Hey everybody. I'm writing to hopefully get some input on whether or not you can play solo without having spirit in your deck one way or another. It seems like a stretch, as you're taking away a ton of the ways to handle threat, shadow effects, when revealed card effects, and having any willpower to speak of. I currently have a Leadership/Spirit deck that has had success against all but a few of the scenarios, and was hoping to try and make a Tactics/Lore deck that can do something similar. Any suggestions?

The short answer is yes, you can make solo decks with gout any spirit that are capable of beating most of the current scenarios.

The question is why? Why make a arbitrary decision to exclude a sphere form your deck in the first place.

A solo deck by definition needs to be able to cope with all game situations, something that multiplayer decks do not need to handle, as they can rely on their partners decks to do w/e. So to make a strong solo deck you need to include cards that enable you to handle situations. The big 2 for spirit are Test of Will and Hasty Stroke. Why any solo deck would leave Test of Will out is a bit strange to me.

What I am trying to say is.. if you make a tactics/leadership deck.. run a spirit splash if you feel you are missing some of the old reliable spirit cards. In fact I think rich (a notable solo player) has recently posted a Leadership/Lore Dwarf deck. I would suspect that he is running a spirit splash but he did not post his full deck list, though he is running the belt so he could be playing all 4 spheres.

Basically most of the better solo decks are duel sphere with a splash. So Spirit/Lore /splash Leadership. or Tactics/Leadership - Splash Lore o w/e. The combinations are up to you there is no right or wrong and I think a good deck setup that is tri colour will be able to perform decent enough no matter what core spheres or splash you use.

Can you do it.. sure you can. Tactics / Lore / Leadership is strong. You could easily make a solo deck with that combination. Though of course you will have restrictions that will mean you need to modify your game play.. such as questing quickly, so not to build threat, having good questing power so not to build threat, having lost of allies to sac to when reveal effects... What I am trying to say here is that your deck choice is more about just the cards, it changes the way you play the game. You can not remove all your spirit cards and then play the same style as if you had them

Keep this thread going, post your solo deck -spirit as you play and I'll be happy to give more explicit examples based on what I see.

First, I don't know that it's necessary or even warranted to go calling folks strange for experimenting with different decks. I'm absolutely certain it wasn't your intent booored, but using pejorative adjectives can come off as abrasive or even offensive. Best to do so with care!

Anyhoo, as for myself, I find it pretty handicapping to play without spirit during solo play. Like the OP I have been using leadership/spirit for solo play and find it a very strong combination. I like the flavor of tactics/lore, though, and when I play with my wife I usually take the green & red and let her handle the purple & blue. I too like to try different color combos, mostly to see if I can manage to do something, make the game more exciting, complete a challenge that I set for myself, etc... I usually don't build my deck with an eye for peak efficiency, but for flavor and fun (and for some, fun = peak efficiency! I can respect that, but it's not me).

But! Before I ever attempted the 2nd or 3rd core quests, I did issue myself a challenge: beat Passage Through Mirkwood with each pure sphere "starter" deck. I finished it with all 4.... for leadership and spirit it's pretty easy. Lore survives forever but hits often 50 threat before completing the quest. Tactics is just hard on its own. The questing phase is a nightmare!

I have finished the Anduin quest solo, but only with a leadership/spirit deck. My attempt at lore/tactics has been a miserable failure, but with the right draw of cards on both ends of the encounter deck, it's possible. And I haven't beaten Dol Guldur solo.

So yeah, spirit isn't necessary for soloing, but it certainly makes life easier!

yes, it is, even though spirit seems a one way sphere to quest successfully you can try the following spirit free combos (i dont know your card pool though)

protector of lorien with huge card draw -bilbo/gleowine/beravor(lore)

long beard map maker with steward of gondor resource draw (lore/leadership)

deck peeking to avoid treachery cards - denethor, rumour from the earth, riversong (lore)

dain buffing up another two dwarf heros (leadership + whatever you want)

shadow cancellation - dawn take you all/ dundain watcher (leadership)

horn of gondor + map maker (tactic/lore)

To piggy back on a previous poster's point: Glorfindel + Bifur + Dain allows for good initial questing and then you have the dwarves in the Lore sphere to boost that as they come out. And this also gets you the Map Maker/Steward of Gondor combination already mentioned.

i recently made a dwarf deck without spirit (well only a splash of the cancellation cards), and it absolutly kicks when it comes to questing.

but it does require all current cards apart from redhorn

richsabre said:

I have also made a Dwarf deck with Dain Ironfoot and no Spirit heroes. He makes questing even better than Spirit decks as every Dwarf Ally that has a printed WP of 1 is almost as good as most of the Heroes for questing. In combination with Erebor Recordkeepers, you can help keep him Ready.

I made an awesome Lore deck (with a few song of kings 6 Leadership cards). It was the bomb, but I couldn't seem to beat Dol Guldur solo, so I had to switch to a Spirit - Tactics. Can be done though with some creativity.

I've had fun and a decent number of wins with Boromir, Gloin and Bilbo - no blue splashed in, though I could with the belt. I do better with my Aragorn, Imrahil and Eowyn deck with green splashed in, but the Red-Purple-Green is a nice change of pace.

booored said:

Personally I prefer trying every scenario with all possible sphere combinations. I find it boring playing with roughly the same deck all the time even if it turned out it's a combo that works very well. Varying the deck allows me to appreciate some of the less often used cards more and develop new strategies.

Chris51261 said:

Dwarfs.

Dáin + Bifur + some other hero allow you to both quest and fight. Bifur has 3 WP and he's able to providenyouwih enough dwarven allies to increas your total WP. Dáin keeps you clear from attacks. Right now I'm playing with Thalin as my third hero. Together with the Gondorian Speatman he's an excellent combo against every 2 HP enemy. This way their shadow effects won't trigger and the battlefield is kept clear. Thalin + Spearman + Swift Strike + Mirkwood Runner allow you to kill even a strong enemy with 6 HP in one round.

I haven't tried my deck against the Mirkwood scenarios yet, but it works fine against the KD quests.

leptokurt said:

exactly. With Dian you get get very high questing out of the gate and attack. Spirit is really a splash colour now like rich was saying. Test of Will and UC is still worth splashing it imo, but its secondary use as a questing sphere has been dwindling more and more.

I realize the decision to say before making a deck "I'm not going to include such and such" is arbitrary, but it was more of just a choice I made after selecting some heroes I wanted to try out. I've got to the point where beating a given scenario is a task I'm up to, so now I just wanted to give some creativity a try. Anywho, my card pool is unlimited (three core sets, all the APs, Kaz) and a lot of the ideas here sound really good. I hadn't thought of utilizing Dain with some of the Lore dwarves, my first run through with him was a Leadership/Tactics, so I think I'll probably give him a shot. Always nice to have a Leadership hero in the mix too, a lot of my favorite cards are out that sphere. Thanks for the input everybody.

Chris51261 said:

Dain + Gloin + Bifur. Two Leadership heroes, so you're netting at least two resources from that pool (plus Gloin's ability) that you can also dump one per turn on Bifur for 2 Lore per turn (in effect). With Gloin, Lore's Self-Preservation is money.

Yeah those are the three I was gonna give a shot. Originally I had hoped to use Dain's ability to give the Tactic's dwarves some added power, but having looked at the Lore dwarves and the awesome resource generator that is Gloin + Lore healing, I'm looking forward to giving that a shot. Lore has a lot of interesting cards I've always wanted to have in a deck somehow (Forest Snare, all that good stuff) so it sounds prettty good!

Chris51261 said:

at the start of ones LOTR LCG gaming career, i think lore is the most over looked, but i think it is actually the most powerful when it comes to it

richsabre said:

Defiantly in solo play that is for sure. Lore can have some problems with attack and defense, but the card draw and encounter deck control is among the most powerful effects in the entire game and both are from this sphere. Add to that is one of the best questers in mapmaker... just a strong sphere all around. Though it needs support, it has no resource engine and lacks attack power.

When I first started I tried running Tactics, which is what I feel like a lot of people do. After my first few loses I recognized the usefulness of Spirit, and then of Leadership. So yes, there is some merit to the fact that Lore is probably one of the more overlooked. I guess I had always wanted to try and use it (like I said, a lot of very appealing cards) but it always just fell by the wayside. Leadership/Lore seems very formidable, hopefully I can get a deck built tomorrow and maybe put it up for some much appreciated input.