Just after Dark Minions came out, there were a couple of cards that everyone was talking about. One of them was
Out of the Black Sky # Hazard # Permanent-event # 5 MP
Playable if Doors of Night is in play on a Nazgul permanent-event that could
immediately attack if it were in your hand. The Nazgul immediately attacks as
a creature from its permanent-event state (not counting against the hazard
limit) and chooses defending characters. If the Nazgul is defeated, place this
card in opponent's marshalling point pile and remove the Nazgul from play.
Otherwise, discard this card. This can be used on an opponent's Nazgul
permanent-event as well as on your own.
Wow. In fact, this card can be so nasty that it caused several people to take the Nazgul out of their decks. This card won't single-handedly stop serious Nazgul decks, but it will make it so people don't play them so that they aren't hit by them.
First of all, the bit about this card being a permanent-event and giving 5 MP is so that your opponent can receive MPs for his own Nazgul. It also means that Khamul or Witch-king with this card are worth one less MP and it also means you can play Marvels Told on this card (or you could respond to this card by discarding the Nazgul).
How powerful is this card? Very. Your opponent realizes you are playing a wolf/spider/animal deck, so he thinks Carn Dum would be a safe place to go. You mutter about not being able to play your Giant Spiders as you draw a few cards. You look at what you draw and then at the table. Your opponent played Uvatha so he could cycle his creatures. With a big grin, you play a Lesser Spiders to tap a few members of the company. You then say "The company dispatched the spiders and, a few moments later, out of the black sky came Uvatha the Horseman, who they could have sworn was somewhere else! Mwa ha ha ha!" And not only does the Nazgul not count against the hazard limit and is available for further enhancement, he chooses defending characters. That's right, you can pick off that lowly hobbit, or that Adrazar who keeps influencing factions, and you can avoid Eowyn stepping up to face off with the Nazgul.
There are a couple of drawbacks to this card. First, Doors of Night has to be out. Pah! That's out most of the time anyway. Second, the Nazgul has to be able to attack immediately. That means your opponent has to go to either a dark hold/domain or to a region attackable by a Nazgul in play. And if you're playing with a Nazgul deck, chances are your opponent doesn't want to go to dark areas. However, Nazgul cover several regions in the east and if Morgul-night is out... Pretty much the only problem with this card is making sure there are Nazgul to attack with. You can include this card in your own deck if you've got some Nazgul (such as Dwar of Waw for a wolf/spider/animal deck or others for playing cards like Scimitars of Steel). Or maybe the best use of this card is to put it in your sideboard. When you notice your opponent brings out Uvatha, Ren the Unclean, or some other Nazgul, you can lower her wizard's hazard limit by one and sideboard this card in to your deck. Then, surprise! You thought you were safe! I guess another problem is that your opponent can hit YOU with it, but that's part of being a card...
Plus, if she kills Ren, she can't use him against you.
| Ratings for Out of the Black Sky: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.5 |
| Frodo: | 9.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 10.0 |
| Cirdan: | 6.5 |
| Alatar: | 9.0 |
| Legolas: | 10.0 |
| Samwise: | 8.2 |
| Gandalf: | 7.5 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 9.9 |
| Strider: | 9.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 8.4 |
| Fingolfin: | 10.0 |
| Merry: | 8.5 |
| Average: | 8.6 |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1996 by Trevor Stone. Permission given to duplicate so long as no profit is made and the copyright notice is kept in tact, blah, blah, blah.