PC Errata/Notes

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X-List

Unlike all following PC errata batches, the initial X-List batch has notes from Decipher explaining why they banned the card. Those notes are shown alongside the PC's own.

Original	Errata	Decipher Notes	PC Notes
Original	Errata	Decipher Notes	PC Notes
The Mirror of Galadriel (1R55)	The Mirror of Galadriel (1R55)		Announced in the January 11 2002 FAQ, reprinted as revision B
Ottar, Man of Laketown (1R80)	Ottar, Man of Laketown (1R80)	Decipher Notes: This card makes large-scale card draw too accessible to all Free Peoples strategies. It requires a very low cultural commitment to a culture that is not supposed to be the strongest at Fellowship phase card draw.	The complaint is straightforward: it permits lots of card draw (and card cycling, even if that goes unmentioned) when Gandalf is not supposed to. He's even worse with Elrond, Lord of Rivendell, whose Home 3 healing ensures that Ottar + Elrond permit a 4 card draw / 3 card cycle every Fellowship phase, which makes most other methods pale in comparison. Our errata is equally straightforward: knock Ottar down to essentially an out-of-phase reconcile once per turn.
Savagery to Match Their Numbers (1R139)	Savagery to Match Their Numbers (1R139)	Decipher Notes: The secondary function of this card is too strong for its cost, and makes the card superior in almost all situations to any other strength event.	Savagery has long been a power card that requires the Free Peoples player to play around in FOTR block. Most anti-Fellowship-size cards are at the 6 companion limit, but Savagery triggers at 5, meaning that fellowships have to either go with a meager 4 companions or risk losing a couple companions anyway to one instance of this card. The PC has opted to keep the 5 companion spotting element and eliminated the +4 strength boost that lingers to the Regroup phase as the most frustrating aspect of the card. Fierce is scary, but not as scary as one event automatically winning the fierce skirmish for you by dint of the +4 persisting.
Sam, Son of Hamfast (1C311)	Sam, Son of Hamfast (1C311)	Decipher Notes: This card has been on our X-List radar for quite some time. The deck lists turned in by the top 16 players of each major event this year were a perfect example of why – in every case, at least 15 of them were stocking one or more copies of Sam. He is simply too versatile, offering huge benefits regardless of Free Peoples strategy, and regardless of who your Ring-bearer is. And he’s even better if your Ring-bearer happens to be Frodo. With Shadows, the need to address Sam became even more pressing. With resistance becoming an important feature of all companions (not just Ring-bearer) and it being directly tied to burdens, Sam easily undermined a large number of Shadow cards in the set, and made many Free Peoples cards too reliable (and thus, too strong).	Sam is tricky, because not only is he approximately the best burden removal option, for many cultures he represents almost the only burden removal option, as many cultures plain do not have access to native anti-corruption options. Sam probably deserves to be nerfed more than he is, but it's not possible to do so reasonably until other burden options have been added to more cultures in the future. Full article here.
Flaming Brand (2R32)	Flaming Brand (2R32)	Decipher Notes: This card has no cultural enforcement, may be played in addition to another weapon, and has no cost. The resulting combination provides too much utility.	Flaming Brand has no downsides to including--it is never dead weight, as it is at least a +1 strength to any Man of any culture, and potentially quite a bit more. Its dead-simple ease of use makes it an auto-include, which dumpsters Nazgul in any format where Brand is legal. The bearer restriction has been reworked to Ranger, which allows Arwen but disallows Eomer. A twilight cost has been added to make sure it's no longer zero-downside. And then the ability has been adjusted to burn the brand to kill a nazgul for one turn--not provide an endless beatdown. Full article here.
Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood (3R17)	Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood (3R17)	Decipher Notes: Again, terrain is hugely important beginning with Shadows. And as with Gimli, this card was both too strong and out of culture. Pathfinding has never been a part of the Elven culture aside from this card, and suddenly Galadriel was enabling Elves to put out an uninterrupted string of forests onto the adventure path. She could even do this for free, since the cost of her exertion could be negated by using her to heal herself.	One wonders at this point if perhaps it's the title of “Galadriel” that needs nerfed rather than any other aspect of the card. Regardless, the Big G was a problem for the Shadows path more than anything. To reduce her ability to trigger literally every turn, her ability has been turned away from herself so that she cannot self-heal, and requiring her to exert twice. Now if you want to abuse her site manipulation, you'll have to pack other means of healing.
Saruman, Keeper of Isengard (3R68)	Saruman, Keeper of Isengard (3R68)	Decipher Notes: This card effectively doubles the number of skirmishes a fellowship faces by making all Uruk-hai fierce and then nullifying play that would serve as protection against those Uruk-hai.	Damage +1 and Fierce are no joke, and TTT's focus on uruks makes Saruman a no-go. By merging both of his abilities to use the same resource pool, the player is now forced to make an interesting decision--keep uruks alive, or keep them fierce? Full article here.
Legolas, Dauntless Hunter (4R73)	Legolas, Dauntless Hunter (4R73)	Decipher Notes: One can look at deck lists before and after The Two Towers expansion and see a sudden, sharp drop in the number of conditions used by the average Shadow build, a trend which to this day many Shadow strategies don't dare to challenge. Playing against a Dauntless Hunter deck can be particularly negative to a new player, who is usually unaware that such a powerful deck type exists to stall playing Shadow events and conditions. In Expanded formats, 5 different unbound Hobbits are there to add to Merry and Pippin, and push the power of this Legolas to the max. I don't think conditions and events clocking in at a total of 7 twilight would be the greatest playing experience.	A simple band-aid of applying a limit of 2 means that it sticks to the original intent of "Merry and/or Pippin" without permitting half the Shire to get in on it in Expanded.
Madril, Defender of Osgiliath (15R64)	Madril, Defender of Osgiliath (15R64)	Decipher Notes: Not found.	Madril basically guarantees that everyone is roaming so long as there's enough threats on the table, and if everyone's roaming then Ithilien rangers have enough tools to discard those minions or otherwise deal with them, ensuring the threats never actually threaten. Thus Madril's ability is capped to an effect of +1.

PC Errata

All later PC errata were done at the PC's discretion

Original	Errata	Release Date	PC Notes
Original	Errata	Release Date	PC Notes
Hand of Sauron (3C90)	Hand of Sauron (3C90)	2023-01-11	Part of the discard deck rework. Discard a random card from hand -> exhaust a companion, or else discard 2 cards at random from hand. The cost was increased to require a unique Sauron minion, as well.
Corsair Marauder (8R57)	Corsair Marauder (8R57)	2021-12-19	Corsair Marauder of course is one of the reasons Castamir of Umbar (8R51) could be so deadly, since there was little chance to keep hold on your swords and other trinkets keeping you alive. Marauder's ability effect is unchanged, but moved as a trigger to assignment. This gives the Free Peoples a chance to counter his effect by killing him in the Maneuver and Archery phases. In exchange, the ability could be triggered twice per minion if the Shadow player can find a way to make him fierce.

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Formats

Sets	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10	9	11	12	13	14	15	17	18	16	19
Historical Decipher Formats	Fellowship Block			Towers Block			King Block				War of the Ring Block				Hunters Block
	Towers Standard
	King Standard
	Movie Block
				War of the Ring Standard
							Standard
	Expanded
	Open

Player's Council Formats (including PC Errata)	1	2	3	V1	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
	PC-Fellowship
	PC-Movie
	PC-Expanded

Unofficial Formats	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10	9	11	12	13	14	15	17	18	16	19
	French									French
	Austrian (Movie)
								Austrian (Shadows)