Continuing with good sealed deck and common cards, this card is one of the best creatures in the game.
Slayer # Hazard # Creature # 2 MP # 11/- # Keyable: Bl, Bh
Slayer. Two attacks (of one strike each) against the same character. Attacker
chooses defending character. The defender may tap one character in the same
company to cancel one of these attacks.
Slayer can often have a good chance of killing a character. And even if no wound occurs, you're pretty guaranteed that that character will tap as well as probably another.
First of all, the prowess of 11 is one of the best of the low MP creatures. Also, this lets attackers choose defending characters (and it isn't hurt by More Alert Than Most, although it is hurt by Forewarned is Forearmed. It's also pretty easy to play. Border-lands and -holds are pretty common (though not as much as single Wilderness or Runis & Lairs). Pretty much the only area without many Border-lands is around Rivendel (and Mordor, but that's already dangerous). And anybody who doesn't go to a border-hold at least once in the game is probably not going to get many faction points.
So, how effective is Slayer? Well, in order to have a good chance of actually staying untapped against it, a wizard would have to get hooked up with a pretty big weapon. Even if he does decide to stay tapped, an unenhanced wizard has to roll at least a 6 to recieve the 2 MPs. In fact, the fact that Slayer is worth 2 MPs instead of the standard 1 (for creatures without body) shows how nasty Slayer can be. Plus, unless the company is pretty well enhanced, most times the defender will want to tap a character to remove an attack. You don't get to choose the tapper, but you do get to choose a character, take a good shot at him, and tap another character. That's better than most creatures.
One debate that arose a little after the game came out is "why does Assassin have one more attack than Slayer and one less MP?" Simply, Slayer is a lot more playable. Your opponent starts the game at Rivendel. His strategy is based largely in the east. First turn he heads out to Lorien. On his way through Anduin Vales his main character encounters a slight problem: someone is out to get him. Or your opponet is heading from Lorien to Minas Tirith (which has The White Tree). You whip out a Slayer to be keyed to the border-land in the site path.
How can you defend against a Slayer? Well, one way is to get some weapons early. However, that won't stop slayers attacking your hobbits. And in order to cancel the whole card you have to use both a cancellation card AND tap a character (or use a canceller and Forewarned is Forarmed). This will also generally tap two characters in the company, which is what you're trying to do (along with a chance to make a kill). So the best way to avoid Slayers is to avoid Border-lands and Border-holds. Not an easy task.
So Slayer is one of the best common hazards, a useful card to add to a deck if you're trying to reach the 10 creature minimum for Council of Lorien play or if you just need a nice card. Only problem (or sometimes advantage) is that there are no Slayer-specific modifiers.
| Ratings for Slayer: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 9.7 |
| Frodo: | 9.0 |
| Samwise: | 7.5 |
| Cirdan: | 8.0 |
| Beorn: | 6.7 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 8.5 |
| Legolas: | 7.5 |
| Bandobras Took: | 9.0 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 9.5 |
| Alatar: | 7.0 |
| Average: | 8.1 |
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.