Most of this pertains to solo play, since that's what I play. But it could also pertain to coop play.

First, I have a lot of trouble telling a potential card: "You're terminated! You're not in the deck!" So I end up with lots of different cards - because they all seem so **** useful! So to prevent my deck from getting too big, I end up cutting back to no more than 2 of each card.

But my concern is that I have a watered down deck as a result.

I wonder if a deck is better built with 3 each of the absolute most useful cards, or with 2 each of a wider variety of cards. By choosing a smaller variety of cards, you can truly up your odds of landing the best cards in the game. But it also means that you may have a situation come up that you don't have a card in your deck to handle.

Second question is about number of cards in total. I have a LOT of trouble whittling down to 50 cards! I'm usually in the range of 55-58. Is this a problem? Does it water down the deck too much and decrease my odds of getting the best cards?

In summary:

• Do you prefer using a smaller variety of cards, with 3 of each, or do you prefer using a higher variety of cards but with fewer of each?
• What is your preferred total deck size?

I realize this may vary depending on the scenario, etc. So I'm asking in generalities.

hey…..pure solo player here

well i usually start by thinking what i want from a deck….then i build around that…..it was easier when the game first came out as you werent as spoiled for choice but now we are in the middle of the second cycle, we have plenty of choice (which is a good thing of course!)

i have 3 copies of the absolute core cards of the deck (thats if i have 3), and then water it down to 2 copies of the 'filler' cards

i usually aim to be no more than 55…usually lingers around 52

the problem with solo play is that you are trying to build a deck that does everything…no support decks or nothing like that..just absolutely everything…and thats harder than people give us solo players credit for

how i usually decided that 'your terminated' part is whilst playing….the cards that seem to linger in my hand, or the cards i draw and think mmmm….didnt really want that…they are the first ones to go

richsabre said:

Thanks. Nice response! Great point about the need to build a solo deck to do everything - since we have no back-up.

Nice idea about deciding which cards will be terminated based on your reaction when you draw them. For me, a good rule of thumb is this: if my first thought is to sacrifice them for Protector of Lorien or Favor of the Lady, then maybe they shouldn't be in my deck. For example, I'm never very excited when I draw the following cards (even though they are awesome cards):

• Stand and Fight
• Lore of Imladris
• Zigil Miner

They're in my deck because everyone says they SHOULD be. Yet I rarely use (or optimize) them.

the miner only works if you are willing to really take the pee and half break the game…the deck needs to consist of high cost cards which will get you big numbers of resources through the miners ability….as a soloer this is a bad strategy as this is designed as a long run thing, and i dont need to tell you what would happen to a solo game if you cant get your footing early on….so i think as a 'filler' card miner isnt really of much use

as for the others, again it depends on what deck youre after-lore of imladris is key in certain scenarios such as rhosgobel, and youd be mad not to include them, however it certainly isnt key to every deck- i rarely include them in mine, in favour for the daughter of nimrodel

tactics i think is a little more difficult than the others solo- i am only just (after a year of playing) starting to really be able to get ok results with the decks i build….so if i approach a tactics deck it takes a lot of thought as i not only have to decide which tactics cards to include but also how they interact with the other sphere (which i always have- tactics as a single sphere would get me nowhere)

that is of course another factor in what goes and what stays- interaction between spheres…i can usually tell after 1 play testing whether the combo is really working or not, or whether im just trying to force the wrong key into the lock

rich

I always try to limit my deck to exactly 50 cards, only rarely I will live dangerously and allow 51 cards in the deck.

Most of my deck are tri-sphere, so I limit unique and/or expensive cards to one copy (Haldir, Gildor, Descendant etc.) which helps keep the card count down (Gandalf excepted, obviously).

Some cheap staples will go in three times (e.g Snowbourne Scout) and key events will also make the cut in threes (e.g. Khazad! or Durin's song in a Dwarf deck), but quite a lot of staples I actually own only two of due to Core Set distribution (Feint, Test of Will, Hasty Stroke etc.).

The thing with solo is that your decks need to be versatile, so my choice often is to include less copies of more different cards to cover more options. But doing that AND swelling the deck size is counterproductive imo so that's why I then limit the deck to 50 cards only.

ClydeCloggie said:

Clyde - that sounds like a pretty smart approach. I do something similar (having a diverse array of cards), but I haven't been as disciplined as you. So my decks typically run 55-60.

Regarding deck construction, you really need to stay as close to 50 as possible. In fact, I would say never build a deck of more than 50 cards, but that is a matter of opinion. Back in my Magic days, there was a lot of debate about how many cards over 60 a legal tournament deck should go, and the math bares it out. At 60 cards, you only have a 2% chance of drawing any particular card, and increasing your card count just decreases that percentage further and further. What ends up happening is that you can't rely on the strategy of the deck to pan out because you just have too much going on.

Now take that concept and add in the fact that you aren't even running 3 of every card. I bet no 2 games are ever alike for you. My approach in deck construction is this:

1/3-1/2 allies (right now, my main deck has 28 allies out of exactly 50 cards)

1/4 attachments

1/4 events

I play Spirt/Lore. Let's look at allies. I want half of them to be able to quest, 1/4 to be able to fight, and the other 1/4 to offer utility. So my choices are things like Protector From Edoras, Arwen Undomiel, Warden of Healing, Henmarath, West Road Traveller, Northern Tracker, Mirkwood Runner, Gleowine, Bofur, Gildor Inglorion, and of course Gandalf. I run 3 copies of all of these except the Warden, Henmarath, Bofur, and Gildor. This is becauae I want to draw at least one of them as fast as possible, and also because if 1 dies during the game, then I will need a replacement as quickly as possible. I've thought about cutting 1 Northern Tracker and 1 Gleowine for other cards, but I never have. Their role in the game is just too good, and in a pinch they can block.

For attachments, it's got to be stuff that helps win the game. I don't waste slots on things like Dark Knowledge or Ancient Mathom. Instead, I've got Protector of Lorien x3 and Burning Brand x2. Unexpected Courage is another great one, but it doesn't really mesh well with the deck I play so I don't currently use it.

Events - Test of Will and Hasty Stroke are a must. Infighting is also great. Anything with Threat Reduction goes right in there x3. This includes Greetings from the Galdhrin and Elrond's Counsel. Stand and Fight is another great one. I actually consider that Ally 29-32.

For co-op play, your partner's deck should start out with the same design concept, but instead of questing, focus on combat with it. Ranged is very important for the support deck. When I play co-op, I will engage the enemy using the Spirit/Lore deck and then that way my heroes can combined with all my partner's ranged people to increase attack values. The support deck should also carry a lot of Sentinel so that it can defend for the Spirit/Lore deck.

Those are just my suggestions. Hope that helps! Good luck with your deck building.

Boris_the_Dwarf said:

Ancient Mathom is, like, my favorite card in the game!

dark knowledge i dont like (see the thread on this sub catagory) however i love mathoms -

say i was doing a 'questing' quest such as emyn muil, and was using a protector of lorien to quest high (with a high card draw), then these three situations cry out for mathoms….locations, cards, and willpower

Ancient Mathom is just too situational for me. I had it in the deck for a while, but had 2 problems with it.

1. It is situational. It requires a location to be on the board at the time I play it, and that I be able to travel to that location and then explore it fully. Too often it would either sit in my hand for 4-6 turns until I finally just discarded it for Eowyn's bonus, or I would play it on a location that never got cleared for one reason or another (or didn't matter when the location cleared because I cleared the quest/won the game at the same time).

2. BIlbo, Gleowine and Beravor provided constant card advantage rather than a 1-time effect. What's better: drawing 3 cards once as a situational result, or drawing 1-3 additional cards over the course of 7-10 turns? If nothing else, there's a Lore event card that lets a player draw 3 cards once without a situational requirement, or Leadership cards that have more controllable card drawing effects.

Ah, but you see, it's very difficult to use Gleowine, Beravor, and Bilbo in a deck with one Leadership and two Spirit heroes.

Budgernaut said:

That is a dilemma, lol.

I'm in the "No on Ancient Mathom" camp.

The litmus test for any card is whether I actually use it for its written purpose or as a feeder for Eowyn's questing or POL. In the case of Mathom, I never ONCE used it in a game. So I got rid of it.

But if I didn't have Bilbo/Eowine in my deck, I might feel differently.

oops, meant to say Bilbo/Gleowine, not Bilbo/Eowine.

i agree that mathom is situational, but looking on that good side of that it means that if you rebuild per scenario (like i sometimes do) then it can work in your favour- i remember i had a lot of success using it in emyn muil- but emyn is pretty easy anyways

Like I was hinting at before, my favorite sphere is Spirit. the same way none of you like to play Lore without Beravor, Gleowine, or Bilbo, I can't play Spirit without Ancient Mathom. The ability to draw cards is key, and when you're deck excels at exploring locations anyway, the cost of 1 is well worth the benefit. If you have Northern Tracker out, you're pretty much guaranteed to explore the location you attack Ancient Mathom to. If I have some other method of card draw, I usually don't use it because, as Boris_the_Dwarf stated, I can't be sure that I'll explore the location I've attached it to.

And at this point, I'll apologize for completely derailing the thread and talking about my favorite card instead of whether you should have 50 cards exactly. My answer to that is to shoot for 50. At first I had about 60, but then I realized that I usually didn't see all my cards, so having a lot of contingencies didn't help because I wouldn't get the needed card when I faced the situation it was for. Streamlining the deck to perform a certain task seems to work better. This is also why I've never tried to build a one-deck-to-rule-them-all. It's so much easier to make a deck tailored to a specific scenario.

Budgernaut - I'm starting to get the feeling that the deck size should vary depending on whether you have a card-drawing machine.

I agree that 50 cards sounds about right in most circumstances, but since I use Bilbo and Gleowine in my deck I tear through the deck rather quickly. So for my deck with Bilbo/Gleowine I'm at 60 cards. And I still get through most of the deck.

Then again, I'm still kind of new at this game so maybe this isn't optimal.

gvaughn1 said:

My advice would be: stick to 50 at all times, however painful it may be to cut down. The point being that, every extra card you add knocks a fraction of the chances of drawing the key card you need (whether it be Steward of Gondor, Test of Will, Zigil Miner or whatever the situation/your deck require). This fraction is small but appreciable over the long run. As I understand it, this is pretty much a universal rule of deckbuilding in any card game.

And, with Bilbo + a first turn Gleowine, you're still drawing just 3 cards a turn - you won't run out of deck for 15 turns, and your games shouldn't be lasting this long.

yes maths in universal…..if you really want to refine your skills and become a 'boromir' type player (do ask about these if you were around) however for a bilbo player like me i sometimes go over for theme reasons, though i feel that isnt what you were asking, so id agree and say stick as close to 50 as you can

jjeagle - you are undoubtedly correct. The odds are better of getting the cards you need. I'm probably just being stubborn. Maybe I'll see if I can cut it down to 50, as much as it pains me.

rich - can you enlighten me on this Boromir/Bilbo thing please? I've read references like this on these forums but I never have any idea what people are talking about. I imagine it has to do with your priorities and style when playing and deck-building.

yes thats exactly what it is

boromir - winning, very keen on being the most efficient player

pippin- likes to try out new combos which may or may not work but gains most enjoyment out of it non the less

bilbo- theme based, loves artwork and storyline

you can of course be a mixture - i doubt anyone would be completely one or else they wouldnt be either playing a strongly themed fantasy game, or playing a game full stop

im 80%bilbo 15%pippin and 5%boromir

Interesting. So far, winning has been more important to me than either theme or tinkering. So I guess I'm Boromir. (But I still don't do things that are weird or broken just to win. For example, I don't use Zigil Miner in my decks for this reason. They just seem weird. They cause you to change the whole deck structure to accomodate for his ability. To me, this isn't fun).

The Boromir approach is mainly because I'm new to this game and I got tired of having my ass kicked non-stop. Once I start getting a decent win %, I think I'll try to branch over to Bilbo and/or Frodo to increase the fun/challenge.

yes that was an issue that was present with me from the start….firstly as a bilbo i wanted to build theme decks - well at core release that wasnt even possible as no races had really been expanded on, however even after the first cycle, with the exception of eagles, theme decks were pretty weak so i was forced to take on a more boromir approach so that i at least had a slight win percentage

now however things are different, i can quite easily throw together a deck full of dwarves that will win most scenarios….im looking forward to be able to do this with hobbits and elves as well

gvaughn1 said:

I've heard this from others as well. It's not uncommon for people to add more than 50 cards if they have a strong card-draw mechanism. But you just need to ask yourself if the extra cards you threw in are really important or not. If they're gonna be integral to some card combos, then by all means, include them. But if it's just a nice card, you may be better off leaving it out, even with the card draw machine.

But having a card draw machine brings up the point that if you're focused on drawing cards, you may be lacking in other areas like combat and questing, which means you may just need those extra cards to compensate for your deck's shortcomings. Of course, having only tried card draw decks in 2-player games, I really don't know what I'm talking about here in regards to solo.

Budgernaut said:

If you pop Bilbo in for a solo deck, deck size can go pretty big. Especially if you use one or two other card draw things. Plus, Bilbo isn't that useless otherwise, once he's hitched up The best feature of Bilbo regarding card draw is that he does it by himself, meaning the rest of the deck can be devoted to covering his slightly cruddy stats.