As promised – my vs. minion One Ring Balrog deck…
[starting]
Whispers of Rings
Gangways over the Fire
Umagaur
Doeth (Durthak)
Grishnakh
Ufthak
(Buthrakaur)
(Azog)
(Radbug)
(Lagduf)
[sideboard]
Hill-troll x3
Crook-legged Orc x2
Dwarven Ring of Thelor’s Tribe*
Dwarven Ring of Thrar’s Tribe*
Magic Ring of Enigma x3
Great Lord of Goblin-gate
Orcs of Gundabad
Orcs of Moria
Ancient Black Axe
Sudden Call
Challenge the Power x3
Darkness Wielded x3
Piercing All Shadows
Unhappy Blows x2
Veils Flung Away
Rolled down to the Sea
Something Else at Work
[characters]
The Balrog x3
[resources]
Great Fissure x3
Crack in the Wall x2
Weigh All Things to a Nicety x3
Dark Tryst x3
The Least of Gold Rings x2
A Little Gold Ring x3
Stinker
The Under-roads x2
Voices of Malice x2
Ancient Secrets
Piercing All Shadows
The One Ring*
Test of Fire x3
Iron-road x2
Great Shadow x2
[hazards]
An Unexpected Outpost x3
Veils Flung Away x2
Mouth of Sauron
My Precious
Nameless Thing x3
Witch-king of Angmar
Khamul the Easterling
Dwar of Waw
Indur Dawndeath
Akhorahil
Hoarmurath of Dir
Adunaphel
Ren the Unclean
Uvatha the Horseman
Golodhros
The Nazgul are Abroad x2
Doors of Night x3
Twilight x3
Cave-drake x3
Again, as my Balrog One Ring vs. hero/fallen deck, this one is designed to be played in 1 deck format with the change that you need 25 MP’s to call the council
Doeth starts at Moria, the other team at the Under-gates. Doeath runs up and down Moria<->Under-gates and picks up Stinker sometime. The other team (joined by Hill-trolls and/or Crook-legged Orcs from Sideboard and The Balrog of course) visits The Pukel-deeps, The Gem-deeps and The Under-grottos (preferable in that order) and plays gold rings, auto-tests in the presence of Balrog to play Rings of Enigma from Whispers. Be sure to leave (or remember to recycle with Great Shadow) A Little Gold Rings for testing for the One Ring.
Ideally you should have 1 A Little Gold Ring played in your company the turn before you go to The Under-grottos to play 2 more A Little Gold Rings, so this means the turn before moving to the Grottos your ring-playing company needs to be already without the Balrog (or your ring will auto-test) which means you have to split off Balrog (preferably with 2 Enigma sages and on Crack in the Wall) 2 turns before going to the Grottos.
Another tricky part is how to not waste a whole turn after (hopefully) playing The One Ring to move back to Balrog so in yet another turn you can play Challenge the Power… you achieve that with Iron-road (in this deck a.k.a. “Subway” :P)
On the turn you move your main company to the Grottos also move someone [preferably Doeth+Stinker on Crack (in the Wall)] on Iron-road from Under-gates (where you’re supposed to have sitting Balrog with Enigma sages by now) to the Grottos – your 2 companies join in the site phase, you play A Little Gold Ring(s), test with Test of Fire, play The One Ring [or if failed back-up Dwarven Ring(s) from Whispers] and at the end-of-turn phase ride the Subway back to Balrog… next org. phase play Challenge the Power and win the game 🙂
If all fails and you find yourself in need of extra MP’s – that’s why I’ve put Great Lord of Goblin-gate, Orcs of Gundabad, Orcs of Moria and Ancient Black Axe in the sideboard
Hazards are self explanatory – Khamul Machine… it’s a weak hazard strategy, I didn’t have time to make something better for the tournament (and besides failing 3 tests for the One at 10+, that’s probably why I’ve lost my game vs. minion at the tournament as my hazards didn’t do squat to my opponent :() so if you wanna use this deck – make a better anti-minion hazard strategy