Culture
Cultures are a core component of The Lord of the Rings TCG. A culture's function is to easily distinguish cards that are likely to be related to one another (usually by a thematic element, such as Race or locale). There are plenty of cross-culture strategies to be had, but for the most part cards of one culture play best with other cards of that culture. Each culture naturally has its own strengths and vulnerabilities; for instance, the 
Elven culture excels during the Archery Phase, but the 
Shire culture – having no access to bows or bowmen – struggles in that phase but makes up for this in other areas.
| Cultures | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Peoples |  Dwarven
|
Elven
|
 Gandalf
|
 Gollum
|
 Gondor
|
 Rohan
|
Shire
|
| Movie-era Shadow |  Dunland
|
Gollum
|
 Isengard
|
 Moria
|
 Raider
|
 Ringwraith
|
 Sauron
|
| Shadows-era Shadow |  Men
|
 Orc
|
 Uruk-hai
|
Wraith
| |||
Excluding sites and The One Ring, every card in the game belongs to one of sixteen distinct cultures. It should be noted that the Gollum culture is unique in being the only cross-alignment culture--that is, having both Free Peoples and Shadow cards, in line with both sides of Smeagol/Gollum's split personality. All other cultures are either all Free Peoples or all Shadow.
Following the release of Shadows the Shadow-side cultures were rearranged from their previous faction-based orientation ( Isengard, Moria, Dunland, etc) to a race-oriented one ( Men, Orc, Uruk-hai).
A History of Cultural Development
When the game's first set, The Fellowship of the Ring released in 2001, it brought with it the first nine cultures: Dwarven, Elven, Gandalf, Gondor, Isengard, Moria, Ringwraith, Sauron, Shire. The release of the second base set with The Two Towers brought the additions of the Dunland, Raider, and Rohan cultures.
The Gollum was the only culture to make its first appearance outside of a base set, due to timing with the release of the movie The Two Towers. As part of Decipher's licensing agreement, they were not permitted to reveal any "spoilers", and so Decipher needed to wait for the Battle of Helm's Deep expansion four months later to explore Gollum's schizophrenia. Interestingly, it is the sole culture to feature both Free Peoples and Shadow cards. It would be the last new culture of the Movie Block years, and the last major culture to be released.
With the release of the Shadows set, Decipher reconsolidated the various Shadow cultures and created three new ones divided along different lines. These cultures were:
- Men (containing old Dunland, Raider, and elements of Isengard)
- Orc (containing Moria, Sauron, and the orkish elements of Isengard and Ringwraith)
- Uruk-hai (containing the rest of Isengard and a tiny sliver of Sauron)
- Ringwraith was also rebranded to be named Wraith
This move in general was controversial within the player base, as some viewed it as a marketing move to force players to yet again purchase more cards or be doomed to obsolesce. Unlike the previous incarnations, these new cultures could draw, from their first appearance, upon images and material from all three films. Following the Shadows release, no further cultures were brought into the game.
Cultures that Could Have Been
Shortly after the release of The Two Towers base set, it was revealed that Decipher's initial intention was to introduce Dunland and Raider as a single culture, named Evil Men. Ultimately this plan was discarded, since doing so would have restricted a player's choice of Shadow cultures to two in the set (Isengard being the second).
Speculation was rampant after The Two Towers as to how the Ents would be incorporated into the game. Rumors predicted an Ent culture in the works for Battle of Helm's Deep. As it turned out, Ents were instead incorporated into the Gandalf culture.
