Flood Insurance

Flood Insurance refers to a cycle of cards released in set V2, King of the Golden Hall which take advantage of large amounts of twilight to play cards directly from your draw deck.

Flooding is a tactic where the Free Peoples player dumps 20+ Twilight on a single turn, banking on the inability for Shadow to use even a fraction of the available twilight. If you manage to put 50 twilight on the table, and Shadow only uses 20 of it, then you have effectively played 30 twilight worth of cards "for free" once the Twilight Pool is cleared during the Regroup phase. This is a particularly common strategy for Ent decks.

Flood Insurance cards all permit themselves to be played directly from the draw deck if they detect twilight flooding (18 twilight) in Region 1 (sites 1-3). Once played, these cards permit some of that twilight glut to be spent on various other large effects, usually pulling even more cards from the draw deck (ensuring that flooding on turn 1 does not rely on luck of the draw to reliably defend against). The anti-flood ability can still be used if played from hand in Region 2 or Region 3 (however the threshold for flooding goes up to 25 in Region 3).

To ensure that the cards aren't a dead draw, all (except one) have a secondary ability to spend to draw 2 cards if you draw the event without any flooding to prevent.

Although each Flood Insurance card uses a different culture, none of the cards are culturally enforced and instead you must choose what primary effect your deck can most benefit from if your opponent tries their luck:

• Attention of the Eye (V2_57) - Pulls up to 2 big minions
• Valiant but Foolish (V2_42) - Pulls up to 4 conditions
• Fell from Wisdom into Folly (V2_22) - Pulls up to 4 Items (artifacts or possessions)
• All Hope of Secrecy Lost (V2_43) - Pulls up to 4 events

• Threats on All Sides (V2_44) - Adds up to 6 threats
• Watching and Waiting (V2_15) - Draws 8 cards
• Ritual Oath of Enmity (V2_5) - Lets you control 2 sites

Ritual Oath works a little differently than the others as it is not possible to control any sites on the very first turn. Thus, it is an artifact that instead adds a token to itself for later; at any time its owner can spend that token to take control of 2 sites.

Flood Insurance Cards

Portrait	Card Name	Culture	Card Type	Game Text
	Watching and Waiting (V2_15)	Gollum	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove to draw 8 cards. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck.
	Ritual Oath of Enmity (V2_5)	Dunland	Artifact • Support Area,Support Area	While you can spot 18 twilight tokens in region 1, this card can be played from your draw deck. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove <symbol>twilight7</symbol> to add a token here. Shadow: Spot a token here to take control of 2 sites. Discard this artifact.
	Fell from Wisdom into Folly (V2_22)	Isengard	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove to take up to 4 Shadow items into hand from your draw deck. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck.
	Valiant but Foolish (V2_42)	Moria	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove <symbol>twilight6</symbol> to take up to 4 Shadow conditions into hand from your draw deck. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck.
	All Hope of Secrecy Lost (V2_43)	Raider	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove to take up to 4 Shadow events into hand from your draw deck. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck.
	Threats on All Sides (V2_44)	Ringwraith	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) and remove to add up to 6 threats. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck.
	Attention of the Eye (V2_57)	Sauron	Event • Shadow	Shadow: Spot your minion and remove to draw 2 cards. Shadow: Spot 18 twilight tokens (or 25 if in region 3) to play up to 2 minions from your draw deck costing or more. If in region 1, this action can be performed from your draw deck. ​

Design Notes

The two twilight thresholds, 18 in regions 1-2 and 25 for region 3, were calculated thusly:

• At site 1:
  • A 3-companion starting fellowship plays Elendil, The Tall (9R+32) (), Aragorn (), and Andúril, Flame of the West (7R79) (). 5 companions move to a site 2 with a Shadow number of . 5 + 4 + 3 + 5 + 0 = 17, which is not enough to trigger flood insurance. However, any site 2 with any twilight number (which is common) or almost any additional card would trip the threshold.

• At site 8:
  • 5 companions are getting ready for the final push. Aragorn () and Gandalf () are played, bringing the total to 7 companions who move to a site 9 with a Shadow number of . 4 + 4 + 7 + 9 = 24, which is not enough to trigger flood insurance; you will thus have to be more egregious than two big late companions on the last site to trigger a response.

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