I'm very new to the game and enjoyed playing spirit. Which is good because it seems the only way to get a girl squad. My first theory crafting attempt is as follows:

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com The Lord of the Rings Deckbuilder Total Cards: (50) Hero: (3) 1x Idraen (The Three Trials) 1x Eowyn (Core Set) 1x Caldara (The Blood of Gondor) Ally: (20) 3x Northern Tracker (Core Set) 2x Gandalf (Core Set) 3x The Riddermark's Finest (The Hills of Emyn Muil) 1x Elfhelm (The Dead Marshes) 1x Arwen Undomiel (The Watcher in the Water) 2x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Numenor) 2x Pelargir Shipwright (Assault on Osgiliath) 1x Damrod (Heirs of Numenor) 1x Emery (The Blood of Gondor) 1x Eomund (Conflict at the Carrock) 1x Imladris Stargazer (Foundations of Stone) 2x Rider of the Mark (Road to Rivendell) Attachment: (6) 3x Map of Earnil (Assault on Osgiliath) 1x The Fall of Gil-Galad (The Dunland Trap) 2x Steed of the Mark (The Morgul Vale) Event: (24) 3x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set) 3x Stand and Fight (Core Set) 3x Fortune or Fate (Core Set) 3x The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core Set) 1x Out of Sight (The Long Dark) 2x A Test of Will (Core Set) 1x Light the Beacons (Heirs of Numenor) 1x Ride Them Down (The Antlered Crown) 2x Astonishing Speed (Return to Mirkwood) 1x Helm! Helm! (The Treason of Saruman) 2x Mustering the Rohirrim (The Hunt for Gollum) 2x Ride to Ruin (The Hills of Emyn Muil) Side Quest: (0)

Great start! Caldara decks require a bit more focus in order to get the engine running. Here are my suggestions:

• You have some Rohan support cards like Astonishing Speed, Helm Helm, Mustering the Rohirrim, and Ride to Ruin, but you only have 1 Rohan hero and 7 total Rohan allies. Personally I would take out all of those events unless you added several more Rohan allies.
• Emery is amazing in this deck. You can play her for free and she puts cards in your discard pile. I'd suggest 3 copies.
• Playing multiple copies of Fortune or Fate gets expensive. The best way to boost your resources is the combination of Zigil Miner and Imladris Stargazer. The miners also help get allies into your discard pile. I'd suggest 3 copies of each.
• Test of Will and Pelargir Shipwright should be 3x because they're amazing, although you'll only have 2 tests with a single core.
• Keep in mind that Fall of Gil-Galad doesn't trigger off of Caldara's ability. You can still keep it if you want, but I just wanted to make sure you were aware.
• Arwen is pretty awesome and is probably worth at least one more copy. She also unlocks Elrond's Council if you want more threat reduction.
• Ancient Mathom is nice to give you a little extra card draw.
• White Tower Watchman can be pretty good in any mono-sphere deck. He can effectively block 2 attacks in the same turn if you block and then assign an undefended attack to him.

For a new player this is a rather impressive deck. There are some great synergies and creative concepts going on, however, I think it needs to be a lot more focused and a lot more ally driven, instead of event driven. For instance, you have a lot of Rohan events, but few rohan allies, making the events far less effective. Also, you need 3 copies of Emery instead of 1 because Emery is so valuable as a free ally, and as a combo piece with Caldera. On the flip side I would cut map of earndil because you already have Dwarven tomb. My overall advice is to really focus on what the deck does and cut the fat. It feels like a Caldera deck, which means you need more card draw/card cycle (like Zigil miner) and less rohan stuff ( so cut all rohan events and probably cut Eomund). Also, resources are tight. Steed of the mark looks too expensive for this deck. Those are some of my first thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback! Take two is below. Removed Rohan specific events, added miner, increased number of some allies, removed Eomund. Added additional Envoy, as well as Hidden cash for extra resource generation.

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com The Lord of the Rings Deckbuilder Total Cards: (50) Hero: (3) 1x Idraen (The Three Trials) 1x Eowyn (Core Set) 1x Caldara (The Blood of Gondor) Ally: (27) 3x Northern Tracker (Core Set) 1x Gandalf (Core Set) 3x The Riddermark's Finest (The Hills of Emyn Muil) 1x Elfhelm (The Dead Marshes) 2x Arwen Undomiel (The Watcher in the Water) 3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Numenor) 2x Pelargir Shipwright (Assault on Osgiliath) 1x Damrod (Heirs of Numenor) 3x Emery (The Blood of Gondor) 3x Imladris Stargazer (Foundations of Stone) 1x Rider of the Mark (Road to Rivendell) 3x Zigil Miner (Khazad-dum) 1x Warden of Annuminas (The Lost Realm) Attachment: (5) 2x Map of Earnil (Assault on Osgiliath) 3x Ancient Mathom (A Journey to Rhosgobel) Event: (18) 2x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set) 3x Stand and Fight (Core Set) 2x Fortune or Fate (Core Set) 2x The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core Set) 1x Out of Sight (The Long Dark) 2x A Test of Will (Core Set) 1x Light the Beacons (Heirs of Numenor) 1x Ride Them Down (The Antlered Crown) 1x Will of the West (Core Set) 2x Hidden Cache (The Morgul Vale) 1x The White Council (The Dunland Trap) Side Quest: (0)

Looks like a great start! As far as expansions go, here are my recommendations:

• You have only one card from The Lost Realm deluxe box (Warden of Annuminas). While he is a good fit for this deck, he's far from essential--I'd say cut it.
• The White Council is another one-off card, and while it's fun, I wouldn't say you need it, so you can probably cut The Dunland Trap.
• Out of Sight is probably too expensive to come into play too often. The Long Dark probably doesn't make it either.
• One copy of Rider of the Mark probably doesn't justify Road to Rivendell. The other player cards in that pack aren't really stellar either, except for Elladan, who is useless without Elrohir.

That leaves you with 1 deluxe box (Khazad Dum) and 10 adventure packs. Still pretty pricey, how many packs were you thinking of getting?

You could pretty easily cut more of the APs, depending on your budget. Then just look at the pool of Spirit cards you have and replace the cards you didn't buy with cards you have. Greyflood Wanderer, for instance, comes with Idraen in The Three Trials and would make a decent replacement for any allies you end up not getting.

Add Steward's Fear to Core + HON and you build some decent decks, including a strong Outlands deck.

Thanks so much for all the feedback! I ended up finding a FLGS doing an auction and picked up 14 expansions on Sunday. My brother has gone ahead and ordered Khaz, FoS, AoO, 3 Trials, and others - it should ship this week.

I put together much of the deck discussed here, based on all of your feedback. It is fun. WIthout Idraen, I have been using Galadriel, Eowyn, and Caldara. I feel like they are so awesome but I want to use Idraen as well for readying after location exploration and because she's tougher. The terrible dilemna is who to remove from the heroes in order to fit her, and suffering the additional starting threat.

I'd probably remove Galadriel because if you don't get Nenya right away she doesn't do a whole lot and it'll be tough to quest much. Eowyn is just a guaranteed 4+ willpower out of the gate.

It is so true. Eowyn is a beast. My original trilogy was Idraen, Eowyn, and Caldara. I was sidetracked by Galadriel's grace - the mirror can help pull Fortune or Fate and the Ring helps, and her ability is pretty great but you're right she's very dependent on getting those items.

I'd probably remove Galadriel because if you don't get Nenya right away she doesn't do a whole lot* and it'll be tough to quest much. Eowyn is just a guaranteed 4+ willpower out of the gate.

*Besides draw, lower threat, use her mirror, give ally action advantage, and allow Elrond's council.

I'm not saying she's worthless. I just think Eowyn is better most of the time, particularly in a deck like this that takes a few turns to get running.

It's a difficult choice. Eowyn and Galadriel both lend 4 will to the quest, ne ring depending and without considering boost.

Galadriel seeks out the cards to make Caldara really shine, keeps the allies Caldara brings out ready after questing, and lowers threat. Eowyn helps discard the best allies so Caldara can feast.

I want to try Idraen but The trio I'm running now are very strong. I might swap her with Caldara now and again for a different experience. It's so hard to only pick three!

Well the thing about Eoywn is that she lets you discard strong allies in your hand to fuel Caldara. So if you are set on Idraen then it does make sense to drop Galadriel. But I do think the trio you've already got is stronger.

It is getting really tough to remove cards! I received Khaz and Voice of Isengard last night. Today we should receive oodles of APs including 3 Trials and Foundations of Stone.

So I will have 3 Zigil Miners and 3 Idralis Stargazers to put in and I'm not really sure what to take out anymore. I'll do an updated list based on memory and throw it here.

Last night we ran Khaz - Into the Pit and I went into secrecy. Bonkers considering I was the only player able to electively engage some of those trixie goblins. Then I was dropping resourceful and that plucky canoe guy on the cheap!

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com The Lord of the Rings Deckbuilder Total Cards: (56) Hero: (3) 1x Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret) 1x Caldara (The Blood of Gondor) 1x Eowyn (Core Set) Ally: (29) 3x Arwen Undomiel (The Watcher in the Water) 3x Blue Mountain Trader (The Dunland Trap) 3x Celduin Traveler (The Nin-in-Eilph) 2x Damrod (Heirs of Numenor) 3x Emery (The Blood of Gondor) 3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Numenor) 3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor's Secret) 3x Gandalf (Core Set) 3x Northern Tracker (Core Set) 3x The Riddermark's Finest (The Hills of Emyn Muil) Attachment: (10) 2x Resourceful (The Watcher in the Water) 2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set) 3x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret) 3x Nenya (Celebrimbor's Secret) Event: (17) 3x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set) 3x Elrond's Counsel (The Watcher in the Water) 2x Fortune or Fate (Core Set) 2x Hasty Stroke (Core Set) 3x Stand and Fight (Core Set) 3x The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core Set) 1x Will of the West (Core Set) Side Quest: (0)

Interesting idea to go for secrecy with this deck. You can probably do it as long as you have Galadriel in your deck instead of Idraen and you aren't playing against a quest with lots of threat increase. I typically don't like to try secrecy in decks that can't guarantee it on turn 1, but you could try it.

The cards I would probably take out first would be Blue Mountain Trader and Riddermark's Finest. Blue Mountain Traders aren't very useful outside of Dwarf decks. You probably also don't need Riddermark's Finest because of the Northern Trackers and general strong questing in the deck.

After that, maybe take out 1 copy of Arwen and Mirror of Galadriel. I typically only run 2 copies of unique cards unless they are critical to the deck. You might take out the Envoys of Pelargir because they don't work with Caldara or Stand and Fight and don't have much other synergy.

I would include at least one copy of Elfhelm, assuming you have his AP. He's another high cost ally to bring back with Caldara and he helps you stay in secrecy.

To add to the above advice, I'd also put in more Test of Will if you can. If you're the only spirit player in your group, it falls on you to cancel the nasty treacheries. There is rarely a quest in which I'm sad to have this card in my hand, and rarely is a resource better spent than on Test of Will.

I'm not sure if you have these APs, but some other good cards for spirit decks include Ethir Swordsman and Pelargir Shipwright.

(Also, your newest list does not have Map of Earnil. Did you take it out or forget to list it? It is very good to have in a Caldara deck)

Edit: noticed your earlier list does include the Shipwright.

The latest list is the actual list I have been playing with. The former are theory crafts. I've amended the last one to include APs I received today and last night.

Sadly, I do not have the AP required for Elfhelm. He's a beast. I'm checking for APs at every LGS I go to.

When we were doing Into the Pit the horsies made a huge difference. There seemed to be so many encounter effects that would trigger or amplify based on dark locations. Having the horsies drop 2 progress tokens on one, and the tracker throwing another really helped out. Plus they are horsies and horsies are great .

I'll remove the trader for sure - my brother was not pleased when I traded with him. I thought he appreciated dwarves >__>. I will also reduce the number of unique allies.

Regarding Caldara's ally choices - do I have too few solid value allies to make her ability, considering ForF 5 point cost worthwhile? Should I have left my canoe guys in? Should I look to add Riders of the Mark or some other more punchy ally?

I think the problem right now is that the deck is trying to do too many things. For the Caldara engine to work it needs to be very focused and include the maximum amount of Emery, Zigil Miner, Stargazers, Fortune or Fate, Dwarven Tomb, and Map of Earnil and should have as many 3-4 cost spirit allies as possible. Secrecy is also fun, but requires 3 copies of Elrond's Council, Galadhrim's Greeting, Resourceful, and Celduin Traveler (and possibly Gandalf for threat reduction). Galadriel also has her required cards (Nenya and Mirror). Then there are the standard spirit staples like Test of Will, and Unexpected Courage and the mono-spirit staple of Pelargir Shipwright.

You can see how including so many concepts makes you run out of deck space in a hurry. I think the deck needs to either be a Caldara deck or a Galadriel/secrecy deck. There's just not enough room for both, and neither will function properly if you don't commit to it fully. Maybe you could do it, but you'd have to cut out every card that isn't explicitly for Caldara or secrecy, which would include the Riddermark's Finest, Hasty Stroke, Envoy of Pelargir, and maybe Stand and Fight or even Test of Will.