I don't think any deck is invincible. And you are right, given the right combination of nasty cards, any quest can hammer you. Heck, I've lost against the introductory quest in a few turns, when all the big nasties came out one after the other. But I disagree that those type of occurences present a trend. If you draw 2 Signs of Gollum and 2 Hunters from Mordor in a row, for example, you are in big trouble, but how often will that happen? It is not a trend, it's an exception.

As for Rhosgobel, the quest didn't change. What changed was your deck and thus, it's ability to handle the quest's obstacles. Things like this might make a quest easier or harder, but it has nothing to do with the quest itself. It's all about the player's deck.

Yeah, I could probably phrase it differently as "the quest does not change, but the experience/adventure feels different and the quest may change it's relative difficulty".

Obviously there is a line between a trend and an exception. I feel quite a lot of players don't really know if they spotted a trend or exception. They for example play 4 games, win 3 and lose 1. And during this one lost game, encounter deck pulled off something deadly. You can't really say "I won all normal games and lost once due to incredible bad luck", the sample is just too low to derive any statistics. In some games (like Emyn Muil), encounter deck does not make suprises in just 1% of the games like some people think, but the percentage is actually much higher and is noticable in my opinion.

I really agree with the above. Unless I would specificaly deck-build for a quest, I think the element of surprise is quite substantial. It may sometimes seem as an incredibly bad luck but it tends to happen quite often, if that makes any sense.

Titan said:

I'm just curious, do you find Rhosgobel to be more challenging than Massing at Osgiliath? and if so, why?

Glaurung, you know you can easily ramp up the difficulty by increasing encounter cards at set up, or per turn.

Troymk1 said:

Yes sure can do that but i want play by the rules. Anyway i great my restrict list now. Only 1 card in deck. Gandalf, Tracker and U courage is there already.

Glaurung said:

+Steward of Gondor

Those are the fours cards I'd put on a restricted list

guciomir said:

Hear, hear.

A lot of the criticism I hear (though not Glaurung's, as he seems to play a lot) is from people who take a new quest, build a deck for it, beat it twice in a row and declare it to be 'too easy'.

Emyn Muil for example can be a walk in the park for a Rohan deck if there's a steady flow of locations. At the same time, such a deck receiving two Beastmasters in a row will be in big trouble. However, the general sentiment then is "That was really bad luck, we know the scenario is location heavy but the encounter deck only dealt me enemies, boo hoo". It's not bad luck, it's a feature of that quest that is not the most likely to be dominant, but that will inevitably pop up every now and then. If your deck fails against it, it undermines any claims of being able to win 'consistently' against the scenario and it by extension being too easy.

Got an answer from Mr. French about escape tests:

""Yes, Escape tests are still performed if Gollum is not in play.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games"

I assumed this was the case, but I just wanted to be sure.

Lenbo said:

Thanks Lambo Was quick and cool.

ClydeCloggie said:

You absolutely right about Rohan deck. If you have a lot of enemies this deck is didn work. I use to like it but try Anduin and you will see. Bad staring hand???? Troll will crush them all most if the games.

I completely disagree about restricting Gandalf because such a rule totally goes against his character and how often he shows up in Middle-Earth. Gandalf is supposed to just "show up" unexpectedly now and then, and having three copies makes sure this type of thing happens. I agree he is EXTREMELY powerful, but he is supposed to be...he is one of Aluvitar's angels.

Lenbo said:

Don't have DM yet, so have to ask, is there anything negative/positive about failing or passing those escape tests IF Gollum is not in play? Do the escape test cards have other negative effects besides just adding tokens to Gollum?

DurinIII said:

DurinIII said:

I think they were just talking about Gandalf in terms of its gameplay balance, and not in terms of representing the character from the lore. With regards to that issue of balance, I think there's a distinction between being a strong card and being a card that overwhelmingly breaks the mechanics of the game (perhaps because of its interaction with other cards).

Dam said:

Yes, usually "raise your threat by 1" .

Yeah, perhaps I don't play enough to notice it, but Gandalf is hardly ever the make or break of my games. I still don't think he is "too good."

DurinIII said:

I basically agree, but I also have to say that in combination with Born Aloft, Second Breakfast and Erebor Hammersmith I am able to play him eleven times. And Bilbo makes sure that I will draw my whole deck before I finished the game. Additionally one could call him three times with Sneak Attack.

That's a bit ridiculous, so I decided not to use Second Breakfast and Sneak Attack. So Gandalf himself might not be gamebreaking, but in combination with other cards he's just too powerful.

Just picked up my copy of Dead Marshes tonight. Silvan Tracker looks like a handy little tanking ally. Really like the artwork in this pack.

Now that all four Sphere songs have been released, I have some crazy deck building to do. Quad Sphere: Activate!

We know that they test the entire AP cycle before even the first one is released, but what about the number of core sets? Would it be safe to assume that they test the encounter decks with just one core set per player (or per 2 players?)? If that's the case, perhaps extra core sets tip the balance too much in the player's favor? I wonder if the restricted list (if it comes of course) is only one core set allowed in tournaments? *ponders*

soullos said:

If you look of the results of they testing is not really good......... They already change the rules of the game 3 times for 6 months. And the first errata was done (Nazgul of Dol-Guldor) was done after 1 month game release.+ scoring system didn work and nightmare mode too.

So the best testers we are. Players. Now we are really testing the game!!!!

That people was smart who say 6 months ago : no no i will wait about 1 year and then will see what happen. For now is to fresh and need some update.

So actually we have a big testing for all period of Shadow of Mirkwood. Im ok with that. Just hope next cycle will be more balanced, quests and encounter cards more interesting and difficult and new mechanics make players decks more different to each other.

Marlow said:

Yes, go for it. Quad sphere decks are just cool. They're not always hugely effective, but I've got some good solo wins with quad-sphere decks, including this monster of a win at the Carrock

silverhand77 said:

I have not played against Osgiliath. From what I understand, it is far more difficult. My comment was made in reference to the cycle's quests. My apologies if that wasn't made clear.

@ClydeCloggie If I beat Emyn Muil most of the times, but end up with a bad draw "every now and then" which causes me to lose, I'm I not still beating it consistently? This is just once again the case of the extreme scenario, which can happen at any point, but very rarely will. This does not mean, however that the scenario is all that difficult, simply that it is capable of getting a tough draw that will overcome any deck. This is a reality for all scenarios, regardless of difficulty. Consistency does not mean that a deck is perfect and will handle every given scenario without breaking a sweat, only that it can win most of the time.

I see a difference of opinion between those that build different "thematic" decks to go against the same scenario and those who just play the best deck suitable. There is nothing wrong with either approach, you play the game as you see fit. But understand this: a quest cannot be judged against anything but the best decks that can go against it. Judge it against your best decks, not against all your decks. You cannot judge it against lesser decks and say "it's not that easy". That's like riding a bicycle, instead of a car, to work and saying that it takes a long time to get there.

leptokurt said:

This combo you described would cost 64 resources and spreads across three different spheres. Even with Steward of Gondor this would take you over 12 turns of playing nothing else. I wouldn't say this is broken.

Back to the original topic I have enjoyed this round of player cards. I just got my pack and haven't actually gone through the quest yet, but I already see a lot of utility for previous quests and hopefully future ones as well. I am a theme deck builder myself and having another Eagle with a strong attack ability will make my creature deck more viable, especially for cost of 1. I will also be using Song of Mocking on Frodo in my Tactics/Spirit deck.

Puzzle said:

Gandalf costs 5 resources each round, Steward of Gondor supplies you with 5 resources. Each Gandalf played helps you to reduce your threat, and thus gives you additional time to collect resources to play other stuff beside Gandalf. If you have Mistress of Rivendell and Song of Kings plus Bilbo you can play leadership resources very early in the game without havinga a leadership hero - usually. One reason why I'm happy about the new scoring system, is that a deck like this needs a lot of time to finish the game, so you might win the game, but get a bad result in the end. If you don't care abour scoring though, it still doesn't matter how long it takes before you defeat a scenario.

What I wanted to say is that Gandalf himself is not broken, especially because of his costs (like you pointed out), but that a game can get very dull if you're able to play Gandalf 10 times in a row.

yeah, I imagine such a game would get really dull.