LotR TCG Card Strategies - #20

The One Ring, Isildur's Bane
The One Ring, the Ruling Ring

Since I know everyone has used these, and knows how they work, I'm going to get right to discussing which Ring is better for which type of deck.

Let's highlight the gameplay differences...

• Isildur's Bane gives you one more Vitality than the Ruling Ring.
• Isildur's Bane generates 2 Burdens per wound, the Ruling Ring only generates one.
• Isildur's Bane can be used on any wound (though not on exertions), while the Ruling Ring only works in Skirmishes.

The tradeoffs are in timing and flexibility. Isildur's Bane gives you a better choice of when to use the ring, and the ability to take more wounds before using the ring becomes a necessity. In exchange, you get double the burdens.

Say you have a deck that uses Frodo only because it must. For example, an Elven Archer deck, or a Dwarf/Ranger deck. These decks typically don't have any Shire culture cards in them at all. As a result, Frodo never has more than his 4 Strength, and will likely never get into combat. I'm talking about the type of deck where if Frodo ever DOES assign to a skirmish, you lose the game. Clearly, Isildur's Bane is better here. If Frodo is never going into skirmishes, you won't notice the double burdens. His one extra Vitality can help soak up archery fire or exertions for cards like Under the Watching Eye and Moria Lake.

If you have a deck that relies on Frodo to exert, Isildur's Bane is probably the way to go. That Ring lets you use Thror's Map or Sting one additional time. It also works nicely with the Westfarthing / Hobbit Farmer combo.

However, this is where it gets difficult to choose rings. What else is Frodo doing? If the deck has a number of Hobbit-related cards and may end up with Frodo into battle, what do you do if you lose the fight? Burdens could start to stack up very quickly. Especially if your deck adds burdens from other sources, like Power According to His Stature, or even from a strategy of bidding high at the start of the game. In that case, if you do use Isildur's Bane, you will need even more burden removal. The Ruling Ring is probably the way to go, that gives you more flexibility in taking wounds or burdens, since one burden here or there will not wreck your game plan. As long as you have some burden removal then you can be less concerned about putting on the Ring every time you use Frodo. It doesn't necessarily have to be a lot of burden removal, just enough to avoid things like Ulaire Enquea and Dark Whispers.

In summary, Isildur's Bane is an advantage as long as you don't plan on wearing it. If your deck may be wearing the Ring quite often, then the Ruling Ring is safer.

Of course, there's the whole meta-game issue of whether the opponents may try corruption strategies. The Ruling Ring will be some help against those. But that's another discussion completely, and I don't have time for that because I have to get to the movies....