Hi- new to FFG forums-

Also new to LCG but even more the cooperative gamming....so my questions is kind of NOOB. Sorry-

Since LOTR is a cooperative LCG game, do you know what FFG’s plans are for it? League play? Tourney play? Prize support? Participation support? I guess, I’m curious how the cooperative game will work in a league setting: one win/all win? Or just for fun weekly scenarios? Or hasn’t that been discussed yet?

How many adventures/month is forcasted? (one a month, 2? 3? 6?)- I guess my question is-- how much will I need to budget each month to a new game? $40 core, and $10 packs is affordable- but $60/moth for adventure is too much.

I’m kind of looking for a game to get into at the release- so I don’t have to buy a core game and a huge bunch of expansions just to get caught up with other players. Something that’ll have weekly/monthly league/tourney events. Well, I'll admit it, I do like promos and rewards. (I'm a marketing junkie).

Unfortunatly, I missed the big LCG weekend- I would have liked a demo game of LOTR. I do like the idea of thouhg and am excited about it-

Thanks

What little we know is 2 player tournaments against a new scenario and best score wins the day.

1 adventure pack per month is how all the LCG's work. Basically 6 packs make up one complete 120 card expansion. There are the occasional big box deluxe expansions that add a lot more cards but they usually come out between cycles of packs.

Toqtamish said:

And that tells me that dual Leadership/Spirit decks will win every tournament.

Like the OP, I was originally concerned with cost/month. However, since I've recently quit my MMOs that cost $15/month, I'm sure I can swing that into an Adventure Pack each month now. Basically my entertainment budget is going to stay the same. If this was a CCG where I'd have to buy 2-3 boxes at 60+ a pop every 6 months, that would be different.

Re: Leadership/Spirit winning every game: The game has been out, what, a month? And there isn't a single Quest Pack out yet. You might be jumping the gun there.

Re: original post: I'm really interested to see how this works out as a tournament game. I know people are already complaining that the game is going to grow old fast because you aren't playing against an opponent who changes his deck between games, but you can always find ways to improve your score. Also, if the quest for the tournament is not revealed in advance as I think I've heard will be the case, that means you'll have to be prepared for anything, not just make quest-specific decks.

Edit: Re: post above: If tournaments are indeed a 2-player thing (seems a safe bet) you can always split the costs with your tourny partner. That's what I hope to do if I can get another of my friends hooked on the game. That would reduce the cost a lot and make sense.

Consider that adventure packs will have a more limited player card pool(since each brings it's own encounter deck) than most other lcgs. It is a fairly safe bet to say that the sphere best suited to threat reduction will be the most effective in tournament play for quite some time. It may be a while before those limited new releases catch spheres up to deal with threat reduction in a way that is equitable.

Adam said:

A huge part of the team's Score is made up of Threat Level. Leadership/Spirit can effectively reduce Threat Level AND it can still win a match.

So, Leadership is going to be boosting Resources, which will allow you to play allies while reducing Threat Level with The Galadhrim's Greeting. Also, with Leadership you get the option of playing Gandalf 6 times (3 of which only cost 1 Resource due to Sneak Attack), which will further reduce Threat or whatever else you want to do with Gandalf.

sWhiteboy said:

If you're playing Spirt/Leadership, Gandalf can enter play (theoretically) 12 times:

Playing Gandalf Normally (3)

Sneak Attack (3)

Stand and Fight (3)

Will of the West to Play Gandalfs Normally Again (3)

Not on topic...but math is fun!

Technically, with Will of the West you have infinite Gandalfs. Even with the fact that WotW doesn't get reshuffled when you use it, the subsequent uses of it will shuffle the prior one.

Mestrahd said:

Good call. I knew something wasn't right...

If I were playing competitively, I wouldn't include Will of the West.

Any action you use to reduce threat is using resources you could have used toward other things. I haven't played much yet, so I don't claim to be as knowledgeable as you guys as to the current situation, but theoretically all spheres should be just as viable if the cards are balanced, no matter the focus. I know Spirit has a card that reduces one player's threat by six, which is quite useful, but if I have an equal cost card for another sphere that deals damage to a staging area enemy and kills it, in the long run that may be the same difference since you're eliminating threat, with the added bonus of not having to fight it.

*shrug* I have tried and failed three times to beat quest 2 solo, so I am apparently not the best player to be analyzing the game right now.

Adam said:

But that's just it, currently all spheres are not balanced to be able to reduce threat the way spirit can. You can use Gandalf, but that's about it. If you can use Gandalf, The Galadhrim's Greeting, then cards that can recurse both Gandalf and Greeting, then you are miles ahead of the next sphere in terms of threat reduction. I've not experienced a comparable effect with other spheres, no matter what their cards do. While you can certainly pass a scenario, the idea in a tournament is to do so with the lowest score, and anything with spirit in it, will just be much better at it. Will other spheres eventually balance out? I certainly hope so, I don't want to see spirit become an auto include in any deck that aspires to be competitive at a tournament. But, as I pointed out above, with smaller amounts of cards per new release, this might take a while to change. Also, if the Warhammer lcg is any guide, changing the meta in lcgs is slower than usual because the new packs are finalized well in advance of any issues that might pop up. Time will tell, but this is my best guess, right now.

Continuing this discussion, you have to think about all of the different things that check threat:

Losing

Engagement Checks (i.e. are enemies all over you?)

Treachery Cards (raise threat and check 35)

On top of all the things that add threat...

What's the point? The ability to reduce threat can do so much more than the ability to kill enemies, draw cards, or gain resources.

I've thought a lot about this as well, and one thing that could equal out the threat reduction is if every enemy in a tournament encounter deck has the Victory keyword with an appropriate number attached. This way, while not affecting the actual game play itself, the Tactics deck could get a huge boost in the scoring end.

Toqtamish said:

Shadows of Mirkwood Cycle has 6 adventure packs. At 60 fixed cards per pack this makes 360 cards (including any duplicates of encounter cards and three each of the player cards).

Sylvicolus said:

Are there going to be three of each player card/s in the cycle or are people going to have to buy three of each adventure pack to keep up with having three of every card?

I don't play in tourneys, but I think it would kind of suck for those that did to have to buy 3 of everything to be able to compete at the highest level. People willing to spend the most would have the best chance to build the best decks.

It has been stated (somewhere) that the first adventure pack will contain 3 copies of 9 new player cards. That's all the concrete info that we have.

3 of the relevant cards... 1 x quest cards, I presume... and encounter deck is another thing...

Hahma said:

Sadly, this is the case with many card games. Every game has a meta and there's a reason why it becomes one. If you don't have the max amount of the best cards in your deck you will be at a disadvantage to those who do. You need a very large and varied card pool to avoid this. Even then, some games can't pull it off.

yeah... just think about MtG: you absolutely have to buy (at least for another couple of months...) Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4x and inculde him in your deck... each costs about 100 $, or so... and that's just 4 cards out of 60.... how's that for a metagame? (I recognize all the other viable strategies in magic, just saying that it's a trend... still)

Vyron said:

This is how all adventure packs will be as far as I know. The Game of Thrones LCG was redone so that the expansions and adventure packs would have 3 of each card. There was apparently a big uproar prior to this over having to buy multiple adventure packs and expansions to get to the 3 card limit. FFG nicely decided to change this so that you only had to buy one product to get to the 3 card limit. The 1st LotR adventure pack has the following:

- A new hero

- A scenario (3 cards)

- An encounter deck to go with the scenario.

- An assortment of cards for each sphere plus the neutral card that was already revealed. Each type of card comes with 3 copies.

But I'd love to hear more about official tournament play. The GenCon tournament has been announced. I haven't seen a word about the format though. I think all of the LCGs have in store tournament kits that stores can purchase to run tournaments with prize support. I don't have any details about this though but it would be good to know how this works for LotR LCG since it's cooperative compared to the other three LCGs.

If i understand right the contest of the adventure pack Hunt for Gollum should looks like this:

total 60 cards.

1 hero (1 copy) 1

9 player cards (3 copies each) 27

3 quest cards (1 copy each) 3

29 encounter cards 29

So looks like will be very cool quest. like someone say : the encounter deck of the H.f. Gollum quest includes 2 another encounter decks from Core set.

But here we have already 29 cards so 2 more sets lets say another 20 or 15 cards. Total is around 40-50 cards. Big encounter deck a???? Should be interesting.