I find it so interesting that people hate The Nin-in-Eilph so much. I've always thought it was one of the better quests.

I'm not surprised at all. It's got quest stages that wipe your progress every couple rounds. That's a recipe for hatred, with Nalir as the cherry on top.

I think quests that focus only on the elements, like Nin-in-Eilph or the Old Forest, will score pretty low. If there's only 5 Enemies in a 40-card encounter deck, people are only going to get bored or location-locked. Those quests, while thematic, aren't a good experience.

I think they are fun. Mindlessly slaying orcs is fun on occasion, but that also gets boring and is usually pretty easy to deal with. There are only so many location quests which are a nice change of pace. The real reason I like The Nin-in-Eilph is because of the quest stage variability, though. Making a deck that is consistently good against it when you don't know what the first quest stage will be is a different kind of challenge, especially since 2/3 of the stage 2s are particularly punishing.

Shadow and Flame vs The Battle of Five Armies

Shadow and Flame is one of my favorite 'boss' quests, but TBOFA is super solid all-around, well balanced in all aspects.

The Three Trials vs Journey in the Dark

I've managed to complete JitD without even making the Balrog appear. In TTT it's impossible to avoid the bosses, and I'd rather prefer this; a healthy-difficult quest right from the go.

Intruders in Chetwood vs Helm's Deep

Helm's Deep is super innovative and all that, but Intruders in Chetwood has a charming simplicity that makes it one of my favorite quests to replay and test decks.

A Journey to Rhosgobel vs Escape from Mount Gram

I love both. Yeah I'm one of those people who actually like AJtR. A good scrying deck works well against this quest, and that's why I like it, because I think it gives emphasis to one of the most ignored aspects when deck-building: scrying.

Into Ithilien vs Flies and Spiders

This was a no-brainer. Into Ithilien is (maybe) my all-time favorite quest, meanwhile I dislike with a passion quests that have in-built mechanics (venom in this case) that make you discard cards (either from your hand or from your deck)

Into Ithilien vs Flies and Spiders

This was a no-brainer. Into Ithilien is (maybe) my all-time favorite quest, meanwhile I dislike with a passion quests that have in-built mechanics (venom in this case) that make you discard cards (either from your hand or from your deck)

I would agree with every part of this statement - not only is Into Ithilien an awesome quest (though immensely frustrating at the time it was released), but quests that screw with your basic economy (cards & resources) are exceptionally annoying.

Round 3 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

Cool championship. It makes me wish I had played more quests so that there would be more matches where I can cast a vote.

Round 4 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

Nin-in-Eilph vs. Old Forest. Can I vote neither?

And man, Foundations of Stone lost barely last round. Bummer for its standings!

Dungeons Deep and Caverns Dim vs The Dead Marshes

I've realized and arrived to the conclusion that DDaCD is the quest I like the least amongst all quests I've ever played... the riddle mechanic is disgusting.

Helm's Deep vs Journey in the Dark

Helm's Deep is good, yet overrated. Too many locations for my taste I guess.

Flight to the Ford vs Escape from Dol Guldur

For some reason this was the hardest choice for me this round... FttF is pretty good, but EfDG has that maniac-addictive difficulty level that makes you want to play it over and over again, despite failing over 95% of the time...

How are you determining the matchups in the Swiss rounds? Are they predetermined or affected by previous rounds? I'd hate to see Helm's Deep absolutely clobber all 7 opponents simply on the basis of being assigned far weaker quests to challenge.

How are you determining the matchups in the Swiss rounds? Are they predetermined or affected by previous rounds? I'd hate to see Helm's Deep absolutely clobber all 7 opponents simply on the basis of being assigned far weaker quests to challenge.

How are you determining the matchups in the Swiss rounds? Are they predetermined or affected by previous rounds? I'd hate to see Helm's Deep absolutely clobber all 7 opponents simply on the basis of being assigned far weaker quests to challenge.

The matchups are determined automatically by the website based on number of wins. You'll see right now that Helm's Deep is matched up against Journey in the Dark, another quest with a 3-0 record.

Also, the Swiss is just the first stage of the tournament to determine the top 16. Then it will become a traditional single-elimination tournament with the Swiss rankings determining the seeding.

I'm very happy to see Murder at the Prancing Pony taking a top spot in this contest. Love this quest, never gets old and was a blast to play at the Fellowship-Event!

Let's see what happened! The challenge begins!!

Round 5 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

wow the dead marshes managed to win a match-up Really didn't expect that. Even though Dungeons Deep [...] isn't a awesome quest either, I would have expected a win because it is more challenging

Round 5 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

It's ON! Murder at the Prancing Pony and Helm's Deep (my favorites for No. 1 and No. 2 spot at the end of this Championship) are in a head to head fight as well as Stewards Fear vs Battle of Pelenor Fields. Will be interesting to see who will keep his clean record.

Round 5 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

It's ON! Murder at the Prancing Pony and Helm's Deep (my favorites for No. 1 and No. 2 spot at the end of this Championship) are in a head to head fight as well as Stewards Fear vs Battle of Pelenor Fields. Will be interesting to see who will keep his clean record.

I suppose I can understand why people like Murder at the Prancing Pony because of the theme right? I was actually pretty disappointed with this quest. When it was being previewed the developers kept saying they wanted to create a scenario that was going to have variety and to do that they created the different suspects and hideouts. However, after playing it more than a few times, it actually feels so similar every time I play it. The main reason for this is because the beginning is no different, and in my opinion, it is the main threat that the scenario throws at you. Once you've gotten past the beginning, the bosses and hideouts don't seem to change the difficulty much even if some are slightly more challenging to deal with. I guess my expectations were too high for this quest, but I personally feel the quest fell flat at performing its intended objective of providing variety so perhaps I judge it too harshly.

I cant help but be a little sad seeing the Mirkwood quests getting destroyed. I had such good times with those quests years ago (still do) and they have a lot of good memories in them, after all it was the first fresh new content after the core which was incredibly exciting at the time.

Round 5 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

It's ON! Murder at the Prancing Pony and Helm's Deep (my favorites for No. 1 and No. 2 spot at the end of this Championship) are in a head to head fight as well as Stewards Fear vs Battle of Pelenor Fields. Will be interesting to see who will keep his clean record.

I suppose I can understand why people like Murder at the Prancing Pony because of the theme right? I was actually pretty disappointed with this quest. When it was being previewed the developers kept saying they wanted to create a scenario that was going to have variety and to do that they created the different suspects and hideouts. However, after playing it more than a few times, it actually feels so similar every time I play it. The main reason for this is because the beginning is no different, and in my opinion, it is the main threat that the scenario throws at you. Once you've gotten past the beginning, the bosses and hideouts don't seem to change the difficulty much even if some are slightly more challenging to deal with. I guess my expectations were too high for this quest, but I personally feel the quest fell flat at performing its intended objective of providing variety so perhaps I judge it too harshly.

I'm not a big fan of Prancing Pony either. I've only played it once admittedly so don't have much experience but yeah its not anywhere near as good as other POD quests and I think its highly overrated as well, everyone seems to absolutely love it.

I have voted against Prancing Pony in every matchup so far I'm pretty sure

I cant help but be a little sad seeing the Mirkwood quests getting destroyed. I had such good times with those quests years ago (still do) and they have a lot of good memories in them, after all it was the first fresh new content after the core which was incredibly exciting at the time.

I've voted for Return to Mirkwood, Conflict and Passage during a few rounds and have voted for Journey Along the Anduin every round thus far, are they really getting that crushed? (I know some of these are core and not mirkwood) I need to have another look at the results and rankings thus far.

I have to admit that quests like Rhosgobel, Dead Marshes and Hunt for Gollum deserve to be at the bottom though, compared to everything else we now have they are extremely boring and subpar.

I completely forgot about The Treachery of Rhudaur until this competition put it back on the map for me. We must have beat it on our first try and then never pulled it back out of the box, because I really don't remember it at all. (I blame getting kicked in the head by Carn Dum around the same time). I'll have to go back and try it again to see what all the fuss is about.

It looks really fun, actually.

Round 5 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

It's ON! Murder at the Prancing Pony and Helm's Deep (my favorites for No. 1 and No. 2 spot at the end of this Championship) are in a head to head fight as well as Stewards Fear vs Battle of Pelenor Fields. Will be interesting to see who will keep his clean record.

I suppose I can understand why people like Murder at the Prancing Pony because of the theme right? I was actually pretty disappointed with this quest. When it was being previewed the developers kept saying they wanted to create a scenario that was going to have variety and to do that they created the different suspects and hideouts. However, after playing it more than a few times, it actually feels so similar every time I play it. The main reason for this is because the beginning is no different, and in my opinion, it is the main threat that the scenario throws at you. Once you've gotten past the beginning, the bosses and hideouts don't seem to change the difficulty much even if some are slightly more challenging to deal with. I guess my expectations were too high for this quest, but I personally feel the quest fell flat at performing its intended objective of providing variety so perhaps I judge it too harshly.

That's a fair point. I've been voting for Murder at the Prancing Pony most of the way here, but I have actually only played it a few times. (To be fair, most quests only get played a few times, so that's not really a knock against it).

I'll have to go back and play it again and see if it's still as good as I remember it being.

Looking over the results so far, it looks like the top quests kind of fall into one of two categories:

1) Quests with elements that make each play a little different, like branching quest paths or randomly selected boss enemies

2) Epic battles from the books

It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues.

Round 6 has begun! http://challonge.com/lotrquest2016

For discussion: based on the ranking so far, what is the most surprising result to you?

I guess I am surprised to see Into Ithilien up at 16. Although I really like that quest, I thought it was despised for its difficulty. I guess it has aged well in the growing card pool.

A Journey to Rhosgobel. I knew it was a polarizing quest, but I still expected some victories...

For discussion: based on the ranking so far, what is the most surprising result to you?

I guess I am surprised to see Into Ithilien up at 16. Although I really like that quest, I thought it was despised for its difficulty. I guess it has aged well in the growing card pool.

I played Into Ithilian right at its release, and I never understood the fuss. It seemed like a 4 difficulty to me. Same with Cair Andros. All you needed was a Tactics, leadership deck to quest the battle and seige, and then fight. I got 11 wins straight in Cair Andros before I just stopped, and Into Ithilian wasnt much harder. What difficulties were you guys facing?

For discussion: based on the ranking so far, what is the most surprising result to you?

I guess I am surprised to see Into Ithilien up at 16. Although I really like that quest, I thought it was despised for its difficulty. I guess it has aged well in the growing card pool.

Apart from the before mentioned win from the dead marshes, it is the 70th place for battle of lake-town. It is so unique in that you really only have ONE enemy and a very nice challenge.