(See previous Days of Yuletide here.)
As announced on Day 2, Shadow of the Past (Set V1) will be released into public playtesting in the coming weeks. Today we would like to highlight some of the cards from the Ringwraith culture and give a little more background to design decisions behind this release.
The Ringwraith culture has been second-tier for most of Fellowship‘s lifetime, compared to the raw power of Isengard and the simplicity of Moria swarms. Isengard’s power has been eroded somewhat with the errata of Keeper of Isengard and Savagery to Match Their Numbers, and Ringwraith in general has gotten a boost at the heels of Son of Hamfast‘s nerf, so the focus of Set V1’s Ringwraiths will revolve around Twilight Nazgul.
There are two major weaknesses that Nazgul have in Fellowship block: they have a hard time cycling (which is made worse by the reliance on so many unique minions), and as a result they have a hard time justifying the inclusion of pump events, which means that they fail to win skirmishes if their inherent strength isn’t enough.
Perhaps the most overt inclusion for the Twilight subculture is Ringwraith in Twilight, which is a counterpart to Black Rider in that it is a non-unique Nazgul. This helps alleviate some of the burden imposed by having nothing but unique minions, as 2 copies ending up in your hand won’t clog as much.
Non-twilight Ringwraith decks may also see fit to include RiT in their decks as well for the same reason, tho with the lack of any fierce bonus it may not be as helpful for most beatdown strategies (of course it may fit in with corruption, depending).
Here we help address the cycling concern by granting some conditional card draw, based on how well the Twilight Nazgul are getting wounds on the Ring-bearer.
If they are then able to cycle more, then pump events can be included more freely, with surprises like White Faces Burned permitting Twilight Nazgul to get their wounds out more frequently.
Here we have a new artifact with multiple uses. Additional vitality is of course useful in most situations, but for Twilight Nazgul in particular it can allow exhausted Nazgul to again be a threat on a double move, or set up a more reliable trigger to a Wraith-world or The Twilight World bomb, or perhaps enable Return to its Master (assuming the twilight Witch-king isn’t in play).
But Twilight Nazgul don’t have to be the only ones having fun! Here we have good ol Harry, as a counterpart to Bill Ferny. Where Ferny removes a Nazgul’s roaming cost (useful for literally only one site, or if against Ithilien Rangers), Harry reduces the cost of all Nazgul. He pays for himself once you’ve played one Nazgul, and each one after that is pure gravy.
That’s it for today’s spoiler! Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 8 of the 12 Days of Yuletide!
The White Council 