Hi there.

First of all can I say hello as I am new to this forum. I hope this is the right place to ask the question I have. Basically I am a new player. I am a regular player of L5r and I've played Vampire and 7th Sea. I play with a friend who has a lot of experience of many card games and has been pretty successful with several of them. However we keep getting pounded with Lord of the Rings card game. Some of the card effects for the encounter deck just seem ridiculous. Today we had what I think was a shadow effect saying 'discard all your exhausted characters.' We also had 'discard three resources from all your characters' ( we rarely have that many on all three ). We seem to have a choice between questing and fighting but if you don't quest your threat is raised and more monsters attack. Should we be using fewer heroes? Are we misunderstanding something? It has made us laugh quite a lot but it even so it does seem very odd.

hello and a warm welcome to the forum

this is a common question so i assume you are doing nothing wrong- saying that its worth checking the FAQ on the support page of the lotr lcg product site on this website as many things have changed since core release!

now onto strategy. you pretty much answered your question in your post, this game (solo at least) is about 1 thing- balancing.

you need to balance your deck and your play to do everything, its pretty hard and i dont know your card pool, but be assured it gets alot easier as the card pool grows.

as a veteren of this game, ive went from your situation after core release, to being able to build decks that can regularly beat most of the quests.

i would recommend these points as a start

1. stay away from the pre-made decks - start building 50 card multi deck asap

2. stay away from tactics in mono sphere decks

3. lore and spirit together make for a formidable duo sphere deck

4. have plenty of combo options to use in your deck, for instance Protector of lorien allows buffs after discarding cards so couple this with some card drawing mechanics and you have yourself a buff combo NOTE that protector was changed in the FAQ and made weaker, but its still a useful combo

5. hero choice is key- some work great, some are aweful. if you have any songs in your card pool id reccomend aragorn, beravor and dunhere. aragorn can help solve your problem of not having enough heros as he can ready after commiting to a quest. put steward of gondor on him and you have plenty of resources to do this each turn. dunhere can kill enemies in the staging area which is useful and beravor is great all round- put unexpected courage on her to she can quest/defend/ attack as needed.

6.Test of will and hasty stroke are key cards- getting rid of shadow and treachery effects and vital to winning a game…now i know core only has 2 of each but throw in dwarven tomb to recycle at least one on them

7.one cheap guy- henemarth riversong, is great as he allows you to peak at the encounter deck- this allows you to deciide on your strategy…so see a location, then quest more, see an enemy, ready for a battle.

8.stick to 50 - 52 cards…as you are a card player youll know about the law of chances

9. buy more packs….seriously it gets easier (not great advice i know )

10. remember you can take a mulligan, so use it if you get a bad hand

ill add more as i remember them

ask anything if you want, or PM me!

rich

It's a hard game. I am not an especially skilled deckbuilder, but I like to think that I do pretty well with what is in my hand, in terms of maximizing card value, thinking several turns ahead, etc. Even so, my win % is just a little over 50% overall (but I record EVERYTHING, including those round-1 forfeits when a hero gets discarded due to a setup treachery card).

It might help to get specific feedback. Could you post your decks, or give us an idea of how you are building them? Without some idea of what you are playing with, the best we can do is give you general feedback, such as:

--build your decks with specific scenarios in mind (if you can. This can be time-consuming). For instance, if you are going into Conflict at the Carrock, you'll need more combat-ready allies, and questing is slightly less important. If you are on a Journey to Rhosgobel, dealing with locations in the staging area + healing cards are very important.

--If you find yourself mid-game and holding 4-5 cards and have no use for them, those are probably cards that can you exclude from your deck the next time around. I often include a card thinking "that'll come in handy," then end up holding it but unable to use it because my resources need to go somewhere else, or the specific situation where that card would be useful juts has not come up. To avoid this while building your deck, choose cards with a specific purpose (e.g., that'll be good to have when the Brown Lands comes up, or I'll be happy to have this card when I have too many enemies to handle).

--People generally approach deckbuilding with a 'min/max' mindset. Keep it to as few cards as possible (50 cards if you are using "tournament" rules, according to the rulebook, but you can actually use fewer than 50 if you aren't concerned about having a "valid" win. The starter decks are 30 cards each, after all). Also, if a card is worth including, it is worth maximizing the chance to draw it, so bring 3 copies.

That's all I can offer… since you are experienced with card games, I am probably preaching to the choir. Try posting your deck for more focused help!

GS

Thanks for the suggestions. I've left the cards at my buddy's house for the time being so I can't post a decklist at the moment. I think we've been following a lot of the advice you've given but perhaps don't have the detailed knowledge of the scenarios you do. I'm glad to hear it is a difficult game ( from the point of view it means we're not completely insane ) and also that after a while we might start winning a bit more often. I think having a fifty card deck is difficult especially as we've not found many ways yet of cycling. I know there are some cards which look at the top five of the deck and then shuffle after choosing one so I might have to give those a go.

Annandune said:

would you mind explaining this one further for me so i can reply? do you mean 50 is too high or low?

thanks