On February 20th, 2012, FFG instigated subforums for our LOTR LCG community. At that time I began a new thread in the Player Community subforum for juicebox Tournament activity: The juicebox LOTR LCG Tournaments ~ Top Ten Hall of Fame & Ideas Thread. What you find below is now just a snapshot of what one might call "old news"...

Complete Directory of Tournament Threads:

Completed Tournaments:

Solo Player: #1
Solo Player: #2
Solo Player: #3
Solo Player: #4
Solo Player: #5
Solo Player: #6
Solo Player: #7
Solo Player: #8
Solo Player: #9
Solo Player: #10

2 Player: #1
2 Player: #2

Active Tournaments:

2 Player: #3

4 Player: #1

Last Updated:

February 19, 2012 (11:05am) [FFG Time]

Top Ten Hall of Fame Thread:

The juicebox LOTR LCG Top Ten Hall of Fame

Original Post:

I’m considering starting a series of week long tournaments highlighting a specific quest with specific deck building requirements. In the next post, I’ll provide a sample of what I’m planning to launch first. Between now and then, I would welcome thoughtful input around how I am setting this up. Also feel free to use this thread to make suggestions for future Tournament of the Week ideas (quests and deck building parameters).

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and if you could keep them focused to this particular topic here that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all!

The juicebox LOTR LCG Tournament of the Week (#1)

[sAMPLE POST - NOT FOR OFFICIAL USE]

Welcome to my first (of what could become a regular thing) LOTR LCG Tournament of the Week. The idea behind this is that for one week (Sunday – Saturday), everyone is invited to participate in playing a particular quest with particular deck building requirements as outlined in this first post. You are then invited to record and post your final score, the heroes you used, and any narrative you’d like to add.

Note: this is not a place to post results from the past. The tournament has a one-week lifespan, and only games played and recorded throughout this week are valid. Throughout the week, I will keep this first post updated with the Top Ten results.

Will you place in the Top Ten for the week? I hope you’ll participate and find out.

After the end of this week’s tournament, you are welcome to continue to post results to this thread if you continue to play this particular quest under these particular parameters. However, the Top Ten on this first post will not continue to be updated after the week is over, thus preserving (like a time capsule) the results from this week’s tournament. Further, and in general, please refrain from using this thread for extensive theorizing and/or conversation that is not directly related to this particular tournament. Nothing against other conversations – it’s just, that’s what other threads are for. And now… on to this week’s Tournament of the Week!

Tournament #1: Journey Down the Anduin [1 Core Set Only] [solo Play]

This week’s tournament is inspired by Marlow’s recent desire to absolutely conquer the Anduin. While playing Solo, using only one deck made from one core set may not be everyone’s cup of tea, defined parameters are what will make each Tournament of the Week a unique and specific challenge. I hope you enjoy it, and Quest Well!!

Top Ten (11/20/11 – 11/26/11) [sAMPLE POST - NOT FOR OFFICIAL USE]

1.
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8.
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10.

Does the requirement "one core set only" absolute, i.e. no cards from adventure packs?

Angus Lee said:

Good question. That was my intention. That way, for future tournaments, the same quest could be run again with different deck building parameters, like [One Core Set + all Shadows of Mirkwood adventure packs] for example or [1-3 Core Sets only] or [Open Build - i.e. use any cards you like according to standard deck building rules].

That said, it sounds like I'll need to word that piece with more clarity. Would [One Core Set Only - no adventure packs] suffice?

Thanks!

juicebox said:

Sounds Well formularen to me but of it's one core set only with no AP then you only have 4 quests to go at

mr.thomasschmidt said:

I'm not sure I understand. The particular quest for this week's tournament would be Journey Down the Anduine (just the one quest), and the deck building restriction would be that you'd be limited to tackling that quest using a deck with cards built just from one core set. What do you mean by "only have 4 quests to go at?"

Every time there is a different weekly tournament, there would be a specific quest chosen for the tournament - just one (unless for that week the tournament happened to be a "nightmare" variant or some such). Can you let me know if I need to make a certain part of the instructions more clear? I will make a couple small fixes to the sample posted above, and hopefully that will help (Specifically, I will strike "as outlined in this first post." from the second sentence.)

Thanks for the feedback. My hope is to have the instructions for participating as clearly laid out as possible before launching the first one. So, all questions are helpful. Sharing your understanding of how this would work based on what I've written would be helpful too. Again, thanks!

Sounds fun i'd give it a go.

Avalanche said:

Great!

I'd participate as well.

Good idea! And what about 2,3,4-players games? I don't play solo. Only 2 players games with my wife.

LEGA said:

Good question. I've been toying around with a few options...

1) Different weekly tournament formats could specifically be for either solo, 2, 3, or 4 player games. By making each tournament very specific it would either give people a natural out from participating that week (i.e. "well, I don't play solo, so I'm out") or it could encourage people to try something new (i.e. "okay, I'll give this solo thing a go" or "I'm gonna need to find a buddy to play with this week if I want in on this weeks tournament").

2) I could make a separate Top Ten list for each Solo, 2 player, 3 player, and 4 player each week. (That has me spinning a bit just thinking about it though.)

3) Each week could offer Top Tens for both Solo and 2 player formats (maybe the most popular formats at this point?) (also, maybe a little more manageable for me).

4) Some other possibility I'm not thinking of...

Honestly, I'm leaning toward option one at this point, making each tournament very specific around 3 main variables:

1) The Quest for that Week

2) The Deck Building Parameters

3) The Number of Players

BUT, I'm really open to feedback about all of this. What do you think about these options? My desire is to brainstorm, problem-solve on the front end, launch the first tournament this Sunday, see out that goes, evaluate, and continue from there based on how things go.

[Also, Kiwina - I saw your post too... glad you're game!]

I decided to give this a go tonight. I threw together a Spirit/Leadership deck with Eowyn, Dunhere and Theodred as the heroes. The first game had Unexpected Courage, Sneak Attack and Gandalf in the opening hand - how can it get any better? However, due to Necromancer's Reach, Eowyn eventually bit the dust in the second phase, and I couldn't muster enough quest power after that. I conceded the game shortly after.
So, on to a second game. I had Gandalf in my opening hand, but no Sneak Attack this time. I eventually drew it and decided to use it on Faramir so I didn't lose the quest somewhere in phase 2. The next draw, of course, was Gandalf... In phase 2, I revealed a lot of locations and eventually had to return Northern Tracker tue to a Shadow card as it was my only exhausted ally. I couldn't replay it, had 3 locations in the staging area, was at 45 threat and facing the Marsh Adder. I conceded.
So, I was off to the third game. Weirdly, everything went super-smooth in spite of me not drawing Gandalf, Northern Tracker, Sneak Attack or Unexpected Courage. However, I got two quick Guide to Loriens and an early Banks of Anduin. I managed to "recycle" the Banks 3 times, staying clear of any more dangerous cards. I dealt with the Troll by chumping with a Snowbourne Scout and using For Gondor! for enough damage. When I finished phase 2 in turn 8, I didn't reveal any more enemies and only had to deal with a Dol Guldur Beastmaster which I could exactly kill. I still had the opportunity to recycle a Greeting of the Galadhrim with my Dwarven Tomb to lower my threat again.
Final score: 103 - 8 turns, 25 threat, 1 damage on Eowyn and Theodred each (Necromancer's Reach), 4 victory points from the initial Hill Troll.
I was pretty lucky as I didn't draw anything really dangerous - no second Troll, no Marsh Adder, no Gladden Fields, no Ufthak. So, I'm not really sure I can do better, at least not without an insane amount of luck.

I really like this idea. Could do all sorts of fun concepts. Three heroes of different spheres for instance. s I think you can do solo weeks and non solo weeks. Two player isn't that hard to play solo if you wanted to. aAfter that though you need another person or two.

wRAITH428

p.s. - iF THE FORMATTING LOOKS ODD i APPOLOGIZE. sOMETHING WRONG WITH MY BROWSER AND HAD TO TYPE THIS BLIND.

Trantor and wraith428... THANKS for the great feedback!

Trantor - WOW! I'll be amazed if someone can top that third game experience of yours next week when this goes live. Can't wait to see if it's possible.

And wraith428 - That's a great idea about adding hero parameters to some of the tournaments. I hadn't considered that. I like it.

Also, i appreciate your thoughts about specifying number of players per tournament. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of setting up each tournament to be very particular. There's so much exciting about this game (especially with the new expansion coming out soon and a new series of adventure packs to look forward to). I think these tournaments can be a way to keep some of the "old stuff" fresh and worth revisiting in a fun, challenging, and focused way.

Looking forward to Sunday...

Another idea for the future pile… Journey Down the Anduin w/ a starting party of heroes who’s base threat is 30+ (i.e. have to deal with the Troll on turn 1.) Not sure it’s even possible.

Wraith428

P.S. - Really like the Tournament of the Week idea.

wraith428 said:

Thanks Wraith428! That could be a fun idea to try for 2 player games. I imagine solo play starting with 30+ threat would result in an mulligan epidemic of outrageous proportion.

Also, I'm foreseeing a potential problem with my idea...

Up until tonight I've been able to go back and Edit the orriginal post for this thread. Now, tonight, that feature is gone! Does that ability lock after 24 hours or something? That could put a serious damper on my plans to keep the Top Ten updated throughout the week.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of thing on FFG Forums? Suggestions?

Okay, scratch that (my concern about the Edit feature).

I could have sworn it was gone a moment ago. Now it's back.

(Or maybe I've just been beaten upside the head by Hill Trolls one too many times this evening.)

I also had a good deal of fun with the Anduin-challenge and I fully support the idea.

I have a suggestion though that may be an major deviation from your plan but could greatly improve everyones exprience.

I really think you should hook up the guys from www.cardboardoftherings.com on this one. In case you don't allready know them, they produce a really great bi-weekly podcast (dont worry, you can download mps straight from their blog) on the game. If you dont know them yet and care enough about the game to read and post about in the forum, you absolutely HAVE to check them out. They got a good understanding of the game and they are very talented casters. Seriously, I listen to esport commentary (mostly SC2) basically whenever I can and these guys really hold up to the professional ones.
The production is great, the content is interesting and useful and sure as hell theyre entertaining, if not to say funny. I know this is a shameless shoutout, but do not worry. I dont know them personally, I never talked to them, Im not one of them on a fake account. Im just convinced that they could greatly improve the concept of a "themed tournament week".

So how could this work? Basically youd have to figure out the theme and hand it to them (Im sure they are more than willing to provide feedback). In addition to posting it on the forum, they could announce the tournamet style on their podcast, which would make it a 2 week format, which Im absolutely fine with. For me as an almost 30-employed-kindof-guy, a 1 week format would leave me with maybe 1 or 2 evenings of play, which isnt quite so much. During the following podcast they could then proceed to report results from the previous segment, discuss it and call out the next format.

Youd basically reach a much larger audience and could enrichen the whole experience by additional coverage.

Sure, its more work for everyone involved. Do they want to do it? Do you like the idea? Absolutely in the dark here. I just really like the sound of it and Im pretty certain that it could be greatly successfull.

Also, dont forget to report your game results with the help of this http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=201&efcid=4&efidt=579185 thread. Thanks!

UnthoughtKnown said:

UnthoughtKnown, thanks for the idea! I'm actually a huge fan of Cardboard of the Rings. I've listened to all of their episodes, and they were quite influential in my decision to take the plunge, make the investment, and start playing this beautiful game. Yeah, they're great... so, shamelessly plug away!

At face value, I'd be more than happy to collaborate with them - or at least have a conversation about the idea. I'm pretty sure LightDarker and some of the other guys are fairly active on these forums (so if you're seeing this CBOTR, feel free to weigh in). But first, I'd like to kind of give this a try on a "smaller" scale and test out a tournament or two on the forums to see how they go, gain feedback, consider how the general idea and format may need to be refined, and make sure I can be a good host in all of this. If I'm having fun with it, and if there's a good response, I'm sure I'll learn a lot from the first few tournaments about how to make the process even better. Then, maybe, it may just be time to check in with the big boys over in Toronto at CBOTR Headquarters.

juicebox said:

Gosh, the text editor is so broken. If you got this too you can just hit ctrl v to type in the paste-window.

Love the idea of a tournament!

How seriously do we take this btw? If we want to make this a contest, the players probably shouldn't post their results in this thread to prevent copying their decks and moves, but send a PM to juicebox who could then update the Top 10 and, after the torunament is over, post the summary of the best scores.

Btw, I got a 101. So close! So close...

And what's up with the frickin text editor? Pursued by shadow?

Edir: you can also write posts when you use the edit button.

leptokurt said:

Hi leptokurt! First of all, congrats on the 101. I just read your round by round account on Marlow's thread, and all I have to say is... that's awesome. Well, that's awesome and I'm jealous, but mostly just that's awesome. Now, can you get a repeat performance next week?

As for posting results in the tournaments, I'm envisioning people post at least their Final Score and their Starting Heroes. Whatever someone wants to post beyond that (extra narrative, descriptions of rounds, cards used in their deck, etc...) would be totally up to them. Do you think revealing the Starting Heroes would be too big of a tell? I'm imagining not, but I'm curious what others think...

Others?

Thoughts about the Top Ten...

I've been thinking. This is a living card game, right? So, why not make a living Top Ten Hall of Fame list for those who participate in multiple The juicebox LoTR LCG Tourmament of the Week tournaments?

Here's how it would work:

Hall of Fame placements would be scored as follows: in each weekly tournament, a #1 ranked placement earns the participant 10 points, a #2 ranked placement earns the participant 9 points, a #3 ranked placement earns the participant 8 points, and so on all the way down to a #10 ranked placement earning the participant 1 solitary point. After the completion of this first weekly tournament, I will start a separate thread that will house the Top Ten Hall of Fame.

So, feel free to post multiple successes in each weekly tournament. Theoretically, someone could score as many as 55 points (occupying all ten spots of a weekly Top Ten final result) in one week toward their Top Ten Hall of Fame ranking.

Gotta say, I don't think allowing multiple placements of the same person in one tournament is a good idea. This would just favor people with more time and willing to do tedious things. I'd say if I get a better score than my 109, than scratch the first score and use the new one. And I think it might frustrate people, too. Just assume, that I can duplicate some scores around 109, people with a score of 130 or 120 might get annoyed.

I hope this doesn't come off as negative though as I really like your tournament idea!

plueschi said:

plueschi, I welcome all thoughtful feedback. So, thank you.

At this point, I've been kind of imagining the Top Ten as functioning like the Top Ten lists you might find on an arcade game or on a pinball machine. If you play multiple times and can land repeat strong performances, good for you. However, I think what you are suggesting also has merit. I'd be curious to have other players weigh in on this piece, as I'm not fixated on either of these options. For now, I'll likely try out my initial idea and see how that goes, but all the data will be there (when people post successful questing experiences) to go back and rework the Top Ten if it proves out that your hunch is more accurate.

That said, do others have strong thoughts on this? I'd especially appreciate your input if you have experience running tournaments for various games. What I'm after is creating a specific option for an additional satisfying game play experience, beyond how satisfying this game may already be to play in all its various formats outside of this particular tournament structure.