I would say harmful: easier to get the broken combos going.

See, I call that a lack of perspective. The only thing you mention is that it would make something that is already avialable easier. But, from what I've seen, those broken combos usually have no problems in setting themselves up without any houserules. However, what else it does is enables lesser class of decks which is extremely questionable or even unplayable otherwise, the point you entirely miss for some reason.

I should have checked the author of the post. I will not make this mistake again. Why even ask mr never miss anything?

I would argue here with you, FetaCheese.

1) Combo decks already dominate everything, this will be no change. The point is to make less powerful and more thematic deck viable. Also, read my suggestion in the middle of the thread, I'm now speaking from it's perspective.

2) With the change I suggested, they won't.

3) No, it is not. It is a much needed emergency that may even turn things worse. It's not about decks that "suck". Bad deck won't last even with 10 fixed opening hands card, but the game is extremely punishing and unloads on player from the get go, so most of the time the player is either powerdecking or playing easy mode if he wants to win, I'm silent about the nightmare. Once again, there are numerous decks that require that one or two things in their opening hands to work well, and will simply crumble without it. Fending them off just because they "suck" is just mean.

4) This is just a matter of teste, I'm not going to argue about that, however you mentioned "all cardgames", while I use Ashes as an example, which has a completely fixed setup hand.

5) I'm not trying to convince the designers to errata or stuff, I'm just theorycrafting.

6) And there are spheres and setups that have limited draw access or don't have one at all. This kinda of rule would enable them. Especially when draw is kept mostly in the Lore.

7) Break game for others? Did I broke the game for others by posting this thoerycrafting thread?

1. I have to disagree with you here, I think swarm decks like Dwarves especially but also Outlands are at least as strong if not stronger than true combo decks. I also read your 2nd post and replied to it above, please commend on it if you will.

2. I also read your 2nd post and replied to it above, please commend on it if you will. I still think its a very problemati approach.

3. Perhaps "suck" was too strong a term but the truth is a lot of people prefer to play subpar but thematically appealing decks. Nonetheless, I feel a second mulligan at no penalty is very powerful. Good decks include the tools to bring a combo together and if one's deck has no "plan B" in case one's deck is not ideal, that's the player's fault and not the designers. With the amount of card draw available, every deck can work in multiplayer and even single player. I do not want to be mean but I feel this is a playerbase issue here and the gap between player expectations vs actual CCG gameplay.

4. It's a matter of taste, true. I consider Lotr LCG a "classic" card game with roots in the CCG tradition and I'd personally prefer for it to stick to the good old pillars of ccg gameplay.

5. I know! Don't take what I write too seriously.

6. True only in single player and with a growing card pool drawing is becoming a non-issue even for non-lore decks. Look at Galandriel for example, she gives lore a run for its money. O fcourse a lot of players will only play her if it feels appropriate to them, but imposing a self-limitation on one's self and then having a hard time because of it doesn't mean the game's mulligan rule sucks.

7. I know, I know

I should have checked the author of the post. I will not make this mistake again. Why even ask mr never miss anything?

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

I HATE to be THAT guy, I am no expert or anything and regularly get crashed by Nin-in-Eilph but...

"Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance" and "we lose turn one", especially in multiplayer, is indicative of some seriously problematic decks unless you are playing against a quest with a messed-up opening.

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

I HATE to be THAT guy, I am no expert or anything and regularly get crashed by Nin-in-Eilph but...

"Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance" and "we lose turn one", especially in multiplayer, is indicative of some seriously problematic decks unless you are playing against a quest with a messed-up opening.

More and more quests these days have beginnings that require you to have control over the encounter deck in the first few turns. While I agree that decks shouldn't rely on a couple cards to function, drawing a handful of expensive cards or cards that are only helpful late-game is bound to happen.

I'm exaggear

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

I HATE to be THAT guy, I am no expert or anything and regularly get crashed by Nin-in-Eilph but...

"Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance" and "we lose turn one", especially in multiplayer, is indicative of some seriously problematic decks unless you are playing against a quest with a messed-up opening.

I knew I shouldn't have put "turn 1" in there. I was exaggerating to make a point. And against lots of the Nightmare decks, I'm standing by that. Lots of times your game isn't over after turn 1, but it might as well be. Scoop and reset. And there are quests where there are very few options outside of some kind of relying on certain cards. Consistently bad opening hands are indicative your deck needs work, but at the end of the day your fate is in the hands of pure probability.

There's lots of quests where your deck has to be operating at full strength turn 1 to even have a chance against. I'm all for anything that makes the game less about random draw and more about strategy. Good idea.

Being able to cope with the randomness of your draw is a key element of the strategy in this game.

See, I call that a lack of perspective. The only thing you mention is that it would make something that is already avialable easier. But, from what I've seen, those broken combos usually have no problems in setting themselves up without any houserules. However, what else it does is enables lesser class of decks which is extremely questionable or even unplayable otherwise, the point you entirely miss for some reason.

Give examples of decks which aren't currently viable but would be under these conditions. I'm skeptical, because this game is pretty well designed to give a variety of effective options.

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

The most powerful decks, and a lot of less powerful but still good decks, will have means of dealing with not drawing their key cards right off the bat. If they never draw them at all it may be a problem, but that is a considerably smaller percentage.

I'm exaggear

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

I HATE to be THAT guy, I am no expert or anything and regularly get crashed by Nin-in-Eilph but...

"Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance" and "we lose turn one", especially in multiplayer, is indicative of some seriously problematic decks unless you are playing against a quest with a messed-up opening.

I knew I shouldn't have put "turn 1" in there. I was exaggerating to make a point. And against lots of the Nightmare decks, I'm standing by that. Lots of times your game isn't over after turn 1, but it might as well be. Scoop and reset. And there are quests where there are very few options outside of some kind of relying on certain cards. Consistently bad opening hands are indicative your deck needs work, but at the end of the day your fate is in the hands of pure probability.

Again I say: Give examples. Tell me which quests are completely dependent on the luck of drawing specific cards, because again I am skeptical. Maybe some nightmare quests, but nightmare is supposed to be that hard.

I'm exaggear

If you're running 3 copies of a card, drawing 6 and then 7 cards, your chances of drawing any given card is like 57%. There are so many quests where that basically means my deck will lose, through no fault of my own, 43% of the time. And before there are shouts of "BUILD YOUR DECK BETTER!" we all know the most powerful decks revolve around some key cards. This is always one of the biggest hangups when I introduce people to this game. We set up, draw our cards, and lose turn one. When they ask why, I say "Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance." It's part of the game, and I sincerely doubt it'll ever change, but I like the idea a lot.

I HATE to be THAT guy, I am no expert or anything and regularly get crashed by Nin-in-Eilph but...

"Well, we didn't draw our key cards, so we never stood a chance" and "we lose turn one", especially in multiplayer, is indicative of some seriously problematic decks unless you are playing against a quest with a messed-up opening.

I knew I shouldn't have put "turn 1" in there. I was exaggerating to make a point. And against lots of the Nightmare decks, I'm standing by that. Lots of times your game isn't over after turn 1, but it might as well be. Scoop and reset. And there are quests where there are very few options outside of some kind of relying on certain cards. Consistently bad opening hands are indicative your deck needs work, but at the end of the day your fate is in the hands of pure probability.

I mostly disagree. Only botched quests like Peril in Pelargir presents such difficult and frankly unfair setups. In normal mode I feel that if one hasn't managed to establish a board presence by the start of turn 3 then he is either extremely unlucky (once it took me 30 something draws to get Light of Valinor!) or the deck is just lacking. Usually, lacking 1 or 2 key cards shouldn't cripple the deck to the point of no return and in fact solid decks can regularly manage to make do with weaker draws.

You mention Nightmare mode however so I am kinda confused by your statement. NM is supposed to be hard and can occasionally be unfair ( Gladden Marshlands then reveal the Brown Lands in Q2 of JdtA, HAHA TIME TO SCOOP) and honestly thats not a mulligan related problem. If your decks can't consistently (90% of the time) get the cards you need by turn 3, the deck is too weak for NM mode, simple as that. I hope you don't introduce people with NM mode....

Maybe it would be helpful for us all to see an example of a deck where the only way to make it good is to select an opening hand, rather than just modify it with different cards so that it can be good with a random hand.

Like others, I am having difficulty sympathizing with someone whose entire deck depends on a specific combo of cards to stand a chance, but doesn't include tons of draw/search cards in order to get it.

I think some folks are attacking this from the wrong angle.

It is always possible to come up with a deck that wins against X scenario. It is always possible to optimize your deck with the given player cards to beat a specific challenge, or utilize a specific combo.

My estimate is that this variant makes other decks possible. For example, someone on our local FB group posted about a deck starting with Gandalf and his toys (pipe, staff and horse). That'd be cool! That's 6 less duplicate cards you need to keep in your deck. How fun would that be, to put more thematic cards in a deck where Gandalf is walking around all badass and beating things up. It's much more possible in this mode. You don't 'depend' on having Bilbo to fetch the pipe. You don't depend on cards to search for the other pieces. You can just play a thematic deck.

My believe is that there's two forms of difficulty in the game. There's the enounter deck, which throws all sorts of nastiness at you regardless of what deck you're using ; and the player deck difficulty. Is it easier to win the game with a Glorfindel, Elrond, (someone else) deck? Definitely! Is it harder to do the same quest set with just hobbits? Definitely! (?)

So the decks you bring to the game help determine the difficulty of the game. This variant does not change the other half of the game (the encounter deck) like Easy Mode does. This just makes it so the player deck half of the game, can be molded into something in theory, more thematic.

I think some folks are attacking this from the wrong angle.

It is always possible to come up with a deck that wins against X scenario. It is always possible to optimize your deck with the given player cards to beat a specific challenge, or utilize a specific combo.

My estimate is that this variant makes other decks possible. For example, someone on our local FB group posted about a deck starting with Gandalf and his toys (pipe, staff and horse). That'd be cool! That's 6 less duplicate cards you need to keep in your deck. How fun would that be, to put more thematic cards in a deck where Gandalf is walking around all badass and beating things up. It's much more possible in this mode. You don't 'depend' on having Bilbo to fetch the pipe. You don't depend on cards to search for the other pieces. You can just play a thematic deck.

My believe is that there's two forms of difficulty in the game. There's the enounter deck, which throws all sorts of nastiness at you regardless of what deck you're using ; and the player deck difficulty. Is it easier to win the game with a Glorfindel, Elrond, (someone else) deck? Definitely! Is it harder to do the same quest set with just hobbits? Definitely! (?)

So the decks you bring to the game help determine the difficulty of the game. This variant does not change the other half of the game (the encounter deck) like Easy Mode does. This just makes it so the player deck half of the game, can be molded into something in theory, more thematic.

I am starting to see your point, but I don't think this particular example convinces me. Isn't a Gandalf + toys deck already one of the most powerful archetypes in the game at the moment, even when built strictly according to theme? I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the OP's idea behind this was to help out decks that can't function without an optimized setup. But I agree with your other observations about the game.

That's totally fair. I don't think I've actually played that deck so I wasn't sure if it needed the help. Now I really want to try it.

The weakness of Elrond & Gandalf decks is when they don't draw their key cards early. I don't think my elves deck would ever lose if I was able to pick my opening hand. Remember that it's not that you would just get the six cards you want to start, but that you would now only have to put 1 Vilya, 1 Light of Valinor etc in your hand which allows you to strengthen the deck even further in other areas.

As an aside, in the early days of the game I used to test my decks against hard quests by hand picking my opening hand. If I still lost then it was clearly not good enough. Had the game been built for this from the beginning it would probably be okay, but it was built in the traditional LCG mold and that part of the game is fine as is.

Interestingly enough, my deck for Challenge #4 might fall under this category of "interesting decks that could benefit from a few fixed cards". It's terribly inconsistent, but if I somehow manage to get Delay the Enemy in my opening hand, it's pretty fun to play. But being mono-tactics (with only two heroes, no less) it has no reliable way to ensure it can get to the single copy of Delay the Enemy in any reasonable amount of time, so most of the time the game gets scooped around turn 3 and I try again.

I'm writing from my work, so I can't address everything that was asked of me in this thread, but regarding the example of deck that will not survive long, a fine example would be that solo aggro deck with Boromir that is about engaging and killing anything as soon as it pops up out of the encounter deck. It simple: if you get Gondorian Shield in your opening hand - you're good. If you don't - cya. It has Spirit Glorfindel too, by the way, so having Light of Valinor there is kinda crucial too for the "aggroeness"

While I generally agree that this probably is somewhat detrimental to the balance of the game and wouldn't argue for it as a real change to the game, I keep it in mind for when I am getting repeatedly trounced by a quest. If I beat a quest using this format I don't consider it an actual win, but still got to have a fun time playing. That is the beauty of LOTR, especially in solo play... we can all play as we wish without negatively impacting others. Just gotta be honest about how we play.

I think this suggestion is a nice way to make the game much easier, and will definitely make a lot of thematic decks viable (and the group of elite decks currently ruling the meta, it will make unstoppable). However, it will make the game a very VERY different game, and it can't even be considered (IMHO) a variant of easy mode, as it makes several important aspects of the game either non-relevant (deck fetching) or a lot less important (card draw). As a past MtG player, and an avid deck builder (both for MtG and LotR LCG), I gotta tell you that the randomness of the deck in general and specifically the opening hand makes up so much of the game and challenge of deck building, that the effect of such a house rule will be tremendous.

So yeah, this might be a nice variant for thematic play, that may even become quite popular (given the feedback in this thread), but it is obviously not a change that can be organically incorporated into the game without taking too much away from it. This aspect of the game is really important to me, and from the other kind of reactions in this thread - I'm not the only one.

On a personal note - I think that's exactly what house rules are for, especially in a co-op game. I personally would probably never play this variant, the same way that I don't ever take a second mulligan; It's part of the fun for me (and I'm fine with people doing what they want to make the game more fun and thematic for them). My most recent anecdote regarding this is not getting LoV in either my opening hand or my mulligan in my Bilbo+Glorf secrecy deck in the second LotR Saga quest (I think). Not only that, I found it maybe in turn 9 or 10. And I was forced to quest with Glorf to keep our heads afloat, so my threat kept going past 20 and than back down once I got some threat reduction. It was challenging, and unique, and made for some hard decisions - and it was a blast! (and we won )

Wow, i am surprised so many people still feel like they need to use power cards. I have not used Spirit Glorfindel, Asfaloth, Vilya, Gandalf (in any form), Tactics Boromir, Dwarve characters or Outlands in ages. These cards are clearly too powerful even against NM I never have to resort to using them. In my opinion the cheapest cards I still use are Elrond and Haldir.

I would say that if people need specific cards in their opening hand just start the game with them in hand. If they are so critical to your deck then and you can't win without them then you are building a deck that can only do one thing.

Having fixed opening hand harmful to the game? That's an understatement. It will destroy the game, deck building, and even the marketing of adventure packs. If you could have in your opening hand those unique cards, you only need one copy of each unique in your deck. And if you only need one copy of the unique in the deck, why should the adventure packs have 3 of those uniques?

Fixed/set opening hand is too drastic for the game.

What would be cool, I think, is a 0 cost neutral event card that allows you to take a 3rd mulligan... assuming you draw it in your first 2 hands!

Interestingly enough, my deck for Challenge #4 might fall under this category of "interesting decks that could benefit from a few fixed cards". It's terribly inconsistent, but if I somehow manage to get Delay the Enemy in my opening hand, it's pretty fun to play. But being mono-tactics (with only two heroes, no less) it has no reliable way to ensure it can get to the single copy of Delay the Enemy in any reasonable amount of time, so most of the time the game gets scooped around turn 3 and I try again.

Nice example. I would've like to see no 1/deck limit on Delay the Enemy as it's one of the few cards in the game that can make solo tactics viable. I picture a fun mono-tactics deck that tries to keep Delay the Enemy around to setup, then once it has a lot of allies and resources it uses Trained for War and Book of Eldacar to quest through the game like normal.

I should have checked the author of the post. I will not make this mistake again. Why even ask mr never miss anything?

...what?

I'm writing from my work, so I can't address everything that was asked of me in this thread, but regarding the example of deck that will not survive long, a fine example would be that solo aggro deck with Boromir that is about engaging and killing anything as soon as it pops up out of the encounter deck. It simple: if you get Gondorian Shield in your opening hand - you're good. If you don't - cya. It has Spirit Glorfindel too, by the way, so having Light of Valinor there is kinda crucial too for the "aggroeness"

Are you are referring to the Boromir/Spirfindel/Galadriel solo deck that beats everything? Because when I am using it against anything but the most difficult Nightmare quests I don't even allow myself the standard mulligan rule, as it makes it too easy.

FetaCheese:

You're talking about it like every deck has Lore. Not everybody wants to run Lore, especially in solo. You still might need duplicates, because plenty of quests feature attachment destruction. It seems you can't see my point because you're a powerdecker and you look at everything from the perspective of power maximization.

Now, to the second numbered post:

1) Maybe you and I have seen different combo decks, but those decks I've seen could beat the game turn 1. Without any fixed hands. I don't think Dwarves or Outlands will ever gonna be that powerful

3) Yeah, but you know the difference between a kickstart and actual playthrough? Having a right card in your hand at the beginning does not wins you a game or rids you from the need to draw anything else, it simply improves your chance and probably serves as the oil for the gears of your deck. You're not gonna win a game by just having something in your opening hand, you'll still need to play, draw, etc. There is still a lot of game to have there, and I'm 100% sure encounter deck can and will kick some ass even if the whole world would play with fixed hands, not so frequently, but still.

4) I once had that approach, but I reconsidered that after some time.

6) What about people who like some stuff that is not that viable due to the games harsh meta game? Some hero, or maybe playstile, or maybe even trait? They exist in the game, they are available to play, but if you will - you will fail most of the time, unless you find a way to make it work, and for that you'll usually need some setup that game rarely allows you for, unless you're a power player, which won't happen in that case then.

Seastan, no, that deck had Eowyn instead of Galadriel.

SIDE NOTE:

There is another interesting approach I've seen in another card game. The infamous Hearthstone.

When players draw their opening hand there, they can simply pick any number of cards from their opening hand and re-draw them, and then they are stuck with what they've drawn.

I like Hearthstone's mulligan rule tbh. Not sure if it'd work with Lotr LCG though because in HS you start with a mere 3 cards in your hand so a bad starting hand is even more criplling, plus it only has a 30 card deck.

Players who for whatever reason avoid the power cards have easy mode and the 2-resources-in-turn-1 rule. Edit: Of course, one should feel free to houserule whatever mulligan rules one wants.

Second player starts the game with 4 cards (not to mention the coin being added to your hand as 5th card).

FetaCheese:

You're talking about it like every deck has Lore. Not everybody wants to run Lore, especially in solo. You still might need duplicates, because plenty of quests feature attachment destruction. It seems you can't see my point because you're a powerdecker and you look at everything from the perspective of power maximization.

Now, to the second numbered post:

*snip*

6) What about people who like some stuff that is not that viable due to the games harsh meta game? Some hero, or maybe playstyle, or maybe even trait? They exist in the game, they are available to play, but if you will - you will fail most of the time, unless you find a way to make it work, and for that you'll usually need some setup that game rarely allows you for, unless you're a power player, which won't happen in that case then.

Seastan, no, that deck had Eowyn instead of Galadriel.

How do you know anything about FetaCheese's playstyle? Dismissing his point as missing yours does nothing to help your argument, it merely proves you can't be bothered to actually make one.

6) Again: Give examples. Because I've played and won games with every hero released other than Damrod, Rossiel and Dori (because they're new), and with a wide variety of traits and playstyles, so I find it hard to believe there are so many non-viable setups. I'll maybe concede Spirit Pippin, the worst designed hero in the game, but even there I have won games with him.

So... what deck is this then? We're not psychic, we don't automatically know what deck you're thinking of just from a vague description. Based on what you've told us though, I don't see why that should require a fixed starting hand. 2 Defence can serve against a decent number of enemies, you start at 25 threat so some just won't engage you right away, plus you can chump block if you have to. I remain unconvinced that this deck using two debatably overpowered heroes and the best quester in the game can't cope without extra advantages being given to it.