I own the first two cycles minus Emyn Muil, the first two packs of the third cycle, the 2 hobbit and 2 FotR sagas. I haven't bought any new products in almost a year.

Here are my problems with the game that used to be my alltime favorite game (I play two player by the way):

1. Deckbuilding has gotten stale. Most LCGs have such a wide variety of deck styles that you can play. Lord of the rings it seems to me only has 3. Strong decks, sub-optimal decks, and trait-based decks. And that's boring. You don't build decks to do something (such as control, burn, aggro, stall, swarm, etc.), you build decks to do everything. Given my two spheres, I know exactly what the deck will look like every time. The only thing that changes are the heroes between decks, and maybe running Elf-stone over Expert Treasure-Hunter or something.

1.5. Deckbuilding takes too d*** long when you have a ton of cards, especially since there are so many auto-includes that every deck ends up at like 70 cards, forcing me to spend time cutting down the deck.

2. You know whether or not you will win or lose by turn 2 90% of the time. I am sick and tired of either knowing that I will cruise through the scenario easy or having to restart ten minutes in.

3. The long campaign is made bad by a ridiculously hard first scenario. That first scenario in Black Riders is so annoying, so hard, and has so many insta-lose cards in it if drawn early enough.

4. Did I mention I hate insta-losing? Like when you draw the exact worst possible draw on turn one. IT HAPPENS PRACTICALLY EVERY TIME.

Do you have any suggestions for helping me find what I initially loved in this game again?

1. Deckbuilding has gotten stale? Buy more packs. Also, you mentioned you need to build decks that do everything. The solutation to this would be a mutliplayer. I'm not sure how are you still building decks that must do everything in duo, but the more players are in the game, the more specialized decks you'll be able to build.

1.5. The price we pay.

2. Pick quests with twists, like the one that has Sleeping Sentry in it. They'll keep you on your toes.

3. I had constructed a deck that beats first scenario no sweat asked. It's just this deck is horribad against any other scenario

4. Didn't you just said you're tired of knowing that you will cruise through the scenario easy, and then you complain that there is stuff that makes you not know that you will cruise through the scenario? You're a hard man to please.

My suggestion is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEmxJoBLKws

Jokes aside, you sound like you are seriously burned out on a game. Try giving it some time and playing something else instead, or try to radically change the way you play. Build some fun (drop the meta stuff, build something your heart truly desires) deck and tackle a quest you usually consider to be an easy one, you'll be surprised how fun this game can become when you get out of the min-maxer mindset.

Disclaimer: I don't think anyone can make the game fun for you again, if you couldn't figure out a way for yourself. I still want to address some of your points.

1. Deckbuilding, by no means is stale and your comaparsion of the possible decks in lotr is done in the wrong way. First of all there are Strong decks and sub-optimal decks in EVERY deckbuilding-game. The advantage here even goes to LOTR as this a cooperative game so you can get away with sub-optimal decks, because the other players aren't there to smash your hopes and dreams. Your Dunhere-staging area attack deck can work without being a power deck by any means if you play a quest the deck suites and/or get help from your teammates. If you want to have a deck to rule them all, you obviously need a jack of all trades power deck, that pretty much covers all relevant aspects of the game. For example I beat nightmare conflict at the Carrock with the mentioned Dunhere deck and it was incredible fun. Most NM quests will destroy the deck, but there it could work.
It is true that there aren't control, burn etc. decks in this game, because there is no opppnent to be brought down to zero hitpoints or a race to collect victoryy points. Our "archetypes" most of the times take mechanics and build a deck around it. This can be in form of a trait like dwarfs or Silvans (and there are TONS of variations of these archetypes), things like direct damage (e.g. with Thalin, Gondorian spear men...) or maybe only one hero (like Boromir or Treebeard). A few month ago I wanted to build a deck focused around treebeard, who should be the star of the questing and combat-show and it is my favourite deck since then and I bring it out for every new quest. If I told you I play a leadership, spirit, lore deck you probably wouldn't even get my heroes right and just running your so called "auto includes" really doesn't offer all the deck needs. Wanna try? I have a double tactics, leadership deck, how does it look?
Sure there are many good cards and stuff like a test of will is just hard to beat, but again this goes for any card game or do you know one which doesn't feature cards that make it into most decks?
Your deck doesn't need to do everything, but of course you have to cover most aspects of the game. If you can't handle questing or combat (or a quest-specific obstacle) you are ment to loose. Not bringing shadow cancellation for example is something you can get away with.

To sum it up: Deckbuilding depends on the quest you are playing and/or the mechanics you want it to focus on. And there are tons of decks you can build. How else could people create all the different decks you can find on e.g. ringsdb?

1.5. Of course does it take some time to build a somewhat useful deck Do you just wanna sit down 5 minutes and throw 50 cards together? Having hundreds or thousands of possible cards can be a challenge (again just like any other deckbuilding game...), but thats what sites like ringsdb are for. I understand you might don't want to sit infront of a computer for deck-building, but in this case you just have to sort through your cards. Cutting a deck down to 50 can be a challenge and AGAIN it's something I personally encounter in every deckbuilding game. These are just points that seem to be problem for you in general and aren't LOTR LCG specific in any way as there just aren't that many cards you HAVE to play to be successful...

2. I don't want to say you can't loose by turn two or be save to loose in a few turns and therefore surrender, BUT this just isn't the case in 90% of the times... Overcoming the set-up is a wanted challenge. Not being able to handle early threats (like a hill troll) and loosing therefore is wanted. Once you managed to stablise it might seem like the game is over, and you are in a good postion for sure, but go ahead and ask people on these forum. All will have stories how they lost games mid quest or in sights of sure victory. Much more stories than the ones of a bad set-up-loss. Or stories how they still won with a bad start. About all quests have cards and effects that confront you with unexpected problems you mostly won't see coming. Also the earlier quests are just a little worse design-wise. Got that trap for the hill-troll? If not for the second you should make it. Were able to prepare for the trolls in Carrock? Victory should be yours. But were you prepared for the early arrival of the Balrog in Journey in the dark? Having a hero go mad during breaking of the fellowship? And believe me you might be hopeful to win the battle of carn dum, but you fear the worst until you actually did it.

3. It's getting a little silly now. The quest, while not easy, is FAR from being "ridiculously hard". It has a mechanic you have to respect. If you build your deck wisely and take that into account (stale deckbuilding, huh?) it is very doable. There aren't really "insta-loose" cards in this quest, though an early dark rider can surely cause problems. But thats just like your opponent having a good combo early. Him getting it early simply happens.

4. Wasn't sure if I should say something about that. Yes there are cards that can make you flip the table. And the earlier cycles had more of them. But saying it practically happens every time is just madness. There even are just a few quests with these kinds of effects... And as John mentioned this point contradicts your second point

I agree with John, that there doesn't seem to be a way the game could please you at the moment especially when you loved the game in the beginning (it changed; but don't THAT much). Move on and check back later. I didn't invest into the game after getting the core set for some months. I really liked the game, but couldn't bring myself to play. And now I get most stuff as close to release as possible and write forum post about misconceptions I think someone might have about the game

I'm curious, how recently did you start Heirs of Numenor? You didn't mention it as a pain point, but I know that when my partner and I reached Heirs of Numenor we actually quit the game for a few months because we were so frustrated with those quests. They required a different sort of deck that we didn't enjoy playing, and we banged our heads against that wall long enough that it stopped being fun.

You might consider picking up one of the more recent deluxe boxes to see if it's just the point in the meta you're stuck in right now. I think both The Grey Havens and Sands of Harad represent some of the best this game has to offer when it comes to interesting and varied quests with minimal buy-in.

But John has a point, too--it sounds like you might be burned out. Maybe put the game down for a little while and come back to it later.

i'm unsure if the deckbuilding problem is solvable since you think it has gone stale while simultaneously seem overwhelmed by the amount of options you have with your expanding card pool

do you organise your cards at all?

as for the questing, you seem to have the same problems. i'd just take a break for a second and think of what you liked about the game and try to focus on that. give us some examples, and we can probably better help you.

i would say that the latest cycles (which you don't seem to own) have been some of the best questing experiences i've had, and i own everything. my only suggestion, if not just putting the game down forever, would be to just give one of the latest box expansions a try: The Lost Realm, The Grey Havens, or The Sands of Harad

Do this : buy a few Magic decks, play Magic for 2 or 3 months, as much as you can. Then, one day, instead of starting a game of Magic, open your LOTR LCG boxes, randomly pick a quest, build a deck...

... and see the light.

My two cents:

1 -- yes, you could classify all decks as "strong", "sub-optimal" and "trait". You could even drop the "trait" part and describe all decks as either "strong" or "sub-optimal" -- because obviously sub-optimal decks could be strong, if they weren't sub-optimal. But "strong" and "sub-optimal" doesn't say anything about the contents of the deck. I've constructed 14 fellowships (11 published) featuring Dori, widely considered one of the worst heroes in the game. I don't think he is; but I could make most of those fellowships stronger by substituting Beregond for Dori and changing a handful of cards. But that in itself doesn't say anything about the way it plays. And despite these fellowships being theoretically "sub-optimal" it's been strong enough to beat almost every quest in normal mode, though not always the first try.

A trait-based, or tribal deck is certainly a common deck archetype. But Silvan decks don't play anything like Dwarf decks, nor does Rohan play like Dunedain. There's also plenty of archetypes that aren't tribal, such as Caldara or Super Boromir, or Three Rings decks.

If all your decks have the same contents no matter what the heroes, you either need more cards or more deck ideas. Spend some time browsing ringsdb.com.

1A -- if all your decks are the same except for the heroes, I have no idea why it would take so long. If you have so many "auto-includes" that you start at 70 and hate to cut down to 50 -- don't cut down to 50. Yes, this will make your deck "sub-optimal". It'll also give you greater variety in play than a 50-card deck that you've decided needs a great many "auto-include". Since you don't like the sameness of the decks, this would be the easiest and quickest way to add variety to your quests -- and by using the cards you're now routinely cutting, maybe you'll decide some of those "auto-includes" aren't as necessary as you think.

2 -- Knowing you'll win or lose by turn two 90% of the time seems high to me. By turn two 90% of the time I *think* I'll probably win or lose, depending on whether I think I'm losing ground or gaining on the quest -- but sometimes I think I'm winning and I lose, and sometimes I think I'm losing and I pull it out. And very often I at least make it interesting for a while.

Rarely there's a quick scoop -- I laugh those off and reshuffle, because I invested little time in the game. Rarely it's an easy cruise from start to finish -- I don't mind those so much and bask in the glory of my deck construction. There's enough brutal quests that the occasional easy win doesn't bother me much -- perhaps if I built better decks I'd feel differently and start buying Nightmare packs.

3 -- I've not thought of the first quest of TBR as ridiculously brutal. I've beaten it one-handed with two different decks and two-handed with two different decks without having to resort to easy mode -- though I did have more cards than you when I first went against it. I don't consider any of the cards to be "auto-lose". If it's particularly tough to you, though, did you try easy mode?

4 -- I hate insta-lose cards, and by those I mean cards like "Sleeping Sentry", that you either cancel or die (in Sleeping Sentry's case whether it comes up as treachery or shadow). I also detest "Power of Mordor", where the only hope for the non-monosphere deck is cancellation or shadow.

But the card that is only insta-lose when it comes up in setup doesn't bother me much, because it's such a quick game I can just reshuffle and go again. One of my most powerful fellowships was laid low by Old Wives Tale in setup -- but it only took five minutes to lose, so what. if it happened practically every time it'd be annoying, but I still remember it precisely because it was rare. There aren't that many quests that have what I consider to be instant-lose cards for most board states; none that I can think of in the past several cycles. (Even mighty Carn Dum doesn't have any cards I remember as being individually terrible -- at least by comparison, they're all terrible. I'm not including nightmare decks here, every time I look at nightmare cards I think they're full of "insta-lose" cards for my decks.

Here's my quick recommendation to find the passion you've lost -- don't cut your 70 card deck down and play TBR on easy mode. More variety, less deckbuilding time, less insta-lose.

12 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

I also detest "Power of Mordor", where the only hope for the non-monosphere deck is cancellation or shadow.

I think you mixed this one up with Master's Malice as Power of Mordor can't be canceled and isn't hating on multi-sphere decks. Both can be game ending anyway though and seeing them as a shadow card is always relieving

26 minutes ago, Calvadur said:

I think you mixed this one up with Master's Malice as Power of Mordor can't be canceled and isn't hating on multi-sphere decks. Both can be game ending anyway though and seeing them as a shadow card is always relieving

Yes, I mixed them up. I hate Master's Malice way more than Power of Mordor, though I hate Power of Mordor too. It's one thing to be obnoxious (love the extra two cards from Power of Mordor from cards they "replace" that don't go away in Morgul Vale), it's another thing to be obnoxious *and* immune to cancellation.

Sounds like you have a bit of burn out, and its a lot about mindset when you play i think.

I have never seen a problem with instant loss, i mean if you get such a bad draw early on then simply put it back and reshuffle and restart - i cant see why that would be such an issue, its a easy moment to restart as you have not invested any time into the quest at that point. Ultimately the game requires you to play and re-try that is how it is designed really.

Deckbuilding may take ages if you try and build a perfect deck for each scenario in advance. Most of the fun i personally find is to pick a support deck theme, elf, rohan, dwarf, hobbit or secrecy or and build a quick deck around it. Then play a game and see how you do, work out what you are missing and switch a few cards around, that way you are playing and re-building and playing again without too much downtime. Just because you know you have some top auto pick cards does not mean you have to always use them - work out a new combination when you have quite a lot of cards.

I play and enjoy solo with one deck which may be worth a try if you are bored two handed. I havent got bored yet although Voice of Isengard and Ringmaker cycle tested this as i found that particular cycle frustrating at times (i hated the time mechanic), but things improved with Lost Realm and now Sands of Harad. I have not got Numenor yet, and didnt rate the hobbit boxes among the best either so maybe you need to move onto one of the later cycles and see how quests are now.

Yeah, so anyway I kind of figured something out, I'm a little embarrassed now. Looking through the records I discovered is that for something like the past 10-15 or so games my brother (my main lotr partner in crime) has taken leadership and tactics (he is usually the one who dictates what we play when it comes to lotr), leaving me with spirit and lore. So I forced him into letting me take leadership-spirit and OMFG it was so much better. So yeah, simple solution really. That kind of solved the whole deckbuilding thing for me. Actually play with the cardpool lol.

Also another problem we haven't played Dwarrodelf Cycle in ages and I really liked the design of that cycle, even if it was a bit easy outside of maybe Foundations of Stone.

Yes, that doesn't solve the insta-lose problem, but you know you can't solve every problem in a game, every game has flaws, some more than others (cough Game of Thrones cough).

So yeah, I am a certified idiot. Feel free to scratch your head and wonder why the heck I didn't think of this before.

*scratches his head*

19 hours ago, Supertoe said:

[...] (he is usually the one who dictates what we play when it comes to lotr)[...]

I think your problem isn't with LotR cadgame but it's about let your brother decided how to play it. If you didn't fix that you will probably feel the game boring again

On 5/7/2017 at 3:11 PM, Authraw said:

I'm curious, how recently did you start Heirs of Numenor? You didn't mention it as a pain point, but I know that when my partner and I reached Heirs of Numenor we actually quit the game for a few months because we were so frustrated with those quests.

I actually still haven't beaten many of the quests in that cycle. We just moved on.

As for the epiphany that Supertoe just had, the game can also get a bit stale if you min/max your two decks out to be extremely specialized. I often play 2 player, and we typically do a dedicated quest deck (typically full spirit, or spirit/lore) and a dedicated combat deck (typically pure tactics) and while we do generally do really well, the game gets split into two phases for each of us. Planning and then the phase that matters to us, such as - the quest deck only cares about the Planning Phase and Questing. The combat deck only cares about Planning and Combat phases. So the other player is generally bored/un-engaged while those phases are happening.

That's why I prefer to play decks that can handle your own, at least to some extent, during any phase - so you can participate regardless. A really superb option for this is to split the new Legolas and Gimli heroes between you. That automatically gets you both engaged in questing and combat.

As for deck building in generally - I really like that there are so many valid/playable cards that it means there are hard choices to make. If there weren't so many great cards, the decks really would be stale. Kind of like imagining core-set only decks. You were forced to include really inefficient cards (compared to what's been released after) so having too many options is way more appealing than having none at all.

Anyways, like you have noticed, playing different cards/heroes/spheres can make a huge difference on your game. Experiment with all of them. Even mono-sphere. Tri-sphere is also a lot of fun if you have the right cards for it.

and yea, Insta-lose is garbage. However, most of those do come from treachery cards. You could be better prepared for them by including Eleanor as one of your heroes. Or have both players use Spirit and include A Test of Will. Shadow cards can also be an issue - so be prepared for them also with one of the many ways of dealing with them - Balin, Burning Brand and Armored Destrier are some of my personal favorites.

Finally - I think Leadership/Spirit is one of my favorite duel-sphere decks to make, especially early on. Aragorn is a strong hero who has stats (and an ability) to let him be useful in any phase/role, but once you start getting his attachments on him (Celeborain's Stone, Sword that was Broken) everything falls into place and is really satisfying. Aragorn (Le), Prince Imrahil (Le) and Eowyn (s) is very good at dealing with anything. This deck does end up doing questing a bit better than combat, I'd recommend pairing it with a deck that can handle combat more than it can questing. Looking at what you have available - I really like the idea of Beregond (T), Legolas (T) and Glorfindel (S). That gives both players a LOT to work with for every aspect of the game, and with the sentinel/ranged, it lets you help either other out considerably. Rivendell Bow will give ranged to Aragorn and Glorfindel.

18 hours ago, John Constantine said:

*scratches his head*

There we go. Rub it in.