This is the first cycle I experienced as an active player and collector and it's been a blast! Lot's of interesting cards that make you rething how to play/build decks (like the Dúnedain and Erestor). Few real coasters. Fun quests, although the story could have been a bit better. Plot wise, the story could have jumped from Dead man's dike to Carn Dum and it would have been ok. Having a recurring boss was fun though.

Still waiting on the last two quests.

Mount Gram was the most dissapointing quest for me. With only 1 hero and no allies, you're left with very few choices as a player. This quest would have benefitted a lot from side-quests at the start, to give players more agency.

Weathered Hills was the worst for me, because it felt more like a puzzle than a quest. With the right deck, it's easy, with the wrong deck it's brutal in solo.

Wastes of Eriador is probably my favorite because it always feels so relentless, yet beatable. I've never won unsatisfied, which is unusual for this type of game where you can get a 'lucky' draw.

Favorite hero is difficult because I like almost all of them (sorry Dori).

Dúnedain hunter is the ally card of the cycle for me, due to it's fun deck-possibilities.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancelation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I was eagerly expecting for the Leadership weapon in The Dread Realm to solve one of these problems, but sadly what we got was a totally unnecessary attack boost and an even more useless resource acceleration (and very conditional at that). So, you can make the challenge all you want, but now I'm convinced the designers didn't want to make the deck viable in solo.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancelation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I was eagerly expecting for the Leadership weapon in The Dread Realm to solve one of these problems, but sadly what we got was a totally unnecessary attack boost and an even more useless resource acceleration (and very conditional at that). So, you can make the challenge all you want, but now I'm convinced the designers didn't want to make the deck viable in solo.

D you mean 'top tier' or 'viable' when you say 'became a thing in solo'? Because yeah, Dúnedain is on the level of Gandalf-Vilya, Outlands, Dain dwarf decks etc. It 'top tier' is you meant than I cannot help you. If you want a 'viable' deck, which to me means being able to beat most/all quests in a recent cycle with a good win-rate, than that should be possible and it could be very powerful.

But you seem to want to give up before really trying. Which seems to be the prevalent attitude to the Dúnedain on these boards. Before Seastans video's showing him win against Into Ithilien Nightmare, everyone was convinced Dúnedain couldn't work, period. So if Seastan already showed that a trap-Dúnedian deck is very good and that a non-trap Dúnedain deck is very good, why not see if he or anyone else can make a non-lore Dúnedain deck very good?

D you mean 'top tier' or 'viable' when you say 'became a thing in solo'? Because yeah, Dúnedain is on the level of Gandalf-Vilya, Outlands, Dain dwarf decks etc. It 'top tier' is you meant than I cannot help you. If you want a 'viable' deck, which to me means being able to beat most/all quests in a recent cycle with a good win-rate, than that should be possible and it could be very powerful.

But you seem to want to give up before really trying. Which seems to be the prevalent attitude to the Dúnedain on these boards. Before Seastans video's showing him win against Into Ithilien Nightmare, everyone was convinced Dúnedain couldn't work, period. So if Seastan already showed that a trap-Dúnedian deck is very good and that a non-trap Dúnedain deck is very good, why not see if he or anyone else can make a non-lore Dúnedain deck very good?

Without even really trying, you say? Did you see my mono Leadership Dunedain deck? It was also one of the first posted. Also, i am totally aware of Seastan's deck, and it's really good, but it's not what I personally wanted the Dunedain to be the most. It's a combo deck and runs Lore (which I'm not against thematically or anything like that.) I just really wanted the Leadership-Tactics (or mono with Amarthiul) deck to be really good, as aggro and L-T is my favorite deck style and fave sphere combo. Ad it just feels great for the Dunedain in flavor. That's the thing though, it's just my personal expectation and the designers are not bound to it. Same happened for me with HoN.

I didn't want to sound so negative, you could maybe build a deck and prove me wrong, but I have actually tried and it' nigh impossible to make such a deck and make it effective against the current meta without Balin, not only Angmar Awakened but current saga as well. In fact, that's precisely why the deck I posted as my vision of the definitive most powerful Leadership-Tactics aggro deck runs Balin, as he gives you access to the best shadow cancelation and card draw in Leadership and Tactics. And I still believe it's probably the best deck you could make with those spheres without relying on very specific card combos, as Seastan's decks often do. (It's just not my playstyle and don't particularly enjoy it, plus it's much harder to pull off without Lore).

I also want to add, there are other Leadership Tacctics decks that are really good in solo (albeit not as good) such as Core Aragorn Imrahil and Eomer, and of course Elladan and Elrohir (which will be even better with Arwen and Elvish Light.) But sadly, Aragorn (either version except for Lore), Amarthiul and Halbarad are not one of them.

Total divergence incoming:

Actually, now that I think of it, Lore Aragorn, Halbarad and Amarhiul can be a very strong aggro deck in general, with card draw, and access to Burning Brand. You give Steward to Aragorn so you can play Snares and Sentries, Brand, etc. You then get the Sword that was Broken so he can pay for Leadership cards. But since you're still running 2 Leadership heroes and with Good Harvest, you can still play for the other Leadership stuff easily. So then Aragorn gets Brand and Shield while Amarthiul can have Dunedain Warning x3 (easy to get with card draw and Weather Hills Watchman). So then you have two pretty powerful defenders (thought not the best), or you could attach Song of Wisdom on Amarthiul to give him Brand. I'll definately have to try it.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancellation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I was eagerly expecting for the Leadership weapon in The Dread Realm to solve one of these problems, but sadly what we got was a totally unnecessary attack boost and an even more useless resource acceleration (and very conditional at that). So, you can make the challenge all you want, but now I'm convinced the designers didn't want to make the deck viable in solo.

I was kind of expecting one of those points to be willpower. I seem to recall someone, possibly you, being annoyed that Amarthiul was only 1 willpower because it continued to pigeonhole this kind of Dunedain deck into a combat focus rather than being more generalised and thus solo-viable. On the other hand of course, having Leadership and Aragorn means Sword that was Broken and Faramir, so long as the deck can survive long enough to get them out.

Shadow cancellation is an issue to be sure, but Leadership has card draw other then KUtM. Sneak Attack Gandalf and Valiant Sacrifice have been around since the Core Set and their still good. I recall for a mono-Leadership Dunedain deck Seastan suggested Lord of Morthond with Tactics allies as a possibility. For Dunedain more generally, if you have Tactics you can use Legolas and Foe-hammer. The card draw is fine.

Personally, I imagine a lack of shadow cancellation may make such a deck inconsistent, but the shortage of starting willpower is what I would expect to be the biggest obstacle to making it work at all (though if one is willing to stretch the theme a bit that could help, with e.g. Sam).

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancellation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I was eagerly expecting for the Leadership weapon in The Dread Realm to solve one of these problems, but sadly what we got was a totally unnecessary attack boost and an even more useless resource acceleration (and very conditional at that). So, you can make the challenge all you want, but now I'm convinced the designers didn't want to make the deck viable in solo.

I was kind of expecting one of those points to be willpower. I seem to recall someone, possibly you, being annoyed that Amarthiul was only 1 willpower because it continued to pigeonhole this kind of Dunedain deck into a combat focus rather than being more generalised and thus solo-viable. On the other hand of course, having Leadership and Aragorn means Sword that was Broken and Faramir, so long as the deck can survive long enough to get them out.

Shadow cancellation is an issue to be sure, but Leadership has card draw other then KUtM. Sneak Attack Gandalf and Valiant Sacrifice have been around since the Core Set and their still good. I recall for a mono-Leadership Dunedain deck Seastan suggested Lord of Morthond with Tactics allies as a possibility. For Dunedain more generally, if you have Tactics you can use Legolas and Foe-hammer. The card draw is fine.

Personally, I imagine a lack of shadow cancellation may make such a deck inconsistent, but the shortage of starting willpower is what I would expect to be the biggest obstacle to making it work at all (though if one is willing to stretch the theme a bit that could help, with e.g. Sam).

Lack of willpower was one of my main problems with it, but after plating it extensively it's not really that much of a problem. With the cards you mentioned and Galadriel as well as Celebrían's Stone, which is actually an excellent card, you can get very decent willpower without much trouble. I still agree with that getting a Gondor or Dúnedain Leadership hero with lowish threat and 2 or 3 willpower would be extremely nice, but that's more for Gondor than Dúnedain, as Halbarad fills the role nicely. With Gondor you need to either run Balin or Sam, or go full Valour with Imrahil. However, I still think card draw in those spheres is lacking. While Foe-Hammer and Sneak Attack are both good (they're both 2 card combos that draw you 3 cards) even 2 card combos are a bit hard to use in these sphere, and they're not nearly as reliable as repeatable card draw like KUTM or single-card-card-draw like Daeron's Runes or Deep Knowledge.

i am totally aware of Seastan's deck, and it's really good, but it's not what I personally wanted the Dunedain to be the most. It's a combo deck and runs Lore

Why is it a combo deck? If Damrod+Forest snare counts as a combo, you should see my other decks...

Mono-leadership Aragorn Halbarad and Amarthiul can absolutely be made into a top tier deck, but you might declare one of the cards I use to be a combo and invalidate it. But regardless, picking three specific heroes and demanding that they be made into a top tier deck, and then being heavily critical of the entire trait when it doesn't work out comes across as a little whiny to me.

Actually, now that I think of it, Lore Aragorn, Halbarad and Amarhiul can be a very strong aggro deck in general, with card draw, and access to Burning Brand. You give Steward to Aragorn so you can play Snares and Sentries, Brand, etc. You then get the Sword that was Broken so he can pay for Leadership cards. But since you're still running 2 Leadership heroes and with Good Harvest, you can still play for the other Leadership stuff easily. So then Aragorn gets Brand and Shield while Amarthiul can have Dunedain Warning x3 (easy to get with card draw and Weather Hills Watchman). So then you have two pretty powerful defenders (thought not the best), or you could attach Song of Wisdom on Amarthiul to give him Brand. I'll definately have to try it.

I thought you didn't like combos . Isn't most of this (including the hero lineup) in the deck I posted over in the strategy forum just the other day?

As I said, it's just my personal expectation, and it absolutely doens't have to be what the designers intended. So I have no problem admitting it's a bit whiny.

To me there's something different between an aggro deck that makes most use of the resource curve to play whatever it can to advance its board state, and a combo deck that heavily relies on one card to make all the difference. I guess you can say every deck is a combo dekc in that they need one or two cards to ge going, such as Steward of Gondor to play all your weenies, but that's the case with all spheres, and once you get Steward anything you play will advance more or less equally your board state. On the other hand with your deck if you never get Forest Snare you are in big trouble. A good comparison is that in your deck you run 5 Spirit allies, which in an aggro deck it probably wouldn't happen.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancellation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I was eagerly expecting for the Leadership weapon in The Dread Realm to solve one of these problems, but sadly what we got was a totally unnecessary attack boost and an even more useless resource acceleration (and very conditional at that). So, you can make the challenge all you want, but now I'm convinced the designers didn't want to make the deck viable in solo.

I was kind of expecting one of those points to be willpower. I seem to recall someone, possibly you, being annoyed that Amarthiul was only 1 willpower because it continued to pigeonhole this kind of Dunedain deck into a combat focus rather than being more generalised and thus solo-viable. On the other hand of course, having Leadership and Aragorn means Sword that was Broken and Faramir, so long as the deck can survive long enough to get them out.

Shadow cancellation is an issue to be sure, but Leadership has card draw other then KUtM. Sneak Attack Gandalf and Valiant Sacrifice have been around since the Core Set and their still good. I recall for a mono-Leadership Dunedain deck Seastan suggested Lord of Morthond with Tactics allies as a possibility. For Dunedain more generally, if you have Tactics you can use Legolas and Foe-hammer. The card draw is fine.

Personally, I imagine a lack of shadow cancellation may make such a deck inconsistent, but the shortage of starting willpower is what I would expect to be the biggest obstacle to making it work at all (though if one is willing to stretch the theme a bit that could help, with e.g. Sam).

While I agree a generic name would have been better, they could create additional "Ranger in the North" cards. They don't effect our 3x limit since they aren't included in our deck build and the event could be used to grab whatever version you want.

Delayed answer, but I was traveling and hate posting on my phone...

Favorites:

Hero - Aragorn with honorable mention to Erestor. Both of these guys open up totally new deck styles.

Ally - Dunedain Hunter with honorable mention to Ranger of the North for breaking the mold.

Attachment - Secret Vigil

Event - Ranger Summons

Side Quest - Send for Aid

Looking back, I find myself a little disappointed by this cycle. I would rank it my 3rd favorite behind Dwarrowdelf and Ringmaker. So many of the player cards from this cycle feel underdeveloped. Valour and Dunedain are awesome concepts, but there aren't enough tools to make them hum yet. I feel like the Valour cards are generally overcosted. They are mostly bad outside of Valour and only decent with Valour. The Dunedain mechanic requires you to be engaged with many enemies, but they don't have repeatable ways to avoid nasty shadow cards that will inevitably hurt you as much as the attackers themselves. They mostly have to rely on Forest Snare to make it work. I'm also not too excited about the new Noldor discard mechanic. It relies too heavily on Erestor for the card draw. I suspect Erestor will be the most played hero of 2016 and everyone will be fighting over who gets to use him.

I do like the victory display mechanic, although it seems to take too long to get going. I wish there was one more threat reduction card in lore that would make a mono-lore secrecy deck sustainable since Out of the Wild it one of the few victory display cards that is useful from turn 1. Also, Rossiel's interaction with the victory display is a little weak.

I'm not into player side quests. Maybe it's just that I've been playing the new cycle and it seems like there are always encounter side quests flooding the board, but spending a turn (or more) on a player side quest rarely seems worth it. The only times I've seen much benefit from the side quests are when we are trying to avoid a keyword like battle or siege, but that just feels like cheesing the quests. However, I think encounter side quests are great. They add another crucial decision point that is often more interesting than traveling.

Looking at the quests, I don't see many that I expect I will come back to often. Wastes of Eriador and Carn Dum have awesome mechanics, but they are near impossible to beat, especially in multiplayer. The Thaudir/undead theme is really cool, but they went back to that well one or two too many times. I love the idea of Mount Gram, but it's just too easy of a quest. I was also excited about Across the Ettenmoors, but it just fell a bit flat. IMO, the only top tier quest of the cycle was Treachery of Rhudaur. I really like the 5 turn timer to the boss fight and how the three side quests work. The choice of side quests can dramatically change the game.

All in all, I think the quality of the game is still trending upward. Most of my comments were negative, but it was by no means a bad cycle. Dwarrowdelf is still the high water mark, but Ringmaker was great and Angmar Awakens was still very good. Against the Shadow remains by far my least favorite. The next cycle looks amazing and I can't wait to dive into it!

Good points, Teamjimby. I agree with many of your assessments that some of the new player card concepts introduced in this cycle are really cool, but need another card or two to feel fully developed.

A few of your points don't match my personal experience, though, so I came through this cycle with a much more positive outlook on the player cards:

The Dunedain mechanic requires you to be engaged with many enemies, but they don't have repeatable ways to avoid nasty shadow cards that will inevitably hurt you as much as the attackers themselves. They mostly have to rely on Forest Snare to make it work.

I have heard this criticism of Dunedain before, but I haven't run into it in practice. I've typically been perfectly happy to discard the Dunedain Watcher for any attack that would kill a hero--and that has usually been enough. Granted, I haven't played a Dunedain deck through the entire Angmar Awakened cycle (I ran them through Land of Shadow, the first five quests of Lost Realm + Angmar Awakened, and a few random nightmare decks from Mirkwood and Dwarrodelf) so maybe Angmar Awakened has overall worse shadows than other quests.

That being said, if you want more shadow control, there are options other than Dunedain Watcher. Loragorn, Beravor, Ring of Barahir, or Song of Wisdom all grant access to Burning Brand. Idraen or Celebrian's Stone grant access to Hasty Stroke. Tireless Hunters is pretty much made for Dunedain. You could even try sticking Dark Knowledge on Amarthiul to help you know when you can risk a weaker defender.

I'd love to see a Dunedain hero that has some repeatable way to discard shadow cards, but I'm not sure it's required before we can declare Dunedain to be viable.

I'm also not too excited about the new Noldor discard mechanic. It relies too heavily on Erestor for the card draw. I suspect Erestor will be the most played hero of 2016 and everyone will be fighting over who gets to use him.

My wife and I have built quite a few Noldor discard decks lately, and only one of them has had Erestor in it. Galadriel, Arwen + Elven Light, or a Lore hero can all provide the card draw needed to power the discard stuff, so Erestor is not always required!

I've been really enjoying Noldor decks recently--I can't wait to see what new toys we get in the Grey Havens box.

I'm not into player side quests. Maybe it's just that I've been playing the new cycle and it seems like there are always encounter side quests flooding the board, but spending a turn (or more) on a player side quest rarely seems worth it. The only times I've seen much benefit from the side quests are when we are trying to avoid a keyword like battle or siege, but that just feels like cheesing the quests.

It's super weird that they introduced player side quests in the same cycle that typically punishes having multiple quests in play. As I play through Angmar Awakened, I keep including side quests in my deck and then cutting them on the second playthrough because I don't want to get punished for putting them down.

I've really enjoyed using them in other quests, though--especially using Gather Information in place of a third copy of a unique card.

So anyway, that's my two cents!

Those are some good points about Dunedain. I just feel like they generally need to be engaged with 3+ enemies during combat (and 2+ during planning) to make their allies, Amarthiul, and Heir of Valandil worthwhile. Maybe Burning Brand or shadow cancellation can stop 1 or 2, but to get the full effect you need serious shenanigans like Forest Snare, Thicket of Spears, or multiple Unexpected Courages to go with Burning Brand.

I think the problem with Dunedain, Valour, and Noldor (at least for now) is the size of the card pool. It's impossible to flesh out a whole new deck archtype in one cycle and have it compete with the existing archtypes unless they make the new cards very powerful. But that would then lead to power creep and have other issues. So, I'm not sure what else they could do. Maybe if they made the whole cycle focused on a single archtype they could do it, but that's unhealthy for the game as well.

I mostly agree with you Teamjimby, however, there are tons of ways to make new cards "compete" without being overpowered. My favorite example is Deep Knowledge, a completely valid alternative for Daeron's Runes in any deck that won't mind the threat increase. There are many potential alternatives like these for the Dúnedain, Noldor or any archetype they want to develop. It may be not as straightforward as a Rivendell Blade, but they should have a minor drawback to balance it out.

I didn't want to sound so negative, you could maybe build a deck and prove me wrong, but I have actually tried and it' nigh impossible to make such a deck and make it effective against the current meta without Balin, not only Angmar Awakened but current saga as well. In fact, that's precisely why the deck I posted as my vision of the definitive most powerful Leadership-Tactics aggro deck runs Balin, as he gives you access to the best shadow cancelation and card draw in Leadership and Tactics. And I still believe it's probably the best deck you could make with those spheres without relying on very specific card combos, as Seastan's decks often do. (It's just not my playstyle and don't particularly enjoy it, plus it's much harder to pull off without Lore).

You did sound a bit defeatist, even though you made a really cool Leadership Dúnedain deck! I don't agree you 'need' shadow cancellation in solo except for a few specific quests (probably Carn Dum in this cycle). The Dúnedain deck I ran against this cycle doesn't include Burning Brand or Dúnedain Watcher and in my last run of consecutive quests I won IoC, TWH, DD, EfMG and AtE all in my first try. Went 3-3 against Wastes of Eriador. To me, that's what I call 'viable'.

Maybe you've grown a little too dependant on Balin for your playstyle? And while you are free to want to stick with a Balinesque playstyle and hope for more leadership alternatives, it might be an idea to try to learn to play around shadow cards against.

My Denethor-Palantir-Rossiel deck, now that's 'Not Viable'! I spend 10 turns manipulating the encounterdeck to my exact liking, didn't have anything to actually WIN the game once I got setup.

Now that I have all packs I'll definately want to try an Aragorn(T) Halbarad Amarthiúl deck out.

Have you tried Elven Light? Suddenly all Noldor powerups require half a resource instead of discarding. I haven't tried a Noldor deck before, but I assume it would work really well with all the support it's gotten now.

All in all, I'm really glad that looking back at the cycle, we get all these discussions about wether Dúnedain decks or Noldor decks can work and how they should work. For me, the Silvan deck was a little bit too 'designed' by the creators as was Outlands in the cycle before that. IMO Seastan build the 'best' Dúnedain deck, while FFG build the 'best' Silvan deck. Here's hoping the next cycle will challenge our solution finding skills even more.

I agree that the Silvan deck felt railroaded and I like the Dunedain open-endedness better. Although I'm glad they are continuing to add more Silvan cards, so we will have more room to deckbuild with Silvans.

I really liked The Weathered Hills quest

Amarthiul hero.

Overall I think this cycle was OK had a lot of steam from the start. I really liked the deluxe box quests. The last two quests from this cycle were just so brutal. I really enjoy a challenge but I feel you really really need to hone your decks to be able to beat the quests on regular mode. I kind of wish they saved it more for NM mode. But I still really enjoyed the quests and trying to figure them out.

My only real complaint is I feel like the quests are becoming very long. Many times I have to reset after a few rounds. Sometimes I make it to mid game and have to reset. But I can't string play as many games cuz the quests feel like slog fests. So many cards surge which makes staging take longer, the enemies are difficult to one round so combat takes longer and now the side quests that come from the encounter deck are almost always must-do or youll get nasty effects

Still loving the game though and will continue to buy everything that comes out! Lol I'm a slave to this game

Edit: I guess I should say that I play 2handed solo with physical cards not on OCTGN so the setup and tear down takes a bit longer when you have to reset often

I agree that the Silvan deck felt railroaded and I like the Dunedain open-endedness better. Although I'm glad they are continuing to add more Silvan cards, so we will have more room to deckbuild with Silvans.

If only the Galadrim Minstrel wasn't so superior to most other Silvan's 'come into play' effect, they might also have been more fun to play. But improving the options for Silvan is going to be difficult as we're unlikely to get heroes superior to Galadriel+Celeborn or allies superior to the Minstrel. Not impossible, but I don't think Silvan's are going to be my favorite trait any time soon.

I dunno, I sort of disagree. I don't use Celeborn in my silvan deck. I use Galadriel/Haldir/Glorfindel (but I'm switching in Arwen when I get her -probably tomorrow!), I don't use the minstrel. My deck seems to do pretty ok, so I don't think it's railroaded as you suggest. It's one way to build a deck, sure, but there are others. I don't rely on silvan "comes into play" effects, I just run good cards.

I enjoy deckbuilding and do plenty of it, but I don't mind going in with a ready-made deck either. Sentinels of the Multiverse is a great game, very similar to LotR but no deckbuilding aspect. Still fun.

The Silvan deck really does build itself (even if you go crazy and omit Celeborn, you still follow the same formula: Silvan allies, Silvan-theme events). It's fun to play, and that counts for a lot! I have never tried Outlands, which is another deck that builds itself.... doesn't really seem like a fun archetype. Silvans on the other hand bring rich gameplay to the table and are one of my favorites.

Trying to steer the conversation away from Silvan back to the wrapup.

I liked the story part they where going for. Iarion's inclusion in two quests made me care more for him. Every storytelling fibre of my being knew that Amarthiul's mentor would not survive so I wasn't motivated to rescue him. I liked Amarthiul too. He started out pretty bland, but after saving you in the various quests, I grew fond of him. His stats tell us his personality (it's risky to block with him but you do so anyway). Having him as a hero made me happy, so we can have him travel with us in new adventures.

Thaurdir was a great enemy. Starts out story wise with an ambush, and as an enemy card, he is pretty relentless. Having him return in three quests also made me look foreward to finally beating him. Winning Carn Dum was therefore one of my favorite moments in the game, because it's such a well deserved victory over an enemy I was looking foreward to defeating for a long time! Daechanar on the other hand was a bit anti-climactic after dealing with Thaurdir. We get little buildup for his character so he just shows up and we kill him. Didn't help that I got really lucky in my first try and easily beat the quest.

I would like to see more emphasis on 'new' characters with continuation. Wouldn't it have been cool if Muglash was an enemy in the battle of Helms deep? I hope we get more characters heroes and villains both, we get emotionally invested in who play a role in the FFG LotR canon.

I'm still bummed that Leadership-Tactics Dunedain aggro (aka Secret Defenders) never became a thing in solo

Well, let's make it a deck challenge! Dúnedain in general have been called worthless untill proven otherwise, so tell us what the deckbuilding constraints are for a Leadership-Tactics Dúnedain aggro deck and we'll see who can build a satisfying deck.

I can pinpoint the exact 2 problems that stop the Leadership-Tactics (or Mono Leadership with Amarthiul) Dúnedain deck from being top tier:

1: Shadow cancelation. No matter how many defenders you can ready with Descendants of Kings or Strength of Arms, no matter how big you can make your Guardians of Arnor, shadow effects will bite you in the a**. And no, Dúnedain Watcher is not even close to enough. Sacrificing your precious Dúnedain for a 1-shot shadow cancel? Most of the cases it's not worth it.

2: Card advantage. After the 4th or 5th round, your hand WILL eventually run out of steam. You'll have tons of resources and nothing to spend them on. You will depend entirely on the topdeck and if you draw a useless Steward or any other unique, it will be hugely detrimental. Dúnedain -hell, Leadership in general- NEEDS some way to draw cards other than King Under the Mountain, or else the deck will depend entirely on the 12 or so cards you get withing the first 5 rounds. And yes, Balin is great for both card draw and shadow cancelation, but I'm sick of running him in all of my Leadership decks.

I've been experimenting with a Halbarad, Aragorn(T) Amarthiúl deck. It's not where I want it to be yet, but I remembered your comments and found them very relatable. My first version ran out of steam quick and got smashed by some nasty shadows. But I've been having some succes in dealing with this.

For card draw I use Sneak-Attack-Gandalf-on-steroids

3 x Sneak Attack

3 x Reinforcements

3 x Gandalf (core)

3 x Sarn Ford Sentry

Since the point of the Dúnedain deck is to keep several weaker enemies around, Sarn Ford Sentry often works just as well as Gandalf for card draw. This makes the combo much more reliable than just with Gandalf. I also use Erestor (for the uniques and if desperate for combo pieces) and Rallying Cry. The last one let's you use Gandalf again for tons of resources, but it also let's you sneak attack Sarn Ford Sentry AND let her die to blocking whithout losing your combo piece. I've also used it to keep Dúnedain Watcher around after using her ability. Once you hit Valour, Rallying Cry adds a lot of value for a single card, helping you keep up with the encounter deck without losing the card-advantage game. (Between Steward of Gondor and Amarthiúl I feel confident enough in my resouce gathering to replay lost allies that get returned to hand.)

Landrovel (another good Reinfocements candidate) and Honor guard also help deal with unexpected shadow cards that kill heroes. Should I get my deck where I want it to be, I'll post it in the strategy section. I do feel some of these cards can help your mono-leadership Dúnedain deck as well get more where you want it to be.

Hero: Arwen Undómiel

Ally: Ranger of Cardolan

Attachment: Steed of Imladris

Event: Elven-light

Side Quest: Gather Information

Leadership: Descendants of Kings

Tactics: Derndingle Warrior

Spirit: Elven-light

Lore: Galdor of the Havens

Neutral: Ranger of Cardolan

I am looking at the above top 10 of sorts and nodding with agreement. Well, I don't really like side quests but then there is one choice I totally do not get. I find Steed of Imladris very subpar actually. Please, tell me, is it just a thematic/art choice, or does it actually work well in some quests?

I am looking at the above top 10 of sorts and nodding with agreement. Well, I don't really like side quests but then there is one choice I totally do not get. I find Steed of Imladris very subpar actually. Please, tell me, is it just a thematic/art choice, or does it actually work well in some quests?