LotR Cube: ideas welcome

[CleanBelwas]

If there are two things I love, they're building themed cubes and Lord of the Rings.

So naturally I am building a Lord of the Rings cube.

The draftable card pool is:

1 of each of the main set LotR cards (sans The One Ring and the non rare lands).
The 4 of the 5 Jumpstart exclusive rares (sans Eleanor Gardner)
The 9 of the 10 rares/mythics from the starter decks (sans Bilbo's Ring)

This results in a 270 card cube.

Draft:

Because the fixing is kinda bad, you don't draft the non rare lands. Every player has the option to include one Shire Terrace, one Great Hall of the Citadel, one Grey Havens and one Evolving Wilds. I know when to draft and prioritise lands and fixing is part of drafting, but I don't care. I have other cubes for that authentic draft experience. I just want good game play and for people to feel that stretching to 3+ colours isn't out of the question.

The cube is either drafted or played as sealed. My playgroup typically has between 3 and 6 players, so the 270 card pool works out nicely.

Gameplay:

Games are multiplayer.

20 starting life.

The One Ring starts in the middle. Any player can claim The One Ring by attacking it. When they do, any player can block to prevent that player claiming it. When the first person "deals combat damage" to The One Ring, that player picks one of the creatures that dealt the damage become the ring bearer. They also now have control of The One Ring and can activate its abilities (they don't get the protection ability). The Ring does not tempt them at this point.

There can be only one Ring Bearer at a time.

If a player controls the Ring Bearer, the Ring tempts them on their upkeep. If a player is tempted by the ring while they control the Ring Bearer, the ring tempts them as normal and they progress along the ring temptation chain.

If a player who does not control the ring is tempted by the ring, the current "Ring Tempts You" state is reduced by one instead. This is kind of weird thematically but is good for balancing.

If the Ring Bearer dies in combat, the creature that beat it (assuming it survives) becomes the Ring Bearer. If the Ring Bearer dies/is exiled outside of combat, or there are no surviving creatures to become the Ring Bearer in combat, the ring is "dropped" and returns to the middle of the table, to be claimed by the same method as the start of the game.

Every time the Ring changes hands or is dropped, the Ring Tempts You state and the burden counters on The One Ring are reset. If The One Ring would be put anywhere other than the battlefield (bounced to hand, exiled etc.), it is instead put into the middle and reset.

If a Ring Bearer reaches the end of the Ring Tempts You chain and is tempted again (so tempted for a 5th time), they are corrupted and become a "Dark Lord".

A "Dark Lord" has Double Strike, Trample and Ward X, where X is their power.



That's what I'm working with so far. First proper play test will be next week and I will report back on how it goes.

If anyone has any ideas, insight or suggestions for things that I may have overlooked, cool thematic additions that could be made to the rules, that kind of thing, please do share. Always happy to hear other peoples ideas on this kind of thing.

[stuffnsuch]

What if, when you have a ring bearer, and you select a new creature to become your ring bearer because the ring temps you, you have to sacrifice the original ring bearer.  There are a lot more instances of people on the relatively same side killing each other over the ring or collecting the ring after a companion died than there are of people on the same side just handing it over willingly.  That would keep you mostly stuck with the same ring bearer once you've chosen one.

[CleanBelwas]

That's a cool idea, I like it a lot.

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Peregrin]

This is a very cool idea. Has the game been tested yet? I would like to know the report.

[CleanBelwas]

Yes, it has!

The first game was very successful actually. Much like a game of EDH, it was self balancing by virtue of multiplayer.

The One Ring was, as expected, very powerful, but when a player had it, they became public enemy number one and so were kept in check by that.

The game came down to the wire and any player had the potential to win. Interestingly, the player that did end up winning was the one that never claimed The One Ring.

Hoping to get in a few more games with it soon so will report back more when these have happened, but early signs point to a successful and fun format.