It's not 1 turn to Minas Tirith. It's two. And therefore it's the "doing the stuff in the meantime" that requires stacking.
I know there's been an occurrence of Fate of the Ithilstone winning. There's even been an occurrence of Trossell dunking several times in a row. Keep in mind that Fate of the Ithil-Stone nets you significant MPs as a requirement for the 7-MP reward. This for a similar turn investment (using Bridge or Mountains of Shadow).
I'm not saying FWs should win in 4 turns. I'm saying any card that requires longer than that had better be worth it in terms of MPs and abilities. Any ability that is only accomplished after that long is going to be used one turn. Possibly two, if you're quick and your hazards have stuffed your opponent.
But you are right, this thread is about fixing Saruman, this was just a little excursion to diversify. Still I have to maintain, that FW Saruman isn't actually that broken, your suggestions are good Bandobras, they would help the general Saruman deck already alot, and I actually have a little hunch you would like to help him too much. Wink
Here I'm going to have to flat-out disagree with you.
Fallen Saruman is that broken. This was the whole point of my original post. My suggestions, I'll agree, are good. The only time I've gone overboard making a card too strong is when I've been trying to improve a suggested Virtualization of a card that didn't really need it in the first place in order to make it useful within the context of a standard two-deck tournament game.
I challenge you to produce one instance in this thread of where I've tried to help Fallen Saruman too much. You're the one who's claiming that Rolled isn't that big of a problem and therefore my idea for Man of Skill isn't that great.
You and Jambo say the main problem is his cards are too specific.
Neither of us has said
that. What we've said is that suggested Virtual Cards are too specific. This is entirely accurate.
I don't see it that way, sure it takes more effort in timing and deck construction, but that's the case for all FW
Surely you must be joking. Radagast getting 6 allies requires effort in timing and deck construction? Gandalf or Pallando getting 5 factions? Alatar getting a high-prowess company and 12 Stage Points? Now you're just being silly. None of those is any way as specific as even a non-Virtual White Hand, let alone a quest to Minas Tirith/Dol Guldur/Storing.
If Strident were non-unique, WH would be a walk in the park for Saruman actually.
That's the UEP forum, not the Virtual forum. And even then, you're still being inaccurate. It wouldn't be a walk in the park, it would be
doable in the standard two-deck format. UEPs and Virtual Cards have nothing to do with each other, push come to shove.
A FW player just has too many cards to play in general to get some mp's, and recycling only adds to his main problem: it's slow. So about making the guy competitive: let him play stage in any fase, give him an absolute minimum of stage-card requirements, don't let him recycle anything. Fallen Rada breeding doggies, that's the thing!
I appreciate the sarcasm, but I again ask you to point to anything I've suggested in this thread that makes things too easy for Fallen Saruman.
I do think my MoS brings a new mechanism in a way: playing lots of rings easily, thus making really good use of the Saruman's ring, possibly/probably reducing the mind of his characters so he can play more characters or keep more DI for himself to start influence the rest of middle earth
No offense, but have you been reading anything I've said?
1) A FW company does not start at Isengard. At most, you can start at the Ettenmoors.
2) Therefore you cannot reach Minas Tirith in one turn without a movement booster, meaning you need to draw into it or play Carambor.
3) You can't be sure of drawing the movement booster, so you must use Thrall to play Carambor.
4) This means your starting stage cards have been decided. Man of Skill and Thrall.
5) You get to Minas Tirith in one turn. You've had a four-card draw to get lost knowledge. I'm no statistician, but the odds are you haven't drawn it. Especially if you went first. Never mind some sort of MP card to play while you're there.
6) You now need to go to Dol Guldur and play Ringlore. Unfortunately, your opponent running Virtual Nazgul proceeds to kill half your party. Come to think of it, your opponent running Awakened Plants kills half your party.
7) Having successfully played Ringlore with whatever Sage you managed to bring and have survive untapped through the Nazgul and auto attacks (remembering that you do not have a 6-mind sage--you've already had to use Thrall on Carambor) you head to Isengard, 3 turns in, and store. In the best case scenario, you may now play a Gold Ring item next turn. Your opponent will play Rolled the turn after that. You must now bring a character into play to untap your protected Wizardhaven, which will discard Fortress, making your Wizardhaven unprotected unless you have Keys. Oh, wait, you already tapped out Minas Tirith. Fallen Saruman
already has a mini-quest to go to Minas Tirith in the form of Keys of Orthanc. Unless you're suggesting that you can draw both Keys and a Lost Knowledge on the First turn, you're going to have one or the other, not both, which mean's you're only going to get one Gold Ring from Man of Skill, tops, before the game ends. That's if you haven't tapped your Wizardhaven to play something useful.
That is what is wrong with the Man of Skill you proposed. Even the best case scenario isn't that great. As I said before. The more realistic scenario requires 5 turns to get a use out of it. In which case, it sucks.
I do think Jambo's proposal can be a bit too strong actually, but it depends. If you want Saruman to sit around at Isengard as usual, tapping 1 or 2 or even more characters might not be a problem. Then it's just Half-orcs all over, Saruman can recycle his Voice, just add a Hall of Fire and you're done. If you have an active Saruman then it's another matter. So perhaps it could be limited to non haven sites?
I'm not sure what the proposed ability has to do with Man of Skill however.
I agree. As I said, Tales of the Hunt is a great card for the purpose of untapping Fallen Saruman.
About Half-Orcs:
I'd really like to see that decklist some time. Somehow, you're Euog, Doeth, and two Ill-Favoured Fellows along with 3 factions that require a 9 for 1 MP and 3 factions that require an 11 for 2 are winning Fallen Saruman the game as he squats at a Wizardhaven. I
really want to know how you're managing it.