Do you have to customise decks to use any of the expansions decks available?

Also, Is it worth buying the core game if you have no intention of deck building/customising?

I really don't see a point to buying the expansions without the core set. They are limited and don't bring that much in the way of options. You don't have enough to make a full deck with any individual pack. Only the core set brings ready to play decks with it. If nothing else, I would buy the core set and not the expansions. Also, the encounter decks of every expansion need some of the encounter decks from the core set to be fully playable.

What I meant was, if you have the core set and want to use an expansion do you have to customise decks or are the expansions readily playable using the core set.

monk said:

I don't think it's necessary to customize a deck to play the expansions, but it does make it easier. Since the difficulty of each expansion quest is different, it's hard to say what is doable with just the starter decks. I've always added some of the new player cards from the expansion to whatever deck I was using for the new quest. If you do buy an expansion, I don't see why you wouldn't just toss the extra player cards into the starter decks.

As far as card choice goes for two-player games and one core set, that depends on how many cards you want your decks to have. If you do 50 card decks the cards are very limited. If you make 30 or 40 card decks you'll have more options. When I would introduce friends to the game, I would usually give them a deck with all the cards from one sphere. At first it was just the starter decks, but as I bought more expansions, the mono-sphere decks became bigger.

I will take the opposite view. If you don't want to buy expansions or to customize decks you should avoid the game. It will only work well when you have multiple players (3 or 4), and will grow quite repetitive without expansions. I love the game, but if you aren't willing to keep getting packs and to tinker with your deck, spend your money elsewhere.

Bohemond said:

Words of the wise.

But yeah, technically you can just throw in the player cards from the expansions and add them to each respective sphere, but I wouldn't recommend doing that if you plan on winning . Generally, the game tends to be easier with multiple people, so you could potentially get away with that in 2-4 player games, but will likely struggle in solo play. I don't think you have to be a customization fanatic to play the game, but if you don't plan on doing so and just want to add in the player cards from the APs I would temper my expectations with regards to how your decks will perform. This will be particularly true as scenarios and their respective encounter decks become increasingly more difficult (I'm assuming) to offset the increasing versatility, synergy, and power of player decks as more player cards become available.

TheRomance said:

But yeah, technically you can just throw in the player cards from the expansions and add them to each respective sphere, but I wouldn't recommend doing that if you plan on winning . Generally, the game tends to be easier with multiple people, so you could potentially get away with that in 2-4 player games, but will likely struggle in solo play.

We've been using nothing but mono-decks so far in our multi-player games and the only scenario we didn't beat yet is the third one from the Core set. E.g. we beat Carrock in our fourth attempt with two players: After the hopeless first attempt we replaced an entire deck (Spirit replaced by Leadership), after the second, slightly better attempt we switched out a hero and removed a couple of cards we didn't find very useful (#cards was well over 50, initially). For the third and fourth attempts we sticked to the same decks since the basic strategy and sphere choices seemed sound. With a bit of better luck when drawing cards we gave those trolls a beating!

Four attempts for a difficulty 7 scenario is fine, imho. For the easier scenarios we typically need one or two tries. That's about the challenge level I enjoy.

So when I bought 5 expansions I could just shuffle all my cards (core game + all expansions) if I do not want to take the time creating a deck by my own, right?

It´s just more difficult to win then, correct?

Spleen said:

Sure. For instance, you could simply take the Core Set Leadership deck and then add all the Leadership cards from the Adventure Packs. You'd wind up with around 60 cards, and you'd have to pick which Leadership heroes to use, but it would be an easy way to build a deck. Give it a try!