The Return of the King
 Ents of Fangorn
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Siege of Gondor 
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| The Return of the King | |
|---|---|
| ID | 7 |
| Name | Return of the King |
| Creator | Decipher |
| Release Date | 2003-11-05 |
| Is Official | yes |
| Platforms | Paper • LotR-O • GEMP • mLOTRO • Tabletop Simulator • Lackey • gccg |
| Notes | |
Set 7, The Return of the King (or ROTK) is the third base set of the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, and the seventh set overall. It was released on November 5, 2003, one month before the film of the same name. The set contained 365 cards (121 commons, 121 uncommons 121 rares, and 2 premium cards that only appeared in starter decks), all of which could appear in foil versions. Seven rares from the set had Tengwar versions produced.
Like in previous base sets, certain movie concepts were considered spoilers and not permitted to be represented in this base set, most notably Shelob and the 
Gondor Army of the Dead.
At this point, the relationship between New Line and Decipher had begun to break down, and the first sign of this was that Decipher was not provided with the same level of high-quality image support that they had enjoyed in the past. According to a former Decipher employee, this resulted in the art team needing to pirate the DVD from torrents which existed based on the version of the film submitted for the Oscars to bridge the gap. ROTK didn't suffer too badly in the dearth of images, but the strain began to be felt and was keenly evident in certain blurry and out-of-focus shots by the time of Siege of Gondor and Mount Doom.
Themes and Mechanics[edit]
With the defeat of 
Isengard and 
Dunland at Helm's Deep, the Free Peoples rally under Gondor at Minas Tirith to fend off the marching 
Sauron Besieger swarms, led by 
Ringwraith generals and vanguards. The main focus of the set are on the Besiegers vs the Knights, but there are new tools all around, in particular the Morgul Orcs, which are non-Nazgul minions under the Ringwraith banner.
As usual, the introduction of a new block comes paired with a new site path. The King Block site path suffers compared to the other two Movie Block site paths, particularly in feeling formulaic and samey from game to game.
Two new mechanics were introduced, the first being Initiative. At any given time, one side or the other is declared to "have initiative": the Free Peoples player has initiative while they have four or more cards in hand, and the Shadow has initiative otherwise. Certain cards in the set could grant the Shadow initiative regardless of the number of cards in the Free Peoples player's hand. The mechanic was designed to add tension to the Fellowship phase by punishing the Free Peoples player if they played too many cards at once. Every site two in the set granted a bonus to the Shadow if they had initiative, making this tension particularly strong on turn one.
The second mechanic is Threats, which are essentially "deferred wounds". At any time, cards may add (or remove) threats, up to the current number of companions in the fellowship, and these threats take the form of wound tokens placed on the Dead Pile. If at any time a character enters the dead pile, those threat wounds are triggered, and the Free Peoples player must assign those wounds among companions before continuing. Threats were an effective counter to the (extremely common) treatment of "disposable" "speed bump" companions, which could now be very costly to utilize, if not game-ending on their own. Many shadow cards could also remove threats to get stronger immediately.
Return of the King is also the first set to utilize an adjusted wording template for Conditions and Events. Support Area was added as a subtype for conditions, meaning that the words "Plays to your support area" are omitted from the card in lieu of a "Support Area" subtype on the card's type line. Gameplay is unaffected, but precious game text area is saved with this change. Events saw a similar transformation, with the phase action being moved to the type line instead of showing as a bold word in front of the game text.
Compare: Golden Light on the Land (2U8)
(old support area condition) vs Dark Ways (7R5)
(new support area condition), and Flurry of Blows (2C5)
(old event) vs Battle Tested (7U3)
(new event).
Cultures[edit]
This was the first base set to not introduce a new culture. Instead it focused on previously established cultures, especially Gondor, 
Raider, Ringwraith, and Sauron. Two prominent cultures from the previous block, Dunland and Isengard, do not appear in the set.
New unloaded keywords[edit]
Return of the King introduced two new unloaded keywords:
- Besieger, the Sauron minions marching on Minas Tirith
- Engine, the siege implements used on Sauron conditions
Starter Decks[edit]
Starter decks in Return of the King returned to including 3 random rares, for the first time since The Two Towers. While the pattern of every base set including an Aragorn starter continued, this was the first base set to not have a Deluxe Starter Set alongside the two standard starter decks.
Cycles[edit]
| Shadow Cycles | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cycle Name |  Gollum
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Raider
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Ringwraith
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Sauron
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| Common hand weapons | N/A | Raider Halberd (7C156)
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Morgul Axe (7C186)
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Besieging Pike (7C265)
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| Common hand weapons. | ||||
| Discard events | N/A | Hosts Still Unfought (7U151)
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Disposable Servants (7U176)
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Din of Arms (7R267)
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| Uncommon events that allow both players to discard any number of cards from hand and have a scaling effect based on how many more cards the Shadow player discarded than the Free Peoples player. | ||||
| Initiative conditions | N/A | Driven From the Plains (13C87)
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Endless Assault (13C161)
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Unimpeded (12C182)
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| Common support area conditions that can gain culture tokens and give the Shadow initiative while there are 3 or more tokens on the card, regardless of the Free Peoples player's hand. | ||||
| Site 8 | Northern Ithilien (7U359)
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Cross Roads (7U356)
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Morgulduin (7U358)
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Morgul Vale (7U357)
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| Each site 8 in Return of the King has a phase ability that benefits a particular Shadow culture. | ||||
| Six-drop initiative minions | N/A | Suzerain of Harad (7R170)
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Úlairë Toldëa, Wraith on Wings (7R219)
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Orc Archer Troop (7U294)
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| Rare unique minions with twilight cost 6 that get stronger when the Shadow has initiative. | ||||
| Temporary threat conditions | Plotting (7R67)
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Bold Men and Grim (7R129)
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Held Ground (7R181)
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Legions of Morgul (7R283)
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| Rare support area conditions that add threats when played and are discarded at the start of the regroup phase. Three of the four conditions have an ability that triggers each time a companion is about to be killed (all but Plotting) and three of the four conditions remove the threats they added when they are discarded (all but Bold Men and Grim). | ||||
Reprinted cards[edit]
- The One Ring, The Ruling Ring (7C1)
(previously 1C2 and 4C2) - Defiance (7C20)
(previously 1C37) - Have Patience (7C40)
(previously 4C93) - Intimidate (7C41)
(previously 1C76) - Wizard Staff (7C52)
(previously 2C29) - Dagger Strike (7C84)
(previously 1C102) - Desert Soldier (7U136)
(previously 4C220) - Desert Spearman (7C137)
(previously 4C221) - Their Power Is in Terror (7U207)
(previously 1U226) - Elite Rider (7C225)
(previously 4C265) - Orc Butcher (7C297)
(previously 3C94) - Hobbit Sword (7C319)
(previously 1C299 and 4C306) - Noble Intentions (7C322)
(previously 1C304)
Note: Orc Pursuer (7C303)
has the same name as Orc Pursuer (5C108)
, but is not a reprint. In formats where both cards are legal, a deck may contain up to four copies of each.
Notable Cards[edit]
- Preparations (7R12)
- Slaked Thirsts (7U14)
- Gandalf, Manager of Wizards (7R37)
- Terrible and Evil (7R50)
- Captured by the Ring (7C53)
- Gollum, Plotting Deceiver (7R58)
- Andúril, Flame of the West (7R79)
- Aragorn, Captain of Gondor (7C81)
- Derufin (7R87)
- Noble Leaders (7R112)
- Red Wrath (7U157)
- Morgul Brute (7R188)
- Morgul Destroyer (7U190)
- Out of Sight and Shot (7R204)
- The Witch-king, Morgul King (7R221)
- Éowyn's Sword, Dernhelm's Blade (7R230)
- Great Siege-towers (7U281)
- Merry, Swordthain (7R321)
- Pippin, Wearer of Black and Silver (7R324)
- Aragorn, Driven by Need (7P364)
