Seastan's Hardcore Progression Mode 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

Yup. Dat be Hardcore for sure.

I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad to see such a low rate of "ban-worthy" cards in the later sets. Are they not good? Or they just that much better balanced?

@bzgaming The game was really designed to grow out, not up in terms of power level. After the first 2 cycles, the designers have established a good base of "power cards" and started focusing more on fleshing out traits and archetypes than giving us tons more power cards which would have just led to more power creep. Most cards nowadays either are good "support" cards, go into a particular trait, or are simply too specialized to really be useful in most decks. "Staple" cards stopped coming out a good while back. I personally don't mind this, as it has extended the life of the game and given us fun and interesting decks to work with, rather than brute power decks.

@Seastan Definitely not the point of this exercise but if you were to try and do One Deck to Rule Them All with these restrictions what direction would you go with it? Nothing jumps out immediately to me but I wonder what you could come up with.

@SeastanThank you Chris. This should have been out long ago. I have been playing with 'sub tier' decks for quite some time. No Steward of Gondor being the first restriction I enforced on myself. A 'published' restricted list excites me to explore deck building again. Thank you.

I love these concept as it encourages more interesting deckbuilding. In this second list, Light of Valinor is in the deck but not in the banned list. Is it banned or not ? Thanks.

@corvinNo, that's a mistake. Since Glorfindel is banned in the mode, there is no strong need to ban Light of Valinor.

Thanks for your response. I will definitively try this for the easier quests.

Some of the hard earlier scenarios (Escape from Dol Guldur, Conflict at the Carrock, The Massing at Osgiliath ...) will be out of my reach with this format.

If we drop the "progression" constraint for some scenarios, it will definitively makes things easier. But does it still makes sense ? Or does it loose most of its interest because you specifically construct the list with the progression style in mind ?

Perhaps some later cards, even if not banned here, can trivialize the earlier scenarios.

@corvinPrecisely. This only makes sense for progression play. The point is to maintain a challenge throughout, rather than getting to a point in the card pool where all future scenarios can be beaten by a single deck.

I dont understand

"Core Set

Éowyn Sneak Attack & Gandalf A Test of Will Steward of Gondor Unexpected Courage Henamarth Riversong Faramir Feint Will of the West"

This mean that I cannot use these cards already in the core quests? Or can I still use them in the Core quests, and then no longer? (The Hunt for Gollum and other)

Which cards from the last cycles would you add to the ban list ?

Cycle 8 : Drinking Song, Reforged, Gaffer Gamgee ?

Cycle 9 : The One Ring, Host of Galadhrim, maybe contracts like Forth, The Three Hunters! or Bond of Friendship ?

And with errata i think some cards like Caldara or Wingfoot could be allowed again

This looks like a fun way to get to learn some of the lesser used cards! Thanks for creating it.

I'm assuming that switching to two-handed for dol guldor would still be in the spirit of this exercise? And similar for return to mirkwood? Aside from examples like these, were you envisioning true solo for most of this?

@Seastan With the current errata, it doesn't seem like a number of these cards could be removed from this list. It seems like at least Boromir, Wandering Took & Song of Eärendil, Legacy of Durin, Háma, and Caldara could be removed.

That should say "does seem" not "doesn't".