Today is April Fools Day, and here's a card that can be a practical joke on anyone foolish enough to go after a dragon's treasure...
Known to an Ounce # Hazard # Permanent-event
Playable on a site that contains a hoard or a Dragon at home manifestation. If
any item is played at the site or at the site associated with the Dragon at
home manifestation, the site's automatic-attacks are again faced. Discard this
card when the associated site or Dragon manifestation leaves play. Cannot be
duplicated on a given site or Dragon manifestation.
This card can be useful if you've got at home manifestations or if you think your opponent will be heading to dragon lairs. It's probably not as useful as a card like Incite Denizens (that's why it's rare), but it can give you a chance at killing some characters.
Known to an Ounce is played on either a site or dragon. The former requires Known to an Ounce to be drawn at the right time so it can be played on a site as the company reaches it. You can play it on any at home dragon at any time (assuming you can play a hazard), but if you play Known to an Ounce on a dragon and a company defeats or discards the dragon, Known to an Ounce goes away, possibly before its effect takes place.
If the purpose of playing hazards is to tap the opponent's characters, Known to an Ounce does this in an odd way. Rather than tapping characters to prevent action during the site phase, Known to an Ounce will force a decision that will possibly wound characters. Your opponent can either try to keep his buff characters untapped so they can face the second auto-attacks, which may cause them to become wounded. The second option is to tap the people for the strike and the item, leavinng the others vulnerable to the munchings and crunchings of a dragon at home, as with the tough characters tapped, the attacker will be able to hit the weak ones.
For the defender, though, this isn't too big of a disadvantage. Barring a card like Marvels Told, which is in most decks, Known to an Ounce isn't too hard to deal with. If the dragon is not at home, you most likely will have to deal with one big strike before and one after. If you've got two tough character, this shouldn't be too hard to deal with, just give the item to a weaker character and then have him give it to the person who needs it during the next organization phase. You can also cancel one with a card like Fast Asleep. Burgaling will get past the first attack, but the second will still happen (making Known to an Ounce to be a good idea if you expect burgaling hobbits to be moving around). If the dragon is at home, you may want to try to defeat him, as that will not only garner you MPs (unless you played him) but will also get rid of the pesky Known to an Ounce (assuming it was played on the dragon). Of course, if you want to waste a turn, you could always go to a different nearby site, grab an item there, and then head back to the original site (assuming Known to an Ounce was played on the site).
So Known to an Ounce can be a useful card if you're anticipating a weak company planning to go dragon hunting. Played normally or on guard can potentially wound a character, and may at least deter your opponent. Of course, if she knows that Itangast Knows his treasure to an Ounce, she might just go and get stuff from Leucaruth...
| Ratings for Known to an Ounce: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 4.9 |
| Farmer Maggott: | 6.0 |
| Wormtongue: | 5.8 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Bandobras Took: | 9.5 |
| Samwise: | 6.5 |
| Legolas: | 5.0 |
| Strider: | 5.0 |
| Beorn: | 6.7 |
| Fingolfin: | 6.5 |
| Average: | 6.3 |
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.