I wanted to see some other people's strategies for using the doomed cards.

I've been using a basic deck of Sam/Grima/Aragorn(Lore) which seemed, to me, to enable the use of the majority of the new doomed cards. The problem is, I don't know where to go from here. This deck seems to basically build itself. Aragorn just seems like an auto-include and I want some interesting alternatives.

What are some other ways you guys have found to use the doomed cards? Is there a way to not use Aragorn? What do doomed decks look like multiplayer?

Let's get the creative juices flowing!

My latest doomed deck featured the heroes you mentioned. It used the, play as many doomed card as you can strategy with tons of cards draw.

This deck was designed to recycle Gandald/ sneak attack as many times as possible, so i had tome of A in the deck along with Erebor Hammersmith and Second Breakfast to fetch the attachment after it was used. Since i would go through my deck in a few turns Sneak attack after being used with the Tome was always placed back in the deck, which would be the next card drawn. I would have access to Gandalf sneak like 20x a game. Of corse it was not a deck for all scenarios, it was more about the fact that a deck like that could be created and win a number of scenarios.

Doomed decks at least the way i am playing it, pretty much build themselves, in that i use the same basic cards and I am locked into Grima and Aragorn. I'm talking solo play here. I can then come up with a few twists from there, but the decks are relying on a similar set of cards.

I built basically with the same heroes without looking at this thread first. Only sneak attack was left out (since it was stuck in another deck I built) and therefore I struggeled with all quests that force you to fight early on in the game. But it is a real fun to play nevertheless!

On a side note, I found Isengard Messenger being a star in that deck with his 3 WP, buffed by another one by Aragorn's broken sword.

Do you use Sneak Attack with Saruman to ignore a nasty card in the staging area that popped up during staging? Or just for Gandalf?

I built basically with the same heroes without looking at this thread first. Only sneak attack was left out (since it was stuck in another deck I built) and therefore I struggeled with all quests that force you to fight early on in the game. But it is a real fun to play nevertheless!

On a side note, I found Isengard Messenger being a star in that deck with his 3 WP, buffed by another one by Aragorn's broken sword.

Do you use Sneak Attack with Saruman to ignore a nasty card in the staging area that popped up during staging? Or just for Gandalf?

If the situation is dire or when I'm close to winning I don't hesitate to Sneak Saruman during the quest phase. But usually I reserve that event for Gandalf.

I agree with you about Isengard Messenger. He feels like a smart version of Outlands to me. I keep wondering if they plan to release similar characters with an ATT or DEF bonus. Anyway, I have to say that the designers did a good job again with the player cards. The only one I didn't play so far was that spirit attachment, as it doesn't fit my playing style. All the others are quite usable

I built basically with the same heroes without looking at this thread first. Only sneak attack was left out (since it was stuck in another deck I built) and therefore I struggeled with all quests that force you to fight early on in the game. But it is a real fun to play nevertheless!

On a side note, I found Isengard Messenger being a star in that deck with his 3 WP, buffed by another one by Aragorn's broken sword.

Do you use Sneak Attack with Saruman to ignore a nasty card in the staging area that popped up during staging? Or just for Gandalf?

Sneak attack with Saruman during staging is really not worth it, just to remove the threat from the quest phase, unless it increases the threat by an astronomical amount. Unfortunately, Saruman only removes the card in the staging area while he is in play, so if you used SA to remove the threat of an enemy, that enemy could still engage you when saruman leaves play. I would not SA him after a card is revealed, because that's the only use you will get out of him. Maybe sneak him in to quest and remove a threat already in the staging area is a better use.

So it seems like people are building pretty similar decks with the doomed cards, except for Tracker's Outlands doomed deck.

What do we think about multiplayer?

If you were to build two player doomed decks, what would they look like?

I was wondering about the same thing.

Since there can be only one Lore-Aragorn, my second deck would rely heavily on threat reduction and starting at a low threat: Spirit-Glorfindel, 3x Elrond's Consel, 3x Galadhrim's Greeting, 3x Gandalf. I don't think I would include the spirit doomed-card, maybe the one from tactics.

Frodo seems like a good choice for a second hero and the it depends wheather I want to include tactics or not. Since I found myself struggeling with combat-heavy-scenarios with the solodeck, I'd include maybe Legolas withhis great acces to additional firepower (Rivendell Blade, Black Arrow, etc)

Additional thoughts?

So it seems like people are building pretty similar decks with the doomed cards, except for Tracker's Outlands doomed deck.

What do we think about multiplayer?

If you were to build two player doomed decks, what would they look like?

I think this is my disappointment about doomed cards. It's a bit like Outlands again (only so many ways to use them, although doomed Outlands is fun). I like Grima very much for his mechanic, but the doomed more generally slightly forces one's hand in deck building terms. Multiplayer doomed is certainly the challenge. Maybe a secrecy deck with card draw that gets to be first player? Then hope you can play enough before secrecy ends? :/ (that's a terrible idea)

I've made a couple of doomed decks that worked really well.

One suitable for multiplayer uses Grima and Keys of Orthanc to give effectively two extra resources per turn at the cost of 1 threat. The resources don't have to go to the same player, which is why it's good with a partner. The only other doomed card it uses is Deep Knowledge, because card draw is such a good effect in general that the 2 threat is easy to stomach.

The other uses Loragorn, Theodred and Glorfindel. This deck attempts to play as many doomed cards in a single turn as possible. 3 The Seeing-stone, 3 Deep Knowledge, 3 Legacy of Numenor is 21 threat max. And ideally you unload them all in a single round, after engagement checks. Then you reset, set your threat back to 25, and play as many powerful allies and attachments (mostly for Aragorn) as you can in the following round.

I'm currently successfully running a half-assed Doomed deck (incl. Saruman, Deep Knowledge, Seeing Stone and Isengard Messenger) against HtcaO. 4 wins out of 5, the loss being because Mugash entered the game pretty early (but I still made it to stage 3 and captured him twice before being taken down). I'm going to try to include Orthanc Keys, although they're not really neccessary as I usually have enough resources to play my stuff. Power of Orthanc isn't included because the scenario has no mean attachments, otherwise it can be asdded to the deck.

Heroes are Grima, Mirlonde and Glorfindel (spirit). I try to play without Glorfindel if possible, but his extra point of WP and his low starting threat are desperatly needed if you plan to leave Loragorn behind. Starting threat is 20, so I have plenty of time before I have to encounter the mean enemies.

I'm going to post a concrete deck list, once I have more time.

I never found my doomed decks to be that intriguing until the latest batch of cards came out featuring Herald of Anorien and Mirkwood Pioneer. Combined with the rest of the doomed cards that Leadership/Lore gives access to I have found a renewed interest in the deck type.

My deck building style tends to avoid more than copy of the same unique card to avoid dead cards in hand. I hate drawing a card I can't use! But in trying to beat The Nin In-Eilph quest I found I needed more questing power so I added more copies of the Sword That Was Broken.

I thought about swapping OHUH Galdalf for Core Gandalf, but I found his draw mechanic very useful in bringing out more doomed cards.

The only other key feature of this build is many two-costed allies that will help Herald of Anorien's response trigger successfully.

Suggestions welcome!

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com The Lord of the Rings Deckbuilder

Total Cards: (50)

Hero: (3)

1x Aragorn (The Watcher in the Water)

1x Gríma (The Voice of Isengard)

1x Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Ally: (24)

3x Herald of anórien (Trouble in Tharbad)

3x Mirkwood Pioneer (The Nin-in-Eilph)

3x Saruman (The Voice of Isengard)

3x Gandalf (Core Set)

3x Orthanc Guard (The Voice of Isengard)

3x Isengard Messenger (The Voice of Isengard)

1x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)

1x Gleowine (Core Set)

3x Wandering Ent (Celebrimbor's Secret)

1x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment: (14)

1x Path of Need (Foundations of Stone)

2x Keys of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)

1x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

1x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)

3x Dunedain Quest (A Journey to Rhosgobel)

3x Sword that was Broken (The Watcher in the Water)

1x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)

1x Wingfoot (The Nin-in-Eilph)

1x Celebrian's Stone (Core Set)

Event: (12)

3x The Seeing-stone (The Voice of Isengard)

3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)

3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)

3x Legacy of Númenor (The Voice of Isengard)

Quests beat so far:

The Nin In-Eilph

Celebrimbor's Secret

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/128101-grima-aids-the-rangers/ Here's my take on it. It's worked really well so far.

Mine is a little different. It's sorta of doomed deck I guess, because it does rely heavily on Grima and Keys of Orthanc, but the central strategy is really palantir scrying and traps. It seems to me that Lore really plus the most from their mono-sphere cards, and also I really want to abuse the traps so that's why I put it together. It looks something like this:

Heroes (29):

Aragorn (Lore)

Denethor

Grima

Allies 20:

Gandalf x1

Saruman x1

Anborn x1

Gleowine x2

Elrond x3

Erebor Hammersmith x3

Ithilien Tracker x3

Mirkwood Pioneer x3

Envoy of Pelargir x3

Events 11:

Lore of Imladris x2

Advance Warning x3

Forest Patrol x3

Mithrandir's Advice x3

Attachment 19:

Scroll of Isildur x2

Palantir x2

Wingfoot x2

Protector of Lorien x2

Keys of Orthan x2

Ithilien Pit x3

Ranger Spikes x3

Poisoned Stakes x3

This actually works pretty well solo. After getting demolished by Peril in Pelargir for two days straight using every deck this deck finally carried me through that scenario. Twice. For more questing heavy scenarios, I swap in three Song of kings and all of Aragorn's toys, resource generation and some swarm, and it would be fine. It worked out well with Steward's Fear. I made this deck specifically with Heirs of Numenor/Against the Shadow scenarios in mind.