For quite some time I was reluctant to post again on the site, indeed I have other things to do, including playing (and especially deck-building for) the game. Yesterday I had a great deck-building session with some real fun quest testing. Together with what I have read recently, I will say this:

Build theme decks. For me, this is by far the best way to enjoy the game. Do not build a deck with a quest in mind, you would be selling yourself short, at least this is where my experience of some three years have brought me. It is much more interesting to restrict yourself when deck-building, like never putting Steward of Gondor into an Elven deck, or Unexpected Courage anywhere for that matter.

Of course, when you do this, you will not have one deck to rule them all but what is the point of that? Build several decks instead and then take one (or more, depending on preference) against a quest, and a different one (or more) against another. If you haven't tried this approach, I most strongly recommend it.

Some final thoughts: do not use a certain card, say a Test of Will, in more than a single deck. You can still win without it, the card pool is getting there. Also, do not worry that a deck is lacking in certain areas, like card draw. I used to be paranoid when a deck did not draw a lot, yesterday I was cruising certain hard quests with two decks none of which had a heavy draw; the card pool is really getting there...

Very interesting. Normally, people usually wants to get all in one deck: stewards, test of will, drawing cards..., but it is because they are beginners

I usually try to build a theme deck where the theme is "winning"

Yeah I've moved away from standard card drawers or other cards to try to enjoy using other cards rarely used. I have recently bailed on test of will and been using a lot of Eleanor and cards to pump her defense as a gondorian fortification lately. Enjoying using mustering the rohirrim for that key rohan dude rather than the shotgun effect of ancient mathom.

Even just outside theme decks, building trick decks or ones around a fun engine bring me a lot of enjoyment, even if they're not the most powerful. I'll bring out the big guns for NIghtmare.

I can only subscribe to what Illemmoen said, though I'm not playing decks that are strictly themed. We're at a point at which we have lots of unique characters which give a themed deck a personal character, so these decks feel like a big family that I'm trying to protect as good as I can. And the game is more challenging and enjoyable, too!

I am waiting for a Silvan theme!!!

Another good idea is, special decks: for example, yesterday i built a 'Manipulation Location' deck. All cards are for managing locations between active and staging locations, manage their threat, manage thier progress tokens... Cards like: strider's path, thror key, thror map, Ravenhill, mmmh... whats was his name? ah! Northen tracker , asfaloth (of course....), west rider, and a long etc. Only cards for it. Also Shadow of the past (to bring a discarded location), also his paralel spirti event for it..., denethor (to avoid enemies and treacheries ),... totally: decent quest (7-10wp all the game), and no more. All locations for me!!! Lol.

It is funny, you must search a friend avalaible to play combat decks, etc.

PD: and it is good, in fact i did higscore in Hunt for Gollum (lots of locations ).

PD2: Into Fangorn is easy with it

Any kind of deck, that is somehow special is fun to play (and fun to make)!

For example, "I haven't played this card for ages! Let's make a deck around it"! This kind of deck is sometimes even more enjoyable than theme deck. Or deck made without allies, or deck made ONLY with allies, 2-heroes deck etc., etc. It is not funny to make decks like "hmmm, I am using spirit, so these 10 cards are must include."

For me, special decks are my favourite, but this is a game so everyone may play what (s)he wants and likes.

Yes, I second much of the above, especially the feeling of using cards that had gotten little play. Mustering the Rohirrim is one of those. It is more satisfying to win that way, for me. And I second the special decks, like Rangers (though I still struggle to put them in a very good use) or Direct Damage, Encounter Manipulation, or especially Song Deck with Minstrels and Love of Tales. But even whilst pursuing certain mechanics, achieving with a theme deck is more, for me.

And yes, I too like to win but I feel it is becoming possible to combine all three aspects of deck-building (Bilbo, Pippin, Boromir) into a single deck. Especially for coop, when combining two such decks.

I love thematic play. I would play every deck I build using "theme" if the game itself allowed it.

But sadly, in the case of the higher difficulty quests, winning the quest and building a deck thematically are almost always mutually exclusive propositions.

You can build a "thematically appropriate" deck, or build a deck that will actually complete the quest, but not both.

It's truly one of the most frustrating things about this game . . . especially since I can't stand dwarves, and dwarf decks are pretty much the end-all in terms of card power. My dwarf deck always, without fail, gets handed off to another player; I never play it myself.

I really, really think Fantasy Flight needs to consider back-filling product for this game using Deluxe "Theme" Packs --- for $40 or $50, the player gets a custom-tailored set of player cards designed to be most effective using a specific race, culture, or trait (i.e., the Deluxe "Elf" Pack, the Deluxe "Dwarf" Pack, the Deluxe "Gondor" Pack).