Scrye's April 2005 article about The Lord Of The Rings Online TCG

Bring It Online!

If you have not entered the wilds of the online version of The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, the experience is (on the surface) more challenging than in the physical world. But the world of the LotR TCG is changing.

Shadows was designed with new players in mind. Keywords such as "lurker" and "muster" eliminate the need to saturate a deck with hard-to-obtain minions, and help you get through your deck more efficiently. The set offers a dynamic site path, making each game unique, and promises to ensure that skill will win out over powerful fellowships and minions. In the real world, where most people play, these things are often taken for granted. But in the online version of the game, it means that players on a budget - that is, most of us - will be able to be truly competitive.

Shadows provides the game's most playable starter decks to date. The set simplifies the main cultures of evil into Orcs, Uruk-hai, Men, and Ringwraiths - and each can be obtained in one of the four starters. If you're looking to try out online play and spend less than $30, my suggestion would be go for the Eowyn starter. The Rohan culture, combined with Rohan Shield-maiden's ability (each other Rohan Man is Strength +1 until the regroup phase whenever she wins a skirmish), is solid. The Uruk-hai culture paired with it ranges from brutal to just downright wrong - like the Invincible Uruk, who doesn't take wounds while at a battleground, and extends the same protection to all Uruks if you can spot 6 or more companions.

The Gandalf and Aragorn starters (which includes Nazgûl and Orcs, respectively) are also great choices, but only suggested if you intend to delve further into the bits and bytes of online play. The Nazgûl are especially strong, but you'll need additional Nazgûl cards from both Shadows and Return of the King to make the culture consistently dominant. And with probably half the virtual decks centered on the Black Riders, finding players who'll trade Nazgûl cards will prove frustrating.

The key to winning with the Orc culture is (as always) getting multiples of minions and conditions. Beastly Olog-hai (rare, but fierce and damage +1) combined with Mordor Scimitar (bearer may exert a companion it is assigned to) pretty much guarantees the death of a companion without wound protection or prevention. Slap down one of your Goblin Hordes and take the beast back to do it again when your opponent moves from an underground site.

The Legolas starter, and the Evil Men that come with it, are the weakest to play out of the box. But again, if you find the online game worth getting into on a bigger scale, Evil Men archery is devastating and worth the investment.

It should be noted that the new online leagues are also an excellent way to ease yourself into the cyberspace community. You can choose standard constructed or opt for sealed War of the Ring, which includes Shadows and the next two expansions.

With the release of Black Rider in March and the introduction of set rotation, the landscape changes for the online world in much the same way as the physical one. When Black Rider debuts, the entire Fellowship of the Ring Block (the base set of the same name, Mines of Moria, and Realms of the Elf-Lords) will no longer be legal in standard format. Gone will be Twilight Witch-king, Desperate Defense of the Ring, Servant of the Secret Fire, Gondor Bowmen, Legolas, Dauntless Hunter, and 99% of the entire Moria culture . no deck will be completely unaffected, and the effect will be staggering. Where some players see rotation as the beginning of the end for LotR, many more, including myself, see this as a new beginning with new possibilities.

Thanks to Shadows and rotation, the days where you'll need hundreds of dollars to obtain digital versions of your current decks are numbers. And for new players, players that came into the game late, and especially players who are looking for a good reason to join the online card game, Shadows and rotation offer a golden opportunity.

-First Cut by Josh Radke in the April 2005 issue of Scrye Magazine (page 42)