178.html|@/@@TEXTR*chL~C; Shadow of Mordor

Shadow of Mordor

Hazard: Permanent-Event

Environment. The hazard limit for each company is increased by one for every card over one drawn by that company during its movement/hazard phase. Additionally, if Doors of Night is in play, during each company's movement/hazard phase, the hazard player may draw one additional card for every card in excess of one drawn by his opponent. Cannot be duplicated.

Like most environments, this card affects both players, and like many of them it does so in a quite powerful and significant way. Plus, it's permanent, making the only possible way to remove it with special cards that can (like Palantir of Osgilath). Other than those, there's no real way to get rid of it. And its effects are quite significant, and often quite destructive (though as I said, they affect you too). The first of its two abilities, and the one which doesn't require Doors of Night, is increasing hazard limits for most companies, often quite significantly (and shutting Radagast down, too). If you're willing to cut your draws down, you can probably pretty much avoid it, but otherwise you'll have an increased hazard limit. The only way to avoid it is to draw the minimum of 1 card at the beginning of the m/h phase for the site moving to/from (depending on whether or not it's a haven). Remember, the end-of-phase draw/discard doesn't apply because hazards have already been played by then. So if you're willing to give up drawing a few more cards per turn, for most players it isn't really that much to worry about. Except for Radagast players. Radagast, remember, draws an extra card during the movement/hazard phase for EVERY wilderness passed through, Wilderness being by far the most common region type in the game. It's once again an option, the card reads MAY and not MUST so you can avoid doing it, but Radagast becomes effectively almost useless except for his corruption modifier. So for the Radagast people (like me, he's my favorite Wizard as a card), as with several other cards, this can be a real hassle. Plus, there's also the second ability, the one that Doors of Night brings about. It allows the hazard player to draw extra cards in the same amounts as the hazard limit increases (1 for every card drawn over 1). So you get to draw as many cards as the hazard limit increases by, and therefore probably a bit less than half as many hazards (because of the characters also taking up space in the deck it isn't more exactly half). An extra boost to your now-expanded hazard strategy, allowing you to get up to enormous amounts of cards if your opponent goes somewhere where you'd get a lot of cards anyway (like Mount Doom: 6 cards as your basic draw, 2 more if he takes all 3 he can draw, and possibly a few more from Radagast, making for quite a high total). And the only disadvantage of this card, as I said before, is the fact that it also applies to you. In order to avoid that becoming a problem you should probably only play this when you've pretty much got your companies self-sufficient, maybe when you're going to dunk The One Ring or something like that (once they've got the ring out and have enough items to make it to Mount Doom). Or if one of them has Palantir of Osgilath ready and waiting, so you can run it for a few turns and then get rid of it after you've gotten what you needed out of it. So overall, Shadow of Mordor is a hazard with quite powerful effects, but unfortunately ones that affect you as well as your opponent.
Ratings for: SHADOW OF MORDOR
RaterRatingRaterRating
Gandalf8.0Gollum8.0
Frodo8.0Farmer Maggot11.0 *
Sauron10.0 *IsildurN/A
Liber6.3 *SmaugN/A
Legolas7.0 *Beorn8.5
Eomer8.75Glaurung9.0
Morgoth8.0Average8.32

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