Hints & strategie notes for this Deck
When I first started playing Lord of the Rings, I was like a lot of new
players - I wanted to play Nazgûl. The cards themselves look great, they were my
favorite part of the movie, and they were also one of my favorite elements of
the novels. However, like a lot of newer players I quickly found out that since
all of the Ringwraith culture cards are rare or uncommon it was rather difficult
to come up with some of the cards I needed to make an effective Nazgûl deck. I
refused to let this stop me so I sat down and decided to work with what I had.
I talked to a few players I saw playing Nazgûl and asked what they found that
worked and what didn't. I found that most people were either using a straight
Nazgûl beat down strategy or a strategy based on corruption. Corruption wasn't a
viable enough strategy for tournaments and regular Nazgûl just required too many
rares for me. Then it dawned on me - Nazgûl don't need to corrupt, they only
need to get the Free Peoples to a certain number of burdens and keep them there.
That sounded great to me; it was definitely something I could come up with the
cards for. I went through the cards lists and tried to come up with the
different cards people were using that I had and cards that people might have
overlooked.
The first thing I had to do was put in cards that add burdens. For Nazgûl,
the easiest way to add burdens is with It Wants To Be Found. It doesn't get any
easier than this card; during the maneuver phase you pay two twilight and spot a
Twilight Nazgûl to add a burden. Another way to add burdens is using Blade Tip.
This card adds a burden each turn if it is played on the Ringbearer. This used
to be hard to do but with the Realms of the Elf Lords it got a lot easier with
Ulaire Otsea, Ringwraith In Twilight. If he wins his skirmish he can exert to
transfer a Blade Tip onto the Ringbearer, and he also counts as a Twilight
Nazgûl to play It Wants to Be Found!
Now that we're adding the burdens, we need to have cards that take advantage
of those burdens. The first card that comes to mind is always Ulaire Enquea,
Lieutenant of Morgul. This guy has earned the nickname Machine Gun Kelly in my
local area. Once you get your opponent to five burdens, Enquea starts to punish
your opponent. Nazgûl don't stop there when taking advantage of burdens, another
great minion is Ulaire Toldea, Messenger of Morgul. Once you get your opponent
to 4 burdens, he can assign himself to whomever you want. With a base strength
of twelve he can overwhelm any companion of strength six or lower. Two other
cards that help take advantage of burdens are the Nazgûl Sword and Dark
Whispers. Nazgûl Sword helps make your Nazgûl stronger and it also makes the
bearer Damage +1 if there are 3 burdens, which is often overlooked. Dark
Whispers is often underestimated but can be a game winning card. It reads "Spot
3 burdens to make a Nazgûl Strength +1 and Damage +1; spot 6 burdens make
a Nazgûl Strength +3 and Damage +2."
The last things that I added were cards that were necessary with the switch
from the Fellowship Block to the Two Towers Block and the introduction of a
whole new slew of Free Peoples strategies. First is Bill Ferny, Swarthy Sneering
Fellow - he allows you to deal with the Ringbound Ranger decks that increase the
site number of your Nazgûl in a skirmish. Ferny makes your Nazgûl not roaming
and the Free Peoples can not assign him. If they aren't playing Ringbound
Rangers he is a nice extra four strength for one of your Nazgûl. The other card
I decided to add was Not Easily Destroyed. This card will allow you heal your
Nazgûl and better deal with Rohan Mounts. Another nice thing that it can be used
for is to heal Ulaire Enquea in maneuver to keep using his special ability.
Here is a sample deck using the above strategies. I used a Free Peoples side
that draws a lot of cards so it will better help set up your Shadow.