I like having the Ranger of the North pop out of the ocean. What a swimmer!

Not a swimmer - just a stowaway!

I like having the Ranger of the North pop out of the ocean. What a swimmer!

He was just an agent working under the cover on a pirate vessel.

Wait...

If ally Gandalf could get a sphere with his ring, would you be able to Sword-thain him, and at last turn him into a hero?

Ow yes... yes...

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHAHA

My life is complete now. Behold the power of the 3! 3 rings to rule them all!!!

If a 3 rings deck is what you want, what's preventing you from including a Gandalf hero from the get go?

Threat cost.

But really, nothing. I was just little saddened when i realised you cant sword-thane Gandalf because he is neutral. And i was waiting for the 3rd ring to come out.

And then the ring comes out and fixes everything

And i love how those rings are tricky.

Gandalf is going to be raising your threat by 2 each turn even after he becomes a hero, plus setup it will require to actually make him a hero in the first place

I added Narya to my hobbit secrecy deck (with Spirit Merry) and getting that on Gandalf mid-game is pretty awesome. Being able to buff himself or to ready and buff two others depending on the situation really helps add to the usefulness of the deck. But it's unlikely to every be worth including Sword Thain for him.

My stuff arrives tomorrow. Can't wait to build dat Kirdan/Arwen/Grima deck!

My stuff arrives tomorrow. Can't wait to build dat Kirdan/Arwen/Grima deck!

Solo deck? or paired with something?

Solo. Packed with a lot of fat, costy allies being played in rapid succession.

I'm curious what allies you are going to use to get reliable attack strength with two spirit and a lore hero.

Currently I'm looking at:

x1 Damrod

x1 Elfhelm

x2 Northern Tracker

x3 Hama

x3 Sailor of Lune

...from the Spirit. I'm also looking at x1-3 Warden of Annuminas.

From Lore:

x1 Anborn

x1 Galdor of the Havens

x3 Ithilien Lookout

x1 Quickbeam

x3 Wandering Ent

There are some neutrals I'm currently considering:

x3 Envoy of Pelargir

x3 Gandalf of Core

x3 Ranger of Cardolan

x1 Treebeard

I'll have to get the stuff into my hands and play with it before I'll start the fine-turning, but this is approximately the list of allies I intend to include into this deck.

Man, the wait is killing me. I am observing AGOT 2ED spoilage at the same time and there are spoilers like 10 times more frequently. It's so depressing. We still don't have 2 last packs official announcements X_X

Same here.

I'm torn between wanting to know and wanting them to slow down how far in advance they spoil things so it doesn't feel like an eternity to get it in my hands.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

maybe they just need to ask?

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

It's rather curious. Most of the other LCGs have over half of the cards in each pack spoiled before the official release. This game is substantially different. I don't know if it's better of worse. I'm curious if it's an official and measured decision or if it's just a product of who the designers and marketing people are assigned to each game.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

You mean spoilers like the Minas Tirith Lampwright, and the Mirkwood Pioneer, and Fair and Perilous, and Strider?

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

You mean spoilers like the Minas Tirith Lampwright, and the Mirkwood Pioneer, and Fair and Perilous, and Strider?

You can add Galadhon Archer which was spoiled by Couple vs. Cardboard.

I interpreted Kakita Chiro's comment to be related to normalized data. Community spoiled cards per release appears to be very low compared to other LCGs.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

You mean spoilers like the Minas Tirith Lampwright, and the Mirkwood Pioneer, and Fair and Perilous, and Strider?

It would be nice if they did it more. That's 4 cards in going on 6 cycles.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

It's rather curious. Most of the other LCGs have over half of the cards in each pack spoiled before the official release. This game is substantially different. I don't know if it's better of worse. I'm curious if it's an official and measured decision or if it's just a product of who the designers and marketing people are assigned to each game.

I think it is definitely 100% worse.... if you didn't want to look at spoilers you could just not... for those who do want spoilers and tidbits and what not there is next to nothing and at an extremely slow rate too.... sometimes large stretches of time will pass with no spoilers and this definitely doesn't help the forums stay active either.

I get that if they release too many spoilers too early it kills the actual excitement and build up when the pack is released.

The thing is though about a week before the pack is officially released a few random people have it already from a single store that somehow had it before anyone else or before FFG OR it came out in Spain or another random country like a week earlier. We then get all the spoilers like a week out (player cards at least) from it being available across the US. I live in Australia so I usually see every single card including encounter cards before I get my hands on the actual product anyway..... I think quite a few people are in the same or similar situations (almost everyone out side of the US really) and so we have everything spoiled or at least available to view online far before we get our hands on the cards anyway..... so why not spoil things a little further out?

If they had the same international release date for products (like MtG) then this wouldn't be an issue but they do not have anything like this and release dates are different in every country.

Also lots of people use proxies, the more spoilers we get the more future player cards we can proxy to try out new mechanics and concepts in advance (legal official cards mind you, just ones not yet released) which keeps people interested and excited for the new packs and mechanics.

It would generate far more discussion on the forums and they would be far more active if there was a steady release of spoilers leading up to a release and I also think that many cards that are a bit more situational or weak would get more attention than they normally would. Lets say a single card is spoiled, many people may want to try it out and discuss it simply because it is new and shiny and exciting. If that card is spoiled at the same time as others and is lacklustre or nowhere near as exciting or broadly useful as the other cards there is going to be very little discussion about it. If spoiled on its own far more people will discuss and potentially even try out that card. Imagine if we had some sort of Card of the Week thing where a single player card from the current/upcoming cycle is spoiled to generate discussion and to allow us to try these new cards out in anticipation.

I think this would work very well and they could spoil the hero last, the week before release. I think this would actually add to excitement rather than take away from it because it would be like oh my god did you see how amazing Thranduil is? I cannot WAIT to get the pack next week to play with him or alternatively those who proxy cards would get to use him right before release if they really wanted to but still have the excitement of the actual new quest itself to look forward to as well as using the real cards (don't know about you guys but getting to remove proxies and put in the real cards is an awesome feeling!)

This is just my opinion however and I totally get where people opposed to this would be coming from as it is key to keep certain things a surprise to actually promote and sell the product in the first place. That being said however you totally can just ignore spoilers and the whole stupid defense of; I don't want spoilers but if there are any I can't help but look at them so there shouldn't be any, is just insanely ridiculous and selfish. If you don't want to look at them don't, if you do look but claim you didn't want to don't try to blame that on something/someone else you just couldn't help yourself/have bad self control.

I don't think anything will change though, I think that they have a very unique situation and set up with this game (especially because its co-op and the whole concept of encounter cards) and prefer to keep it a little more secretive and provide less spoilers in advance. They have to find a balance between encounter cards and player cards to show us in articles as well and often will show us ONLY encounter cards in an article to stop us from knowing anything about the player cards in the pack...

Due to there being more spoilers for most other FFG games I would assume it has to do with the individuals who design and market this game. At the end of the day they can do what they want, its the best goddamn card game ever set in the greatest fictional world ever It would be nice to get more spoilers but whatever!

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

It's rather curious. Most of the other LCGs have over half of the cards in each pack spoiled before the official release. This game is substantially different. I don't know if it's better of worse. I'm curious if it's an official and measured decision or if it's just a product of who the designers and marketing people are assigned to each game.

I think it is definitely 100% worse.... if you didn't want to look at spoilers you could just not... for those who do want spoilers and tidbits and what not there is next to nothing and at an extremely slow rate too.... sometimes large stretches of time will pass with no spoilers and this definitely doesn't help the forums stay active either.

Great point about the forums. Just think about the explosion of posts when the Strider card was spoiled on CotR.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

It's rather curious. Most of the other LCGs have over half of the cards in each pack spoiled before the official release. This game is substantially different. I don't know if it's better of worse. I'm curious if it's an official and measured decision or if it's just a product of who the designers and marketing people are assigned to each game.

I think it is definitely 100% worse.... if you didn't want to look at spoilers you could just not... for those who do want spoilers and tidbits and what not there is next to nothing and at an extremely slow rate too.... sometimes large stretches of time will pass with no spoilers and this definitely doesn't help the forums stay active either.

Great point about the forums. Just think about the explosion of posts when the Strider card was spoiled on CotR.

Actually, we spoiled Strider on The Grey Company.

FFG sends spoilers to Thrones podcasts. Would be nice if they did that for LotR.

It's rather curious. Most of the other LCGs have over half of the cards in each pack spoiled before the official release. This game is substantially different. I don't know if it's better of worse. I'm curious if it's an official and measured decision or if it's just a product of who the designers and marketing people are assigned to each game.

I think it is definitely 100% worse.... if you didn't want to look at spoilers you could just not... for those who do want spoilers and tidbits and what not there is next to nothing and at an extremely slow rate too.... sometimes large stretches of time will pass with no spoilers and this definitely doesn't help the forums stay active either.

Great point about the forums. Just think about the explosion of posts when the Strider card was spoiled on CotR.

Actually, we spoiled Strider on The Grey Company.

Oh no!!!! I feel terrible...

Maybe it was all the discussion on the CotR Discord chat that tricked me?