Leadership/Lore - First Deck 1.0

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• 1.0

It looks like you are working with a limited card pool here. But based on what you have, I think the Lindon Navigator, could be a good addition to the deck. Also, Gléowine could help you out with some card draw.

Welcome to the game! I agree with Dazeman that Gleowine is a greats addition. Henemarth Riversong is also a "must try" card. Especially for solo play. Have fun!

Awesome thanks guys. What does a "limited card pool" mean? I will say I got CRUSHED by the second quest in the core set. The Journey Along The Anduan. Holy crap. So I'll try your suggestions...

A limited card pool just means you are working with only a few expansions. Welcome to the game!

What @The White Wizard said. Journey Along the Anduin is a tough one for sure! Anyone who has played this game a while can attest to having difficulty overcoming that quest as a new player. Welcome to the game, and if you ever want any pointers, feel free to reach out.

Limited card pool = using Core Set Glorfindel :)

Ah...got it. Cool. I'm loving this game! Does Glorifndel suck? :) Man, we can't beat Journey Down The Anduin. Couple of questions.

1. I want to avoid at all costs just copying someone's deck that is perfect for taking out a tough quest. I want to put my own thought into it. How do some of you guys approach this that want to "do it on your own", but still want to get some tips from the group?

2. Any deck building tips? If you could give me your top 3 "things to remember" when building a deck, that would be great. It's overwhelming a bit, even with my "limited collection"...but this DB helps a lot. Any pointers on how to think about deck building?

3. Do you guys have any place to log your quests on line and see how you stack up against others? The damn quest log at FF is busted and I don't think they'll bother fixing it. I have a cool spreadsheet, but I ant to see how others do as well...

Thanks!

Ah...got it. Cool. I'm loving this game! Does Glorifndel suck? :) Man, we can't beat Journey Down The Anduin. Couple of questions.

I want to avoid at all costs just copying someone's deck that is perfect for taking out a tough quest. I want to put my own thought into it. How do some of you guys approach this that want to "do it on your own", but still want to get some tips from the group?

Any deck building tips? If you could give me your top 3 "things to remember" when building a deck, that would be great. It's overwhelming a bit, even with my "limited collection"...but this DB helps a lot. Any pointers on how to think about deck building?
Do you guys have any place to log your quests on line and see how you stack up against others? The damn quest log at FF is busted and I don't think they'll bother fixing it. I have a cool spreadsheet, but I ant to see how others do as well...

Thanks!

@DazeMan @The White Wizard @widowmaker

So with Glorfindel there are a couple of significant downsides to him even straight out of the Core Box. Back in the day, with just the core, he was not the strongest hero.

• He is fairly "uneconomical" as far as threat cost goes. Unless you've got the always awesome Light of Valinor or you plan on him being a target for Unexpected Courage, Any hero that has two big stats that you can only use once a turn can cost you. In fact this, potentially be one of the reasons that you struggle with Journey Down the Anduin since you don't have as much time to setup before that first troll engages you. Compare this with a hero like Éowyn, or even better, Éowyn as far as value goes.
• His ability costs you a resource which, let's face it, you'd be better of playing cards that give you a board presence.
• Not only that, he is from the Lore sphere which has the most in sphere healing effects in the game, straight out of the core set. The only advantage he has is that he can heal allies, which unless you have Warden of Healing is not something that is super common.
• On the plus side, you can play Asfaloth in sphere which remains one of the best ways of dealing with "location lock" where you can only travel and clear normally a single location each turn irrespective of how many players you are playing, larger games you need to have location clearing effects like Northern Tracker or Ride to Ruin to stop the locations piling up.

Without knowing what cards you have access to it's tough to say, but even from a core set point of view with the amount of healing you have in your deck you'd be better served by either of the other two lore heroes in the box(Beravor will let you draw into the Forest Snare or Gandalf to help you deal with that pesky troll, or Denethor who's a reasonable defender for the earlier quests and is handy if you are playing solo especially; both of which will reduce your starting threat and allow you time to setup your board.

I'm going to load your deck into OCTGN and see how it fairs, I'll make some comments a bit later on once I've done that. At first glance however, I can make the following observations:

• if you are playing a multi-sphere deck, you probably only want to have a maximum of 16 cards from that sphere and only a couple of really clutch cards that cost 3 or more. Not only are you potentially going to struggle to play some things, your ability to use Glorfindel's ability is going to be seriously nerfer (Steward of Gondor not withstanding, that's such a cheese card though and since it's unique, I never really build my decks with them since someone else is always usually running it...)
• Again, this comes down to card pool but as a general rule you are probably going to want to have a few more allies in your deck than the 20 you have. Unless you have some great action advantage (Naith Guide, Unexpected Courage, Light of Valinor, Wingfoot) you're just going to struggle to get everything done in a turn, especially since you are essentially going to be tossing Théodred into the quest for one willpower to get the resource most times.
• If you are indeed running a limited card pool, liberal use of the Sneak Attack/Gandalf combo is encouraged. Damn it, I remember back in the day it was the only way to win sometimes...

I know this is ridiculously long, but if you would like some great ideas for deckbuilding using a limited card pool; a deadset legend by the name of Warden of Arnor (http://ringsdb.com/user/profile/447/Warden%2520of%2520Arnor) has done a series based on completing quests with only the cards available at the time.

/rant

@eggerda is Core Set, Khazad-dûm, The Grey Havens what you have?

Yeah, and I have these Adventure Packs:

Road to Rivendell

The Long Dark

Shadow and Flame

Flight of the Stormcaller

The Thing in the Depths

TEmple of the Deceived

The Drowned Ruins

Thanks for the help! And BTW: do you log your quests online anywhere so you can see how you do relative to others? I don't even know what a "good" score is on these quests...

@widowmaker

@eggerdaLast night, I loaded up your deck and played it against Journey Down the Anduin and was able to beat it on my second attempt, on my first try I got location locked very early. What helped me win, was taking advantage of Sneak Attack and Gandalf to take down the hill troll early by utilizing his direct damage. I did find, that it was hard to muster up enough attack in the early game, and if it was not for Gandalf, it could have been really difficult, and was fortunate enough, to not have to kill too many punishing enemies on the final quest stage.

To answer some of your questions. Core set Glorfindel has become an obsolete card for most players in the game because of his other version, Glorfindel + Light of Valinor combo. Though the still has a good stat line, but like @widowmaker mentioned, he is at his best if you can get him some action advantage online via Unexpected Courage. I would not suggest buying more core sets to have more Unexpected Courage though, but rather use a card in your collection as a "proxy" or fill in to represent that card, to have a more consistent deck.

Deck building is important in this game, for it is the foundation of what is going to win you many scenarios. However, it is important to have a strategy in mind and how you plan to respond to the various different things an encounter can throw at you. So, how you play is just as important as what you play with at times.

Three Deck building tips:

1. Make sure that you can pay for the cards in your deck. Your Resource curve in this deck is pretty good, and I would encourage you to take as much advantage as you can of "cheap" allies (cost of 2 or lower). For example, with the card pool you have, a card like Dwarven Sellsword is great value, especially in the early game, even if you don't want to pay to keep him around. He could be an inexpensive way to absorb a hit from that nasty Hill Troll and only need to raise your threat by 1.

2. Consider how your deck interacts or synergies with your heroes. Do the cards in your deck work well with the hero lineup you have? I see that you have added some options for healing, which works well with Glóin's ability, and Théodred does a good job of feeding extra resources where they may be needed, i.e. Glorfindel.

3. When you play a deck, evaluate what works well and what doesn't work at all. Take cards out that are not pulling their weight, and replace them with others within the card pool you have that you think may be a better fit.

There are many talented deck builders within this community, there is no shame in trying another player's decks in order to help yourself to get a better grasp on cards. Check out some decks from authors in the "Hall of Fame."

Hopefully you can beat the quest soon. Are you playing solo or with 2 or more players?

Lastly, there is nothing that I know of where people keep a quest log of their scores. I used to dabble with FFG's quest log but it was quite outdated when I was using it. Most players who play, are not as concerned with score as much as just trying to beat a scenario. I would also argue, that the scoring system is not even a very good reflection on how you performed in the quest. For you could finish with a really low score because you could spam threat reduction on the last turn or two of your game and decrease your score by 10 or more points relatively easy.

" I would also argue, that the scoring system is not even a very good reflection on how you performed in the quest. "- @DazeMan

I agree completely. I would not worry too much about the score, just getting the quest done is a feat in itself with some of these quests.

You can get a reasonable idea of the difficulty of a quest as voted by players at lotr-lcg-quest-companion.com however this is fairly subjective- the cards that you have access to make a massive difference to the difficulty level of the quest.

I don't know if you are aware, there is an easy mode as well published over on the support page at FFG (link below). The cards to be removed are marked on later quests however the pdf will tell you which cards to remove from the Core Set there is no shame in this especially when you are just finding your feet.

images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com

Also, the best proxy card is.... Gandalf's Search!!!!

Thanks so much for the input! Getting the Hero's of Nuemore tomorrow. Quick question: I typically play solo as I don't know anybody else who plays. What are your thoughts on playing double-handed? Is that kinda looked down on (i.e. the table talk rule)? That could make it a bit more fun as well in terms of having more options on the table. Thoughts? @widowmaker``@DazeMan @The White Wizard @whaggardjr

TLDR; double handed is a totally acceptable way to play and is not frowned upon. I would argue that the game is at it's best with 2 player decks, however they are driven (BGG agrees with 72% of the player base saying it's best 2p)

Playing solo is it's own deck building challenge, much like playing with 4 people in fact. It depends on what you want to get out of the game; playing a 2 player game I think is the most "balanced" way to play. You can build a couple of reasonably rounded decks and take on most quests without having to make specific changes; whereas playing at the other end of the scale (either solo or 4 player) usually requires you to make decks design to deal with specific threats or especially nasty treacheries.

After a couple of cycles I really hated playing (mono) spirit when we played with four players, because there wasn't actually any choice in your heroes; you basically had to play Glorfindel, Éowyn and Eleanor; with as much recursion (Dwarven Tomb) for cancel effects and Northern Tracker. You were an essential player to be sure, but there was no space for creativity with deckbuilding. Playing solo, you'll find that there will be cards that are just too good to omit and you'll lack at least one "pillar" (combat, healing, questing, etc) that will make your life hell on certain quests.

Playing double handed/two player mitigates both extremes.

Also, my experience is that the table talk rule is largely ignored; especially by veteran players. It's a co-op game after all and most experience players have a reasonable idea of what you might be running in your deck the minute you put your heroes on the table.

That's why they created the Peril keyword.

Playing with two decks or "Two-Handed" as it is most often referred to is a totally acceptable way to play. I used to play that way a lot, especially as I was starting off to get a feel for how different deck building styles work. I agree with @widowmaker, 2 players is really when this game is at its best. Playing solo with one deck is my preferred method to play these days, but two-handed is really fun.

Here is a fantastic article from one of my favorite blogs on playing two-handed. I, too, also ignore the table talk rule, since there is really no official tournament play for this game or anything, it doesn't matter.

talesfromthecards.wordpress.com

The above link is to a great blog about this game that deals with the topic of playing two-handed and some deck building tips for doing so. It's a great read!

Thank you guys SO MUCH! :) Looks like I'll have to get another core set. I always wanted to play with 2 decks but felt like it would be cheating because of that rule. Now that i know they compensated for this with Peril, I feel good about it and am excited to go in with 2 decks now! I'll check out the link..thanks again!