Uruk-hai

Uruk-hai are a new breed of orcs that appear in the Third Age, as tall and strong and well-armed as men. In this game, uruks are a Shadow-Aligned race, only appearing as minions.

For the first nine sets, all Uruk-hai are Isengard minions. "Uruks" almost always refers to an Isengard Shadow deck, possibly also including Saruman and/or Grima, but probably not including any of the Isengard orc or men minions. Complicating things somewhat, the Mount Doom set introduces Sauron-culture uruks, but most of them see little play except for Shagrat, Captain of Cirith Ungol (10R99) .

The next set, Shadows, reorganizes the Shadow cultures. In that set and all subsequent sets, all Uruk-hai minions are Uruk-hai culture.

While Lord of the Rings establishes that Uruk-hai are a new breed of orcs, in this game Uruk-hai are considered a separate race from orcs. Thus, they are not affected by cards that affect orcs, like Sting (1R313) .

Cards which specify "Uruk-hai" like Savagery to Match Their Numbers (1R139) can target any minion with the Uruk-hai race, regardless of culture. However, cards like Brutality (11S180) that specifically mention the culture icon can only affect cards with the new culture introduced in Shadows.

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