Morgul Vanguard (10R63)
 Morgul Banner-bearer (10C62)
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Stooping to the Kill (10C64) 
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Morgul Vanguard (10R63) is a 
Ringwraith Minion from the Mount Doom set.
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Strategy[edit]
Morgul Vanguard is a splashable minion that exists to assassinate weak support companions that your opponent hoped to protect with a hand weapon, or take up the attention of a well-armed, high-strength tank companion. These are relatively powerful effects, but Morgul Vanguard is very expensive for what it does, and it relies on your opponent to play weapons in the first place. As a result, it's only played occasionally, and even then mostly in Movie Block
The best but rarest use case for Morgul Vanguard is immediately overwhelming a low-strength support character in a skirmish. Some common possible targets are Merry, Friend to Sam (1R302)
, any version of Merry with Merry's Sword (7R242)
, or occasionally Galadriel, Lady Redeemed (10R11)
. That's pretty close to an exhaustive list! There are relatively few characters with base strength of less than six, and almost all of them are ring-bound or rarely if ever use hand weapons. Even when you do get a juicy target like that, you may run into issues with Escape (4R300)
or Everyone Knows (9R50)
on Merry, or 
Elven skirmish events like Valor (4C87)
, Forearmed (6U16)
, or Still Needed (7C29)
on Galadriel.
It's nice to score overwhelms like that, but you can't count on it. When you're targeting other support companions, they generally have about six strength, with another +1 to +3 from the weapon they're using. Legolas, Greenleaf (1R50)
with Long-knives of Legolas (3R21)
, Éowyn, Lady of Ithilien (10R72)
(or sometimes Éowyn, Lady of Rohan (4C270)
) with Éowyn's Sword, Dernhelm's Blade (7R230)
, pretty much any Knight in Gondor Knights with Banner of Westernesse (6U51)
, many support elves with Elven Sword (4C64)
, etc. are all good targets, especially if they're already exhausted. Morgul Vanguard is very pricey if you're only notching a single wound on one of these support characters, but securing the kill on a key character like Greenleaf is definitely worth it. But even this role is conditional: the Vanguard can't snipe Greenleaf unless he has a hand weapon, and he often won't. And if the weapon is a generic one, like Elven Sword (4C64)
, rather than a unique one like Long-knives, there's a decent chance they'll be able to hand it off to someone who can handle the heat.
You can also throw Morgul Vanguard at a high strength character, to tank for the rest of your minions. 12 strength will often be enough to possibly win against someone like Aragorn or Gil-Galad, Elven High-king
, but not likely someone like Durin III, Dwarven Lord (9R+3)
or Elendil, The Tall (9R+32)
. This isn't a bad way to use some similar minions, like Gorgoroth Assassin (8R95)
or The Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of Barad-dur (12R118)
, but Morgul Vanguard is so expensive that it's quite likely that there's not much else it's helping to protect. This can help if you really want to win skirmishes with another particular key minion, like The Witch-king, Lord of Angmar (1R237)
, but even then, 14 twilight is quite a lot!
Unfortunately, there are a fair few decks that run close to zero hand weapons on unbound characters. Ent Swarm generally only has weapons for the ring-bearer and maybe Gandalf. Elven decks often go without hand weapons in Movie Block. There are matchups where Morgul Vanguard is just a slightly overpriced 12 strength minion.
Morgul Vanguard can do some work for you, but it's unreliable, and even when it works it just isn't a very good value. Most of the time, it'll be good for one wound, and that's really disappointing for such an expensive minion. Even if you do want a guided missile to pick off support characters, it's hard to see why it's worth bothering with compared to Gorgoroth Assassin (8R95)
or Orthanc Champion (4R164)
.
Morgul Vanguard falls off very hard in post-Shadows formats like Expanded and Standard, mainly because of Followers. Fewer decks rely on hand weapons to protect support characters, instead using followers for that role. Even when there is a juicy target, oftentimes attaching a follower or two can easily protect that character from being overwhelmed.
Strengths and Weaknesses[edit]
Synergizes With...[edit]
- Decks that really need to put pressure on particular support companions that often carry hand weapons.
Strong Versus...[edit]
- Merry. Merry, Friend to Sam (1R302)
often bears Hobbit Sword (1C299)
, and 
Rohan decks often run Merry with Merry's Sword (7R242)
. Both of these are often vulnerable to being overwhelmed by Morgul Vanguard, although be careful of Escape (4R300)
and Everyone Knows (9R50)
. - Galadriel, Lady Redeemed (10R11)
occasionally bears Elven Sword (4C64)
.
- Banner of Westernesse (6U51)
. There's a whole cycle of banners in that set, but this is the most common, often played in Gondor Knights.
Weak Versus...[edit]
- Decks that run few or no hand weapons. Ent Swarm is the most common, although Elven decks often go without them as well.
- Free Peoples characters with their own Assignment: abilities, like Alcarin, Warrior of Lamedon (5R31)
and Sméagol, Always Helps (7R71)
can assign Morgul Vanguard before it gets to use its ability.
Decks[edit]
- Ever My Heart Rises/Greyhame, a Movie Block deck by Enduring on The Last Homely House forums. This deck is inordinately large and self-mills using Ever My Heart Rises (4R46)
, then uses recursion cards to play cards from the discard pile. Morgul Vanguard is situational, but The Witch-king, Morgul King (7R221)
and Morgul Squealer (8R77)
can retrieve it when it's useful.
