Hello all. I'm a long time FFG fan and have several of their LCGs, but have never really bought into Lord of the Rings before. My friend just sent me a 'care package' that includes 3x core sets, 1x each of the first cycle and 1x of the first deluxe expansion. He also included the 2011 GenCon pack. I can't remember it's name. This collection represents what he owned before he decided to get rid of the game. Pretty sure he bought it when it came out and stopped buying back in 2011 or so.

So... I've sorted the cards into various piles. I have all the 'scenario' cards separated and sorted. I've divided the player cards into piles based on the 4 'colors' and have pulled out the Heroes. I'm not sure where to go from here. I know that CardGameDB.com has tons of example decks, but it looks like those generally require newer packs.

So... my questions. Are there any general deck building guidelines? Once upon a time in the Magic the Gathering realm, it was suggested that you always have ~20 mana, ~20 creatures and ~20 other spells. Is there a similar breakdown for allies/attachments/events? Is there a recommendation for mono-color versus multi-color? My understanding is that multi-color gives you more options, but might make it tough to get the right resources. Similarly, is there a recommendation for number of heroes? I know that the more heroes you take, the higher your starting threat. Is two the sweet spot? Is three just as good? I'm assuming that one can be rough.

Hopefully someone can answer my questions or point me in the right direction. My goal, incidentally, is to build a dwarf themed deck. I want to play as a group of dwarves trudging their way through the perils of Middle-Earth!

Three is the standard number of heroes and playing with less than three will be considerably more difficult with the cards you have -- don't bother trying it. The general rule of thumb is half allies, one quarter attachments and one quarter events, but that is *very* dependent on what heroes and spheres you are using. The real key to the power level of a deck is which cards you choose, not which type they are.

If you've not played before I recommend reading and following Beorn's Path:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/

That will teach you a lot about the process of deckbuilding and playing. Parts 14-16 even use a dwarf deck, and the entire series exactly corresponds to the cards you have (except for having three copies of the core set). If you love dwarves, you will eventually want to get the two Hobbit boxes and the Dwarrowdelf cycle that uses the Khazad-Dum deluxe (which you already have).

3 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Three is the standard number of heroes and playing with less than three will be considerably more difficult with the cards you have -- don't bother trying it. The general rule of thumb is half allies, one quarter attachments and one quarter events, but that is *very* dependent on what heroes and spheres you are using. The real key to the power level of a deck is which cards you choose, not which type they are.

If you've not played before I recommend reading and following Beorn's Path:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/

That will teach you a lot about the process of deckbuilding and playing. Parts 14-16 even use a dwarf deck, and the entire series exactly corresponds to the cards you have (except for having three copies of the core set). If you love dwarves, you will eventually want to get the two Hobbit boxes and the Dwarrowdelf cycle that uses the Khazad-Dum deluxe (which you already have).

Awesome! Thanks much. Looks like I have some reading to do. Also looks like my local store has the two Hobbit boxes in stock. Sounds like I'll eventually want to find the Dwarrowdelf cycle packs.

@dalestephenson give you great advices. Only one of your question (and not the most easy one) wasn't satisfied.

Is there a recommendation for mono-color versus multi-color?

We can see all of the combination possible, even among the very best decks.

Mono sphere (that the name for color in the game) are only great with very specific cards that you don't own for the moment. For you they will not be as strong as other deck for now.

Two spheres work great. I find it to be the most common and easy way to build for generic deck (basically who play best cards of their spheres) and for multiplayer.

Three spheres are more often seen among themed decks and is very common on solo play.

I recommend not playing cards outside the sphere of your heroes, even with the cards that give an additional sphere to a hero (the song you already have). It is better to be able to always play your cards fast than waiting for a combo in order to play a most powerful card :).

Thanks for all the advice. I went through and organized everything I own and was pleasantly surprised to find the two Hobbit Saga box cards mixed in. Sounds like I have everything I need to start playing and enough cards to build some decent decks that won't fail immediately!

I put all the player cards in a binder, separated by sphere and then by Hero/Ally/Attachment/Event to make deck building easier and put all the non-player cards in a box, separated by plastic dividers. The plan is to go through and build two different dual sphere decks this weekend and see if I can talk someone into playing with me. I have a few friends who love the Arkham Horror LCG. I realize that this game is different and less story oriented, but I think it's close enough to appeal.

Anyone have a suggestion for which sphere pairings I should go with? One deck focused on combat and the other on questing?

With the cards you have, you could go with a thematic (at least for the hobbit) and powerful combination of dwarf decks:

Thorin/Nori/Ori and Dain/Bard/Beorn

Put every dwarf you own in the decks, with the exception of Brok Ironfist. With three core sets you can put Deck #1 wants to get to five dwarves asap to enable Thorin and Nori's abilities, but with Dain around any dwarf played is a good dwarf. Beorn's sentinel and Bard's ranged will let them help with combat against the first deck, in fact Bard's ability can help make Thorin quest and attack (if there are multiple enemies engaged with that deck). You'll want Narvi's belt on Thorin, since there aren't a lot of leadership dwarves in your card pool.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

With the cards you have, you could go with a thematic (at least for the hobbit) and powerful combination of dwarf decks:

Thorin/Nori/Ori and Dain/Bard/Beorn

Put every dwarf you own in the decks, with the exception of Brok Ironfist. With three core sets you can put Deck #1 wants to get to five dwarves asap to enable Thorin and Nori's abilities, but with Dain around any dwarf played is a good dwarf. Beorn's sentinel and Bard's ranged will let them help with combat against the first deck, in fact Bard's ability can help make Thorin quest and attack (if there are multiple enemies engaged with that deck). You'll want Narvi's belt on Thorin, since there aren't a lot of leadership dwarves in your card pool.

Cool. I'll give that a shot on Saturday. I don't think I'll get any real time to sit down between now and then.

The Deck Building 101 articles from Tales From the Cards is very helpful.

https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/deck-building-101/

I'll check that out. Thanks.

CardgameDB - whats the reason for the site. If you have the actual cards why do you need to see them on this site as well?

Minor question - are you supposed to start with 30 cards at first and build up to a 50 card deck?

simon

31 minutes ago, zymon said:

CardgameDB - whats the reason for the site. If you have the actual cards why do you need to see them on this site as well?

Minor question - are you supposed to start with 30 cards at first and build up to a 50 card deck?

Re: CardgameDB: So you can build decks and read cards without having to have them with you. Like, at work

4 hours ago, zymon said:

CardgameDB - whats the reason for the site. If you have the actual cards why do you need to see them on this site as well?

Minor question - are you supposed to start with 30 cards at first and build up to a 50 card deck?

simon

CGDB is used to see others decklists (for inspiration), to show your deck (for advices), to see cards or decks outside or for doing search. With my large cardpool it is useful to do advanced shearch, so I may know, for example the names of all the dwarf allies I want to include in my dwarf deck.

You are supposed to play with 50 cards as fast as you can. My advice is to never build for 30 cards. Play with this 30-cards deck as long as you want but next just build some 50 cards decks mixing some sphere.