Often the best way to deal with a situation is to use
Trickery # Resource # Short-event
Scout only against an Orc, Troll, Man, Elf, Slayer, Awakened Plant, or Giant
attack against his company. Make a roll (or draw a #); if the result is
greater than 5, the attack is cancelled.
This card is one of several limited attack cancelers. It's not as globally effective as Concealment or Torque of Hues, but it has a big advantage over those two: your scout stays untapped.
The attacks that can be cancelled by Trickery, most from man-like creatures, are fairly common. Slayer is one of the best creatures in the game, Orcs are often found in sealed deck, and Orcs, Trolls, and Men recently got some pretty big boosts from Dark Minions. Of the other races, Giants occasionally show themselves along with men, Awakened Plants rarely show up, and Elves can attack as agents or if someone like Glorfindel becomes a Traitor. It's interesting to note that though Trickery came out in Dragons (and ICE therefore planned for the Elvish agents), Dwarves, Dunedain, and Hobbits aren't included in the list of cancelable creatures. This is probably because the scene this card describes is when Gollum escaped from Thranduil's Elves.
Anyway, while these creatures aren't as feared as Dragons, Nazgul, and Undead, they are some of the most common. Slayers and Assassins are all over the place, and you can use this to cancel the attack you can't cancel by tapping a character. And the cool thing about Trickery is that you don't have to tap the scout. This means that you can play Trickery to get past the auto-attack and then Thorough Search in the site phase. Also, it means that if Aragorn has already tapped to face a big creature, he can still trick the opponent and sneak the company out. If your deck plans to visit Orc auto-attack sites it may be a good idea to pack some Trickery (rather than Dark Quarrels) in case the opponent springs something on you that you don't like. A good deck building strategy may be to include several racial cancelers such as Trickery, Many Turns and Doublings, Dragon's Hunger, etc. and then, once you've found what hazard strategy you are facing, keep those cancelers and discard the rest.
Trickery does, of course, have some disadvantages. The first disadvantage is that it only gets man-like creatures (and doesn't even get Pukel-creatures or some of the agents). It would probably be used by a lot more people if it could cancel stuff like Nazgul, Undead, Dragons, or Drakes, but it's still a decent canceler. The second disadvantage is the fact that you have to roll to cancel the attack, though it's not too difficult of a roll, you've got almost a 70% chance of success. Of course, once you do make the roll, be prepared for a Searching Eye, making it a good idea to have at least someone in the company who can fight.
| Ratings for Trickery: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 6.75 |
| Farmer Maggott: | 9.0 |
| Wormtongue: | 5.8 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Bandobras Took: | 9.0 |
| Samwise: | 6.0 |
| Legolas: | 6.5 |
| Strider: | 7.5 |
| Beorn: | 6.8 |
| Fingolfin: | 9.0 |
| Average: | 7.5 |
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.