The centre-piece of the tentacle swarm strategy, Many-Tentacled Creature is one of the more potent cards from Ages End. It is considerably more versatile than Keeper of Westgate, as it not only makes whatever site it is played to a marsh (Rather than being discarded without one), but can also play any number of tentacles from the discard pile. This second ability is particularly potent, as it allows the Shadow player to circumvent the usual rule of having to play minions from hand; instead, he or she can simply cycle all of their tentacles into the discard pile, then play them from there using Many-Tentacled Creature at their leisure. With most tentacles having twilight costs of 2, this makes swarming very easy.

Since the tentacles that the Watcher synergises with require marshes, most tentacle decks use this minion, Evil-Smelling Fens and site manipulation (Third of the Nine Riders, Led Astray etc.) to try and ensure that the current site will always have the marsh keyword. There are five post-shadows marshes: Neekerbreekers' Bog, Doors of Durin, Expanding Marshland, Mere of Dead Faces and Dammed Gate Stream.

• Weak companions
• Small Fellowships

• Single-minion targeting (Ithilien Blade, A New Light, Last Ruling Steward)

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