Editing Sauron Culture

[[File:LOTR-EN05S096.0_card.jpg|right|thumb|''Two eyes, as often as I can spare them.'']]

{{C|Sauron}} is the enemy of the [[Free Peoples]] of Middle-Earth. In this game, his [[culture]] is a [[Shadow Alignment|Shadow]] culture made up of his army of militant [[orc]]s and [[troll]]s, with the occasional oddball of a different [[race]]. {{C|Sauron}} culture is one of the largest cultures, and generally dabbles in at least a little bit of every Shadow mechanic in the game, at least until it's mostly retired after the [[Mount Doom]] set. The culture is very versatile, ranging from small cheap [[swarm]]ing minions like {{Card|Orc Ambusher}} to fearsome beatdown tools like {{Card|Troll of Cirith Gorgor}}, and that's not counting {{Card|Sauron, the Lord of the Rings}} himself!

There's no one typical {{C|Sauron}} strategy the way that there is for {{C|Moria}} or [[Uruk-hai]]. "Redeye" strategies include [[corruption]], [[discard]] and [[mill]], slow grind through [[direct wounding|direct]] and [[undirected wounding]], [[site control]], [[Buff|buffing]] shenanigans involving [[roaming]] minions or [[initiative]], and so on and so on. If there's a unified theme to {{C|Sauron}} culture, it's that most of its strategies are slow grinds, slowly setting up an obvious plan or slowly grinding down the [[Fellowship]]. But sometimes they can also play 4-5 [[troll]]s and [[Beatdown|smash faces]], too.

For all its versatility, though, {{C|Sauron}} culture does one thing badly: its [[pump]] [[event]]s are all telegraphed. They all have to [[spot]] something, be it [[burden]]s ({{Card|Enduring Evil}}), [[threat]]s ({{Card|Anguish}}), or [[Site Control|controlled sites]] ({{Card|Beaten Back}}). Often as not, they're telegraphed [[condition]]s instead, like {{Card|Flames Within}}. A minion might unexpectedly murder your [[companion]] with a card like {{Card|Mordor's Strength}}, but you can almost always look at the table and know whether or not it's possible to win any [[skirmish]] that doesn't finish prematurely.

{{C|Sauron}} culture was mostly retired after [[Mount Doom]]. Starting with the [[Shadows]] set, the orcs and trolls were combined with the orcs of {{C|Moria}}, {{C|Isengard}}, and {{C|Ringwraith}} cultures into one single {{C|Orc}} culture, while Shagrat and his uruk-hai underlings moved to {{C|Uruk-hai}} culture. There were only a handful of {{C|Sauron}} cards in the subsequent sets, all focused around [[Maia|Sauron himself]]: {{Card|Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor}}, {{Card|The Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of Barad-dur}}, {{Card|Sceptre of the Dark Lord}}, {{Card|Throne of the Dark Lord}}, and {{Card|Sauron’s Might}}.

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{{Culture Table}}

[[Category:Cultures]]