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Choking Shadows
Choking Shadows
Hazard: Short-Event
Environment. Modify the prowess of one automatic-attack at a Ruins & Lairs
[R] site by +2. Alternatively, if Doors of Night is in play, treat one
Wilderness [w] as a Shadow-land [s] or one Ruins & Lairs [R] as a
Shadow-hold [S] until the end of the turn. Cannot be duplicated.
This card has two uses, both of which can be useful. Let's start with the first one. It can increase auto-attacks at Ruins & Lairs sites. This by itself is somewhat useful. It's a scaled down/scaled up Eye of Sauron which only works on Ruins & Lairs (and also can't be helped by Will of Sauron because it's not a long-event). It doesn't need Doors of Night out for that ability, however, while to get +3 instead of +1 Eye of Sauron does. So it's a slightly useful little boost for some auto-attacks. But the main feature of this card (IMHO) is the second one. It does require Doors of Night, but if you have that out it's worth it. This card is the first (tomorrow's also does something like this, as does one in a week or so) terrain type changer we're doing. This means that it can change a site's type, so that more (or less) dangerous hazards can be played there (among other things, like other specifically keyed cards etc.). With strings of these you can convert from almost any non-haven site type to almost any other non-haven site type, and any non-sea type region to any other non-sea type region (and who knows, maybe in Dragons they'll introduce ones that change to and from Havens and Coastal Seas as well). And with Balrog of Moria you can even change one of the havens (imagine making Lorien a Dark-Hold...). Think of all that you can do with this particular one. Wilderness is the most common region type in the game, with 24 regions covering almost every part of the map (close to half of all regions are Wilderness). It's almost impossible to get around without passing through it, as I mentioned in COTD #17 (Snowstorm). With Choking Shadows, you can make a Wilderness a Shadow-Land. This allows you to, with Fell Beast, rain NAZGUL on any company moving through a Wilderness like this (!). Just think of all you can do with that (I almost killed Pallando in the Beren/Cirdan game with this and a Pale Sworded Witch-King, if it hadn't been for Twilight). Nowhere is safe anymore. Almost anywhere you go an opponent can pop up with one of these and rain creatures on you. There is, however, one problem with this, and a solution for players plagued by it. Twilight. It can discard any environment (I'm reviewing it in #99) in play. That includes this. So this is a good reason to always keep an extra Twilight or two in your hand when you get them, in case something like this pops up. Overall, Choking Shadows is an extremely useful card for playing powerful hazards over a much wider range than usual.
Ratings for: CHOKING SHADOWS
| Rater | Rating | Rater | Rating |
|---|
| Gandalf | 9.0 | Gollum | 8.2 |
| Isildur | N/A | Sauron | 9.8 |
| Cirdan | 8.0 | Faramir | 8.0 |
| Morgoth | 7.0 | Radagast | 6.0 |
| Average | 8.0 | | |
|---|
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