An aspect I find boring in the game (and I know others are going to disagree because they praise it) is customizing your deck for each different quest. It is a tedium for me that I do not enjoy. Perhaps PC/video games spoil me because they shuffle the deck and deal out the tokens for me, but there are a lot of minutia involved and the deck changing is about as muct time consumption as it is to play an actual quest.

If the quests were epic, meaning they had 20+ stages to them, awesome battles, and lasted for many hours, then I see the point. But these quests are short, the game length is short (all great things, mind you) but because they are short, the deck customization is not something I enjoy.

So for good or bad, I go with "One deck to rule them all"

My son plays with me sometimes…sometimes I solo with one deck, sometimes I solo with his deck as well. I enjoy starting at quest 1 and then rolling all the way to the end and see how we did.

I am an engineer, I guess I'm good at math, but I don't buy into the 50 card logic everyone harps on. I use 80-90 deck cards and I'm never playing with a mindset of, "dangit, why isn't that card showing up yet?". To limit my deck to 50 would be far too stressful because I do not see how some cards are that much more powerful than others. If I choose a card, I put all 3 in…I rarely limit them in that regard…and I throw in the songs (most of them) as they can generate me some revenue if I have the right cards + rivendell minstrel.

But I digress.

The heroes we use: Loragon, Glorfindel, Frodo. I've often considered swapping out Frodo and I'm going to try Denethor as someone has suggested. Glorfindel with his new gigs is indeed powerful, but I honestly don't see how one hero wins anything. Most enemies which cause problems have 3-5 armor and Glorfindel attacks with a 3. In the beginning, he can really help with questing, but some missions are oriented towards swarming you with enemies so his role does vary from mission to mission. Asfaloth, in my mind is probably the one card I do enjoy having…but so is fast hitch for Frodo. Have I ever considered reducing my deck? Nah.

This deck is a four sphere deck. Song of battle is in there so I can get Glorfindel the sword and bow. And other songs are added in order to get unique items for Loragon. There are also things to support Frodo, etc.

All in all, even with my statistically inferior deck (when compared to the 50 card decks), I wholly enjoy playing this game and I'm winning more than I'm losing, (however I swear a lot when playing Escape from Dol Goldur and I don't usually win that one…in fact, I think I've only won it once)

I spam Glorfindel and use Frodo to absorb damage and my threat shoots from 24 to 48 in no time flat…but I don't care…it is all part of the early game strategy to reduce damage and I just use Loragon to reset and then after the reset, you play a little more tight to the chest.

My son's deck is also a ton of fun, and THIS is what I like about this game is the synergies between cards. Due to the latest series, there has been a lot of focus on dwarves, of course, so he has an all dwarven party. His favorite missions are when he can bring in all dwarven allies (his deck literally has nothing but dwarves in it) and then use the battlemaster to kill a troll in one fell swoop, or use his cards to commit everyone to defense or to the quest and then refresh them and pummel them into oblivion.

His heroes are Gimli, Dain, and Gloin.

The synergies with his deck and mine are fantastic…as I often purchase items for him and he will do likewise. Gloin committed to quests (with Dain's ability) is very helpful and Gimli tends to play the same as Glorfindel…quest early and then attack later.

Anywho, we are probably noobs in the grand scheme, but we enjoy the game tremendously. We get lazy, though, we never change our decks…his is 70+ and that is how we like it.

The synergies and the figuring out how to work together to overcome something difficult is what I enjoy. Some of the quests are awful, especially the gollum ones because I really dislike it when I "lose instantly" or "can't attack this turn". Those are hokey game elements to me. I personally wish there were ways to create 3 or 4 decks and have even more synergies.

A game I enjoy playing is Shadows over Camelot…yes, I know that Battlestar Galactica is supposed to be better, but it frankly isn't if you play with 6 or more people and we like to actually finish within an hour, although the traitor mechanics are nicer. The point I'm making is that cooperative games are fantastic. And I've seen some great designs which make games difficult. I just wish they could get more epic in their scope. I want to command 12 heroes, not just three. I want to have broad expanses and linked quests…not some hokey nightmare mode. That is what I want…but I really am quite happy with what I have.

Thanks for listening, and happy playing!

leptokurt said:

As much as I like the new Strider (and I had initially thought the new Glorfindel is tailor-made for him) I experience Beravor as a better option. The card draw still rocks for my games. And I would definitelly rather go with WRT than RF if I have Asfaloth (and I guess Tracker too).

Interesting approach indeed mr Schmoo. This is what is so nice about the game, it can be enjoyed in many different ways.

I've been using Glorfindel (spirit) a lot lately, and he is really good. I have a little bit of trouble in the games where i don't draw an early LOV, but for the most part, Glorfindel (spirit) rocks. I would say the the cost analysis for him is a bit off. I often read that he should cost 7 more threat (as befitting his stats) but this is obviously a mistake. Unlike most of the other top tier heroes, Glorfindel (spirit) is all stats, he doesn't have any cool special actions or abilities. That's gotta count for something, right?

I've read alot of people's writing about how the new glorfindel is overpowered. However, when I see the card on it's own, the stats, the threat cost, the lack of a useful ability, the presence of a penalty, he does not look overpowered on first sight. Also, all the time when people write about how he is overpowered, they write about light of valinor and Asfaloth.

That made me think. I have now tested the new glorfindel without light of valinor, and without asfaloth. I have been testing with the old glorfindel and both attachments, and I have been testing with the twins and the light of valinor. (in a deck with the twins and Eowin)

The conclusion I came to is this: the new glorfindel is good. Very good. But not overpowered. Asfaloth is also a very good card, when played on a glorfindel it's in the range of northern tracker. The card that is more than very good is the light of valinor. It is not so much overpowered on a twin, but it is on any of both glorfindels: quest for 3 and attack for 3 is very good. It does the same as unexpected courage at half the price. And the real aspect of overpowered comes when you combine the new glorfindel with light of valinor. In that case, not only do you have an unexpected courage at half the price, you also get to ignore the penalty on glorfindel.

So my conclusion:
Spirit Glorfindel is a very good hero, like there are other very good heroes.
Light of Valinor borders to being overpowered when combined with the right hero (Lore Glorfindel)
The combination of Spirit Glorfindel and Light of Valinor is overpowered in my eyes. With overpowered I mean: is much more powerful than any other combination of 2 cards in this game.

As a bonus: Since you are likely combining Spirit Glorfindel with a Lore hero for Asfaloth anyway, Daeron's Runes is a very good card to go fetch a Light of Valinor if you don't hold it in your opening hand. It also gives you something to do with a second copy of any of the unique attachments. And it costs 0!

So true about the Light. Being unique I used it twice in my deck at first, but, before long, I realised that it has to be represented thrice in order to get it asap. Same goes for Arwen. The only two uniques being thrice in my deck. And the Daeron's Runes inclusion is a nice idea as well. I haven't used it yet, but I see people arguing about how strong it is. I might include it next time I play.

Serazu said:

Daeron runes is most powerful draw in the game now. In MTG this kind of cards was banned already.