The Orc Culture was one of three reworked cultures following the release of Shadows. Decipher's goals in redrawing Shadow cultural lines by Race rather than by nation are unknown, but it had the result of causing a schism between the Movie block era and the post-Shadows era, since the new and old cultures do not play well together. This had the effect of alienating the playerbase, who viewed the move as a marketing ploy to force players to purchase new cards (since the old ones were now incompatible).

The Orc culture combined Moria, Sauron, and the orcish elements of the Ringwraith and Isengard cultures. It is one of the strongest shadow cultures of the later sets, and specialises primarily in recursion; it was possible to recover any Orc culture card from the discard pile, although the banning of Orkish Smith took condition recovery out of the equation. The Orc culture also had the monopoly on Follower hate, until Frenzy of Arrows was rendered extinct by its erratum. Even without these powerful cards, the Orc culture still has a wide variety of powerful strategies at its disposal for the later formats, ranging from corruption to wounding (during Maneuver or Skirmish phases) to swarms (Lurker, Troll or regular).