Due to an interesting set of cooincedences, today is the 400th issue. I didn't think of anything special to do so I continued the two weeks of duality I had going. What makes this interesting is that, without intending it, I am ending up doing Sun today. What a perfect card for the Spring Equinox, the return of the sun.
Sun # Resource # Long-event
Environment. The prowess of each Dunadan is modified by +1. Additionally, if
Gates of Morning is in play, the prowess of each automatic-attack and hazard
creature is modified by -1 and the prowess of each Man and Dunadan is modified
by +1. Cannot be duplicated.
This can be quite a useful card in a deck with Dunedain which would rather have a weaker creature to fight. It's one of the few resource long-events, which means you can't spring it out right when you need, but if you pay attention to what goes on, you can pretty easily plan it right.
The normal use of this card is nice, but not particularly worthy. Boosting every Dunadan by +1 can be pretty good, especially if you have several dunedain like Haladlam who is a nice character but occasionally has trouble in a fight. If you have a company like Aragorn, Beretar, and Boromir this card may help you defeat that nasty orc attack or stay untapped until the site phase. This can be more useful when you've got a company with people like Bergil, but you can get a better bonus that can't be Twilighted if you use Potion of Prowess.
If you've got Gates of Morning, though, this card is pretty cool. You can have a group of all Men and Dunedain (say, Theoden, Erkenbrand, Boromir, and Beretar) you can do pretty well. And while that group can usually deal with a fight, there are lots of weak Men and Dunedain that you could have running around. With -1 to almost all attacks (not agents), +2 to Dunedain, and +1 to men, you can make things a lot easier for a small company. The thing is, though, that if Gates of Morning is out, chances are less that you will run up against some big and nasty creature. You might have your group of Nazgul fighting women go and have an easier time with an auto-attack, but you should tend to plan your characters and auto-attacks so that you can easily deal with them. Still, some nasty attacks (especially auto-attacks) can be created with Gates in play, and Sun can help you deal with them.
By virtue of being a Long-event, Sun affects your opponent's characters too. If you plan your deck right, you will probably get more benefit from it, but the -1 to your creature attacks can hurt. Thus, Sun is probably best in a corruption or roadblock strategy, though you could also Twilight it on your opponent's turn (assuming you don't want it to give a permanent bonus with Echo of All Joy).
So Sun, if used without Echo of All Joy, can give you an okay short-term bonus. If you want to get the Echo combo going, though, it can really help out a correctly-themed deck.
| Ratings for Sun: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 5.5 |
| Samwise: | 7.9 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 6.0 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 8.5 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Beorn: | 7.5 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Strider: | 7.0 |
| Alatar: | 6.5 |
| Average: | 6.8 |
Well, I've done 150 issues now. Any comments, questions, cards you'd like to see reviewed? I feel I'm not doing as good of a job as I could be, but I would like to know what you want to see. Send 'em by tstone@Colorado.EDU More back issues
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1997 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.