I think I have reached a point where I would like to try building a tri-sphere deck. I have mainly played two-sphere up to this point and have had decent success, but I want to try my had at something different. So here are a few questions:

1. Do you achieve a good tri-sphere deck by using two heroes of one sphere and one from another and then include songs, or do you use three heroes from different spheres?

2. What are some general pointers you could give for building tri-sphere decks?

Thanks.

I have a 4 sphere deck that works alright. Not perfect of course but very decent.

1 - 3 heroes from different spheres but I'm convinced that if you balance things right you can work with songs and heroes from only 2 different spheres.

2 - Add up the cost of the cards from each sphere and make it as balanced as possible, it should avoid some resources piling up on one hero (or use songs/Narvi's Belt).

Choose cheap cards, especially allies since you won't be able to get the expensive ones in as fast as with a 2 sphere deck. You can always through Gandalf in but for the spheres you choose try to avoid cards that will take 4 or 5 turns to buy. Once again songs can remedy that a bit but it makes things even more unpredictable. My deck doesn't have a single card that costs more than 3 resources.

Use at least once of the resource producing techniques : Gloin + healing cards, We Are Not Idle (+Lure of Moria) if you play many Dwarves, Thorin, Steward of Gondor, Zigil Miner (with Stargazer), … Choose the one that works with your spheres or, yet again, use songs.

Perhaps not as important but try to get a lot of cards too since you'll want to have a choice of cheap ones at all time. It would be too bad if you got stuck with a handful of cards you can't afford.

I usually go with heroes of three different spheres plus songs.

However, I also look for an edge to help improve my odds of paying for the cards I draw.

For instance, I've got a tri-sphere dwarf deck that uses Bifur who can pull resources from other heroes to help pay for Lore cards.

I've also got a quad-sphere elf deck with Elrond who can help pay for allies from any sphere (or bring them out for free with Vilya).

The Rivendell Minstrel and the Master of the Forge can help to make sure that you get your Songs.

So far, it seems that heroes from three different spheres is the way to go. Right after my original post, I started to toy with two hero combos: Theodred, Glorfindel (sp), Aragorn (L) and Theodred, Gorfindel (sp), Bilbo Baggins. In playtesting through lackey, both have peformed well against Passage through Mirkwood which isn't saying much but it does give me an idea of how resources will flow. I am typically a player that follows the 50/25/25% with regards to allies, attachments, and events, but finding low cost allies in my card pool (Mirkwood) has forced me to tweak that. When playing, I found it difficult to draw allies when I needed them, giving me the impression that I need to focus on my heroes for more, which leaves me thinking that the combo with Bilbo (Burning Brand, Dundain Warning, and Fast Hitch) Glorfindel, and Theodred may be my best option. Bilbo can block multiple enemies, allowing me to select more offensive minded allies. TIme and playesting will tell, but I am intrigued enough to keep going in this experiment.

From the aforementioned advice, I may need to go back and implement the rule of 3 (no card more than three resources), and make sure I balance my resources amongst my spheres.

Thanks guys.

Aragon with Celebrian's Stone and the Sword that was broken is a potent combo in 3 or 4 colour decks. I've only recently begun to experiment with it, but if you can get a Steward of Gondor onto him then you are golden for resources in several colours.