Narchost (7U362)
 Haunted Pass (7U361)
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Slag Mounds (7U363) 
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Narchost (7U362) is a King Block Site from the Return of the King set.
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Strategy[edit]
Narchost is useless. If you are playing it, you should almost certainly replace it with a different site, probably Slag Mounds (7U363)
.
Under normal circumstances, the only time you will play your site 9 is if your opponent's Fellowship moves there, so you'll want to pick something that's favorable to your Shadow side. The problem is that Narchost is poorly-suited to almost every Shadow deck. It only triggers if you can spot eight burdens, which generally will only happen if you're playing a corruption deck and your opponent is likely using Frodo instead of one of the alternate ring-bearers and you're very close to winning. This perfect storm of circumstances is very rare. What's more, even under that very narrow set of circumstances, Slag Mounds (7U363)
is a much stronger and more versatile tool to finish off the game. Narchost may actually be helping your opponent, if the ring-bearer is (nearly) exhausted, since they get to put on the One Ring for free. It doesn't actually help you win in any case unless you somehow wound the ring-bearer, which is usually much more difficult than killing a companion at site 9.
There are cards that technically synergize with Narchost. Forcing the ring-bearer to use the One Ring can tee up Wraith-world (2R86)
or Return to Its Master (1R224)
. It also means your opponent has to take a burden from Morgul Brute (7R188)
, or is forced to choose between a burden and two threats with Morgul Destroyer (7U190)
. It does prevent the ring-bearer from soaking wounds from archery or The Witch-king, Lord of the Nazgul (2R85)
with their vitality instead of their resistance. But all of this is undermined by the fact that Narchost is just so impractical to trigger in the first place.
You could, possibly, use site manipulation tools like Pathfinder (1C110)
to go to your own site 9 with your Fellowship, then use this site since it provides no benefit to your Shadow opponent. Even this is gimmicky, since it means you have to use a useless site 9 if your opponent gets there first.
Strengths and Weaknesses[edit]
Favorable to...[edit]
- Free Peoples decks. The gametext of this site is so unreliable that it's useless even in the corruption decks it's clearly designed to favor. Use Slag Mounds (7U363)
instead.
Unfavorable to...[edit]
- Shadow decks. Don't use this terrible site.
