I "stole" my topic title from richsabre's post in the tactics for Tactics post.

From the latest news post on this website, it looks like the designers are not worried at all about Zigil Miner's impact of the game and that he's just a natural evolution. They even hint at more potential with a new Gildor-like ally.

What's wrong with this picture?

From the decklist they provided, it looks like they only consider Zigil Miner as a combo with Gildor. And I think the main error they may be making is in relying on a single core set as a reference point. Yes, for people owning a single core set, building a fully effective Miner deck is difficult (since most of the 5 cost cards from the Core Set were 1-of).

But don't they see how abusive it becomes as soon as you make it the focus of a multiplayer strategy?

What I find even more disconcerting is how they seem to imply that this kind of jump is just a natural part of the game. We went from an environment where the best acceleration gave you 2 extra resources / turn while being Unique, to one that can give you an average of 3 or more, but in multiple copies. What's the next card going to be? A non-unique Lore ally that lets either one player draw 3 cards or all players draw 2 cards by exhausting? That kind of light-year jump (compared to the current powerhouse of Beravor) is what Zigil Miner is compared to Steward of Gondor (which everyone agreed was a strong card in itself). Are we going to see a major power creep in this game, so soon in its career?

For a game that's supposed to be designed primarily from a 2-players perspective and that is supposed to eventualy have a competitve scene, I find it shows a surprising lack of insight...

yes, i did indeed find this a strange thing for them to do, especially the way they hinted at it, as if they were fully aware of the implications of what they are doing- which you know i sort of hope they are, i wonder how much they moniter the forums to use as feedback, seeing as this is the primary area for such activity on deck building etc??

Yeah, it is kind of unbelievable. The only thing I am clinging to is the small hint...

“The Zigil Miner deck is a radical new development in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, opening up a lot of rich combinations and card interactions, the likes of which we’ll continue to see throughout the Dwarrowdelf cycle of Adventure Packs “

So, maybe we will see massive card interactions that in fact use 10 or 15 resources to pull off?

well going back to original points i still believe they are going to have to do something soon, i mean in this cycle

and again yes...i dont have other experience with FFG, but i still find it hard to believe they are that stupid not to have a plan to make this work...perhaps i have too much faith...oh how the plot thickens

richsabre said:

"Always bet on stupidity" - Booored

richsabre said:

They don't. FFG is famous for have ZERO community participation.. the forums are not even moderated by volunteers.. I could make a thread that is just a bunch of swear words and bump it once a day and it will nvr get noticed.

----EDIT---

In fact here is a thread were I have basically been doing that for a few months...

booored said:

well i must admit booored that was both hilarious and an eye opener to me......bad business ethics grrr....

I'm not really sure what you fellows are so worried about. You don't like Zigil Miner?... ... Don't play with him. Problem solved!!!

You're complaining that any potential competitive scene would be ruined by this card. There's two huge issues with what you're saying:

1. There is no competitive scene, and Fantasy Flight has given no concrete indication that there will be one for the foreseeable future.

2. In any competitive card game, there is always a "best" deck. Should we "fix" Northern Tracker too? How about Boromir? Where's the line?

And actually when you say that FFG is doing "nothing" about this, you are completely wrong. In an online interview a month or two ago, Nate French told us about how Fantasy Flight plans to handle the interactions you're complaining about. Here's the link:

http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=192245648&pId=78031

With all due respect ladies and gentlemen, please load your brains before you shoot your mouth.

conykchameleon said:

1. ive discussed my opinions of this in length somewhere else, which were actually in disagreement to the above

2. i really couldnt care less about competative play, the less said about it the better, tournaments are for people like glaurung, and they have every right to want them etc, but i play this for the theme

3. above i stated i didnt think that ffg were that stupid not to have something in store to combat all this zigil stuff

4.i dont play zigil miner in the ziggy decks, never have,never will, playing daft decks to win has never interested me

ive said this somewhere else, but im gonna sit down and watch all this thing happen from a nice distance, knowing it doesnt have to affect me if i dont want it to

that argument is ****. It is their design decisions that make that cards good or bad... not ours. What we are talking about has nothing to do with the supposed competitive scene... we are talking about cards that change the fundamental functions of the game, in this case removing the need for resources.

The argument of "do not like it do not play with it" has nothing to do with it. I already play with a ban list and a custom rule list for solo and in one of my 2 player groups.. Northern Tracker, Beravor and Ziggy are banned, and also Unexpected Courage is restricted and Protector of Lorian is Unique.

The point is WHY do we have to make this rules to make the game fun in the first place. I can not even understand how people can not have a problem with Ziggy. I mean it is impossible to loose a game running him. It removes the resource aspect of the game. I mean tragic posted that video on YouTube where in a solo game ON TURN 2, he had 2 northern trackers and Beorn out. How can you say that is not broken?

[ADMIN: Edited for content.]

booored said:

SiCK_Boy said:

The OP seemed to be concerned about competitive play.

"we are talking about cards that change the fundamental functions of the game" - Every single card in a trading card game changes the fundamental functions of the game. That's the point of trading card games. Zigil Miner allows you to generate a lot more than 1 resource per hero per turn. Beravor allows you to draw a lot more than 1 card per turn. Unexpected Courage allows you to ready outside of the Refresh step. So on and so forth...

"'do not like it do not play with it' has nothing to do with it...Beravor and Ziggy are banned..." - you've already said that you don't play with Zigil Miner, so clearly it does have something to do with it.

"The point it WHY do we have to make this rules to make the game fun in the first place" - People enjoy this game for different reasons (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2296). The Lord of the Rings the Card Game caters to a wide variety of people, as really any game does. Everyone makes their own modifications and house rules to get what they're looking for out of the experience. It's part of the hobby.

[ADMIN: Edited for content. Keep this civil. Exclude foul language and attacks on your fellow forum members.]

wow, there are admins on this forum!! awesome.

But yea, I just do not see how anyone can think this is not OP.. like a turn 1 getting 2 northern trackers out? How about questing with one card (map maker) and being able to quest around 16 will per turn, fro a single card? What about removing the entire concept of blocking from the game as you can just sac a hero to an attack and bring it back from the yard with Fate, every turn , hey forget Fate, what about not caring about damage as you can cast Hospitality evey turn? Choices about quests vs block/attack.. who cares.. just cast that untap everything card every turn...

(even the deck building article is talking about a cycle deck btw)

You seriously do not think that is OP?

booored said:

I seriously do not. I've played the deck, it's really effective. It's also really boring. I have yet to play a deck that I thought would auto-win every quest. I'm still waiting for that one.

FFG is working on a competitive scene. They changed the whole scoring system just for that purpose (because otherwise, why bother with a scoring system in the first place - anyone could have used his own if they wanted). Although I perfectly understand this scene is not for everyone and there are people who enjoy the game for a multitude of reasons, it is a factor that should be given at least some consideration by the designers.

THe argument about "just don't use it" is pointless. I already know I can choose to ignore it, but we're talking about the game design here. Since we cannot undo Zigil Miner, either the game designers should do it (via a banning or restriction or such other metagame decision) or they have to keep designing future expansions around the very existence of this card. When such a thing happens, you know you're seeing a mistake in design.

I don't think Zigil Miner is fun-breaking. I'm playing it now, will probably keep on playing it for a few more weeks, and for sure the first deck I'll take against any of the upcoming scenario is that one. But to me, the quest for the fabled win-all deck (at least for 2 players) is over. The second deck is not even that important, when you have so many resources being generated (and Boooored hinted quite a few time that my build was suboptimal; I can hardly imagine how it'd be if it was optimal).

When you state that every card changes the rules and standards of the game, it's wrong. The standards of the game were established by the Core Set and the rules themselves. From that, we gathered that card draw had a cost (1 resource per card for Lorien Wealth) or was limited to Unique cards (Beravor, Gleowine). This is the standard. Coming up with a non-unique ally letting you draw 4 cards by exhausting would totally break this standard. Not just evolve it to a next step, but jump it a few light years ahead. Other cards additions didn't have this impact. Printing Second Breakfast didn't change the game. Doing the Songs was a change to one of the paradygm of this game; but most people agree it opened possibilities rather than reducing them. Campfire Tales was a nice take on card drawing. I'm sure we'll eventually see another threat reduction card in the same line as The Galadhrim's Greetings.

But in what way is Zigil Miner opening possibilities? By giving you access to a no brainer win all deck... Is that really what we want, so early in this game's evolution?

And if it's because of what Boooored hints at (massive resource use for spectacular effects), that would be worse. Because then, Miner becomes the only option.

My main fear after that is the upcoming power creep we'll see. We saw it in part with KD: most KD quests were deemed difficult even for people owning all the cards. I'm not complaining here: the fact that they would need to constantly increase difficulty was identified from the start as a weak point of this gaming system. But how fast will it have to increase for the encounter deck to keep pace with players producing so many resources? What are they gonna need to invent the next time to make the game feel somewhat difficult for the Zigil-strategy player?

Maybe I'm overreacting and the designers have a masterplan and they'll surprise me. I'll be the first to congratulate them if they do (just like we saw Glaurung applaude the difficulty level of KD - for a few days at least).

But I'm afraid they are at risk of creating more mistakes to correct this one.

Your like the more polite coherent version of me.. seriously though i totally agree with everything you just said

SiCK_Boy said:

that was a minor miracle hey

SiCK_Boy said:

First things first: Admin, the original language is still visible in my post at 20:06:43, you might want to get rid of that.

SiCK_Boy said:

Now that's a well-crafted post that gets to a real issue. Here's what I'll argue in response though is that by himself, Zigil Miner does not 'break the game'. The 'Ziggy' deck, at least as I understand it, involves putting a whole bunch of 5 cost cards in your deck in order to maximize the combo. At this point, you have built your deck around the Zigil Miner. Now....you're playing the deck:

A) What if you don't draw it?

Okay, you're playing two player and your partner allows you to draw your deck

B) He's got one hit point and has to be exhausted for his ability, which leaves him SO vulnerable to any number of treacheries/effects from the encounter deck. In my experience, the encounter deck has a lot to say about Allies, exhausted characters, and characters with 1 health.

C) We don't know what kind of Quests will be released from this point on. Khazad-dum quests are miles harder than anything we saw in the Core set, and I have no doubt that Dwarrowdelf will bump it up another notch.

Bottom line for me (and I completely respect your guys' opinions, despite what the Admin made my post look like): Is Zigil Miner the most powerful card to date? Probably. Does it create an interaction that is unpleasant to the point where FFG needs to intervene? No.

I am not concerned that Zigil Miner is too powerful. In the time it takes to set it up with Gildor a lot of bad things can happen. Also a deck that takes full advantage of the combo is not very well rounded and not very practical to play, especially in solo play. It seems like a fun little trick that you can enjoy setting up but not "game breaking." I also echo the point that this is not, as yet, a competitive game, I believe most of you alarmists are stuck in your old MTG mentality.

Before we start freaking out, let's see some data on the success rate of a "Zigil Miner Deck." I want proof that a persons success rate goes way up when they're playing with this deck before we declare it broken.

I suspect we may see some very expensive cards coming up in the Darrowdelf cycle that utilize the secrecy mechanic...so either you'll need to keep your threat very low to be able to afford them, or leverage the power of the zigil miner. Different strategies to gain access to what are probably some very useful (and likely needed) cards. Might also see some location cards that cause you to lose resources, or make cards more expensive (e.g. if you're traveling way up in the mountains may be harder (i.e. more expensive) to find allies).

I don't know about location cards that make you lose resources, but there's a treachery card in the KD unused encounter set that causes the first player to use three resources from each hero.

On the whole I'm with others - wait and see. For instance, with the new changes in scoring, nobody's mentioning the "lower your threat to 0" strategy for winning - even though it still works (it's just not score effective). Let some people try out the "Ziggy" deck and see how it does - and how well it scores.

Hey Dudes dont think please if they are Designers and working in such a big company like FFG so they cannot make mistake. If you look on the history of this game(im here since may2011) there is a lot of mistake already. The card game text terms not same as other (quite stupid already), Nazgul od Dol-Fuldor get errata after 1 month game was release, Very stupid score system (after update 10 points for 1 round start to be better) why cannot do it from begin???SO it mean they dont test it enough or maybe just was lazy. They are just a people. And in my experience only MTG designers hold the real cool level of proff. At least was like this 10 years before, now i dont know.

Card like Trackers, Will of the West, Beravur( crazy unlimited draw) and now new broken Ziggy. Very true what Boored say: Tracker destroy all idea of the TRAVEL PHASE!!!! But for the novice players he can be a good help. So i think there should be some kind of Restricted list for the Tournament play and for the Experienced players. And they will do it cose community is growing with amount of players and with old players experience grow up too so they must to give them something for challenge otherwise they start to look for this challenge somewhere else.

Nightmare mode: IS suppose to be challenge for expert players but in the end even with correction(FAQ1.0) is still very stupid and no one really play it cose is boring and even more easy then normal game. Again mistake???

There is also one big problem of this game is scaling. Very difficult to make quest and have the same challenge for different amount of players.You must test to much!!! There is a ton of work!!! So is no wonder they make it with a half power. And why they must work to hard???? The game sales good, there is no other Lotr card game, people will play anyway.

FFG is actually a fairly small company, employee-wise. I think they have something like 80 employees TOTAL, and probably only 3-5 working on LoTR, not counting playtesters, which are likely volunteers. I don't know how that changes things, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

I'm not really worried about cards 'breaking' the game considering its casual, cooperative nature, but I have to agree that the Zigil Miner is a card that doesn't appear to be particularly well-thought-out.

If and when FFG actually organizes a tournament scene, I wouldn't be surprised to see a short banned/restricted list. Alternately, the proposed format of the tournaments themselves might limit the effectiveness of cards like Zigil Miner. Since tournaments will supposedly feature entirely new scenarios, those encounter decks could feature all kinds of nasty ways to destroy the Miner or otherwise prevent resource acceleration.

Until then, Zigil Miner is fine. If it creates a negative player experience for you, then try something different. If you enjoy using it despite its supposed "brokenness," then that's perfectly fine. It's your game.

Regarding design negligence, that's just something that happens in card games. Pretty much every great card game has a banned/restricted list or some similar method of removing problematic cards from competitive play. No matter how smart or dumb the designers seem to be, there are always card interactions that seem to escape playtesting. If it becomes a problem, they will ban, errata, or restrict it in the eventual tournament format.

Is it overpowered in a competitive environment? Maybe. I think Miner decks win reliably, but I don't know that their scores exceed those posted by, say, a Rohan deck that just blows through a quest. I'd like to see the Miner deck function in an actual tournament before passing judgment. If Miner turns out to ruin the tourney scene, it will get banned, and life will go on. One way or the other, the game will endure. The sky is not falling (although, if you are playing one of the Khazad-Dum scenarios, you may be at risk of a Cave In).

Not sure why everyone thinks that Northern Tracker is game breaking. He's useless against Rhosgobel and RtM, you don't really need him against Carrock or Dead Marshes. He shines against Emyn Muil, ok, and he's a great help against HfG. WIth the new spirit cards added during the Mirkwood cycle, and the new locations that often have 3+ points to explore, he's becoming less useful as he originally was.

That's especially true if you stick to play with one coreset only - and I really hope they design the game for those who use one coreset only, cause that's the way it's meant to be. Using one corset even Beravor isn't overpowered, as you have only one UC in your deck. You only have two copies of SoG and GG etc.

Getting yourself an extra advantage by using more than one coreset and then complaining that the game is way too easy I do find hilarious.

Ther version I deem "win all" is based on 2 player games. I'm not certain how powerful the miner is in solo play since, as it was mentionned, you need a full deck designed around it with mostly 5-cost cards. But if they keep printing those 5 cost cards (especially if they ever release non-unique allies), and one would think we'll see a few more here and there, it could become just as powerful in solo.

See the Miner + Dwarf God thread for examples of decks that can win consistently against all scenarios.

The deck doesn't need Gildor at all. He's just an added benefit once you get it in play. And getting one of those 3 miners in your starting hand, when you have a free mulligan plus Bilbo and Beravor (the miner deck should always be first player to benefit from Bilbo on the very first turn), the odds are on your side. If you don't have him, you can also try a quick Gandalf sneaking in to let you draw 3 more.

I just ran through the whole gauntlet and, score wise, I did a better average than what the quest log is showing for the community, but I can't say how reliable that is. It's true that the tournament scoring system may eventualy rule Zigil out as a winning strategy, but I doubt it. The deck runs fast: when you get 20 resources in a couple turns, you play all your hand quickly and you can certainly beat the encounter deck in a minimum of time. The only tournament rule I could see preventing the use of Zigil is if you can't make up your team in advance, but need to pick your deck in advance (because 2 players with the same miner support deck obviously wouldn't be able to win).

But the comments I'm seeing about potential upcoming stuff (for example, the game centering around either being in secrecy mode or requiring massive resource use) confirms the trend I'm afraid of. If, over the next few AP, the only viable solution is to hand access to massive resources, then it reinforces the feeling that Miner is the only viable strategy. I don't think we'll see it.

As for the game being designed from a single core set perspective, I admit its probably the way they approach it. Still, it shouldn't prevent them from thinking about it and the possibilities it offers. We've seen enough complain about the cards distribution in the core set to know that many player either own or wished they owned multiple core sets. Simply ignoring this fact is bad design. The game is conceived to be fun with a single core set, which it is, but the rules allow 3 of each player cards; not 3 of each player cards except for those from the core set. If they want to change the rules to that format, they could (I don't think they would by then because of the outcry from those who already own multiple core sets).

For those who don't believe the decks are that powerful, give it a try if you can. If you've never played with Fortune or Fate or Beorn's Hospitality before (I certainly hadn't done it myself before trying this deck), you cannot see fully the power it represents.

ffg is obviously interested in this whole topic, i mean ive only ever seen admin come in once, on this thread......coincidence??? i dont think so....especially after booored was poking a bit of fun their way

i STILL think they have a way to solve this....those are my guns and im sticking with it, call me crazy stupid if you want, im used to it