I've had a hard time getting mono-lore to work. Lore is a very fun sphere because it is full of tricks and traps, but when you fill your deck with these, you sacrifice the ability to contribute meaningfully to combat or questing. I find it hard to build up sufficient willpower or attack power, especially in recent quests with a bunch of 3 and 4 threat locations. Defense is a bit easier to come by, as lore has two 3-point defenders (Elrond, Denethor) and access to at least one defense-boosting attachment (Protector of Lorien) along with healing and shadow cancellation (Burning Brand).

But how about the other stuff -- attacking and questing? Jban posed a novel solution to this problem a little while back: just expect NOT to contribute and make a 100% dedicated "control" deck. I may try this. However, if I play with other players whose decks are not optimized, I think we will struggle. I sometimes play with newbies, so I anticipate an uphill battle even if I can control the encounter deck fairly well.

Does anyone have any advice about how to build a multiplayer mono-lore deck that can hold its own in the quest or combat phase?

Elrond is a great defender AND quester. Throw in Haldir for another 2 willpower and with Wing-foot he can pull double duty. Pippin can quest for 2 and ready with Fast Hitch, but he doesn't provide you with much reason to ready him...

Protector of Lorien can be used as a willpower booster on Elrond as well, though if you are questing with him, you'll likely want another deck to give him some readying (Light of Valinor or Unexpected Courage).

Haldir is a pretty awesome attacker, and works well with traps that hold guys in the staging area, but without weapons he doesn't have nearly as much potential. Other than that, Ithilien Archer, Ithilien Lookout, and Anborn all have decent attack strength, and Ranger Bow can offer some direct damage too. Also Poisoned Stakes offers some nice direct damage.

With all that being said, I haven't had much luck making a very effective trap deck either. With an experienced multiplayer group, it should be a good contributing deck, but you do really need other good decks.

Yeah, I think a Mirlonde/Pippin/Haldir deck can be pretty effective in a multiplayer game. You can quest for 4, or 6 with Wingfoot as long as you let other players engage the enemies. With monosphere you can also afford more expensive allies, so Gildor can be good for defense or questing and you can afford minstrels if you want to splash tactics for Haldir and get some questing at the same time.

What I'll say is... I feel like the game expects you to have global questing boosts these days. Questing for 4 or 6 in a 2- or 3-player game is woefully insufficient. By turn 6, say I've got Gildor and 3 more 1-willpower allies on the board, maybe a Rivendell Minstrel. If I quest with my entire party, I've got 11. Meanwhile my leadership/spirit partner is questing 24 by himself.

Realistically I'm going to want to hold some guys back for defense at least, so that puts me down to 9, 8, maybe less. This is where I've been getting hung up. I know lore is not meant to be high willpower, but I find in the decks that I am making my contributions tend not to add up: 4 willpower to the quest on turn 1, with nothing else to offer. Maybe 10 willpower near the end of the game, and my extra contribution is having a healer at the ready. I just feel like I need... more than this. And I'm trying to accomplish it within the confines of mono-lore

True, leadership, outlands, and Dain can get some ridiculous willpower, but most other decks can't compete with that. And a good Radegast's Cunning or Secret Paths can be worth 4+ questing. Ranger Spikes is like 2 questing and takes usually eliminates an enemy. I also think you're underselling the importance of healing.

Hopefully I can make it over to West Seattle on Sunday to play a game or two with you. Maybe I'll throw together a mono-lore deck to see how it does.

haha, well given that I made this thread, you might expect me to bring some mono-lore as well I might just put Jban's deck together and see how that goes, but I usually bring backup decks in case we end up with hero or role conflicts. Hope to see you over there sometime!

I count 14 Lore heroes currently available, so I propose a 4 player game with 4 mono-lore decks. I don't see what could possibly go wrong!

hah, that would be awesome ... just spam Gildor's Counsel in a 4-player game so you only get 1 card every round, then cancel all the threat with Radagast's Cunning and Secret Paths.

Or 4 players running and recurring Out of the Wild with Scroll of Isildur-- that's 6 uses per player for a total of 24 cards removed from the game. You could neuter many scenarios that way, especially some of the newer ones with slim encounter decks.

Or 4 players running and recurring Out of the Wild with Scroll of Isildur-- that's 6 uses per player for a total of 24 cards removed from the game. You could neuter many scenarios that way, especially some of the newer ones with slim encounter decks.

It's actually 9 uses per player if it comes up again after placing it back in your deck.

What I'll say is... I feel like the game expects you to have global questing boosts these days. Questing for 4 or 6 in a 2- or 3-player game is woefully insufficient. By turn 6, say I've got Gildor and 3 more 1-willpower allies on the board, maybe a Rivendell Minstrel. If I quest with my entire party, I've got 11. Meanwhile my leadership/spirit partner is questing 24 by himself.

Realistically I'm going to want to hold some guys back for defense at least, so that puts me down to 9, 8, maybe less. This is where I've been getting hung up. I know lore is not meant to be high willpower, but I find in the decks that I am making my contributions tend not to add up: 4 willpower to the quest on turn 1, with nothing else to offer. Maybe 10 willpower near the end of the game, and my extra contribution is having a healer at the ready. I just feel like I need... more than this. And I'm trying to accomplish it within the confines of mono-lore

Yea... you gotta have players that can at least throw out 6 per player. Definitely more in location-heavy quests.

Or 4 players running and recurring Out of the Wild with Scroll of Isildur-- that's 6 uses per player for a total of 24 cards removed from the game. You could neuter many scenarios that way, especially some of the newer ones with slim encounter decks.

That would be epic. We need to find a quest that has no objective cards and no victory point cards so that we can remove every encounter card from the game.

Dang, good point joezim. And attachment recursion is possible within-sphere for Lore, so add a few more uses there as well!

Teamjimby: we have to set this up as a local event.

This monolore deck runs very good in solo. And maybe also with multiplayer:

http://susurrosdelbosqueviejo.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/un-antiguo-secreto.html