Suffered Much Loss (10U35)
 Last Throw (10C34)
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Cast Unto the Winds (10C36) 
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Suffered Much Loss (10U35) is a 
Isengard Condition from the Mount Doom set.
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Strategy[edit]
Suffered Much Loss is the only Isengard card in King Block. It's a strange combo piece, meant to allow players to revive their Towers Block Uruk Beatdown decks in Movie Block. While it's rarely played in Movie Block, that's the only significant format where it's useful at all, since there's no other format where Suffered Much Loss and the specific uruk-hai minions it enables are legal with a site path that lacks battleground sites.
Set 4 had a number of cards meant to encourage an uruk-hai deck focused on beating down the Freeps player at Battleground sites. The main highlights were Advance Uruk Patrol (4U136)
, Ferocity (4C151)
, Uruk Assault Band (4R179)
, and Uruk Vanguard (4R200)
. Most site numbers in Towers Block had at least one possible site that was a battleground, and all site 5s were battlegrounds, so these cards were fairly reliable, especially if you let the opponent take the lead on the site path and forced them to go to your sites. However, King Block's site path had no battlegrounds at all, which quietly nerfed these key cards in that deck. In formats using the King Block site path, like Movie Block and King Standard, Uruk Beatdown is very rarely played.
Suffered Much Loss, the only Isengard card of King Block, was meant to address that, at least in part. It's a bit more trouble to get it into play than to simply play battlegrounds in your adventure deck, but at least it's something. Once you have it in play, those cards get their abilities back! Sort of! Unfortunately, it doesn't work on sites you've controlled, so it's still not enabling the larger bonuses on Advance Uruk Patrol (4U136)
and Uruk Assault Band (4R179)
. And, because Suffered Much Loss is a condition, so it's much easier for your opponent to remove, plus it gets in the way of using Saruman's Power (1U136)
. +1 strength when you have initiative is a nice bonus, but Isengard doesn't have a good way to take initiative if your opponent doesn't give it to you, and the big uruk beatdown minions have some cultural enforcement that makes multicultural decks tricky. On top of all of this, in the meantime the meta of Movie Block had become much more hostile to single huge skirmishers, so an empowered Uruk Vanguard (4R200)
just wasn't the existential threat that it had been before. Ultimately, Uruk Beatdown in Movie Block ended up weaker than Uruk Beatdown in Towers Standard.
In set 11 and thereafter, there are many cards in all of the new Shadow cultures that get bonuses from being at battlegrounds. And, since Suffered Much Loss's main effect has no cultural enforcement, you could play it to enable any culture's cards. However, none of these cards were especially strong, and the new post-Shadows site path also introduced many new battleground sites that could be played at any site number. As a result, Suffered Much Loss wasn't necessary.
Strengths and Weaknesses[edit]
Synergizes With...[edit]
- Uruk-hai from The Two Towers that got bonuses from being at a battleground site. Specifically, Advance Uruk Patrol (4U136)
, Ferocity (4C151)
, Uruk Assault Band (4R179)
, and Uruk Vanguard (4R200)
.
- There are many cards in Shadows or thereafter that get bonuses from spotting or being at battleground sites, notably Rallying Orc (12R100)
and Whistling Death (11U104)
. This format has plenty of battleground sites, however.
Strong Versus...[edit]
- This card exists specifically to make up for the lack of battlegrounds in King Block. Other formats generally have enough battleground sites to make it unnecessary.
Weak Versus...[edit]
- Movie Block is very hostile to single large skirmishers. Elendil, The Tall (9R+32)
and Durin III, Dwarven Lord (9R+3)
can often win a skirmish with the uruk beatdown minions with one pump or less, and Círdan, The Shipwright (10R8)
and Éowyn, Lady of Ithilien (10R72)
are tailor-made to wreck large minions. - Choke. Expensive minions always have difficulty getting any value against choke decks.
- Condition Removal. Once your opponent realizes what you're doing, they'll generally immediately target this card.
Rulings[edit]
Suffered Much Loss does not make sites you control into battlegrounds, because it only affects sites that are on the adventure path and not controlled sites. It cannot give Advance Uruk Patrol (4U136)
its +4 strength bonus, or Uruk Assault Band (4R179)
its +6 strength bonus or immunity to wounds on sites that not are battlegrounds from their own game text. (Note that King Block has no battleground sites.)
A controlled site, once placed in a player's support area, is no longer a site on the adventure path.
- control section
