So I need some help on building a deck, because every time I try to build one, it ends up losing. I enjoy playing solo, but it is so hard I have trouble beating anything except Passage Through Mirkwood. The sets I have are the core, The Hunt for Gollum, The Hills of Emyn Muil, Return to Mirkwood, and The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill. They're kind of mixed up because the game store I go to sometimes doesn't have them all. I am planning to get Khazad Dum pretty soon, maybe around the beginning of October. So if someone could give me some pointers or a list, that would be really helpful.

hello

this is how i build a deck

-pick one aspect/ combo and then build the deck around that. in other words, say you want to have gloin+resource gain+healing. a perfectly good combo o cards, and once you have that in mind you can see you need:

1. leadership (as you have gloin, and you may as well throw in steward of gondor to make a really good resource drawing deck)

2.lore as this is the primary healing sphere. now you know your two main spheres you can chose a 2nd and/or third lore hero to add to your deck. so think, who will go well here? well its healing so perhaps lore glorfindel, or if you are wanting another resource hero then theodred's ability will be good as well.

maybe you want a good card draw as you will have plenty of resources to use, so bilbo would go well here, or perhaps better beravor who is great all round

but remember once you have a core deck, you need support for it- the above deck would likely fail with only resource draw and healing as this does nothing for fighting and questing. the trick here is getting these two into a deck AND having it work as a whole.

so for questing you immediatly think spirit, but we have a lot of resources here, and we also have gloin- a dwarf…..put these together and you get longbeard map maker- he can buff up willpower with resources you gain from gloin, and pretty much quest alone. also being a dwarf he benefits from whatever dwarven cards you have in your deck.

now we just have fighting/defending….so again think, who goes well with this deck? well this is a little more difficult and will require some thinking over it, but there are a few options.

firstly gloin is the defender here, as this is core to the deck- ie let him get damage+resources then heal…

but then we need an attacker, so perhaps you could put in unexpected courage on him and give him a dwarven axe or two- this will make him both defender and attacker smoothing out the deck

once you have all that in place, you will need to bulk out your deck with cards

i tend to go

40-50% allies

25% attatchments

25% events

obviously though it varies, but thats around what i do

there are some must have cards depending on what spheres you run

in lore i would say forest snare, protector of lorien and if we are healing here, then daughter of nimrodel or self preservation (the latter on gloin would be better….unless you can only attatch it to a lore hero…cant remember..)

in leadership there is sneak attack for gandalf and steward of gondor, also ever vigilant is a great card and comes in handy when you dont have UC around.

after this i take the deck and try it against a standard quest- mine is passage through mirkwood followed by hunt for gollum. it may take a few plays to get the feel of the deck, as a bad or good draw will bias the outcome. after the games take the deck back to the drawing board and take out cards you left in your hand and never played, and add in ones you missed

so this is one way that you can construct a deck- there are others, but i like this bottom up method

any q.s just ask

rich

Thanks for the advice. That will definitely help. How about hero combos? And maybe the spheres that you like the best. I at least want to be able to beat The Hunt for Gollum and Journey Down the Anduin. Dol Guldur is a whole different story. But based on the sets I have, what do you think would be a good combo I could try?

Thanks for the advice. That will definitely help. How about hero combos? And maybe the spheres that you like the best. I at least want to be able to beat The Hunt for Gollum and Journey Down the Anduin. Dol Guldur is a whole different story. But based on the sets I have, what do you think would be a good combo I could try?

Whoops. Didn't mean to post it twice.

legolas18 said:

well im definatly i lore+spirit guy…..i also tend to splash in leadershiping using song of kings

i am going over to cardgamedb and il try a deck for you

rich

ok this is a deck i quickly put together with your card pool

Hero (3)
Dain Ironfoot (RtM) x1
Nori (OHaUH) x1
Ori (OHaUH) x1

Ally (22)
Dori (OHaUH) x2
Brok Ironfist (Core) x1
Erebor Hammersmith (Core) x2
Fili (OHaUH) x1
Kili (OHaUH) x1
Longbeard Orc Slayer (Core) x2
Miner of the Iron Hills (Core) x2
Gandalf (Core) x2
Gandalf (OHaUH) x1
Gleowine (Core) x1
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x1
Northern Tracker (Core) x2
Faramir (Core) x1
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x1
Mirkwood Runner (RtM) x2

Attachment (13)
Forest Snare (Core) x2
Protector of Lorien (Core) x1
Steward of Gondor (Core) x2
Thror's Map (OHaUH) x1
Unexpected Courage (Core) x1
Self Preservation (Core) x1
Dunedain Mark (THfG) x2
Celebrian's Stone (Core) x1
Song of Kings (THFG) x1
Song of Travel (THoEM) x1

Event (15)
A Test of Will (Core) x2
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x1
Ever Vigilant (Core) x2
Fortune or Fate (Core) x1
Hasty Stroke (Core) x2
Lorien's Wealth (Core) x1
Sneak Attack (Core) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x2
Expecting Mischief (OHaUH) x2

its a bit of a mixed deck really, i wanted to go for a dwarven deck, however you are unfortunatly missing some of the key dwarven cards from khazad dum and the dwarrowelf cycle sure as 'lure for moria' and 'narvis belt' and so on.

i think it should do ok, though i willl need tweaking. the generel strategy/combo with the deck is more simple than the gloin one i gave - it basically uses Dains +1 willpower whilst ready to buff up all the dwarven allies- the majority of who quest….so i guess this is a questing deck

for defending this will come down to dain who will stay ready and use unexpected courage and self preservation on him

Nori an ori heros are in for their combined effects rather than their stats

ive put some songs in and a rivendell minstrel but theyre not really core to the deck, see below for tips on who to put it on

put the dunedain marks on ori to make him an attacker, you also have some attack support with mirkwood runner who doesnt count defense whilst attacking alone (great for killing goblins) and longbeard orc slayer

its up to the situation who to put steward of gondor on, but seeing as you dont have song of wisdom id put it on ori and give him song of kings and travel, making him able to pay for all 3 spheres.

ive only included 1 copy of fili and kili as one gets the other anyways

the gandalf is an interestign choice by mixing them, something ive found quite effective, try keeping the new one in, then discard him and sneak attck the old gandalf to lower threat that was gained by the new one

hope this helps

rich

Thanks. This helps a lot. I am soon about to get Khazad Dum, so if you think I'll do better with some of their cards you could give me some suggestions. I've heard some good things about Bifur, and also Narvi's Belt that you mentioned. I'll try this deck out today and see how it works. I really like the dwarf decks, I think they can be very effective.

legolas18 said:

no problem- the entire khazad pack is usuful for a dwarf deck, but the hihglights are indeed the likes of what you said

even better than the deck i posted is thalin/dain/bifur- you basically put steward and narvis belt on bifur who can take a resource off another hero per turn. this gives a powerful resource machine which you can use especially well to feed longbeard map maker.

lure for moria is unbelievably powerful once you have about 6-7 dwarves in play- having them all ready can wipe the play area in one fell swoop. i cant remember what pack thats in though but its not khazad

another great dwarf is erebor record keeper- for once cost he's great for questing when dain is ready.

rich

That deck was amazing! I did it with another person, and he died but I lived to finish the quest. So we won. But with a horrible score of 249. I had 8 allies, 6 of which were dwarves, still in play at the end. My willpower was about 22 every time, because of Dain and Faramir together. I also had both songs, steward of gondor, and two dunedain marks of Ori. He was pretty useful. I'm going to keep trying with this deck, because it may have been just luck of the draw. But everything seems to flow nicely, so thanks for your advice.

great- im pleased it worked out. you cant really go wrong with the dain + 2 dwarf heros + a ton of dwarf allies

as for the score thats probably a result from me never bothering about scores- i usually just make decks that (hopefully) win, even if they just scratch through

what quest were you doing?

rich

I did the Hunt for Gollum. I don't really care about scores too much, but now with the new rule of having to count how many rounds you took, I feel like I get really bad scores. Even though that's probably not too bad, it sounds bad.

My score I mean.

So do you ever use tactics? I know some people think of tactics as a waste of time, but I really like some of their cards, such as all the eagle allies and Beorn. Hence my picture. )

legolas18 said:

yes i do, but i only started after the later packs, hence not doing tactics in the deck i gave you

i felt like song of battle and narvis belt really made doing tactics solo possible

in a dwarf deck i usually use thalin, and more recently beorn hero, however in general i usually splash it in without the hero

its a strategy alot do not like, however with certain card drawing mechanisms such as imladris stargazer and master of the forge, i can get the song/belt out pretty quickly

i find that tactics is becoming much more useable with those such as elrond and hands upon the bow, so tactics has gone from being collecting dust to becoming a very usable part of my collection

rich

Okay. I see. So when you test your deck you said you do Passage Through Mirkwood followed by the Hunt for Gollum. Does that mean you put them together and do all six quest cards like it's the same scenario, or do you reset after you finish with the first one, and then do Hunt for Gollum?

legolas18 said:

i reset everything after mirkwood, then do hfg

the reason its those two is that they are both pretty easy and dont require any specific strategy allowing me to gauge how well the deck functions in general

another good one is foundations of stone, which is better for a more advanced test

alot of the other quests require (well are easier at least) if you tailor build your deck for it

rich

Okay. Well I'm very pleased with this deck, just beat Journey Down the Anduin with it solo. Considering how many times I've tried that one solo and with two people and only won twice, this is a very big accomplishment for me. Score was 118, with final threat of 18, no heroes dead, 4 damage tokens on heroes, and 10 rounds taken. With the troll dead. This is the first time I've ever gotten lower than 20 threat, let alone finish with less. I used Galadrhim's greeting twice with Dwarven Tomb, and then sneaked gandalf and bought him. It was pretty awesome.

legolas18 said:

sounds like a great success- congrats!

journey down the anduin remains one of my favourites- i dont want to say how many times i lost it when the game came out, but i wasnt experienced enough to know how to beat it.

now however it remains i nice challenge without being frustratingly hard

rich

message deleted ( 'cuz I didn't know what I was talking about)

So I really like this deck, but I just barely got Khazad Dum and finished off with getting the Shadows of Mirkwood, and I have the first in the Dwarrowdelf cycle. And so if there is any improvements that could be made to my deck, since I realized that Khazad Dum has a gold mine of Dwarf related cards, than any help would be appreciated. )