers.

[marcos]

what i mean with that is, if i spend all my UO MoS in keep recycling a single long event or IDBT, so that will be:

1º- UO/MoS (to keep recycling darkness under tree/ IDBT)
2º- Darkness under tree
2º- a) opponent respond with marvels/ voices
3º- i play IDBT
4º- i play AP
4º- a) Opponent cancels/ reduces limit
5º- How am i supposed to do sb if i used my UO/MoS to make my AP worth the try?

and that's it, i need 4 hazards to make 1 creature to be good and still i don't know if it will ever hit the company. If we have more helpers, opponent will have to choose between spend voices/marvels in any of them, and not just decide to marvel/voice the only one that is there. The way i suggest you can keep playing some AP even if the DUT gets marvelled, because you are going to recycle the higher prowess tree with Radagast and get to play it. The way you suggest lead into: marvel DUT and that's it, no recycle and no booster.
Another thing to note is, a high ammountt of the decks played do not count with that high H/L.

Maybe we can reduce that huorn's prowess to 10 if you think it's ok

[marcos]

Here is a contradiction:

[v] Darkness Under Tree
Hazard long-event
All Awakened Plant attacks receive +2 prowess, +1 attack and attacker chooses defending characters; all Awakened Plant creature attacks with no body have 5 body.
At the end of each turn, each player may take one Awakened Plant hazard creature from his discard pile and shuffle it into his play deck. If Doors of Night is in play, the Awakened Plant hazard creature may be taken from discard pile to hand. Cannot be duplicated.

Awakened Plant. One strike (detainment against covert and hero companies). If Doors of Night is not in play, may also be played keyed to Shadow-lands.

bolds are mine