CategoryOneGames is happy to announce that all the sets from Middle Earth from ICE are currently on the site. This is the first Lord of the Rings – Hobbit based game that came out in 1995 and lasted through 1998. This game was really in depth, games could last hours. It was a lot of fun and gave you a chance to explore lots of different areas and strategies within the Middle Earth Universe.
We are as excited to have this on our site as we are to see the Hobbit opening night. This game is a must have for any Tolkien fan. If you have played Decipher’s Lord of the Rings TCG, you need to take a step back in time and play Middle Earth.
Sets are all black border unless noted:
The Wizards
The Wizards Blue Border
The Dragons
Dark Minions
The Lidless Eye
Against the Shadow
The White Hand
The Balrog
Promos
We also have a full selection of Boxes, Packs, Starters and Pre-Constructed Decks.
The great thing about this game is that they made Players Guides and Casual Companions for just about each set. These books provided strategies, card images and game ideas. After having not played this game since the Dark Minions expansion, I re-learned how to play through looking through the Wizards Companion.
Wikipedia describes the game as:
In its basic form, it is a game for two to five players, each choosing one of the five wizards to represent themselves. A turn in the game consists of one player’s wandering around Middle-earth with the help of famous characters of Middle-earth, trying to gather influence and power to aid in the battle against The Dark Lord, while another player tries to harass, and ultimately kill his characters with specific hazard cards.
Then, for each player’s turn, the roles change clockwise around the table (the player who was moving his characters then throws hazards at the player to his or her right). Any player may also win by acquiring and destroying the One Ring after a complicated set of events.
Later expansions have added the possibility to take the role of a Ringwraith of Sauron (MELE), a corrupted wizard playing by his own rules (MEWH), the malevolent Balrog (MEBA), or even Sauron himself. The game is somewhat distinguished from most other CCG’s with the use of two six-sided dice for a random factor and also by the actual map of Middle-earth, including regions your companies travel through, and site cards they visit.
MECCG won two Origins Awards: Best Card Game of 1995 for MECCG: The Wizards and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game or Expansion of 1996 for MECCG: The Dragons. The game’s production ended in 1999, when ICE lost the license that allowed them to use the content of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. This license was later bought by Decipher, who used it to bring out another CCG. MECCG still has a relatively loyal and active fanbase of players.
When this game first came out a bunch of our gaming group bought starters and we started a game in the morning and didn’t finish until evening. We had around eight of us and we were just learning the game. There was one point where we all went a played a game of basketball because the game was getting heated and we needed a bit of a distraction. We returned to the game and finished it off.
The quickest game I ever played was against a player that was playing a One Ring deck that tried destroying it at Mount Doom. I was amazed at just how quickly this player wont the game.
Because of a lack of a play group in my area I didn’t continue playing past Dark Minions but have always followed what is going on with the game and have picked up cards to finish off sets for myself.
There is still a very active community that is called The Council of Elrond. You can find out about events in your area of the world by going to their Message Boards. There is a yearly Worlds event and there are still different events held throughout the world.
