On 3/13/2018 at 10:39 PM, Teamjimby said:

He is a cool idea and I really should try him. I think I focus too much on his mulligan ability and underestimate the potential of his redraw ability.

I too am a Galdor Fan. I like to put Protector of Lorien on him and pass him to another player with Desperate Alliance. Then they can dump their hand and draw a new one!

6 hours ago, Seastan said:

I agree mostly. He's going to struggle against the absolute hardest quests in the game. But for other ones he is quite good. I have started using him with Send for Aid to get a free OHaUH Gandalf, Jubayr, Treebeard, or Glorfindel out on turn 1 or 2. Then play another big ally from hand and start using AVGT.

With Tactics Eowyn you can actually complete the sidequest on turn 1 against any scenario, even ones that start with a lot of threat. You just need to get a bit lucky and start with Grappling Hook.

Since I'm often focuse on the most difficult scenario I never go deepest in this strategy. Who will be your third hero? You are only at 14 so maybe you can even be secrecy, with Glorfindel for example. If you also have a decklist I would be glad to see it.

6 hours ago, Seastan said:

I too am a Galdor Fan. I like to put Protector of Lorien on him and pass him to another player with Desperate Alliance. Then they can dump their hand and draw a new one!

I'm a galdor fan too, even if I'm only playing it on Noldor builds. I almost discard all my hand during mulligan to find the right cards. Then I easily find a way to discard my hand with Arwen hero, Glorfindel ally, elven jailer and to the sea, to the sea (where I do over discard sometime).

6 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

Since I'm often focuse on the most difficult scenario I never go deepest in this strategy. Who will be your third hero? You are only at 14 so maybe you can even be secrecy, with Glorfindel for example. If you also have a decklist I would be glad to see it.

I'm a galdor fan too, even if I'm only playing it on Noldor builds. I almost discard all my hand during mulligan to find the right cards. Then I easily find a way to discard my hand with Arwen hero, Glorfindel ally, elven jailer and to the sea, to the sea (where I do over discard sometime).

I don't have a decklist at the moment, since I just thought of that Eoywn+Grappling Hook+Thurindir idea. I think in 2 player it could be even more reliable, since each deck could include 3x grappling hook. Then complete Keep Watch on turn one.

This is the sidequest deck I've been working on lately (trying to be a bit different): http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/8243/first-aid-1.0

Heroes that aren't currently in a published or unpublished fellowship of mine:

Leadership: Erkenbrand

Lore: Bilbo Baggins, Folco Boffin (but I plan on adding Folco to my four 2-hero decks)

Spirit: Lanwyn, Legolas

Tactics: Eomer, Na'asiyah, Quickbeam, Beorn

Clearly more Dori fellowships are needed.

I have 724 unpublished decks on ringsdb. I thought this ripe for some statistical analysis so I put a little script together to count my hero usage. Here are the results:

So it looks like the only (non-saga) hero that I've really never built a deck with is Spirit Fatty. Of course this doesn't track whether I actually played the deck - only that I built it. I think it's still interesting though.

I was initially shocked to see Arwen in my #1 stop but I guess it makes sense. I would have probably predicted Erestor. I am very surprised to see Lore Pippin in the #8 spot since I don't think I use him as much anymore.

I've made the code for doing this publicly available here: https://repl.it/@Seastan/lotrHeroUsageShare

I'd love to see the results for other people!

Very interesting!

My top 11:

14 	 Leadership Aragorn
14 	 Spirit Arwen Undómiel
13 	 Spirit Éowyn
13 	 Lore Pippin
12 	 Spirit Galadriel
11 	 Leadership Denethor
11 	 Lore Elrond
10 	 Spirit Frodo Baggins
10 	 Leadership Sam Gamgee
9 	 Lore Aragorn
9 	 Neutral Gandalf

I'm actually pretty surprised to see Elrond and Gandalf so high up, I didn't think they were particular favorites of mine or anything. I think my Path Less Traveled blog series is probably primarily responsible for the proliferation of Spirit Eowyn decks. The rest of the list pretty much makes sense; those are some of my favorite go-to Heroes!

My Bottom 14:

1 	 Lore Beravor
1 	 Tactics Brand son of Bain
1 	 Tactics Dori
1 	 Leadership Elfhelm
1 	 Tactics Éomer
1 	 Leadership Éomer
1 	 Leadership Erkenbrand
1 	 Leadership Kahliel
1 	 Spirit Óin
1 	 Lore Ori
1 	 Spirit Pippin
1 	 Tactics Quickbeam
1 	 Tactics Théoden
1 	 Lore Thurindir
1 	 Tactics Tom Cotton
0 	 Tactics Bard the Bowman
0 	 Lore Bombur

This is really interesting too. Some of these Heroes are just new, so I haven't built enough decks from them yet. Others are primarily multiplayer-focused, so they rarely hit my table. Still others are frequently lambasted for being bad Heroes, so it's not too surprising I haven't used them much. But what is Beravor doing there? How could I have been ignoring her this whole time? I suspect it has something to do with my propensity to build thematic decks; maybe she has too much competition in Dúnedain decks.

My full list is attached if anyone wants to look at it.

HeroFrequency.txt

Here are my results:

27 	 Pippin (Lore)
23 	 Galadriel (Spirit)
21 	 Glorfindel (Spirit)
21 	 Sam Gamgee (Leadership)
16 	 Denethor (Leadership)
15 	 Frodo Baggins (Spirit)
14 	 Merry (Spirit)
14 	 Tom Cotton (Tactics)
11 	 Arwen Undómiel (Spirit)
11 	 Folco Boffin (Lore)
10 	 Aragorn (Lore)
10 	 Elrond (Lore)
9 	 Éowyn (Tactics)
8 	 Hirluin the Fair (Leadership)
8 	 Mablung (Tactics)
8 	 Merry (Tactics)
7 	 Bifur (Lore)
7 	 Boromir (Tactics)
6 	 Beregond (Spirit)
6 	 Dáin Ironfoot (Leadership)
6 	 Gandalf (Neutral)
5 	 Amarthiúl (Leadership)
5 	 Damrod (Lore)
5 	 Kahliel (Leadership)
5 	 Legolas (Spirit)
5 	 Théodred (Leadership)
4 	 Boromir (Leadership)
4 	 Caldara (Spirit)
4 	 Celeborn (Leadership)
4 	 Éowyn (Spirit)
4 	 Erestor (Lore)
4 	 Gimli (Leadership)
4 	 Gríma (Lore)
4 	 Hirgon (Tactics)
4 	 Prince Imrahil (Tactics)
4 	 Théoden (Spirit)
3 	 Faramir (Leadership)
3 	 Galdor of the Havens (Lore)
3 	 Glóin (Leadership)
3 	 Haldir of Lórien (Lore)
3 	 Háma (Tactics)
3 	 Quickbeam (Tactics)
3 	 Thorin Oakenshield (Leadership)
2 	 Círdan the Shipwright (Spirit)
2 	 Gimli (Tactics)
2 	 Lanwyn (Spirit)
1 	 Balin (Leadership)
1 	 Beregond (Tactics)
1 	 Bilbo Baggins (Lore)
1 	 Denethor (Lore)
1 	 Dúnhere (Spirit)
1 	 Dwalin (Spirit)
1 	 Elladan (Tactics)
1 	 Elrohir (Leadership)
1 	 Fastred (Spirit)
1 	 Fatty Bolger (Spirit)
1 	 Idraen (Spirit)
1 	 Legolas (Tactics)
1 	 Mirlonde (Lore)
1 	 Nori (Spirit)
1 	 Pippin (Spirit)
0 	 Aragorn (Leadership)
0 	 Aragorn (Tactics)
0 	 Aragorn (Fellowship)
0 	 Aragorn (Fellowship)
0 	 Aragorn (Fellowship)
0 	 Argalad (Lore)
0 	 Bard the Bowman (Tactics)
0 	 Beorn (Tactics)
0 	 Beravor (Lore)
0 	 Bilbo Baggins (Baggins)
0 	 Bilbo Baggins (Baggins)
0 	 Bombur (Lore)
0 	 Brand son of Bain (Tactics)
0 	 Dori (Tactics)
0 	 Eleanor (Spirit)
0 	 Elfhelm (Leadership)
0 	 Éomer (Tactics)
0 	 Éomer (Leadership)
0 	 Erkenbrand (Leadership)
0 	 Faramir (Lore)
0 	 Frodo Baggins (Fellowship)
0 	 Frodo Baggins (Fellowship)
0 	 Frodo Baggins (Fellowship)
0 	 Frodo Baggins (Fellowship)
0 	 Glorfindel (Lore)
0 	 Halbarad (Leadership)
0 	 Na'asiyah (Tactics)
0 	 Óin (Spirit)
0 	 Ori (Lore)
0 	 Prince Imrahil (Leadership)
0 	 Rossiel (Lore)
0 	 Thalin (Tactics)
0 	 Théoden (Tactics)
0 	 Thurindir (Lore)
0 	 Treebeard (Lore)

This show my obsession to secrecy decks with all the hero I use in them in the top8 places ^^.

My result was a bit skewed by my practice of saving multiple versions of a single deck. But the top hero was not surprising to me: Damrod! I love traps. Here are my top 10:

16 	 Damrod (Lore)
13 	 Elrond (Lore)
13 	 Merry (Tactics)
11 	 Galadriel (Spirit)
11 	 Pippin (Lore)
9 	 Arwen Undómiel (Spirit)
9 	 Frodo Baggins (Spirit)
8 	 Aragorn (Leadership)
8 	 Éowyn (Spirit)
8 	 Gríma (Lore)

Surprised to see Grima as high as he is.

At the bottom of the list, there are some 0's, but they are all heroes I have used multiple times. Erestor, the twins, Gloin... I used to make and save decks with a different deckbuilder, so those are lost to posterity. The only one I have legitimately not used is Quickbeam.

And by the way thanks for doing that Seastan! That is super cool.

My top 15:

16 	 Dori (Tactics)
8 	 Théodred (Leadership)
6 	 Galadriel (Spirit)
6 	 Merry (Spirit)
5 	 Elrond (Lore)
5 	 Legolas (Tactics)
5 	 Thalin (Tactics)
5 	 Théoden (Spirit)
4 	 Arwen Undómiel (Spirit)
4 	 Boromir (Tactics)
4 	 Dáin Ironfoot (Leadership)
4 	 Denethor (Lore)
4 	 Denethor (Leadership)
4 	 Nori (Spirit)
4 	 Sam Gamgee (Leadership)

I thought I found some interesting results in my top twelve:

29 Arwen Undómiel (Spirit)

29 Éowyn (Tactics)

28 Glorfindel (Spirit)

25 Denethor (Leadership)

18 Galadriel (Spirit)

17 Círdan the Shipwright (Spirit)

16 Amarthiúl (Leadership)

16 Sam Gamgee (Leadership)

14 Boromir (Tactics)

14 Éowyn (Spirit)

12 Elrond (Lore)

11 Legolas (Spirit)

I was not surprised seeing Arwen, tactics Eowyn and Sp Glorfindel at the top. I build a lot more decks than I play, due to vast amounts of spare time without access to my cards or octgn. Therefore, a lot of my decks ends up being very similar, as I don’t tire of building the “same” deck once each month. This may explain how Amarthiul, a very specialized hero that works “better” in multiplayer, ends up being number seven in my solo oriented deck collection. Another reason might be my love for the dúnedain archetype.

Cirdan is another favourite hero of mine, as is Boromir, Galadriel and Elrond. Denethor and Sp Eowyn surprise me a little bit, as I sort of don’t like Èowyn, and I don’t remember building so much with Denethor. They are really powerful though, which might explain things. Sam is equally surprising, I don’t like hobbits, or leadership.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Legolas. I find him to be an interesting hero, and use him a lot more than I use le Gimli. One of my favourite decks is le Denethor, sp Legolas and lo Glorfindel. I like the combination of sp Legolas, Elven-Light, Steward of Orthanc and Keys of Orthanc. A hero ready and two cards for one threat! Speaking about Glorfindel, I actually have 6 (!) decks with his lore version. After a bit of research, my Lorefindel decks vary from mono lore to tri sphere, and contain several pure noldor decks. Very interesting indeed. Twelve threat for 3wp, 3atk and 5 hp is not that great, but his good traits helps him a lot. LoV and Rivendell Blade works as good with him as with his overused spirit version. And he has the greatest ability in the world, his name and sphere. Really. In sphere Asfaloth. And card draw. Plus that one game in five years when his healing saves you a game. Everyone must hear about Glorfindel’s greatness, how he “won” a hard archery quest, like Helm’s Deep, for you. It will be worth using him for that moment

I also think Lore Glorfindel is not at all a bad hero.

17 	 Denethor (Leadership)
14 	 Legolas (Tactics)
13 	 Elrond (Lore)
12 	 Arwen Undómiel (Spirit)
10 	 Aragorn (Tactics)
10 	 Gandalf (Neutral)
8 	 Damrod (Lore)
8 	 Pippin (Lore)
7 	 Aragorn (Lore)
7 	 Glorfindel (Spirit)