Outmatched

Attachment. Cost: 1.

Condition. Trap.

Play into your play area unattached.

If unattached, attach to the next eligible enemy that engages you.

Response: After attached enemy resolves its attack, ready the defending character.

Preston Stone

Fire in the Night #62. Tactics.

Outmatched
Reviews

I believe that this card is sorely underappreciated. I would even say that I prefer it over Feint. Feint provides a single defense for one resource. While this is a great trade, a well-rounded deck must have another way of defending enemies. 3 Feint will not support a player's defense for an entire game. Thus, most decks choose to run a defender. In any deck which uses a good defender, such as Beregond or Dáin Ironfoot,Outmatched is far superior, as it can provide unlimited defenses. This allows you to ignore the attached enemy, saving the need for attackers. Let's say you are playing solo and are engaged with an enemy. Thus, you do not commit your defender to the quest. Typically, you would have to leave another character ready to defend, in case another enemy is revealed that turn. Because you have bought Outmatched, you don't need an additional defender. However, the same is true of Feint. Where Outmatched really shines is in the early game, before you have enough to kill enemies. You can safely leave both enemies engaged with you while only needing one defender. Admittedly, in contrast to Feint, you still have to deal with shadow effects. However, Feint only works for a single turn. Outmatched allow you to ignore the need to attack enemies is far superior. Both cards have their place. Feint can handle enemies who cannot have attachments. Simply put, Outmatched is a far more fun card, which can outperform a Core set staple. Not to mention the fact that it fits in with Damrod and the Dunedain. Overall, this card breathes new life into defense. Give it a try!

NERD 789
Inspired me to make a deck built around this card: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/31192/trapsandmaps-1.0 — kjeld 611
# — hawkeye007 28
I definitely appreciate the new perspective on this card. You pointed out some math around it that I definitely didn't consider in the past. However, I think it is still tricky to use because certain enemies have forced effects or certain scenarios have bad enough shadow effects that I wouldn't feel super comfortable treating this as effectively a 1-cost Forest Snare as you suggest. — frozen 171
While that is true, if you are using Beregond as I suggest each of his versions have shadow cancelation in their sphere: Hasty stroke and Sterner than steel. — NERD 789

This card is extremely disappointing. Only the second tactics trap in the game, yet needs massive support or a niche setup. Here are some possible uses:

  1. Dunedain deck when you have a cheap/weak enemy to engage, and you get the dunedain bonus for an extra enemy. However, like most traps, you won't have a whole lot of control of who gets attached.
  2. Tank enemy that you will need multiple turns to kill. However, most enemies of this nature cannot have attachments or are immune.
  3. A trap for the sake of a trap. I.e. Faramir or other targeted enemies with traps

So while the other traps affect the enemy or make them easier to kill, this one kind of implies that you are going to have him sit around for a while. I can't imagine why that's helpful. I will say that this trap combined with other traps (such as Followed) is very nice but on it's own, doesn't work very well.

Jtothemac 475
I don't know, to me it feels like it was specifically designed for Dunedain, in which case it is a pretty good card. But yeah, outside of — Swordthatwasbroke 723
Outide of that its use is limited — Swordthatwasbroke 723
This is indeed a card created with a specific archetype (Dunedain decks) in mind. It gives one (almost) free defense against an enemy which you can then keep engaged to fuel the archetype effects. And since there is always the possibility of the optional engagement the contro over which enemy gets the trap is higher than usual. Niche but quite effective for its purpose. — Alonewolf87 1908
Also makes the usually-dreaded "Attacking enemy makes an additional attack after this one" relatively tame. — NathanH 7
Tom Cotton loves this card. — GrandSpleen 1398

This card with Beregond is legit amazing. It's a great way to keep enemies occupied and out of the encounter deck. I legit do not want to kill them because it's like you are just toying with them.

[How do I make this review 200 characters long...]