I've noticed on pretty much every single deck build, that no one includes any songs to give their characters another Sphere. Why is that?

Whether I'm playing single player or two player, having a character with dual spheres is great. I get way more flexibility with how I spend my resources. It opens up sphere-specific attachments. (I love putting Burning Brand or Spear of the Citadel on defenders like Dain Ironfoot or Beregond)

What are everybody's thoughts?

Very quickly, my own experience recently has been that I have more success with decks that have well balanced costs of the different spheres than with decks that have songs to help fix or broaden the sphere base. I'm fond of decks that don't need the extra bits to work like that, and since songs only add the extra sphere, I've often found I could use the 1 resource to play a useful event or ally.

Doesn't mean I never use them, but as the game's card pool has progressed it has become easier to build without sphere fixing, or to spread spheres without the songs. Between heroes who are naturally multisphere, cards for spreading resources around, and general cost reduction effects, sphere fixing is just less essential.

That's how I see it, anyway.

The only Song that gets played with any frequency these days is Song of Wisdom so that you can play A Burning Brand on someone like Boromir or Beregond.

I play Song of Wisdom in all my Silvan decks (as in http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/2431/beyond-their-borders-solo-campaign-1.0), as the extra sphere gives access to another 3x return ally to hand card (and other tricks). It does depend on Nenya being able to do the same thing to give the deck decent consistency though.

There are a decent number of cards in the game that let us ignore sphere requirements, so I suppose they're not all that important to smoothing strategies.

I still like them, but it depends on the deck if I actually need them. Sometimes I make a monosphere trio of heroes who need a few helper cards from another sphere.

Songs used to be highly used during the Mirkwood Cycle when they were being released, and during the Dwarrowdelf cycle I think. They have largely fallen out of favor as a means for resource smoothing. A Good Harvest fills that roll, as do some of the sphere-granting artifacts (Sword that was Broken, Narya, Nenya), or the ability to move resources (Leadership Denethor hero, Errand-rider, Bifur hero). These days I occasionally use songs, especially now that Elfhelm is here, but generally I find myself frustrated that my deck can't spend money efficiently until I draw them. So like monkeyrama mentioned, I tend just to build decks that are more balanced in terms of resource requirements, rather then one that really needs to draw a song.

To add to what GrandSpleen said, song were better when the cardpool was smaller. My first few truly powerful decks were mono green (this was even before Spirit Glorfindel) song fetching decks that basically put all the best cards from every color into one deck. It seemed like that was the only way to make a good deck with limited options. Today you can run a mono color deck and have plenty of powerful cards. The need for grabbing power from off colors is not as pressing, so songs are not necessary.

Ask Seastan....

Funny, I remember when A Good Harvest came out, it was generally thought a weak card round here. I for one liked the design from the start though I hadn't (and still rarely) used it, although I am now fully aware of its effectiveness. The one resource the songs require make a difference.

However, there are other songs, and I find them super useful. O Lórien! and To the Sea! are super strong in Galadhrim and Noldor decks respectively. And Song of Eärendil is very nice in coop.

Funny, I remember when A Good Harvest came out, it was generally thought a weak card round here. I for one liked the design from the start though I hadn't (and still rarely) used it, although I am now fully aware of its effectiveness. The one resource the songs require make a difference.

It's not just the 1 resource that makes the difference, it's the resource smoothing aspect too. In fact it might even be the bigger deal.

Song of Kings + Steward:

Turn 1. Put song of Kings on Boromir using someone else's resources.

Turn 2. Us Boromir's 2 resources to play Stwear, and exhaust it. Boromir now has 2 resources and Steward.

A Good Harvest + Steward:

Turn 1. Play Steward on Boromir using the other 2 hero's resources and exhaust Steward.

Turn 2. Exhaust Steward again. Boromir now has 6 resources and Steward.

On paper it may look like a difference of 1 resource, but getting something out a turn earlier due to the smoothing aspect can be a huge deal.

Funny, I remember when A Good Harvest came out, it was generally thought a weak card round here. I for one liked the design from the start though I hadn't (and still rarely) used it, although I am now fully aware of its effectiveness. The one resource the songs require make a difference.

It's not just the 1 resource that makes the difference, it's the resource smoothing aspect too. In fact it might even be the bigger deal.

Song of Kings + Steward:

Turn 1. Put song of Kings on Boromir using someone else's resources.

Turn 2. Us Boromir's 2 resources to play Stwear, and exhaust it. Boromir now has 2 resources and Steward.

A Good Harvest + Steward:

Turn 1. Play Steward on Boromir using the other 2 hero's resources and exhaust Steward.

Turn 2. Exhaust Steward again. Boromir now has 6 resources and Steward.

On paper it may look like a difference of 1 resource, but getting something out a turn earlier due to the smoothing aspect can be a huge deal.

I think you missed a better play in the song variant (but you have a good argument for your play, ready to destroy me). You could have played:

Turn 1. Put song of kings on hero 2 using hero 3´s resource.

Turn 2. Use hero 2´s resources to play Steward on Boromir and exhaust the attachment. Boromir now has 4 resources and Steward.

Funny, I remember when A Good Harvest came out, it was generally thought a weak card round here. I for one liked the design from the start though I hadn't (and still rarely) used it, although I am now fully aware of its effectiveness. The one resource the songs require make a difference.

It's not just the 1 resource that makes the difference, it's the resource smoothing aspect too. In fact it might even be the bigger deal.

Song of Kings + Steward:

Turn 1. Put song of Kings on Boromir using someone else's resources.

Turn 2. Us Boromir's 2 resources to play Stwear, and exhaust it. Boromir now has 2 resources and Steward.

A Good Harvest + Steward:

Turn 1. Play Steward on Boromir using the other 2 hero's resources and exhaust Steward.

Turn 2. Exhaust Steward again. Boromir now has 6 resources and Steward.

On paper it may look like a difference of 1 resource, but getting something out a turn earlier due to the smoothing aspect can be a huge deal.

Of course, I just thought all this was kinda obvious, and didn't want to make the sentence longer. But it is worth to point out. A Good Harvest seems best in decks where it can be used at any time because you might have one resource too many on a hero, and at the same time you might have a card or two in the deck which can only be played via Harvest.

Sometimes, I play Good harvest without Stweard or Ressourcefull with a 2 or 3 speheres deck (without Leadership), just for the smoothing effect, and it can save your ass if you have it in hand at a crucial moment.

Good Harvest + Steward aside, I find there are better resource smoothers than songs. Bifur is awesome for lore and Errand Rider is obviously a good one. But my favorite is Envoy of Pelargir. Assuming you have Gondor/Noble, it allows you to smooth from any sphere(s) to another sphere, plus you get an ally that costs effectively 1 resource. Or simply including any neutral cards is effectively resource smoothing. If the neutral cards don't give me enough smoothing, then I need to rebalance the deck.

However, with Elfhelm it has been more tempting to add songs. Although every Elfhelm deck I've made so far, none of them have made the cut.

Yeah, Envoy comes back into my deck from time to time... such a cool card.

Funny, I remember when A Good Harvest came out, it was generally thought a weak card round here. I for one liked the design from the start though I hadn't (and still rarely) used it, although I am now fully aware of its effectiveness. The one resource the songs require make a difference.

It's not just the 1 resource that makes the difference, it's the resource smoothing aspect too. In fact it might even be the bigger deal.

Song of Kings + Steward:

Turn 1. Put song of Kings on Boromir using someone else's resources.

Turn 2. Us Boromir's 2 resources to play Stwear, and exhaust it. Boromir now has 2 resources and Steward.

A Good Harvest + Steward:

Turn 1. Play Steward on Boromir using the other 2 hero's resources and exhaust Steward.

Turn 2. Exhaust Steward again. Boromir now has 6 resources and Steward.

On paper it may look like a difference of 1 resource, but getting something out a turn earlier due to the smoothing aspect can be a huge deal.

I think you missed a better play in the song variant (but you have a good argument for your play, ready to destroy me). You could have played:

Turn 1. Put song of kings on hero 2 using hero 3´s resource.

Turn 2. Use hero 2´s resources to play Steward on Boromir and exhaust the attachment. Boromir now has 4 resources and Steward.

You're right, I missed a way to get more resources on Boromir in the song version (my reasoning is you often want the song and steward on the same character so they can pay for your other leadership cards). But regardless, in terms of total resources across all your heroes, you are still 3 behind, not just 1.

off point a bit, Envoy of Pelargir is a great card, indeed, but I never play her outside Gondor deck because she combos so great with Leadership Boromir (and Denethor now), her smoothing is very, very useful in many a deck, though

off point a bit, Envoy of Pelargir is a great card, indeed, but I never play her outside Gondor deck because she combos so great with Leadership Boromir (and Denethor now), her smoothing is very, very useful in many a deck, though

Yeah, and she always looks good in her barrel.

off point a bit, Envoy of Pelargir is a great card, indeed, but I never play her outside Gondor deck because she combos so great with Leadership Boromir (and Denethor now), her smoothing is very, very useful in many a deck, though

And is a great chumpblocker for every deck because she doesn't need a resource match!

I am not that far into the card pools (I've just recently bought The Blood of Gondor, and I haven't got any saga expansion so far yet), and I have more or less completly stopped using songs when Bifur / Narvi's Belt was released with Khazad-Dum. Yet my decks where loaded with songs during the Shadows of Mirkwood cycles! I"ve tried to to use the Song of Wisdom / A Burning Brain combo, but I find it too slow to put into actions. It works well with older quest, when you can really turtle your way out of the scenarios, but that kind of play style is almost impossible (for me!) since Heirs of Numenor.

A Burning Brain

A Burning Brain

I do so wish that wasn't a typo.

Sorry to disapoint