Since it's common, anyone can afford a Ford.
Ford # Resource # Short-event
Playable only at the end of the organization phase. Tap a ranger to prevent
opponent from playing hazard creatures keyed to Wilderness against the
ranger's company.
This can be an amazingly effective avoidance card in the right deck. While it isn't as effective as Stealth, it can mean your large company arrives unmolested and untapped.
Ford is best put in your deck after it's been nearly completed, or at least designed. It's obviously best in a deck where you travel through almost nothing but wilderness, as that's when it will be most effective. Such decks are not uncommon. Perhaps the best way to take advantage of this deck is with Radagast. The best place is probably the Rivendell area, since that's almost entirely wilderness, but the far east is also largely wilderness. Ford can also work well with cards like Forod and Rhun, making a formerly dangerous site path only able to hit you in the starting and ending regions. In a normal situation, if you use Ford and Secret Passage together you can prevent your opponent from playing any creatures not keyed to regions. And if you add a Fog, you can go almost anywhere and not be attacked except by region and site.
So, what all does this card cancel? Site type aside, it cancels cards like Cave-drake, Winged Fire-drake, etc. If you're not going through other terrain types, it stops most wolves, spiders, and animals, as well as some special men, trolls, orcs, awakened plants, etc. What it doesn't stop, though, is keying to region by name. For instance, if you head from Rivendell to Lorien via the four wilderness, a Cave Worm doesn't care if you've forded, it's still going to eat a character anyway. Dragon's Desolation still works (assuming you didn't play Secret Passage), and several creatures like Cave-drake and Rain-drake can be keyed to the site. Also, your opponent can still play stuff like River (and you've already tapped your ranger), Chance of Being Lost, Siege, Lure of Nature, etc.
So while Ford can't cancel all the creatures you'll face, it can sure help, perhaps coming out of the sideboard to cancel the right deck. It's most useful in a weak deck (Sam is a ranger...), but can be used if you just want a lot of characters untapped. You should also make sure to take along an extra ranger, as you've already tapped one.
Ford can also be a good find in sealed deck, as a lot of the creatures won't be region specific, you spend a lot of time going through wilderness (often) and much of it is starter movement, eliminating furhter the region threat.
| Ratings for Ford: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 6.0 |
| Farmer Maggott: | 7.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 5.6 |
| Frodo: | 7.0 |
| Bandobras Took: | 8.5 |
| Samwise: | 6.5 |
| Legolas: | 8.0 |
| Strider: | 8.0 |
| Beorn: | 6.9 |
| Fingolfin: | 7.0 |
| Average: | 7.1 |
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.