The Pin Draws Them: Madison PSQ

A tale of metagame, completing a collection, overpowered Isengard minions, and chasing a pin. Oh yeah, temptation and honor too.

So after judging at the Chicago PSQ two weeks ago, the Madison qualifier loomed as the closest chance for me to get a qualifying point. Playtest partner Tucker got his point at Chicago, so he's set. We sort of know the top decks from there: Bad Beef (Elrond/Ottar) / Uruk Ally Hunter (Tower Assassin and the +3 fierce on dead ally cards), other power Uruks, Uruk site control, Uruk archery, and Sauron/Southron wounding. Since neither of us want to run Keeper, Tucker goes with his style, a passive-aggressive wounding deck that uses Hate to kill companions, and Sauron's Defenses (I'll pause so you can go read the card) to slow the opponent. I, on the other hand, build a fellowship of Men and Elves to beat up on stuff, then realize I should just attach the cheap Moria B-side I had to provide good cycling and an alternate win condition. The deck is posted as "N Plus 3", if you want to see the entire Last Alliance / Moria build.

Apparently Madison tournaments post the time for deckchecks, not the true start time, so we arrive at 10:40 to find nobody there. Around 11, the posted time, the store opens, and we file in and start trading. The tourney starts just after 12 with 25 players. Chris W. handles the pairings, deckchecks, and so forth without assistance for the first 3 rounds, calculates tiebreaks properly, and does a good job overall. I know 14 points with decent tiebreaks will get me the qualifying pin, which is my goal for the day.

Round 1: Mark, Aragorn and Boromir / Dunland
I win the bid 1-0 and go first. He says he hasn't played Two Towers cards yet, so I'm a bit surprised to see Hillman Mob drop at site 2. I play cautiously, as does he; I lose a random Ranger of Ithilien to Strawheads at site 3, but that's no big loss. I move to site 4 OK. He has Boromir and Aragorn with Last Alliance and weapons (but no bow), 3 elf allies, and Bounder. He gets runner - runner - backstabber - Isengard shaman - Enquea on 6 twilight, and 3 times 5 is 15.
Full Win (1-0, 3 pts)

Round 2: Ian, Last Alliance / Uruk and Moria Archery
He goes first, and gets Legolas, Aragorn with Bow, and 3 Gondor Bowmen by site 3. I'm trailing cautiously, trying desparately to find a Isengard Warrior. I still haven't found one when he moves to the Cavern Entrance, but he stops. I zip to 7 and prepare my hand for a stop. He moves to 8, but makes a mistake in assignment, doesn't kill a minion he could have, and thus leaves enough on the table to warrant a stop. (I do kill him with the extra minion.) I double to 9 for the lucky win.
Full Win (2-0, 6 pts)

Round 3: Eric, Big Fellowship / Uruk Archery
He goes first and starts Aragorn and Western Emyn Muil. He zips to 3, followed by me. Unfortunately for him, he hasn't drawn any of his other 7 companions or Aragorn's Bow, just Thrarin. 5 minions on 3 at site 4 means dead Frodo. It's a card game, right? We finish the game, and I get deckchecked, in 13 minutes, so I have time for a nice lunch at the pizza shop down the street. I'm now one full win away.
Full Win (3-0, 9 pts)

Round 4, Steve, Bad Beef / Ally Hunter
It's my first time talking to him, but he's an experienced Wars player, and this high in the tournament, I'm expecting more Uruk bombs. So I bid 4 to his 3 but make him go first. This makes good sense for me, even though he can double to 5, as I can follow. He moves to 6, I overload him but he keeps everybody alive with Merry and Eowyn, but 3 or 4 minions are alive. He thinks about it, but correctly decides to stop (I had Nertea and two Isengard Warriors in hand, and would have won at Cavern Entrance). I move to 6 with 5 or 6 well arrayed companions, keep one Uruk alive, and have to decide to skip the sanctuary and risk the Saurman bomb, or stop and try. I stop - which later looking at his hand was better. I should also note that this game is playing rather slowly on both our parts, more on mine. Playing Moria takes a while, and I took some time deciding on an Enquea and assigning extra minions.
Steve moves to 7 and stops. I load my fellowship and fly to 8; he now pretty much can't kill me after the healing at the Hornburg. Unfortunately, I haven't pulled my Tower Assassin yet, so he can Elrond and Ottar to a full fellowship setup, including Rumil, Boromir SoD, ROTN, O Elbereth, and a Bounder. He moves to 8, I off Boromir SoD with Enquea, let Enquea die to Legolas' undirected archery, and time is called in skirmishes. I have less burdens, due to Tired Traveller. He brusquely asks if I will concede.
The situation is this: by my standards, I've played slowly this game, though not as slow as some, and not intentionally. Given another 90 seconds, he'll be able to move to site 9. I will have 3 minions on the table and 10 cards (2 from site) coming, not including They are Coming but including Tower Assassin for his Bounder. There are sets of cards I can draw that will win me the game against his 6 companions including ROTN, despite what Steve thinks. (Specifically, Enquea to nullify ROTN and die to undirected archery, Tower Assassin for bounder who gets killed by Rumil, and five Orcs plus the leftovers to gang up on Frodo.) So if I can draw such a set, I can honorably take the win, but if not, I should concede. I'll only get 2 points if I take the timed win as well, meaning I need another win to ensure qualification. I have to call Chris over to check the rules on concession first. Then I check my cards, and question my honor.

Loss (3-1, 10 pts)
I pass the test. Both my Enqueas have been played, and if I use Nertea, he can use O Elbereth. So I don't have the possibility of enough minions. It turns out he also had a Severed his bonds in hand, which meant I needed another Orc.

Round 5: Andrew, Big Fellowship / Power Uruks
He wins the bid 2-1 (mistake number 1 by me) and makes me go first. My draw isn't as good as last game, but I avoid the keeper bomb at Deep of Helm. Why people don't play Deeping Wall and ensure Saurman? In our testing, guaranteed Keeper was worth the 2 twilight. I am cycling well, so he can't move ahead even if he wanted to. I make an assignment mistake (mistake 2) and don't kill Legolas when I had the chance. I get to 8, saving myself with a cool Ithilien Trap, but have no chance of going to 9 right there. He moves to 8, I get out a few minions, but I'm out of Isengard Warriors, and I can't use a Nertea because he has O Elbereth. He uses all his archery to get down to 3 minions against 6 companions. Neither of us have played slowly, but there's 30 seconds left, so he decides to move even though I only have Faramir and Frodo. (It was right, because he had only two Uruks and Keeper, Faramir was 10 so he wins, and I had TABA and Sting to get Frodo to 9 and live 16-9.) I draw my deck and get 4 minions, meaning I can gang up on Frodo, but he has a Severed His Bonds and I needed two more.
Full Loss (3-2, 11 pts)

Round 6: Todd, Horn Trust Me / Power Uruks
OK, now it's win or drive to Missouri time. He goes first. Nothing happens as we both double from 1 to 3, and then 3 to 5; I'm setting up because my Fellowship is nicely powered and Helm's Gate is good for me. From 5 to 6 I play nothing, so he smartly uses Glamdring in regroup. He has Boromir with Horn, Merry, Gandalf, somebody, and Frodo with Isildur's Bane, plus Elrond and Ottar to Horn. I have Nertea, Host, Scavengers, 2 Runners, and 3 Free Peoples cards. I also have 2 Scavengers and 3 Scimitars in the discard pile. So I have 6 minions for sure, plus some cards. He doesn't repeat with Glamdring to remove pool. I discard a card and draw one.
He moves.
I had drawn a Moria Scout, giving me 7 minions and 3 card draws. He has no archery, so I need one minion from 3 card draws. The first is not a minion, but the second is a runner. I even get an extra Orc to go 9 on 7. He starts the skirmishes, but then he realizes the Cavern Entrance precludes Merry, Friend to Sam, and Trust Me as well. He actually had a Greenleaf in hand he didn't play, but that wouldn't have saved him (I could have Nerteaed Isengard Orcs, then the second and final draw gets me the Runner to win 9 on 8.)
Full Win (4-2, 14 pts)

So the honorable decision worked. I get the Pin. The other highlight is that I manage to trade / get donated enough Weight of a Legacy to get to 60. The killer deck sleeved with Aragorn's Bane is coming.... It turns out that places 7 through 9 had 13 points, so I could have taken the two in round 4, with the tiebreaks.

Top 9 and Metagame information
1st Steve, Bad Beef / Ally Hunter Uruks
2nd Big Fellowship / Site Control Uruks
3rd me, Last Alliance / Moria
4th Eric, Big Fellowship / Uruk, mostly archery
5th Andrew, Big Fellowship / power Uruks
6th Big Fellowship / power Uruks (I think)
7th Big Fellowship / Dunland (I think)
8th Todd, Horn / power Uruks
9th Tucker, Big Fellowship / Sauron-Southron
Lots of the White Hand, eh?

I was the only person to not get killed by Steve's deck. Andrew afterwards also told me that in something like 18 tournament games, including another PSQ, that was his only fellowship win.
Fellowships at the top almost all ran 9 companions. Some ran allies, some Last Alliance, some Stealth cards. There were no other Moria or Sauron-Southron decks, as far as I know. There were one or two Nazgul, and about three Dunland. That leaves lots of Isengard, though I didn't hear of any trackers, and only the 2nd place site control deck. Thus, lots of Weapons of Isengard (though it tended to do worse), and lots of Keeper.

I spent a decent amount of time chatting around about Uruks. It's frustrating to some; when I suggested a tournament without Uruk-Hai a lot of people liked the idea. But when asked for ideas, a majority of people I talked to pointed to the Uruk Regular as the problem, not Keeper. Saurman's supposed to be powerful, and thus Keeper is the strongest Shadow card in the game. But some strange unnamed guy makes Uruks free? Making the Regular unique was the most common suggestion.
Good luck in all your journeys.

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