PLEASE HELP!

I was hoping to glean a little wisdom and gain a deck list or two for the overwhelming job of coordinating a game night around this game using only my cards.

I went camping last weekend and four of us played against the trolls at the Carrock. It was a huge hit. The problem I seem to be having is constructing decks that play well without card, resource, quest/battle strangle. I sometimes play with 2 and sometimes with 4 players. Here is the problem:
Certain cards are essential to any stand alone deck. (Ziggy+Gildor, Throne of Gondor, ect)
I want four stand alone decks.
What decks hero’s/themes (mixed or otherwise) should I build and how do I distribute/balance the Essential cards afore mentioned?
Here is an example of what I have so far:

Loragorn, Theodred, and Beravor. Heavy attachments and Noldor Elven synergy. “Essential” card: Throne of Gondor, Unexpected Courage, Celebrian’s Stone. (this is the one that shores up the card choke for the other decks, esp. DAIN)
Dain+Bifur+Dwalin Ally Deck. “Essential” card: Ziggy+Gildor (doesn't get off the ground…lacks Throne of Gondor)
Frodo + Glorfindel Secrecy. I only use my secrecy cards with this deck. (Leaves the other players to do prety much all the work)
Hama + Boramire + Legolas events, cheap ally, and attachment deck. (card choke, resource chocke)

If you have played any decks that don't eat up all of the "Essential" cards, I would LOVE some help ANY THOUGHTS WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!

I own two copies of the core set and every expansion released (and Massing at Oz)

Since I don't care about deck-building, I went the lazy route and took my four original decks from this thread:

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/644987/two-core-sets-four-compelling-decks

Naturally, back then I had just 2x Core Set, so with each expansion, I took out some of the CS cards and replaced them with stuff from the expansion. After getting KD, basically slammed together most things Dwarven and made a fifth deck. Currently have 5 decks:

Lore/Leadership (Loragorn, Denethor, Gloin): very much keeping with the idea in the threat above

Leadership/Tactics (Imrahil, Theodred, Legolas)

Tactics/Spirit (Boromir, Brand, Dwalin)

Spirit/Lore (Eleanor, Eowyn, Beravor): again, very much the same idea as in the thread. Tempted to take out Eleanor once the Spirfindel comes out to give this deck some fighting prowess.

Dwarf (Dain, Gimli, Bifur)

I have some 2 player deck lists that have been tried and tested if you would like me to private message them to you, but I'm afraid I've only limited experience with 3 players and absolutely none with 4 players. It might be worth having a secrecy deck included when playing 3+ players I know I've tried that before and had great fun playing it. Let me know if you'd like the 2P decks.

Good luck!

Personally, I love playing 4-player by giving each player a monosphere deck. It really emphasizes the different flavors of each sphere and encourages cooperation since no deck is perfectly tuned to accomplish stunning combos.

So I now see the source of evil, mr dam. As those decks may have had some value when the article was posted, they're outright terrible within the current scope of cards. But I'm sure even if you're lazy (as you put it), you must have updated these by some margin.

For those interested, I am available for consultation, I wouldn't want to put any decks out of the blue as I don't know what exactly you seek. PM me if you're looking for something specific and I see what I can do.

If I understand your request correctly:

I tried to do this a while ago. My idea was to make four decks (using 1 core set and all available expansions[it would be easier to do with multiple core sets…]) that would scale depending on how many players I was playing with. So there was the 1st player deck which had the MOST important cards (steward of Gondor, etc) and each deck also took advantage of a different theme, so the sphere distribution looked like this:

1. Lore major/Lead. minor Dwarf deck (Bifur, Dain, Beravor)

2. Spirit/Tactics (Frodo, Boromir, Dwalin)

3. Leadership/Spirit Rohan Deck (Eowyn, Theodred, Imrahil

4. Tactics/Lore Eagles Deck (Thalin, Denethor, Legolas)

so if you were playing with 1 player, you'd use the first deck as it was designed to be the most well rounded, and then the last couple decks were more tightly focused in use (ie the last one was purely a combat deck). Then you would add on each deck depending on how many players you had.

Normally I make new decks each time I play but this was my attempt to make some decks that would provide some variety of play but would prevent me from having to make new decks each time.

I still like the concept and will probably do this again. It works well to do it in between cycles so there a longer gap with no new card and you don't feel the need to pull the decks apart to add new cards.

lleimmoen said:

Like I said, with each expansion, I check to see if there are new cards that can replace some older cards. Apart from RtR, only really struggled against the real DL7 (RtM and EfDM) and higher quests (MaO). Managed 7-3 vs TWitW, won both games of TLD today, though saw a lot more Enemies than I was expecting, first game, first three turns revealed 0 locations for questing . Toughest hurdle looks to be the Treacheries that force a locate test as they have some nasty fail penalties (failed Foul Air in the first game).

Yes, the Locate tests are better to avoid. Even with a full hand, you're never too sure. I once failed after discarding 8 cards. The chances are only just above 20% and you can easily run through the discard pile to see how that might have changed.

The Spider and Adder are both sucky. I like the Adder from the design point of view, a beefed up defender is often to no avail.

But even with these hurdles, the quest isn't that hard, quite interesting but totally doable even on a tough day in the office.

After reading the early views on this quest, I was afraid it might be Emyn Muil, version 2, meaning, quest, quest, quest, the end. Plenty of locations, but at least quite a few more Enemies in there as well. Had a fun turn with 4 Enemies engaged, two for each party, including Spirit/Lore which doesn't handle combat all that well, but with Dwalin + D. Axe, Brand and Boromir boosted by Arwen for +1 def and Sentinel, was able to avoid all damage AND wipe out all four Enemies in one go .

Both plays today, failed the When Revealed on 2B, because timed the completion a bit wrong (not that I wanted to linger 1B in case locations started mounting) and the first player had 0-1 cards in hand. First game, I think won in 4 turns (1B for 3 turns, 2B in one go), second 6 turns if my count of the threat increases was right.

Boromir and Arwen are a great couple. Wonder what they had going while the fancy Gondorian was staying in Rivendell. She certainly must have noticed the few decades between him and Strider, despite being a few thousand herself.

Weirdly, Boromir had Durin's Greaves AND Arwen today, yet ended up with 4 wounds on him despite only blocking attackers that had attack 3 max.

Dam said:

Yeah, the quest is filled with shadow cards boosting enemies' attack. But I take that any day over the "remove the defending character" sort of shadow.

Narsil0420 said:

Thanks! this is very helpful, especially the idea of a priority on playable decks…where can I find ytour deck lists?

I'm glad you like the idea!

Ok, I put them up on cardgamedb, they're titled "Quad-Set" 1-4. They're old (from march) so they would need to be updated, but it'll give the general idea. I'll probably do this again once Shadow and Flame comes out. With the monthly release, the cards are changing so quickly, it's a pain to try and keep modifying them all the time.