The Last Alliance of Spirit Pippin Actually Doing Something 1.0

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• 1.0

Brilliant idea!

eomer on hobbitpony is funny ^^

Okay, I freely admit I'm naive. I need help understanding how Shirefolk is played. And how does Pippin's response work - wouldn't the heroes still keep their original traits?

I love the idea, I'm just can't figure out what I'm missing here!

Of course! The B-side of The Last Alliance allows you to exhaust it to target a card and change it's text. So you would target Pippin with the contract and his text would be changed to say:

"If each hero you control has the Hobbit or Rohan trait, Pippin gains:"

Since all three heroes are either Hobbit or Rohan, Pippin would now be able to use his response. The same would be true for The Shirefolk.

@Shellin oh my gosh, total facepalm moment! I thought they simply swapped traits. Wow, this makes so much more sense now and opens up a lot more possibilities than I thought! Thanks for clarifying :)

Thank you for posting this deck and replying to comments. The first few times I read the text for The Last Alliance, I was pretty confused by it. So to make it even more funnier, you can even do something like Hobbit and Warrior? I know that you would have to change up a couple allies, but then you could add other races other than just Rohan?

@bdavis96 Yes, you can choose any two traits you would like, provided that trait has at least 1 hero and 10 allies in the cardpool, so no Last Alliance of Hobbits and Pipes unfortunately. I did do a bit of a primer on the contract when it was first spoiled that has some more info on how to use it: ringsdb.com

If I am reading the contract correctly, it isn't limiting the allies to just A or B trait, it only wants to make sure there are 10 A trait allies and 10 B trait allies. So after the 20 allies, you can add whatever other allies you want?

No, the A-side says that "Each of your starting heroes and each ally in your deck must have either the printed A or B trait, but cannot have both." in addition to the 10 of each requirement. So I could not include Arwen Undómiel for example into this deck, since she is neither Hobbit nor Rohan, even though I have already met the 10 of each requirement.

Gotcha...that was the second sentence. I was trying to already think of a deck and kept glancing over the "each ally part". Very nice deck and usage of Pippin. Only a few people like yourself and Seastan seem to give Spirit Pippin any love.

hi, i am confused. how does The shirefolk work with this contract... You need to exaust the last alliance for using his ability on b-side. So you cannot trigger Pippin and the shirefolk in the same round. So if you make pippin a rohan, great you have 3 rohan's and can use his ability. If you target The shirefolk and swap hobbit to rohan you cannot play it, because pippin is not a rohan? right?

@serre You are definitely correct that you would not be able to trigger The Shirefolk and Pippin in the same round, since using either would require exhausting the contract to target that card. The contract specifically changes the "ability text" of the card it targets, which does not include the printed Traits on a character. So when you target Pippin with the card it does not give him the Rohan trait, but instead gives his ability text the chance to work since it now says "If each hero you control has the Hobbit or Rohan trait, Pippin gains:..."

Similarly, targeting The Shirefolk changes its text to be "Play only if each of your heroes is a Hobbit or Rohan."

Since in either case all of your heroes are either Hobbits or Rohan, they can both now be used in the round you choose to target them while exhausting the contract.

@shellin thx for the quick response... if i read your explanation correctly then you're not replacing Trait A with Trait B like the contract says... REPLACE A with B or vice versa, it's not add... if i use the contract on the Shirefolk card it would read: Play only if each of your heroes is a rohan... because you are replacing hobbit with rohan.... its not added... or do i misread this contract

@serre I think you might be misreading the contract. The Action on the B-side reads:

Replace each printed instance of “A” or “B” in that card’s ability text with “A or B”

So you aren't replacing "Hobbit" with "Rohan", you are replacing it with "Hobbit or Rohan"

So targeting a Fast Hitch as an easier example would change it to say: "Attach to a Hobbit or Rohan character." not "Attach to a Rohan character."

@Shellin Well i assume you are correct, but for non-english people it's kinda weird pronounced in the contract... so i hope you're right actually, because then it opens lot more combinations with traits... so interesting contract, but not the easiest to build a deck with i guess

@serre Well, I did help design and test it, so I hope my interpretation is correct! ;) You are far from the only person who has had questions or trouble understanding it, non-native speaker or otherwise. We (ALeP) definitely realize that this card was more complicated/less intuitive than we would have liked it to be.

@Shellin well great job in doing this. i just found out of the fan made expansion i ordered the cards. Thx for putting this effort in this game. LOTR stays a good game.

The Last Alliance is an extremely powerful contract and thank you for designing it, but it is definitely a little confusing at first. Some of the confusion stems from Inclusive OR, whereas most decisions in life are Exclusive OR (XOR). So with this contract, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Would Éowyn be better?

@NERD She might be, depending on the quest. It is really easy to get at least one restricted out on turn 1 to boost Herubrand up to 3 Willpower though, so I tend to like his card draw in exchange for 1 WP and the two starting threat. She would be a nice panic button to have if an enemy engages or is immune to player card effects that you can't kill of with Éomer or send back with Pippin to chip away at.

While it would definitely be impractical, Forth Eorlingas! could be a fun card with Éowyn.