Heya,

I'm looking for some deckbuilders that can help take a random pool of cards and come up with two decks to play scenarios with. I'm curious which heroes (and spheres) you pick, and of course which cards you choose to go in your 50-card decks. These should be tournament legal, of course.

Below is a hero and cardpool list to choose from. If you could PM me your decklists (as opposed to posting, so as not to sway anyone else), I'd appreciate the data to use in tuning the frequency of certain cards appearing in the pool.

This first pool is for Core only, so if you'd like to take your decks for a spin against the Core scenarios and report back with how they did against them (using the new scoring system), I'd be interested in that data, too!

Thanks, and enjoy Middle Earth!

Hero Pool:

Aragorn Leadership
Gloin Leadership
Denethor Lore
Glorfindel Lore
Dunhere Spirit
Eleanor Spirit
Gimli Tactics
Thalin Tactics
Legolas Tactics



Card pool:

Note, for the card pool, you'll notice that some cards are available in quantities more than 3 -- decks can still only have 3 copies of a card (if available in the pool), but more copies available means you could run that card in both of your decks, if feasible.


Copies Name

LEADERSHIP:

4 Brok Ironfist
4 Faramir
2 Guard of the Citadel
1 Longbeard Orc Slayer
2 Silverlode Archer
2 Son of Arnor
4 Celebrian's Stone
3 Steward of Gondor
4 Common Cause
4 Ever Vigilant
6 For Gondor!
2 Grim Resolve
2 Sneak Attack
4 Valiant Sacrifice

LORE:

6 Daughter of the Nimrodel
4 Gleowine
4 Henamarth Riversong
3 Miner of the Iron Hills
3 Dark Knowledge
4 Forest Snare
3 Protector of Lorien
5 Self Preservation
3 Beorn's Hospitality
3 Gandalf's Search
5 Lore of Imladris
2 Lorien's Wealth
6 Radagast's Cunning
1 Secret Paths

NEUTRAL:

6 Gandalf

SPIRIT:

3 Lorien Guide
4 Northern Tracker
2 Wandering Took
5 Power in the Earth
6 The Favor of the Lady
1 Unexpected Courage
4 A Light in the Dark
1 A Test of Will
2 Dwarven Tomb
4 Fortune or Fate
3 Hasty Stroke
4 Stand and Fight
6 Strength of Will
1 The Galadhrim's Greeting
5 Will of the West

TACTICS:

2 Beorn
3 Gondorian Spearman
1 Horseback Archer
3 Veteran Axehand
5 Blade of Gondolin
6 Citadel Plate
5 Dwarven Axe
5 Horn of Gondor
4 Blade Mastery
1 Feint
2 Quick Strike
1 Rain of Arrows
3 Stand Together
2 Swift Strike
4 Thicket of Spears

Plays:

Passage through Mirkwood (Score: 118)

Decks played kind of lacklusterly - getting the job done in an easy scenario but slogging through a literal cobble-webbly cadre of 6 forest spiders to get there -- really slowed done progress hacking through all of them.

Journey Down the Anduin (Score: 122)

Got some really good play here from different decks (tuned to 29 starting threat each to avoid that nasty Troll first turn). Got a little bad luck with the Pursued by Shadow opening encounter card that pushed everyone up to 32 threat before even starting (incoming troll!) but luckily drew into the only Feint in the tactics side to give us 1 round of breathing room. Steward of Gondor and the Celeb helped Aragorn's team carry the fighting to the hill troll. Faramir was the MVP pushing us down the Anduin (2nd stage) in one super round combined with Grim Resolve. No second hill troll showed up in the final assault, and some bloody hacking finished things up on round 5.

Escape From Dol Goldur (Attempt 1: Failed, Round 6, Stage 2)

Got the unlucky news that Aragorn was trapped in the dungeons of Dol Goldur, and from there things just sorta spiraled the way they usually do with this scenario. Round 3 hero kill to some undefended Dol Goldur orcs (backed up with the other Dol Goldur orcs in Shadow, ouch!) set the pace for the limping and finally the kill when Ungoliant's Spawn arrived in Round 4 and ruined my chances! Managed to limp into Stage 2 but then was buried!

I'm still interested in what decks you would put together with a limited card pool - tougher choices about using cards that wouldn't normally make a deck when all cards are available. Please send your decklists in PM here! All data is appreciated! You can export them in cardgamedb.com's deck editor in text format which makes it easy to cut/paste in a PM.

Thanks!

I love the idea of limiting deck building to a random subset of the card pool in order to force players to discover utility in oft-ignored cards due to the absence of other staples. That being said, your card pool isn't very interesting; I've spent so much time tied down to just the core set cards that the idea of limiting myself to it again doesn't sound like fun. If you're having trouble getting responses for this experiment, that might be why.

Good luck on this experiment, though. I'd love to see it take shape.

Yep, I totally understand that - I had a really hard time just playing with these too, since you can't really build a monosphere deck yet, and my randomizer left out some of the cooler kids (Eowyn and Theodred). I'll work through Escape from Dol Goldur (probably a few times hehe), and then work on adding in the next 6-pack to the randomizer and come up with a pool for those 6 scenarios.

That said, anyone who hasn't had excess Core-only inundation, try it out! Or even just decide what you would throw in a deck for the three scenarios, even if you don't play them. I'm curious about people's sphere selections and card choices for those 50 slots.