There are some times where I will attempt a new quest without looking at any of the encounter cards because I want to be surprised. Other times, if I am having a tough time with a quest or if I want to get a nice score, I prefer to have as much knowledge as possible.

For the latter occasions I've put together a shadow card reference guide. It lists the shadow effects and their quantity in each scenario: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yZH9Ze9t2TmYBZIjtmuPVTiBiLbP1Pms5EJekGkKJDA/edit?usp=sharing

(I recommend using Ctrl+F to search through the scenarios)

I know there have been many times where I wanted to defend with a hero but decided against it because he'd be destroyed if I were to draw a +attack shadow effect. This reference now allows me to check the probability of such an effect with a quick glance. This idea may not appeal to everyone, but I thought at least a few others may find it useful, so I have decided to share it.

Using probabilities would definitely be helpful in playing since it will give you a good estimate of the chance of having a particular shadow card, or in the case of encounter deck, the probability of revealing an enemy, location, or treachery. Knowledge of these probabilities would definitely guide a player in making risky actions. Should I defend? What's the probability, given the cards already in the discard pile, of having a shadow effect and particularly, a devastating one at that? Should I commit to the quest? What's the probability of an enemy getting revealed. Decisions like that.

What's the caveat? Well, the player, just like Seastan mentioned, would have to examine all the encounter cards, and note how many cards are of this type and that type, how many have shadow effects, etc. Beside the work involve, which I don't think is really that bothersome, doing the probability table would strip away any mystery, suspense, or surprise the encounter deck could give the player. For me, that is a big trade off, and that I'm not willing to sacrifice (I know, personal taste). The thought crossed my mind and I thought, I could 'possibly' do that after I've already beaten the quest so many times, and I'm just going after the best score possible. But I realized, that would mean the loss of surprise of the encounter deck, and possibly will affect my enjoyment in future replays. I decided not to calculate the probabilities.

The only time I did calculate the probabilities was for my dwarf deck, and made a frequency table of the card cost, to guide me in using the Zigil Miner ability (since my card pool is very limited, I don't have Imladris Stargazer or any other deck peeking card). But that's for my deck, which in all honesty, I really should know like the back of my hand (ie, the frequency table).

I'm not saying that doing the frequency table and calculating the probabilities is to be discouraged. It would help you play better, and thus, get a better score. All I'm saying is that doing so would lessen the surprise of the encounter deck and maybe affect your enjoyment (am I being presumptious in even trying to say that your enjoyment might be affected?).

This is actually a pretty cool resource Seastan. I don't see myself ever using it as I just prefer to take the risk, but nonetheless there's a good job behind this and some players might find it useful.

That's very cool, thanks for doing this.

Wow, amazing work!!!!

While playing, I also always prefer to just take the risk. Sometimes, with particularly brutal encounter deck cards, I will remember that there are only X number in the deck, and hang on to my Test of Will, etc. But, I generally prefer to play relatively blind, other than the accrued experiential knowledge from previous play sessions.

But, I also teach statistics, and things like this can be used to answer interesting questions about the game! Great work!

Thanks for the feedback. I just noticed that my script seems to have sorted each scenario by card type, so it could be a good reference for Wingfoot as well.

I know some may consider this taking fun out of the game but I think even if you don't end up using it to influence your decisions it's still cool to learn things about the game from it. I have color-coded shadow effects according to various categories, and if you start at Quest 001 Passage Through Mirkwood and look at the rest of that cycle you can see that there are many grey-colored shadow effects which punish you for taking attacks undefended. This makes sense as there were few options available at the time for gaining action advantage, and undefended attacks were often necessary.

As the game progressed, we now have many cheap allies and mustering effects which makes it easy to get a chump blocker into play, and together with stronger enemies with 5+ attack, undefended attack are more rare. As you scroll down you can see the game responding by introducing blue-colored shadow effects which punish you for having your characters destroyed by an attack.

Very interesting!

Wow, I'm surprised how many players ate opposed to the idea of studying shadow effect probabilities. If this were any other card game, detailed probability analysis would be an expected part of the metagame.

Just goes to show that this game reaches a different market from other card games.

Wow, I'm surprised how many players ate opposed to the idea of studying shadow effect probabilities. If this were any other card game, detailed probability analysis would be an expected part of the metagame.

Just goes to show that this game reaches a different market from other card games.

Probably because players already have one up on the encounter deck by choosing which scenario to play and which deck to use against it.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it really reflects a different market (although this game does attract some players who are not attracted to other LCG's) so much as the dynamic of a cooperative vs. a competitive game. Studying probabilities and getting every last leg up seems appropriate when taking on other players who are doing the same studying and adapting. But when you're taking on an encounter deck that isn't doing detailed statistical analysis of your deck (as far as I know ) and can't change itself to adapt to you, then that's a different proposition.

For me personally, I'm totally torn, as one half of me loves breaking down encounter decks this way and the other half wants to maintain some of the mystery.

For each scenario, in my experience, there are 1-3, usually 1-2 treacheries that are relatively brutal. On the very first play through, I enjoy being surprised by that. Then, on the second play through, I assume that there are 1-3 of those in the encounter deck. So, I might hold back a Test of Will, waiting to see one of those, or keep in mind that there are 1-3 of a certain very painful enemy, and maybe be sure to leave a chump blocker available, things like that.

I don't think that doing serious number crunching is going to get you much more of an advantage than simply having played the scenario 2-3 times. My hesitance is part due to enjoying the mystery and part due to not seeing it as having significant incremental value (from a statistical standpoint) over my own existing cognitive processes. For example, if you play through while taking into account how many cards and which cards have already been revealed and calculating probabilities before each encounter deck reveal, I don't think that you are in much better of a position that I am having played the scenario a few times in the past and being generally familiar with the worst of the worst encounter deck cards. I think that knowing broad pieces of information such as: this scenario is very enemy-heavy; very location-heavy; this scenario has brutal effects that do damage to exhausted characters, etc., is essentially equally as valuable as knowing exact probabilities. That is what I mean by the number crunching not adding incremental value to the way that I already play.

But, as I mentioned, that information seems really useful and interesting for analyzing things about how the development of the game has progressed.