ive seen people ask how much time do you spend outside of gameplay, but how long does it take you to actually construct a deck, from nothing up to 50+ cards.
when i get an idea for one it only takes me about 10 mins, but sometimes i can spend an entire night tinkering with it until i get to where i wanted it to be
Depends wh you mean by build...
I'll usually write a list pulled together from an online spoiler (or in lackey) in 10-15 mins or so. I have a number of these saved in various places.
But actually sleaving and shuffle together the cards happens far less often and usually takes an hour plus whilst I dig round my collection, sleave and unsleave, change my mind about a card or two, find out the core set doesn't have enough copies, print out a proxy or two etc...
5-10 minutes. Then I use trial and error.
Always depends on what I am trying to accomplish with a particular strategy. I like taking my time with building decks usually, for all the joy of the art and thinking of new ideas, but I can also build a deck pretty quickly if I am only tweaking a few cards with an existing strategy. All depends.
DurinIII said:
Always depends on what I am trying to accomplish with a particular strategy. I like taking my time with building decks usually, for all the joy of the art and thinking of new ideas, but I can also build a deck pretty quickly if I am only tweaking a few cards with an existing strategy. All depends.
this is the reason i probably lose so much- my deckbuilding routine
1.start well with well though out heros and spheres
2.add usual cards such as songs/gandalfs etc
3.get sidetracked by amazing artwork and go 'oooh isnt that a nice card, ill add that' until my deck is just utter rubbish, still it looks nice and thats the main thing right? 
i mean ill always add Ironfist in.....ive never even played him once...he's way too expensive!!!.....but the artworks great, so yeah....
Yeah Rich, you are definitely a "Bilbo" player, as I am myself. I think playing cards that you think look freaking cool is a perfectly justifiable deck building strategy. 
That's what I do, too!
I'm really sloppy with my deckbuilding, and it's actually the reason why I don't play this often as I could - I tidy the cards away when I'm finished, back into their respective spheres, so I have to go through each one every time want a game to construct the deck, and it's just too much hassle when it comes down to it for me. Over xmas, I'd made up a couple and kept them in the box, which resulted in me playing a lot more, but generally it takes me ages and ages - easily an hour - to get the deck I actually want. Because I get sidetracked by the art, and end up going through it to try and weed some out...
spalanzani said:
That's what I do, too!
I'm really sloppy with my deckbuilding, and it's actually the reason why I don't play this often as I could - I tidy the cards away when I'm finished, back into their respective spheres, so I have to go through each one every time want a game to construct the deck, and it's just too much hassle when it comes down to it for me. Over xmas, I'd made up a couple and kept them in the box, which resulted in me playing a lot more, but generally it takes me ages and ages - easily an hour - to get the deck I actually want. Because I get sidetracked by the art, and end up going through it to try and weed some out...
i see your point, though i leave my gaming table and this game set out- permanetly, which luckily for me my partner doesnt seem to mind though im pretty sure this isnt viable option for most. Seeing as i play this game and not really any others, i just couldnt be bothered tidying it away, apart from restacking the various decks, though when it comes to making sure they are actually tidy on the table, im really obsessed about that. that room is one my cat is DEFINATLY not allowed in
richsabre said:
that room is one my cat is DEFINATLY not allowed in
Ha! And that is as it should be!
LotR doesn't seem to get nearly as much play-time as some of my other games, presumably because this is the only co-operative game in my collection. I might try keeping some pre-built decks in the box, though, and see if that improves the amount of plays I get out of it.
spalanzani said:
richsabre said:
that room is one my cat is DEFINATLY not allowed in
Ha! And that is as it should be!
LotR doesn't seem to get nearly as much play-time as some of my other games, presumably because this is the only co-operative game in my collection. I might try keeping some pre-built decks in the box, though, and see if that improves the amount of plays I get out of it.
out of interest have you tried solo games....cant remember whether you have said or not. i just play it that way out of choice, but i know that alot of people whose gaming buddies dont like it/ dont like co-op turn to solo as well
I don't play LotR (yet), but I'll usually set aside an hour or two for deckbuilding, as I have a tendency to change my mind several times about the precise kind of deck I'd like to build.
MarthWMaster said:
I don't play LotR (yet), but I'll usually set aside an hour or two for deckbuilding, as I have a tendency to change my mind several times about the precise kind of deck I'd like to build.
hi, thats an interesting situation.....are you considering buying/waiting for game/ or trying it out online etc?
richsabre said:
out of interest have you tried solo games....cant remember whether you have said or not. i just play it that way out of choice, but i know that alot of people whose gaming buddies dont like it/ dont like co-op turn to solo as well
Yeah, that's the way I play this one, because the lack of interest in even trying a co-op game with my buddy - he prefers to try to demolish me in Warhammer or something, so I've given up trying to sell this one now.
spalanzani said:
richsabre said:
out of interest have you tried solo games....cant remember whether you have said or not. i just play it that way out of choice, but i know that alot of people whose gaming buddies dont like it/ dont like co-op turn to solo as well
Yeah, that's the way I play this one, because the lack of interest in even trying a co-op game with my buddy - he prefers to try to demolish me in Warhammer or something, so I've given up trying to sell this one now.
that is indeed a shame, but thankfully with solo play you wont be losing out
Takes about an hour per player for me.
When I make a deck for myself it's one hour or so and then another hour if I make one for my gf.
You need to determine your plan and purpose of your deck before doing anything though, if you know what the quest asks for you need to try to figure out how to beat this quest the most efficient way. Is it more of a questing quest or killing quest? Is it lots of easy enemies or one big one or lots of big ones? Your deck should function accordingly.
I haven't really built any decks for LotR, yet, but building my CoC deck for the European Championship took me almost a month (this includes building and discarding three other decks first and about two dozen test games). For LotR it obviously wouldn't take quite as long since CoC has eight factions as opposed to only four spheres in LotR; also in CoC there's already more than 900 cards to choose from.
This is just one of many reasons why I don't care about building decks for LotR, too: it takes too friggin' long.