I play Lord of the Rings LCG since 2011, so I have a little experience on this wonderful game.

56 minutes ago, Emilius said:

STEWARD OF GONDOR

Gondor. Title.

Attach to a hero. Attached hero gains the Gondor trait.

Action : Exhaust Steward of Gondor to add 1 resource to attached hero's resource pool.

No longer worth playing at all. What about making it 2 resources if they have the printed Gondor trait? Or just attaching to a Gondor Hero, forcing another hoop to jump through?

57 minutes ago, Emilius said:

WARDEN OF HEALING

Gondor. Healer.

Action : Exhaust Warden of Healing to heal 1 damage to a character . Then, you may pay 2 Lore resources to ready Warden of Healing.

I would also change to 1 Lore resource for readying.

57 minutes ago, Emilius said:

BOROMIR

Gondor. Noble. Warrior.

Action : Raise your threat by 1 to ready Boromir (Limit once per round) .

Action : Discard Boromir to deal 2 damage to each enemy engaged with a single player.

Not worth playing. Consider changing to once per phase instead of per round.

2 hours ago, Kakita Shiro said:

No longer worth playing at all. What about making it 2 resources if they have the printed Gondor trait? Or just attaching to a Gondor Hero, forcing another hoop to jump through?

I would also change to 1 Lore resource for readying.

Not worth playing. Consider changing to once per phase instead of per round.

1 - I don't think it would be worthless. Resourceful costs four dollars and only gives you one more resource each round, and this card could be a cheaper, unique alternative if you were using Leadership. Gandalf's Staff also costs two dollars and gives you only one resource. It has more versatility, but that's because it's Gandalf's Staff.

2 - If it is only one damage healed each time now, then yeah, I'd agree that 1 resource would be appropriate. Basically just Lore Glorfindel at that point. But I would probably just prefer to keep him the way he is and put a limit on the number of times he can do it, like limit twice per round or something.

3 - Definitely not worthless. Only a few of the existing heroes have built in readying effects, most of them already limited to once per round or limited to a certain phase in the game where you'll really only get one use out of the effect (Idraen comes to mind), and he's the only hero tied to threat for his readying. I think it would be a simple way to limit his potential for overpowered-ness. But then again, I quite enjoy watching Boromir slaughter everything just the way he is .

4 hours ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Not worth playing. Consider changing to once per phase instead of per round.

I always wondered why Boromir got away with no limits while Prince Imrahil's response (which requires more work to trigger) was limited once per turn.

I like the change to Steward. The card should've been like that from the start.

As for the Warden, I agree as well. But maybe also have it cost 1 Lore to ready him instead of 2.

3: hmm... maybe limit 3 per round instead? 1 is too little IMO.

Steward of Gondor should still be interesting because he represent particularity of his sphere. It could be:

Cost: 1 - Steward of Gondor - Gondor. Title - Action: Exhaust Steward of Gondor to add 1 resource (2 resources if attached hero is gondor) to attached hero's resource pool.

or:

Cost: 2 - Steward of Gondor - Gondor. Title - Steward of Gondor comes into play exhausted. Action : Exhaust Steward of Gondor to add 1 resource to attached hero's resource pool.

About Boromir only one per turn make him very weak compare to his actual powerful. It is may be the best change but I prefer try with a limit one per phase (so it can be use for small things in addition like go in quest for 1 or exhaust for some effects) or two per turn.

After that I think the more problematic cards are the following:

Gandalf hero, who need to be limited to one per turn, not only one per phase, because of the high number of cool event with small cost

A test of will who must cost 2 resources

Daeron's rune who must discard 2 cards, or cost 1, or need any set up to be played (a dwarf?). Actually it is a card who create Card Quality without drawback.

We are not idle. Because it can be played just for cycling it break the 50 cards limit construction. And it still very interesting in combo/dwarf deck. May be not as problematic as the others cards but still not be act this way to my opinion.

Legacy of numenor. In multiplayer table it could be absolutely insane to all gain one (or two) turn for resource gain. It is more powerful than steward of Gondor in multiplayer when you build thinking about doomed cards. It should give less resources.

Aragorn II (lore) should not be allowed to be used once for each player with desperate alliance. It is a glitch.

TL;DR: I think all 3 are fine as steward is unique, warden just on the level a healing card should have with defined weaknesses and Boromir profits from the attachment powercreep.

1) Steward is balanced by the fact that it is unique. Yeah a ton of people play solo, but it is a lot less impressive in multiplayer, even with only two players.

2) Warden is the healing card we deserved for so long. All healing options from the core-set are at least over-costed. Warden solves this and set the bar for all healing cards. Even today he isn't really outclassed, but he has his weaknesses: His stats most of the time are completly wasted and he dies fast. Especially in quests with "all allies, all exhausted characters" kind of treacheries his only hit point can be his downfall. Since direct damage through archery and treachery cards (I had games where I had to place like 12 damage among my characters) got much worse since the core set (necromancer's reach can be a travel or even forced effect these days) he really doesn't need a nerf. Healing overall is in a good spot right now I would say, most spheres have there way of dealing with (direct) damage (naturally lore the most)

3) Boromir is fine. The attachments he can get are the insane part. A card like Gondorian shield or gondorian fire is just incredibly powerful more or less independant which hero has them. Yeah Boromir might be one of the best candidates, but again I don't see that needing a nerf. I mean great, you can grap Seastan's Boromir deck, set him up and slaughter quest after quest. And that's fun. For a while. Than you get bored and move on. Boromir isn't an auto include in a dack with tactics, nor does he limit deck-building space as this game literally has no competative play. Also why is Boromir allowed, while leadership Imrahil has to do hard work for his only readying? Because FFG releases stronger and weaker heroes. Stuff like Spirit Pippin is just so weak.
If you want to nerf something nerf something like Gondorian shield. As soon as you have a defender who could (somehow) be Gondor and have a way playing tactics it is auto included.

You might notice I dislike all of your proposed changes. Tha's because I actually dislike most of the (player) card changes FFG does. They nerved love of tales. Why? Because it wasn't in line with other 0 cost attachments. In a world where blood of Numenor can make Eleanor into an unkillable defender that's jsut laughable. Sure you could run tons of songs and set up someone with ressources and fire&blood. But again, who did it harm? Nobody! Why would I complain about a stranger cleaning up anduin with his song deck?

7 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

After that I think the more problematic cards are the following:

Gandalf hero, who need to be limited to one per turn, not only one per phase, because of the high number of cool event with small cost

A test of will who must cost 2 resources

Daeron's rune who must discard 2 cards, or cost 1, or need any set up to be played (a dwarf?). Actually it is a card who create Card Quality without drawback.

We are not idle. Because it can be played just for cycling it break the 50 cards limit construction. And it still very interesting in combo/dwarf deck. May be not as problematic as the others cards but still not be act this way to my opinion.

Legacy of numenor. In multiplayer table it could be absolutely insane to all gain one (or two) turn for resource gain. It is more powerful than steward of Gondor in multiplayer when you build thinking about doomed cards. It should give less resources.

Aragorn II (lore) should not be allowed to be used once for each player with desperate alliance. It is a glitch.

- So Gandalf should be limited to play only one card per turn? Obviously don't know your deck, but I usually get stuck with a card that's just useless during the actual phase.
- Test of will 2 cost? So I have to keep 2 spirit ressources available at all times? Are you mad, it's hard to even keep one as that delays your allies (outside of mono-spirit) by a ton
- Daeron's draws you (effectively) 1 card. Sure good card as you can discard unique doubles you might already have, but nerfing that? Be happy you have this nice way of card draw...
- I rarely see we are not idle and when I do it get's comboed with lure of moria. Literally never have seen it being run for the cycle as deck space is very thin these days and there are better draw options. Also cutting from 50 to 47 doesn't change the propabilities by that much...
Don't play that much multiplayer so not sure if legacy and Aragorn are overpowered, but personally I doubt it.

If your point is: "Game is made like this, deal with it." you are going to the wrong subject. Of course we can play with cards on the way they are written, and we can not playing them. But for the game balance it would be perfect if a lot of decks are in the same efficacy level range, and so most scenario where challenging for them. For now we have a lot of cards who are a lot more powerful so we will too often play them in order to have a better deck. And this make FFG build really insane scenario (solo escape from dol guldur nightmare) because some deck have a 99% of win against all scenario except two or three.

1) Of course steward of Gondor is unique. Try to think about what is the best option to produce resource each turn. A lot are unique (gandalf staff, ô lorien) and produce only one resource with complicated set-up (specific trait). Resourceful is one of the few one who are not unique but you need secrecy (pretty hard), don't give you resource on the turn you play it and produce only one each turn. So there is many secrecy decks were I play steward of gondor instead of resourceful.

2) Again game is forced to be designed around warden of healing. If warden heal a little bit less (especially with Elrond, where he heal 4 each turn) we will see less archery. So, as you say, we must play warden of healing (even if Ioreth is good too, and interesting in term of game design). All the healing cards are irrelevant. But I also agree that all the healing cards of the beginning are over-costed and this make the lore sphere less interesting to my opinion. So that is not the card I would change of a first place.

3) It is the same with Arwen undomiel, dunedain attachment. All those effects are fine when given to a character who only use them once each turn. So instead of playing an ally who block each turn you play an attachment who make your hero blocker stronger, but don't allow you to do more things. It is a fair deal. With Boromir you can do and each effect is use several times each turn and became insane.

4) Sorry about that but you clearly don't use Gandalf to is full power. Here is my strongest solo deck: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/4880/elrond-gandalf-arwen-undomiel-for-the-strongest-solo-dec-3.0

And here my multiplayer decks: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/4286/elrond-gandalf-glorfindel-my-most-powerful-multi-deck-1.0

5) You avoid one cards of the encounter deck, so the full turn of the encounter for one card and one resource? You gain 3 resources each turn so there is a problem. No other sphere have anything like this. Anything who cancel enemy or location make you reveal another cards. So you can also make a test of will reveal another card.

6) Daeron's rune make you draw 0 cards. It just replace itself. It make every deck and every game look the same.

7) It is nonsense to say deck space is thin. You just select the best cards you have. If it is 47 cards instead of 50 it is still a substantial gain. It change a lot the probabilty because you draw a lot of cards. And when you add Daeron's rune it still increased. And you make again a nonsense: we are not idle is not a draw cards, it don't get you MORE cards to play (Card Advantage on the TCG language). It only play on increasing the capacity of get the cards you need because the less cards you play the better they are, and because you have a choose with daeron's rune (Quality Advantage).

8) When play together it is even better but even without Aragorn doomed cards are very powerful. I start to build powerful combo thanks to them and they increased all the deck I play in multiplayer. I know that a lot of players dislike them but I know that is thanks to them that I can defeat all those nightmare pretty easily.

1) Steward is the most universal ressource card and that's why it is used so much. Other generator's (like ressourceful) have other conditions or advantages (like Gandalfs staff). Problem is most of the other generator's are too weak to be played. Nerfing Steward to 1 wouldn't change that. I still wouldn'r run love of tails because i would need songs. I woulndn't run ressourceful, because I leave secrecy so easily. I run Gandalf's staff anyway, but I need Gandalf. Nerfing steward just makes the game harder.

2) You can say we see less archery with a weaker warden. I can say we have warden, because FFGs wants more archery. But we seem to agree that this one isn't really in need of change. Other healing cards aren't irrelevant, there simply isn't an other reliable, repetitive healer. You want your healing when you need it. Having an one time event might save you once but what after that, running galadhrim healer needs event's to enter play again and only heals heroes and so on. It's more or less the same with steward: changing the number's doesn't change the reason why the card is so wildly used (universal applicability).

3) When building an "Uber" defender/attacker whatever, you always want a ton of action advantage on him. And we long past the point where this wasn't possible. I have Boromir-less solo decks that can handle 3 enemies a turn. Boromir being able to handle double or tripple of that doesn't really make a difference (how often do you get that many enemies?). It is 100% on the attachments why this is possible as we have so many cards that give action advantges. You could say then nerf Boromir and make him use these attachments too, but that would kill his identity as the guy who fought till doom got him.

At this point I would like to talk about the "deal with it" attitude. There will never be perfect balance. One card is stronger one is weaker. And you can only change cads by a minimum of 1 point (cost, targets etc.) let's say a said acard effect is on the stronger side with 2 and weaker side with 1. What do you do? The game mechanic doesn't allow for 1,5. You printed the card with 2. Why would you make an errata just so there are less stronger cards and more weaker cards? That is my point. None of the discussed cards are game breaking in any way and therefore aren't disturbing the games balance.
Most decks actually ARE in the same power level. Just some decks are above this power. And the quests aren't designed around them. For example the no defense Gloin deck. There are many parts of the combo to make Gloin this damage soak (his ability, Elrond, Warden, narvi's belt...). Why would FFG care about this deck. It doesn't ruin anyone's fun. All cards used are fine on their own. Just because you can combine them doen't justify a nerf. Things would be completley different if this game had a form of competition as you were damned to use what ever combo proves to be the best, but this is not the case.
Your problem with some cards making many decks is the universal applicability I mentioned above. These cards are just obvious solutions to a problem. Be it healing, cancelling, ressources. They can only be challenged by an equally easy to use card, but nobody needs that. You have one card you can use, if you don't want to experimente and use e.g. an other healer.
The fact that NM Escape from Dol Guldur probably still is the most difficult quest out there for me is a sign that FFG knows they went beyond what's good with the quest. When NM Carn Dum was anounced they said they could have made it harder, but they didn't. They didn't care that the same Boromir deck that took out normal mode, probably would take out NM, too, because only an extreme minority of the decks is that strong.
So my point is indeed deal with it. But you will have to deal with the fact that perfect balance is impossible to achieve, that there will always be stronger cards, and that you shouldn't care if a deck can blow through a majority of the quests (noone will say: "Pointless playing my new spirit Pippin deck, when Gloin would have achieved victory already"). You should care about the possibility of diverse and fun decks. And that is totally possible.

4) Sorry, but your deck doesn't showcase the use of many low cost events very well. You run 14 events. 8 are high cost or situational (having test of will on top and no treachery shows up? You are stuck with it). Daerons is indeed good at any time and the willpower from coucil doesn't matter that often, but that really doesn't make Gandalfs ability broken or something. Elrond and Vilya together with scriing (Gandalf/Stargazer) makes this deck work, as it is one of the most powerful combos of the game.

5) Test of will in my book is one of the strongest cards in the game and should be way more polarising than steward or warden. In difference from enemies and locations, you have no way of dealing with treacheries, you just have to endure them. To locations you can travel, enemies you can kill. Treacheries you have to accept. Therefore I think it is fine to say that you get an advantage by cancelling it out (and it is only a free round in solo). Look at it this way: The encounter deck tries to cheat with an effect you usually can't do anything about, but sometimes you got the answer. If you still want to nerf it, I would much rather have it reveal another encounter card a) to bring it in line with these other effects b) because holding back 2 spirit ressources for it is so slow.

6) yeah right it's a net gain of 0 cards, my bad. But that doesn't make every deck or game feel the same.

7) Do the math. Changing a 50 card deck to a 47 card deck to draw a specific card doesn't change the probability by what I would call a reasonable amount. On paper you are right and I don't know why the card replaces itself, but it doesn't jusify a nerf.

8) As I said I am just sceptical about the cards in multiplayer as I don't have much experience with them in that regard. Great if they convinced you, but as you say many others are not.

I looked throuh your decks (nice work; all look strong) and I would say you got a little bored of the game. As you say from yourself you want to find the best deck and defeat any challenge. For the lotr LCG this is mostly done. Power decks are established, the difficulty of the quests doesn't really increase, cards that were good stay good, so there isn't that much to change. As I said there will always be "best cards" (and you say yourself the whole point of deckbuilding is to pick them). You just miss not knowing them and therefore want the "old ones" nerfed so you can hunt down the "new ones"again.
I don't care if my decks can beat every NM quest or if 3 decks can beat everything while all others don't. I am happy when I can build a deck and don't feel bad for not including a specific card or sphere. That is totally the case at the moment. I can win quests without test of will, hasty stroke, warden, Boromir and so on. And that in my opinion is good design and therefore I don't see a reason to errata a card.

To my mind, Test of Will has always been the king of all cards. It is cheap, flexible, and insanely useful. No other card shuts down the encounter deck so easily and effectively. And unlike Steward of Gondor, Test of Will has no thematic restrictions and doesn't generate a ludicrous pile of resources. When Steward keeps winning games for me, I notice it, and I come to resent my over-reliance on it. When Test of Will flashes in to save my bacon, I feel relieved and grateful.

This is a shame, because Test of Will is simply too good. What Steward is to resource generation, Test is to encounter nullification. The game is built around the power of these two cards, and most everything else pales in comparison.

I still think that self-policing is far preferable to errata, but if I had to alter Test of Will, then I think it would be best to add exhausting a character to the cost. Any character. That way it would actually feel like some ally or hero on the table is actually the one overcoming the revealed effect.

Just don't play the **** cards. Or play the nightmare decks!

So much debate :). Pretty hard to answer well to all this. I try my best with the time I have and the poor English I got.

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Problem is most of the other generator's are too weak to be played. Nerfing Steward to 1 wouldn't change that. I still wouldn'r run love of tails because i would need songs. I woulndn't run ressourceful, because I leave secrecy so easily. I run Gandalf's staff anyway, but I need Gandalf. Nerfing steward just makes the game harder.

That's the point! Yes those cards are strong enough so they would still be played after our nerf. That's why we want to change them. Because as the were written they push optimal deckbuilding into only one direction. Why do we will build "small cost leadership deck" if you can play steward of Gondor. Why do we play other generation resources?

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3) When building an "Uber" defender/attacker whatever, you always want a ton of action advantage on him. And we long past the point where this wasn't possible. I have Boromir-less solo decks that can handle 3 enemies a turn. Boromir being able to handle double or tripple of that doesn't really make a difference (how often do you get that many enemies?). It is 100% on the attachments why this is possible as we have so many cards that give action advantges. You could say then nerf Boromir and make him use these attachments too, but that would kill his identity as the guy who fought till doom got him.

In fact this thing was one of the most used thing in the core-set. Get a huge gimli that can block and attack with unexpected courage it a classic thing :).

The thing is that Boromir is way better in multiplayer deck. With sentinel (mostly due to Arwen ally) you can block anywhere then kill your enemies (and you have more of them because of most encounter cards come each turns). Using is untap 4 time a turn is nothing more than an average turn for Boromir.
I also play dunedain deck that can block many enemies. It is pretty strong in multiplayer but nothing compare to mighty Boromir.

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At this point I would like to talk about the "deal with it" attitude. There will never be perfect balance. One card is stronger one is weaker. And you can only change cads by a minimum of 1 point (cost, targets etc.) let's say a said acard effect is on the stronger side with 2 and weaker side with 1. What do you do? The game mechanic doesn't allow for 1,5. You printed the card with 2. Why would you make an errata just so there are less stronger cards and more weaker cards? That is my point. None of the discussed cards are game breaking in any way and therefore aren't disturbing the games balance.

There could be a better balance. Were more deckbuilding options are offered (short acceleration? get regular gain of resources?) and were thematic cards can be compared to average best cards level.

In fact there is infinite ways to adjust the power level of a card. You can look at the files that Wizardsofthecoast released after a Magic extension to see tons of small changes to make a card as they want. Coming exhausted, condition for playing it, effect depending of condition, cost, there is so many ways to adapt).

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Most decks actually ARE in the same power level. Just some decks are above this power. And the quests aren't designed around them. For example the no defense Gloin deck. There are many parts of the combo to make Gloin this damage soak (his ability, Elrond, Warden, narvi's belt...). Why would FFG care about this deck. It doesn't ruin anyone's fun. All cards used are fine on their own. Just because you can combine them doen't justify a nerf. Things would be completley different if this game had a form of competition as you were damned to use what ever combo proves to be the best, but this is not the case.

In fact quests are designed around. I see the exact moment when life points of disturbing enemies goes from 3/4 to a minimum of 5 because there was too many Gandalf.

For me Gloin deck is absolutely not one of those good decks. It can't handle a hard start and so go fast to face enemies and go questing.

Those overpowered cards push to play similar decks even when using with different thematic. It would be worst with a competitive scene but it would only highlight actual problems.

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4) Sorry, but your deck doesn't showcase the use of many low cost events very well. You run 14 events. 8 are high cost or situational (having test of will on top and no treachery shows up? You are stuck with it). Daerons is indeed good at any time and the willpower from coucil doesn't matter that often, but that really doesn't make Gandalfs ability broken or something. Elrond and Vilya together with scriing (Gandalf/Stargazer) makes this deck work, as it is one of the most powerful combos of the game.

Play event to draw cards when top cards is not that you want so you play an ally from top on the organisation phase, then use wizard's pipe if top card is not an event, plan with stargazer. You play 3 cards each turn (first turn included!) with Gandalf. He make me draw 3 cards each turn, this is crazy!

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7) Do the math. Changing a 50 card deck to a 47 card deck to draw a specific card doesn't change the probability by what I would call a reasonable amount. On paper you are right and I don't know why the card replaces itself, but it doesn't jusify a nerf.

I don't want to draw a specific card. I want to draw all my cards faster. It is a more significant change that between 50 and 53 cards. And people doesn't play 53 cards for a good reason.

It replace itslef because you discard one card (we are not idle) in order to draw a new one. It is not a draw cards, since you don't increase your number of cards in hand. Same thing that I say about Daeron's rune.

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I looked throuh your decks (nice work; all look strong) and I would say you got a little bored of the game. As you say from yourself you want to find the best deck and defeat any challenge. For the lotr LCG this is mostly done. Power decks are established, the difficulty of the quests doesn't really increase, cards that were good stay good, so there isn't that much to change. As I said there will always be "best cards" (and you say yourself the whole point of deckbuilding is to pick them). You just miss not knowing them and therefore want the "old ones" nerfed so you can hunt down the "new ones"again.
I don't care if my decks can beat every NM quest or if 3 decks can beat everything while all others don't. I am happy when I can build a deck and don't feel bad for not including a specific card or sphere. That is totally the case at the moment. I can win quests without test of will, hasty stroke, warden, Boromir and so on. And that in my opinion is good design and therefore I don't see a reason to errata a card.

Thanks for your congratulations. I search a high level of design just as I look for best decks. But actual design is just okay, there is a lot of interesting thematic, a lot of funny quests to play. So don't worry: I'm not bored yet :D. I just have personal idea of what this game could be, a view of a better balance. But I don't think it is a good idea for FFG to change any of this cards. So what all this is for? Thinking about our game, may be increase our knowledge in case we want to create our own cards/games.

10 hours ago, Lecitadin said:

Just don't play the **** cards. Or play the nightmare decks!

I play only against nightmare. And only the hardest. In multiplayer there is few whoes can stand again the most port of our decks (and we get a lot of decks). And none except Dol Guldur is strong enough against our Elrond/Boromir fellowship.

I also play strange decks (one hero in solo, mono tactic in solo, combo deck who win on first turn) but I think some card disturb the balance of the game. I never told that you must or must not play them. Please don't loose time again in useless toxic one-liner.

A Glaurung by any other name...

Speaking of card balance, I'm surprised we haven't seen a FAQ this year. I was really hoping for a nerf on Steward to shake the meta (seriously, you can blindly spit in any direction and hit a deck that has that card... >_> ). Oh well...

57 minutes ago, soullos said:

Speaking of card balance, I'm surprised we haven't seen a FAQ this year. I was really hoping for a nerf on Steward to shake the meta (seriously, you can blindly spit in any direction and hit a deck that has that card... >_> ). Oh well...

To my knowledge, none of the errata have been intended to "shake the meta". In the cases where a card was nerfed for being too powerful (such as Blue Mountain Trader or Thror's Map or Erebor Battle Master), the errata came quickly and the original form of the card had little chance to go into decks. In the cases where a long-available card has been modified, if memory serves it has always been as part of an "abusive" combo, and the cards modified are not necessarily popular or powerful outside the combo.

That Steward of Gondor is such a popular card in decks is an excellent reason IMO *not* to change it. It's bad enough that years of decks with Horn of Gondor have had their quality changed by that errata, changing Steward of Gondor would have an effect 100x times greater. I realize this is exactly what you want--but I see this as a *cost* of errata and not a benefit. New players are continuously being pointed at Beorn's Path and the Back to Basics killer deck. I would not cheer for an action that gratuitously makes those decks both less powerful and with a different resource curve -- especially if done only for the "benefit" of nightmare-deck players with the whole card pool at their disposal and with the deck-building and playing experience to build powerful decks without using *any* of the cards they believe are "too powerful".

New players *need* powerful cards in the core to offset their tiny card pool and lack of experience; it's no accident most staple cards can be found in the core. I'm not in favor of making any of the cards there less powerful -- if anything, what the core set needs is *positive* errata for the wealth of cards that aren't worth playing even with a limited card pool, let alone the full card pool.

On 5/12/2017 at 5:13 PM, legolas18 said:

1 - I don't think it would be worthless. Resourceful costs four dollars and only gives you one more resource each round, and this card could be a cheaper, unique alternative if you were using Leadership. Gandalf's Staff also costs two dollars and gives you only one resource. It has more versatility, but that's because it's Gandalf's Staff.

Cutting Steward of Gondor to one resource per turn does still leave it superior to a full-cost Resourceful, especially since Resourceful can't give you resources the turn you play it. However, who plays full-cost for Resourceful? I think it's practically always found in decks that hope to pay 0-1 for it.

Gandalf's Staff does cost the same, and if SoG gave 1 per turn it would clearly be inferior to the Staff -- same potential resource generation, but granting Gondor trait isn't remotely as valuable as being able to get a card or discard a shadow instead of getting your resource. In a Gandalf deck, the Staff is *already* more important than Steward of Gondor (there's *very* few Gandalf hero decks at ringsdb with SoG and no Staff, but the reverse is not true), so pointing at it to justify nerfing SoG doesn't work.

On 5/13/2017 at 2:34 PM, Rouxxor said:

If your point is: "Game is made like this, deal with it." you are going to the wrong subject. Of course we can play with cards on the way they are written, and we can not playing them. But for the game balance it would be perfect if a lot of decks are in the same efficacy level range, and so most scenario where challenging for them. For now we have a lot of cards who are a lot more powerful so we will too often play them in order to have a better deck. And this make FFG build really insane scenario (solo escape from dol guldur nightmare) because some deck have a 99% of win against all scenario except two or three.[...]

2) Again game is forced to be designed around warden of healing. If warden heal a little bit less (especially with Elrond, where he heal 4 each turn) we will see less archery. So, as you say, we must play warden of healing (even if Ioreth is good too, and interesting in term of game design). All the healing cards are irrelevant. But I also agree that all the healing cards of the beginning are over-costed and this make the lore sphere less interesting to my opinion. So that is not the card I would change of a first place.[...]

6) Daeron's rune make you draw 0 cards. It just replace itself. It make every deck and every game look the same.

7) It is nonsense to say deck space is thin. You just select the best cards you have. If it is 47 cards instead of 50 it is still a substantial gain. It change a lot the probabilty because you draw a lot of cards. And when you add Daeron's rune it still increased. And you make again a nonsense: we are not idle is not a draw cards, it don't get you MORE cards to play (Card Advantage on the TCG language). It only play on increasing the capacity of get the cards you need because the less cards you play the better they are, and because you have a choose with daeron's rune (Quality Advantage).

Constructing a lot of decks in the same "efficacy level range" is a reasonable goal for a player, and I think it's broadly possible for a given player to do so regardless of what their card pool is. However, what that efficacy level range *actually is* very much depends on the size of the card pool and player skill in deck building and deck piloting -- it's not at all possible to have all decks by all players be at the same "efficacy level range".

Given that, it's not possible to construct quests in such a fashion that most will be "challenging" to all players. Further, there's now a large body of existing quests that are not *at all* uniform in difficulty for a generic deck, so that ship has sails. Quests vary in difficulty, often dramatically. Easy mode can be used to alter the difficulty in one direction; nightmare decks can be used to alter the difficulty in one direction. But FFG has no way of knowing what difficulty level a particular player or group would enjoy the most -- and players have their own control knob for difficulty in their deck construction, which can be fine-tuned to a far greater extent than would ever be possible for the quests.

So if you don't enjoy playing decks that have a 99% win probability, don't make them! Perhaps instead of seeking to nerf widely used cards that make your *own* deck more powerful than you prefer, with the side effect of making everybody *else's* deck less powerful whether they wish that or not, you should avoid those cards. I don't think it's wise or practical to ask FFG to stop you from building the deck you don't like to play.

With respect to #2 (Warden of Healing), even if you were correct that a nerfed Warden of Healing would tone down *future* archery and other direct damage, that still leaves a vast body of existing quests that are just thick with it. I'm not one who expects or hopes for the game to end soon, but given how much content we have already (or is in the pipeline already), I don't advocate nerfing cards in the hopes that it will affect future game balance.

With respect to #6 and #7, if you find that Daeron's Runes makes every deck and every game look the same, that would be an excellent reason not to play it. It's true that Daeron's Runes and We Are Not Idle can shorten your effective deck by 3 cards, but how substantial is the gain from effectively eliminating 3 cards? If there's 3x of a key card, here's the chance of it being in your pre-mulligan hand:

47: 34%

50: 32%

53: 31%

56: 29%

50 is a convention and there's no doubt that a 50-card deck will be more efficient and consistent than a 51+ card deck -- but the difference really isn't so dramatic that 51+ in any sort of death-knell, or that including DR or WANI for the cycling will make your deck much more powerful. Most decks I make start at 51 cards, and I don't bother taking out cards when I add from my sideboard. So I'm typically playing with decks somewhere between 51 and 60 cards and hardly ever with 50 exactly. Optimal? Of course not. But nothing in the game forces optimal builds, and whether maximizing efficiency or variety is preferable is simply a matter of taste .

Not that I disagree with your grander point, dalestephenson, but Daeron's Runes effectively shrinks your deck by 6 cards, not 3. So with that and We are not Idle you can get a 41 card deck.

With an Elf and a Dwarf you can make your deck effectively 38 cards using Unlikely Friendship, but that card is much more restrictive in the decks it can go in.

18 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

So much debate :). Pretty hard to answer well to all this. I try my best with the time I have and the poor English I got.

That's the point! Yes those cards are strong enough so they would still be played after our nerf. That's why we want to change them. Because as the were written they push optimal deckbuilding into only one direction. Why do we will build "small cost leadership deck" if you can play steward of Gondor. Why do we play other generation resources?

In fact this thing was one of the most used thing in the core-set. Get a huge gimli that can block and attack with unexpected courage it a classic thing :).

The thing is that Boromir is way better in multiplayer deck. With sentinel (mostly due to Arwen ally) you can block anywhere then kill your enemies (and you have more of them because of most encounter cards come each turns). Using is untap 4 time a turn is nothing more than an average turn for Boromir.
I also play dunedain deck that can block many enemies. It is pretty strong in multiplayer but nothing compare to mighty Boromir.

There could be a better balance. Were more deckbuilding options are offered (short acceleration? get regular gain of resources?) and were thematic cards can be compared to average best cards level.

In fact there is infinite ways to adjust the power level of a card. You can look at the files that Wizardsofthecoast released after a Magic extension to see tons of small changes to make a card as they want. Coming exhausted, condition for playing it, effect depending of condition, cost, there is so many ways to adapt).

In fact quests are designed around. I see the exact moment when life points of disturbing enemies goes from 3/4 to a minimum of 5 because there was too many Gandalf.

For me Gloin deck is absolutely not one of those good decks. It can't handle a hard start and so go fast to face enemies and go questing.

Those overpowered cards push to play similar decks even when using with different thematic. It would be worst with a competitive scene but it would only highlight actual problems.

Play event to draw cards when top cards is not that you want so you play an ally from top on the organisation phase, then use wizard's pipe if top card is not an event, plan with stargazer. You play 3 cards each turn (first turn included!) with Gandalf. He make me draw 3 cards each turn, this is crazy!

I don't want to draw a specific card. I want to draw all my cards faster. It is a more significant change that between 50 and 53 cards. And people doesn't play 53 cards for a good reason.

It replace itslef because you discard one card (we are not idle) in order to draw a new one. It is not a draw cards, since you don't increase your number of cards in hand. Same thing that I say about Daeron's rune.

Thanks for your congratulations. I search a high level of design just as I look for best decks. But actual design is just okay, there is a lot of interesting thematic, a lot of funny quests to play. So don't worry: I'm not bored yet :D. I just have personal idea of what this game could be, a view of a better balance. But I don't think it is a good idea for FFG to change any of this cards. So what all this is for? Thinking about our game, may be increase our knowledge in case we want to create our own cards/games.

I play only against nightmare. And only the hardest. In multiplayer there is few whoes can stand again the most port of our decks (and we get a lot of decks). And none except Dol Guldur is strong enough against our Elrond/Boromir fellowship.

I also play strange decks (one hero in solo, mono tactic in solo, combo deck who win on first turn) but I think some card disturb the balance of the game. I never told that you must or must not play them. Please don't loose time again in useless toxic one-liner.

I think the key difference of our opinions is in your last paragraph: You think some cards disturb the balance of the game, while I don't.

It's true that the mean hit points of enemies increased over the course of the game, but I would argue that isn't because of an overuse of Gandalf, but because of the overall powercreep of player cards (what is hard to avoid).
I just can't imagine that ANY designer didn't forsaw that sniping enemies would be such a strong effect, so it must have been intentional. That he wasn't changed to something like play from hand, in my opinion confirms that FFG is ok with it happening in earlier quests, so why not in later once (that, for me, would just be like saying: we care more about out newer quests than the old). You coud argue that's wrong in the first place, but that would be a much more fundamental discussion about card design I guess...
A valid argument could be that new players start with the core and most likely earlier quests so it could be accaptable to make the entrance burdern smoother by giving them more outs, what would just delay the wall they are going to crash in (and facing dol guldur, even in it's core-set form, is already not very new player friendly :D) once the enemies get significantly stronger and therefore wouldn't really solve the problem.
Summary: Encounter cards get stronger, because player cards in general did too.

I tried to explain, that most of the other disputable cards are so prevalent, because they are easy to use and fit a wide variety of decks, while similiar cards usually have more specific requierments to achieve a similiar effect. Following this logic nothing would change until you made the more universal ones unplayable, what we can agree on I'd say isn't a desireable goal. As long as the universals' effect is decent enough to be worth playing they won't go away.
Adding to this, I think in an ideal scenario you want all your cards on the exact same point of power. Now it's just that this is completely utopistic, so we will have to arrange ourselfs with an "area" of power we can except cards to have. In this area some end on the top and some on the bottom. For me no card exceeds this area and nerfing something like steward would just put it from the upper to the lower department of the area. Again I don't think the usage of the cards would change, just the difficulty would increase. As I don't expect a change of usage, I can't agree with an errata.
Thinking futher, you could make the cards more niche and take away at least a part of their universal use (like making steward Gondor only). But I really fear that this would hurt decks that can't make use of the more specific cards more than i would benefit other decks (what is the benefit of making a deck unable to play steward anyway?). I remember the horn of Gondor errata (which is now much more specific in the way your ally has to leave the game - die), which caused problems for Rohan decks. Did anyone really benefit from this change?
Of course everyone has his personal opinion if a card exceeds the discribed area (otherwise we wouldn't have this discussion :D), but as I already implied above while talking about core-Gandalf, a true indicator if a card is too good is hard to find as many points can play a role in the decision why a card works as it does. The one thing I personally ask myself always is: Do I feel forced to use a card in a variety of quests or do I just run it out of convenience? Turns out so far the latter was always true.
This doesn't mean adding hasty stroke to a deck with spirit couldn't increase it's win rate against a quest. It might even be seen as mandatory in some quests (road to rivendell comes to mind). It might even lead to an overall increase against the complete quest collection, but the question is, if this is significant enough, when compared to other cards you had to run instead. I don't have any data, if this is the case (in fact it would be very interessting to see how a deck's winrates differ over like 100 games against 10 different quests, if you change 3 "stable" cards; but getting those 1000 games in could take a while^^) and so I can only say if I forced to run card x IN GENERAL. And I don't at the moment, as mentioned above.
Now you seem to be more ambitious with your gaming interests than me, as I only own a few NM quests so far (not only, but also because I find them (and all PoDs in general) pretty expensive, when compared to "classic" boxes/APs), so that could be an important factor why we evaluate cards that different and (sadly) probably won't come to a agreement :(. But who knows, maybe I'll end up playing only NM, too and then feel completely oppressed by a test of will

20 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

I never told that you must or must not play them. Please don't loose time again in useless toxic one-liner.

LOL! Like this whole debate about ''problematic'' cards according to some players is such a useful debate.

18 hours ago, Network57 said:

A Glaurung by any other name...

May be. I look after it when you say that and he seem to talk a lot about nightmare scenario. May be we can discuss about that. Does it matter you? It seem if you put the three little point. Why?

6 hours ago, soullos said:

Speaking of card balance, I'm surprised we haven't seen a FAQ this year. I was really hoping for a nerf on Steward to shake the meta (seriously, you can blindly spit in any direction and hit a deck that has that card... >_> ). Oh well...

I agree about the fact that steward of gondor does not be nerf today for the reason that dalestephenson says.

3 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Constructing a lot of decks in the same "efficacy level range" is a reasonable goal for a player, and I think it's broadly possible for a given player to do so regardless of what their card pool is. However, what that efficacy level range *actually is* very much depends on the size of the card pool and player skill in deck building and deck piloting -- it's not at all possible to have all decks by all players be at the same "efficacy level range".

I want to have decks on the same efficacy level range all along the classic progression of the game (following the release date of each products). So the scenario can be at the level, and player can use the easy mode for suboptimal decks or nightmare mode for a challenging mode.

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So if you don't enjoy playing decks that have a 99% win probability, don't make them! Perhaps instead of seeking to nerf widely used cards that make your *own* deck more powerful than you prefer, with the side effect of making everybody *else's* deck less powerful whether they wish that or not, you should avoid those cards. I don't think it's wise or practical to ask FFG to stop you from building the deck you don't like to play.

I never say it don't like those cards. I use them because I need them to play some scenario. I want also to build more original decks who don't want to play them and I go into most easy scenario. And the same way I like to win because I do the right choose when I'm playing I like to win because I do the right choose when I build. That why I don't want to play without those cards when they fit perfectly into my deck.

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With respect to #2 (Warden of Healing), even if you were correct that a nerfed Warden of Healing would tone down *future* archery and other direct damage, that still leaves a vast body of existing quests that are just thick with it. I'm not one who expects or hopes for the game to end soon, but given how much content we have already (or is in the pipeline already), I don't advocate nerfing cards in the hopes that it will affect future game balance.

That I say is now they printed warden of healing it is easy to heal a lot of damages. So they print insane value of archery to continue to challenge people. So we have to play warden of healing to win those scenario. So make warden of healing so powerful on the first place was the problem and don't play it because it is powerful is made very hard because of what happens with archery. The problem get worse.

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With respect to #6 and #7, if you find that Daeron's Runes makes every deck and every game look the same, that would be an excellent reason not to play it. It's true that Daeron's Runes and We Are Not Idle can shorten your effective deck by 3 cards, but how substantial is the gain from effectively eliminating 3 cards? If there's 3x of a key card, here's the chance of it being in your pre-mulligan hand:

47: 34%

50: 32%

53: 31%

56: 29%

50 is a convention and there's no doubt that a 50-card deck will be more efficient and consistent than a 51+ card deck -- but the difference really isn't so dramatic that 51+ in any sort of death-knell, or that including DR or WANI for the cycling will make your deck much more powerful. Most decks I make start at 51 cards, and I don't bother taking out cards when I add from my sideboard. So I'm typically playing with decks somewhere between 51 and 60 cards and hardly ever with 50 exactly. Optimal? Of course not. But nothing in the game forces optimal builds, and whether maximizing efficiency or variety is preferable is simply a matter of taste .

2% is high. 15% between 47 and 56 is insane. And when you will do the math about probability to get multiple cards (like a combo of two cards, or the 3 cards you need the most) the difference will continue to grow. So those cards make every efficiency build do look the same. It is not interesting on a game. The game could be better if the cards was printed another way. That just my point. It an to answer to the original post who asks "Is there some cards that is too powerful".

7 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

To my knowledge, none of the errata have been intended to "shake the meta". In the cases where a card was nerfed for being too powerful (such as Blue Mountain Trader or Thror's Map or Erebor Battle Master), the errata came quickly and the original form of the card had little chance to go into decks. In the cases where a long-available card has been modified, if memory serves it has always been as part of an "abusive" combo, and the cards modified are not necessarily popular or powerful outside the combo.

That Steward of Gondor is such a popular card in decks is an excellent reason IMO *not* to change it. It's bad enough that years of decks with Horn of Gondor have had their quality changed by that errata, changing Steward of Gondor would have an effect 100x times greater. I realize this is exactly what you want--but I see this as a *cost* of errata and not a benefit. New players are continuously being pointed at Beorn's Path and the Back to Basics killer deck. I would not cheer for an action that gratuitously makes those decks both less powerful and with a different resource curve -- especially if done only for the "benefit" of nightmare-deck players with the whole card pool at their disposal and with the deck-building and playing experience to build powerful decks without using *any* of the cards they believe are "too powerful".

My view for errata is if the card is too good not to use, then it's too good to begin with. I've always felt that way with Steward from the start. Just because it's a Core stable, doesn't mean it should be immune to errata. To me, the ideal errata for this card is not to nerf it to oblivion (like Master of Lore) but to knock it down a peg to wean off reliance of the card. Shifting the meta to where people seek other forms of resource generation than sticking to one card that has been in the game since its inception. Atm, it's stale and predictable. But I might be in the minority here. Because of how ubiquitous the card is, it's almost like a "too big to fail" thing going on here. But I feel that's more than an enough reason to knock it down a peg, but again, I might be the minority here (I like the idea of it generating only 1 resource, might try to play it like that from now on and see how that changes things).

7 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

New players *need* powerful cards in the core to offset their tiny card pool and lack of experience; it's no accident most staple cards can be found in the core. I'm not in favor of making any of the cards there less powerful -- if anything, what the core set needs is *positive* errata for the wealth of cards that aren't worth playing even with a limited card pool, let alone the full card pool.

That I can get behind. Has there been any game that has done positive errata? I can't think of any, but yeah, some cards definitely could use some more love.

Let me ask a question: does anyone here feel like Leadeship allies are more powerful than the other spheres?

After the "Dunedain" cycle I listed all the allies from every sphere and found that the leadership allies were the most expensive. My point is that the designers are subtlety "taxing" the Steward of Gondor sphere. As with the other mentioned cards the game has grown up with them. Should they have been nerfed straight away? Probably. But that didn't happen and it's largely too late.

Btw, Horn was reduced in power because it turbo charged Sylvans too much. I know people realize that, but I can't recall it being mentioned.

45 minutes ago, Bullroarer Took said:

Let me ask a question: does anyone here feel like Leadeship allies are more powerful than the other spheres?

After the "Dunedain" cycle I listed all the allies from every sphere and found that the leadership allies were the most expensive. My point is that the designers are subtlety "taxing" the Steward of Gondor sphere. As with the other mentioned cards the game has grown up with them. Should they have been nerfed straight away? Probably. But that didn't happen and it's largely too late.

Btw, Horn was reduced in power because it turbo charged Sylvans too much. I know people realize that, but I can't recall it being mentioned.

Even without Steward, Leadership has much more resource generating capability than the other spheres. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the leadership ally cost curve was higher.

Right, but then we get to quibble over whether the resource generation of leadership is an advantage.