I saw an idea floating around about randomly selecting heroes to kick off deck ideas. The point was that you would generally come out with unexpected lineups and combinations.

I put together a RNG table that rolled for sphere (1-4) and then for heroes (1-15/16). My first roll was Tactics Eowyn, Lanwyn, and Fatty Bolger. Sweet.

Here's what I put together.

http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6521/fatty-shield-of-the-shire-1.0

It's not optimal or One Deck to Rule Them All, but it was fun and less conventional than the tried archetypes and power decks.

Love the idea of using RNG as inspiration!

Some of the rolls are just absolute trash, I couldn't figure out a gimmick.

One that seemed feasible was a Elfhelm/Idraen/Theodred deck.

I never do a random pick of heroes but it always look fun. For youvdeck I will add a Lindir and play Elrond's Counsel. It is not easy to set up but all the other threat reduction are so lame compare to it so I think it worth the risk.

Raise the shire is a great add to your deck. You will search for bilbo almost all of the time but farmer maggot is a good target too.

I will not play a good harvest. But you can add neutral cards that also fix a large amount of resource on a hero. Treebeard and Gandalf V2 are my best friends on those kinds of hobbit pipe deck.

I prefer to play almost no hobbit and rely on galadhrim greeting + good meal than elvenses. So I can play good allies like ethir swordmen instead of took. But if you prefer to play more hobbits my advice is to get the outlands instead of the handmaiden.

The third test of will be great. So as a third unexpected courage. You may also include feint if you still have room for it.

I don't have the set that has Lindir, I'm not familiar with his ability. I wasn't very impressed with the Hobbits + Pipes after testing. I wanted to use dusty cards too.

Is Raise the Shite from the coming Mountain of Fire?

What are testing against? Can you post your version so I can try?

I could have fun with that experiment. I generally am less interested in building decks with overwhelming power, and more interesting in using a dusty card or finding interesting card interactions.

Fatty is a card that I've used several times but he's always turned out pretty "meh." Sure he can become a defender, but you just end up decking him out the same way you do any other defender, so it doesn't feel special. I like his ability but the rest of his stats are underwhelming, and the ability isn't powerful enough to make up for them. What would give Fatty life: a card that keyed off of raising your threat. The right card would make Frodo, Fatty, and Spirit Pippin feel fresh (and if it fit thematically with hobbits, all the better), but you'd have to be careful designing it because of Boromir's existence. I guess you could limit it to Hobbits in some way.

Probably the best use I got out of Fatty was when I built a Fatty deck and a companion Dori deck to take on Shadow and Flame, and it worked really well.

I can understand that you want to try new cards. I do try some new cards every time I build a new deck but the more I play it the more common it become. It generally stay only one card that is good in this particular deck.

Here is something like I told you: http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/73349

I let one Sam Gamgee but I don't see how you can spend 3 spirit for a small ally like his.

I picked Sam because he would trigger his ability after you used Fatty's. It's not something that happened every turn, but it did come in handy when you needed just that little bit of extra will power.

I had not considered using Treebeard. All the Hobbit cards lacked consistency because it becomes this large multi card combo for, at best , ,maybe 5-6 threat reduction.

Ethir swordsman addition doesn't surprise me, I wanted to put him in there. As soon as I had that card it went into every deck it would fit.

I could try another roll if you're interested in making decks like this.

I'm wondering what percentage of rolls (Three heroes) would be expected to be "absolute trash". Here's the problematic random characters IMO:

1) Sphere-dependent heroes -- Mirlonde and Caldara need to be paired with other heroes of their own kind.

2) Individual-dependent heroes -- Elrohir/Elladan and LeGimli/SpLegolas are all significantly better when working with their counterparts

3) MP-dependent heroes -- To an extent any ranged/sentinel hero is slightly nerfed by playing in a single deck, but Bard and Brand really need multiple decks and Dori is far more valuable there.

4) Dwarf-dependent heroes -- Thorin/Ori/Oin all want five dwarves, and Bombur exists only to provide five dwarves. (Dain is less powerful without dwarf heroes, but is still quite usable with a dwarf-heavy ally deck).

5) Hobbit-dependent heroes -- SpPippin needs all hobbits, TaMerry needs more hobbits, and LoPippin gets a boost for more hobbits.

There's the possibility of other conflicting heroes (like low-threat-wanting heroes paired with high threat heroes, or ally-trait-enabling heroes coming up with each other), but if we figure 18 of 86 (I'm including Quickbeam and LeEomer and Tom Cotton) are unlikely to be usable in a random three-hero grouping, what are our odds of a random grouping that doesn't include one of the 18? (70/86) * (69/85) * (68/84) = 23/43, or ~53.5% . So just about half the time, you'll include one of those problematic characters -- and that's before excluding the illegal combination of two heroes with the same name, or having a mono-tactics deck without TaEowyn or TaTheoden.

You could get around the problem by just excluding those heroes up front, or alter it by sliding them down until they find a pairing that doesn't exclude -- and for the MP folks and mono-tactics adding a second random grouping. So something like this:

Quickbeam/Galadriel/TaLegolas . PASS

Thorin/LeDenethor/Erkenbrand -- defer Thorin, roll another hero

LeDenethor/Erkenbrand/Eomer. PASS (Thorin deferred)

Ori/Argalad/TaBeregond -- defer Ori, roll another hero (Thorin still deferred)

Argalad/TaBeregond/TaLegolas. PASS (Thorin/Ori deferred)

LoGlorfindel/Tom/Lanwyn. PASS (Thorin/Ori deferred)

LeBoromir/Mablung/SpGlorfindel. PASS (Thorin/Ori deferred)

Beorn/Lanwyn/TaEomer. PASS (Thorin/Ori deferred)

Celeborn/Bifur/Fastred -- steal bifur for Thorin/Ori/Bifur; roll another hero

Celeborn/Fastred/LoAragorn. PASS

Obviously incompatible heroes can be worked around; now is the resulting deck any good? Well, it's certainly not the case that they are generating any particular synergies between heroes and a few of these are going to struggle to quest. But there's a certain amount of charm in running three heroes that no one would ever think to run together...

I think generating six heroes and grouping them for best effect for two-handed play would likely work better, and substantially reduce the incompatible combos. So something like this:

Hirgon/Oin/Na'asiyah/Theodred/Caldara/Beravor -- defer Oin (only dwarf) and Caldara (only one other spirit)

Hirgon/Na'asiyah/Theodred/Beravor/TaEowyn/Celeborn

This isn't too bad, grouping Celeborn/Theodred/Beravor and Hirgon/Na'asiyah/TaEowyn. Na'asiyah's handicap is less of an issue with triple tactics, especially with Hirgon's discount. Initial questing is high enough that questing successfully can't be an isssue, and the combination with Celeborn can make Hirgon's boost pretty powerful -- after questing successfully, for 2 tactics resources and 1 threat Hirgon could drop a Galadahon Archer who could range attack for 5 while reducing an enemy's defense by 2 -- that's instakill for most enemies all by itself. Celeborn/Beravor/Theodred isn't bad for a Silvan deck, since Celeborn's support provides cards and resources and the two best Silvan spheres are covered.

Indeed, even without two-handed play the two groupings *individually* are more interesting combos than just taking Hirgon/Na'asiyah/Theodred and Beravor/TaEowyn/Celeborn would be, IMO. Perhaps even for one-handed play rolling up six heroes and splitting them would be more enjoyable than just taking three random heroes?

Wow, thank you for that. I had not had time to get into the idea completely, it was only a few hours old when I posted here.

When I would roll non functioning line ups I would just reroll all three. Dropping one and rerolling is better, rolling six for a pool is better than that.

Ranged/Sentinel heroes I just glossed over the keyword because I play alone, single handed nowadays. I don't any players nearby that I know and I play in OCTGN primarily.

I didn't think every combination, even if they passed the line up step would result in a working deck. I still have a limited card pool. The idea of drawing the heroes like that it to change the way I would approach deck building.

Thanks @Rouxxor . The Fatty deck I did not have high hopes for, but it accomplished the initial aim of using a line up I don't think anyone would consider. With your advice and changes it may be a more playable deck now.

I really appreciate all the ideas.