The One Ring

Unique. The One Ring. Playable only with a Gold Ring and after a test indicates The One Ring.
+5 prowess (to a maximum of double the bearer's starting prowess), +5 to body (to a maximum of 10) +5 to direct influence. Bearer may make a corruption check modified by -2 to cancel a strike; this does not work against Undead and Nazgul strikes. +1 corruption point to every character in the bearer's company.

First, there's the +5 prowess to a maximum of double the starting. That's pretty difficult to get by itself, never mind with lots of other cards. It's best used with either a Wizard (they all have 6, and you really want to defend them) or a Hobbit (since they have it so low and can therefore be wounded so easily). +5 prowess on someone with 6 or more brings you right up to acceptable killing range for Nazgul, even The Witch King (you just need above a 6 to defeat it and get the SIX marshalling points). Though you'd need to get the body down first (try Galva, see below). Also useful with Galva, since she gets up to TWELVE prowess making Nazgul kills incredibly easy (especially with their halved body).

Next, there's the +5 body. It can make anyone almost invincible, but is not too useful because it's only up to 10, and many characters (if not most) have 9. There are, however, some who this would be useful for, mostly commons but a few rarer ones too. But overall, in my opinion, this is the least useful of The One Ring's skills.

After that, there's the +5 influence. Think about that. Most characters have 5 or below mind points. Therefore, this effectively allows you AT LEAST 1 extra character, and possibly more (there are several 1 and 2 mind characters). Or try this with a Wizard to have almost as much direct influence from them as you do general (15 points to your 20). Plus it's great for those really powerful characters who don't have much influence, or those characters with 1 or 2 who could get a lot more use out of just a few more.

Next, there's the strike cancellation. This is somewhat useful, but not that much. The -2 corruption check is difficult, especially with the 6 corruption points for The One Ring, but the reward is reasonably worth it. The bearer doesn't even have to tap, after all, so for someone like Frodo this is great. Especially against those really powerful but few-strike creatures who you encounter in the areas you have to go to use the best feature of the Ring (see below), like Nazgul and Dragons.

Also, there's the SIX marshalling points. Here's the other things that give you that much:

• Killing Khamul the Easterling, The Witch-King of Angmar, or Shelob (each extremely powerful creatures)
• Bringing the Army of the Dead faction into play, which requires Aragorn II, a rare site, and one other card, Paths of the Dead. Compared to those, The One Ring seems easy.

You may not need marshalling points to win, though, if you win the game by destroying The One Ring. This is the best feature of it. I mean, for crying out loud, it lets you WIN THE GAME! You can either do this by destoying it with Cracks of Doom (though the -4 corruption check can be murder) or with Gollum and Gollum's Fate (which does it without the check). Either way, it's worth it, since it lets you WIN THE GAME, though you lose it and don't win the game if you fail the check (so make sure you have a good chance, or else the 6 marshalling points will help you win better). Like I said, it's a great feature.

There is, however, one bad point. This item has incredibly high corruption. Not only does it have 6 corruption points for its bearer, it also has 1 for everyone in the bearer's company. Therefore, you probably want either some enhancers like Old Friendship or an automatically enhanced card like Gandalf or Frodo to carry it. But still, overall this is a great card, the best one in the game (and MOST of my raters agree) and great in any deck as long as you have the cards to get it in play.

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