Introduction : Core set offers us in overall 3 scenarios, with which players come into contact. If they are absolute newbies in LCG or CCG, and thus in deckbuilding and everything connected with it, then questions, maybe confusion can appear. How to build a deck? What kind of cards should I include? Specifically for LOTR LCG: what kind of sphere should I use? Which is best for this or that scenario? Should I play solo (= with one deck) or in the multiplayer environment (=2 and more decks)? I remember on some of these questions as well. I wasn’t new in deckbuilding, but I was just learning LOTR LCG, about all these spheres, their weaknesses, strengths, combos, synergies, etc.

After 3 years of playing, I find out that progression style of playing can make me happier than jump into the Mirkwood with an entire arsenal (or at least up to Heirs of Númenor :)) and massacre poor enemies. It wasn’t fun anymore. So I decide to play in progressive style – the “normal style” of playing I was pursuing only to testing decks and testing cards themselves. I have returned to the Core set and was thinking. Without all these super cards beyond Core set, how should I deal with all these scenarios? Excluding the first one, it seems pretty challenging to me. Suddenly, I’ve got an idea – what about the playing of all spheres and then compare, which were commonly good and useful and which weren’t? I have prepared the decks, scenarios, notepad, and pen and I was really curious about the results.

For whom is this session? For new players and players, who loves the progression style of the playing.

What is the aim of this session? Comparing spheres among themselves to find out, which are suitable for playing different scenarios.

Playing environment : 2-handed solo playing.

Playing style: Progressive mode.

Set: Core set.

Scenarios : Passage Through Mirkwood, Journey Along the Anduin, Escape from Dol Guldur.

Spheres : Monosphere decks – for easy comparison.

Decks: All combinations of 2-handed monosphere decks (consists of 2 Core set with max. 50 cards):

Leadership + Lore
Leadership + Spirit
Leadership + Tactic
Tactic + Spirit
Tactic + Lore
Lore + Spirit

Scoring : Classic (Final Threat Level + Threat Cost of Each Dead Hero + Damage Tokens on Remaining Heroes = Player 1 Subtotal + Player 2 Subtotal = Combined Player Subtotal – Victory Points Earned + Number of Rounds (*10) = Final Score

Personal tip for best combinations:

1) Leadership + Spirit

2) Tactic + Spirit

3) Leadership + Lore

Final Score of all monosphere combinations:

Leadership + Lore:
Passage Through Mirkwood: 101
Journey Along the Anduin: 182
Escape from Dol Guldur: 212
Overall score: 495

Tactic + Spirit
Passage Through Mirkwood: 91
Journey Along the Anduin: 111
Escape from Dol Guldur: 151
Overall score: 353

Leadership + Spirit:
Passage Through Mirkwood: 70
Journey Along the Anduin: 167
Escape from Dol Guldur: 157
Overall score: 394

Tactic + Lore
Passage Through Mirkwood: 100
Journey Along the Anduin: 137
Escape from Dol Guldur: 220
Overall score: 457

Leadership + Tactic:
Passage Through Mirkwood: 110
Journey Along the Anduin: 162
Escape from Dol Guldur: 148
Overall score: 420

Lore + Spirit:
Passage Through Mirkwood: 106
Journey Along the Anduin: 184
Escape from Dol Guldur: 142
Overall score: 432

Best score of all combinations in given scenario:

Passage Through Mirkwood

1) Leadership + Spirit = 70

2) Tactic + Spirit = 91

3) Tactic + Lore = 100

Journey Along the Anduin

1) Tactic + Spirit = 111

2) Tactic + Lore = 137

3) Leadership + Tactic = 163

Escape from Dol Guldur

1) Lore + Spirit = 142 (?)

2) Leadership + Tactic = 148

3) Leadership + Spirit = 157

Best overall score of all combinations:

1) Tactic + Spirit = 353

2) Leadership + Spirit = 394

3) Leadership + Tactic = 420

Average score of each sphere from all combinations in given scenario (EXAMPLE: Leadership in Passage Through Mirkwood = ((Leadership + Lore) + (Leadership + Spirit) + (Leadership + Tactic)) / 3):

Passage Through Mirkwood

1) Spirit = 89

2) Leadership = 94

3) Tactic = 100

4) Lore = 103

Journey Along the Anduin

1) Tactic = 137

2) Spirit = 154

3) Lore = 168

4) Leadership = 171

Escape from Dol Guldur

1) Spirit = 150

2) Leadership = 172

3) Tactic = 173

4 ) Lore = 191

Average score of every monosphere deck from all combinations (EXAMPLE: Leadership = ((overall score of Leadership + Lore) + (overall score of Leadership + Spirit) + (overall score of Leadership + Tactic)) / 3):

1) Spirit = 393

2) Tactic = 410

3) Leadership = 437

4) Lore = 462

Commentary to results: Well first of all, let’s look at what combinations are best for playing in a given scenario (or at least from these results, it needn’t be valid in general). Passage Through Mirkwood isn’t a scenario, which should truly test your skills and abilities. Almost every deck, whatever it contains, should pass this introducing scenario. The aim in this scenario I have one – walk through the scenario as fast as possible.:) In this discipline was best combination Leadership + Spirit . Not surprised, the heavy-Willpower deck with supportive Leadership, where you can rely on Celebrían’s Stone and Aragorn + Théodred , makes the trip really easy. And in the ideal case, you should be done with this scenario during incomplete 3 rounds. The best score can come out from combination Tactic + Spirit as well, because of Éowyn , Legolas and Blade of Gondolin , so in 2 rounds you can finish this scenario. Other combinations of spheres are quite close to each other with relatively insignificant differences, from 100 to 110. At most 4 rounds last Passage Through Mirkwood , so as I said, every deck should beat it without any problem.

After brief running through “tutorial scenario,” you will stop before the first harder scenario, Journey Along the Anduin . This time you have to think up some strategy, you must know all the possibilities, which your cards can offer you, and know their (dis-)advantages. You must mainly to possess some offensive weapon to beat the Hill Troll , and in the same time make the excellent effort in questing during the second part of the scenario, where you reveal 1 more card. I was really curious about the results now, how different combinations will going through this. From all two-handed monosphere combinations, Tactic + Spirit deck perfectly dominates the game. During the 4 rounds, everything was done, where others were fighting for 7-11 rounds. The reasons were again: 1) Éowyn with her amazing Willpower strength, 2) Legolas with Blade of Gondolin, so he can make the progress outside of questing phase and accelerate your progression, 3) beast named Gimli , who is able to swing Hill Troll in 1-2 rounds, if you let Gimli hurt, 4) Thalin , who can get rid of nasty Eastern Crows with that Surge keyword, 5) Unexpected Courage on Legolas or Gimli, first can speed up your progress very quickly, second can strike back just after the defending, 6) Northern Tracker prevents you to be stuck by location-lock, where Tactic sphere couldn’t help you very much. This combination is really deadly for this scenario and I consider it as the best choice. Next good combination was surprisingly Tactic + Lore . Forest Snare immobilizes Hill Troll and Gimli with others can gradually damage him until death. There weren’t too many combos or synergies, however. The progression was generated mainly because of Glorfindel and Legolas with Blade of Gondolin. Even though the result was the second best, I am not persuaded by this combination in Journey Along the Anduin , because Lore was generally showing quite bad results, it’s by the way visible on any combination with the Lore deck. The final, and again surprisingly, the good result comes from the combination Leadership + Tactic , where I have expected the big problems with the walkthrough itself, because of lacking Willpower. Well, it wasn’t the walk in the park, because the final threat level of both spheres hit the number 40 (or exceeds in the case of Tactic). The important thing is that you may go through this scenario even without the presence of the Spirit sphere, even in the most offensive composition you can think up.

Escape from Dul Guldur was a scenario, which in the beginning I wasn’t able to beat up at all. Not in the classic solo game. With the expanding cardpool, the respect from this scenario was gradually disappearing. But, I have returned to the Core set environment and stands again before one of the toughest scenarios of this whole cycle. Well, the two-handed solo game should be a more comfortable environment. But once again, I was persuaded this scenario won’t give me anything for free. The limitation of one played ally per round and one “arrested” hero is making the wonders. So, what combination should beat Escape from Dul Guldur on the first place? This time I was shocked when I was comparing the results among all combinations. Lore + Spirit turns out fine. How is it possible that the least offensive combination of the sphere goes through this scenario most easily? Well, when I was playing this game, I was having in my mind one thought for the whole time: wow, I am so lucky, which cards I am drawing from the encounter deck. From the beginning till the very end, the encounter deck was very kind to me and saved my life in situations, where the appearing of Ungoliant’s Spawn or more enemies in one time should destroy my chances so easily. Because, as you know, Core Spirit isn’t able to resist against more enemies, and Lore hasn’t natural-born warriors as well (excluding Glorfindel). Well, if you want to know, how to beat Nazgúl of Dul Guldur and simultaneously how to make good progress (because the Spirit itself is not enough), ask Glorfindel – he urgently needs Unexpected Courage. In that game, he had attached two of them, so questing and attacking in the same round comes very, very handy. Despite that, I don’t consider this combination as suitable for this scenario. I am convinced that the second, third and next games, the encounter deck would show me its true power and won’t let me pass. Or at least, not with such a good score. Anyway, the second and third best score belong to combinations Leadership + Tactic and Leadership + Spirit .

So, which sphere seems like the most necessary and suitable for each scenario? Passage Through Mirkwood is passable by any sphere, yet with the Spirit sphere , you can make it in the fastest way. For Journey Along the Anduin , you should call for help at Tactic sphere , mainly because of battle with Hill Troll. And in Escape from Dol Guldur , again Spirit sphere seems as essential, with a quite convincing score. Éowyn is a real superstar (if she is not chosen as the prisoner, then your chances are very slight).

Now, what combination and what sphere itself are best for the Core set? The best results reached two spheres, which also reached the best scores in the “individual discipline.” Spirit and Tactic – Spirit is the best sphere for every scenario in Core set and should be combined with Tactic if you want to increase your chances as much as possible. They are two contrasts, but it fits well together. Master in combat and master in questing. Combine Éowyn and Legolas with Blade of Gondolin and the progress is assured, during the questing phase and even during the combat phase. The fight is easy thanks to Gimli and other Tactic allies, led by mighty Beorn . You can’t rely on resource generation (excluding Horn of Gondor ), but it seems that for these two spheres it isn’t so much trouble. On the other hand, Leadership was always a good supporter and reaches solid scores. Yet, as a single monosphere, it falls behind Spirit and Tactic sphere. You definitely won’t make a mistake, if you include Leadership sphere to your two-monospheres combinations. After all, Steward of Gondor , Celebrían’s Stone, Aragorn, Snowbourn Scout , and a few other cards can help you very significantly. They are favoring you in term of resource generation, action-advantage (readying effects and abilities), boosting stats and other minor effects and abilities. Finally, what about Lore ? Why the Lore sphere was ending with the worst scores and is undoubtedly the least advantageous sphere, in the Core set environment? I think that the overprice of cards in this sphere was the main reason. You build your army very slowly, you can react to situations only with a certain delay (because of lacking resources or cards themselves, like Forest Snare), allies are not natural-born questers or attackers (and simple chump blocking looks like the common waste of resources)… You are still facing the dilemma, where to save your resources in order to make the best decision. Such rate of uncertainty isn’t appearing at any other sphere, nor Tactic or Spirit, which haven’t the advantage of resource generation like Leadership (again, excluding Horn of Gondor).

The most surprised cards were…

Well, Protector of Lórien was one of the few cards of Lore sphere, which gives me some certainty in my questing effort or even defending efforts. If anything unexpected happens, Protector of Lórien would help me. Or should.

Stand and Fight was another example of a card, which I have forgotten just for realizing that this isn’t a useless card at all. The best thing is that you can return ally from any discard pile. So Spirit sphere, known for their “offensive inability”, can recall somebody like Beorn at own side. Cool. The same excellent thing was with dead Northern Tracker . Yeah, that was happening quite often in games, because of Dol Guldur Orcs , The Necromancer’s Reach , Evil Storm , etc. And rather than mourning I choose to refuse his defeat and call him back to duty.

Finally, For Gondor! doesn’t shine only in Gondor decks, but it may serve as the “ace in the hands” if you lack sufficient Attack. I used it more often than Blade Mastery , which was appearing in the games very sporadically.

The most disappointments were…

Dúnhere definitely. I don’t use him very often, but I was convinced that this guy is somehow underrated from me and he can do his job quite well. After walkthrough every scenario, he was in every game totally the most useless hero at all. I believe that beyond the Core set the situation will become better for him because of the coming of some simple and cheap attachments boosting Attack. But in all three Core set scenarios, he was sort of unusable. Enemies, which would be the great targets for Dúnhere, engage you sooner than Dúnhere could attack them in the staging area because of low engagement cost. On the contrary, enemies which were staying in the staging area for a longer time, were more or less invincible for Dúnhere ( Chieftan Ufthak, Dungeon Jailer, Nazgúl of Dol Guldur, Hill Troll, Ungoliant’s Spawn ). The only occasion, where he was useful, was during attacking the Hummerhorns and Goblin Sniper . In approximately 50% cases he could beat in 2 rounds Wargs . And in 2-3 rounds Dol Guldur Beastmaster . But when the combat takes the place right before you in your engagement area, he behaves like average ally with only 2 Attack. For ally 2 Attack isn’t bad. But Dúnhere is meant as the main offensive power in the Spirit sphere. Okay, maybe Blade of Gondolin or Dwarven A xe could right his reputation. However, I rather attach Blade of Gondolin to Legolas and Dwarven Axe to Gimli . For Dúnhere it seems to me as a waste of good attachments, unfortunately.

From the Spirit heroes, Eleanor was also quite often unusable. When her moment comes (when I revealed the treachery), I always hesitate to use her ability. Should I cancel or not? What next card is awaiting me right behind this treachery? What if it was something even worse? Some strong enemy, or location with a high threat? The level of uncertainty was sometimes frustrating. Note, that Denethor’s ability couldn’t help you at this moment, because during the staging area any action isn’t allowed. I was rather using A Test of Will instead of Eleanor. Her ability comes handy in really, really critical moments when the revealed treachery would mean the death of a hero or some good ally.

Then I have to mention Beravor because I couldn’t use her ability even if I have wanted to. Lore lack Willpower. And the only one, who can quest well, is Glorfindel . But he can’t make it alone, he needs help. And Beravor was the only one, who could support him in his effort. And if a great amount of Willpower was assured, then I had to defend myself against enemies, so Beravor again had to give the helping hand to Denethor. Her cards-drawing ability couldn’t be used. This phenomenon is caused by the composition of the Core Lore cards, where you generally lack Willpower and Attack and you must be supported by another sphere. I guess that in real solo game Lore sphere is just failure.

Conclusion

The testing of all 2-monospheres combinations shows me some expected results and phenomena. Spirit sphere is needed and works perfectly in almost any combination. Core set scenarios are more or less on the amount of Willpower depended. Tactic sphere is another very solid choice (in my point of view the best compact and competitive sphere in the Core set), because of combat skills and power. So together these two sphere makes a great combo during the walkthrough of every Core scenario and I can recommend you to use them in two-handed solo (or shortly in 2-players) environment.

Leadership sphere was ending with inconsistent results s bit. Once it seems as very helpful, once the game was pretty tough and once the Leadership sphere has failed at all. I didn’t feel it even once that this sphere could take over the initiative, it didn’t behave as a true “leader”, more rather as the support. It depends, which “sphere comrade” you choose to Leadership sphere. Do you need good support to Spirit sphere in a questing, but you need to cover your back by some good fighters? Or do you need good support to Tactic sphere in the fighting, but also you need to make some appropriate progress? Leadership sphere can assure that. Not in the best or most convincing way, but if you don’t aim absolutely on the final score, Leadership sphere reliably guides you through all Core scenario.

The greatest challenge would certainly be the walkthrough with Lore sphere . I described the problems of Lore above, so I won’t repeat it. I think that the monosphere deck from the Core set isn’t a suitable environment for Lore. Maybe in dual- or trisphere decks, the situation changes, however, the overpricing of Lore cards remains. Even Leadership + Lore can’t help you, because you may have resources, but not any good quester or attacker, which you would pay. Yeah, dual- or trisphere deck (in two-handed mode) would fit the Lore sphere.

Responding here for discussion of the usefulness of score, but first I have questions:

1)The comparison is using core-only monosphere decks drawn from two core sets "with max 50 cards". The second core set will allow about thirteen cards to be added to a starter deck (a third copy of the 2x cards and a second copy of the 1x cards), and also provides enough Gandalfs for both decks to have 3x -- but that's short of 50! Am I missing something?

2) A score is given for all combinations against all quests, but a score is only generated by victories. Did all 6 monosphere combinations really defeat each of the scenarios on the first try? Or does the score represent only the first success against that particular quest?

1) If I remember correctly, then the decks weren't consisted of 50 cards. I think 48,49.
2) Not at all. There aren't included (number of) loses. It's the first victory with deck against the concrete scenario. I know that would be best to play at least 3 games with same deck against one scenario, but I haven't enough time and strength to really do it.:D Even this session was very time-consuming, but I wanted to test it.:)

So the monosphere decks have 3x of the sphere cards, except for the 1-per-core cards (2x of those), and 3x Gandalf each? That's what I would do. The "starter decks" only come with one Gandalf, but no reason not to go to three -- Leadership in particular is vastly better with 3x Sneak Attack and 3x Gandalf than 2x Sneak Attack and 1x Gandalf (starter).

I realize it's a lot of work to beat every quest with every combination. Given variability of both the player deck and the encounter deck, it would take a lot more trials than three to reach a healthy confidence level (based on statistics) that two different combinations are actually different, let alone how different. But leaving the losses out puts a different aspect on answering the question "which is best for this scenario?" Instead of answering the question of which combination is most likely to beat a scenario, you are answering the question of which combination will win quickest *if* they win -- that's a very different question. A new player who is struggling to beat a quest is probably more interested in the first!

For example, speaking hypothetically, suppose that against Journey Along the Anduin the Leadership/Lore combo wins around 60% of the time (i.e. when the Lore deck gets a Forest Snare after mulliganing for it) while the Spirit/Tactics combo wins around 50% of the time. Spirit/Tactics, when it wins, will when faster -- it will kill the Troll quickest and have the killing power necessary for the final stage quickest. Leadership/Lore will be slowest -- it will build up its ally army in stage one, ignoring the trapped Troll until it's ready to go, then when the time is right will kill the troll and use Faramir and the allies to clear stage two in one turn. So which combination would *really* be better against this quest?

Indeed, leadership/lore is IMO the strongest combination against JAtA in general, as Lore has Forest Snare and Leadership has Faramir (and so the most questing potential). It's just the core monosphere heroes for Lore that weaken it because Glorfindel pushes the starting threat to 30 -- so the Troll engages on turn one. That doesn't tell you anything about the deck contents, and since JAtA is the only quest in existence that immediately punishes you for having exactly 30 threat it doesn't even tell you much about the heroes.

@dalestephenson Thx for your feedback.:)
I know that this counting is not perfect. There isn't considered the number of attempts, which were needed to win the given scenario. I dunno, how to include such variable, so I took the first successful score and make some conclusion. To minimalize coincidence, I made also average score for each sphere in overall and each sphere in a given scenario.

In Escape from Dol Guldur , the final score of Lore+Spirit combination is quite good (142), but there isn't written, how much attempts I needed to win this scenario. I remember I did it on maybe eighth, ninth attempt, because Lore+Spirit lacks some strong allies able to combat - everything had to manage Glorfindel who had to attached Unexpected Courage - that was necessary basic for victory in this combination.

The best would be playing with each combination of sphere for third times at least, to make some average value and make it, from statistical view, more reliable.

You are right, that the fastest way doesn't mean the most comfortable way - if I fly through the scenario because I had lucky opening hand and encounter deck had bad luck, it doesn't say anything about the quality of a given combination. Maybe that the next 5 games I would have a problem to do ceratin scenario successfully, while the another combination would win in 5/5 attempts, though the final scores would reach a bit higher values.

However, so many attempts with all of these combinations will tell to players many informations about the spheres itself: what are strengths and weaknesses of a given sphere? Which cards are always beneficial? Which cards, OTOH, were harmful? From which combination of spheres you had the "best feeling"? And is it better to keep it as monosphere decks or dual- or trisphere decks? For me, it very depends on spheres with which you play - I like playing with Tactic sphere as monosphere deck (Combat deck) + dualsphere deck (Support deck/Questing deck) from Leadership/Spirit spheres. But it surely depends also on the given scenario - in The Hills of Emyn Muil, Tactic deck would hardly play a keyrole, you rather should look onto Lore deck with Spirit/Leadership deck, or something like that.

The magic in LOTR LCG is that there isn't universal perfect combination of spheres or cards or decks, which would win you everything. You are free to use any combination, make own deck, apply your own ideas and create something unique. The game will tell you, how well you built your deck. I love deckbuilding and love LOTR LCG.:)

Yes, the *process* of doing your experiment would certainly be informative. Monosphere core decks force you to use all the cards, developing a familiarity with them and getting a good feel for what they can do and how useful they are. The number of attempts before you won (if recorded) would also give you some hard information relavent to how strong those decks are against that quest. So I have no quarrel with your general experiment.

My quarrel is with the official scoring method. You learned a lot from this experiment, but what did you learn from the actual numeric scores and from averaging them? Since score is dominated by number of turns, you largely learned how quickly they won, when they did win. But this information is only useful if you care about how long it takes when you win -- and if you don't care about the official scoring method, there's no particular reason to care about how long it takes when you win! If you didn't bother with the numeric scoring and merely counted the number of turns, and reported that, you would have largely the same information in a much clearer format. If you had instead tracked how many losses it took before you won (less work on your part) it would be a small bit of information on how strong the monosphere decks are against a particular quest. Even to you this is more valuable information, because you warned against the "best performing" Lore+Spirit against Dol Goldur because you knew it wasn't very good against this quest.

You pointed to this thread because you said the *score* taught you things about these decks, but from what I'm reading it seems the *process* is what really taught you things about these decks.

Is it better to do monosphere decks or mix spheres in two-handed play. This is, as you note, quest dependent, and monosphere decks can be quite powerful in the context of the full card pool. Monosphere tactics by the end of the Mirkwood cycle can provide a useful combat deck for two-handed play, since the Eagles archetype is fleshed out during the cycle and monosphere-tactics is the best way to pay for Eagles until Radagast is released.

However, *in general* I think the best two-handed setup is two dual-sphere decks, giving access to all spheres. I think this is *especially* true in the first cycle. By mixing spheres you can construct 50-card decks without very weak cards *much* sooner -- in fact, with a single core you can't make 50-card monosphere decks *at all* until you get enough expansions. For one-deck play a tri-sphere deck (such as the Killer Deck) is probably the best performer. Rouxxor quit playing in the solo league because subbing a hero into a core-heavy Theodred-Eowyn-Beravor was defeating quests so easily and it ceased to be interesting. But running the Killer Deck or something like it efficiently requires more *experience* to pilot well, so I hesitate to recommend them to new players (they also take most expensive cards off the table).