Bryon said:

Yes the good old times of Decipher……….I remember first Lotr world cup in Essen 2002. I was there with my country team……Good time!

Anyway hand cap is the good decision i agree with you. Sometimes is also geting weird when i play with my friend who love to play lore and Beravur and in the middle of the game he had more cards in his hand then in his player deck. And then he say : i can cancel this treachery let me check i should to have a Test of will somewhere here and it take a 10 second to just look to his hand. And after he play dwarfen tomb to get Test if will back to his hand. And from this moment i start to feel crazy boring cose i understand game is won 100% and is only matter of time and from this moment a game is just burden. NON change it! Now is not same every thing much more hard and i love it! Really waiting and like the idea of the new nightmare sets for the old quests to make them replayable with strong current decks.

Will see what Caleb will do now with all this issues.

I have to say that this mechanic has a certain kind of elegance. The Beravor and Ziggy decks have been pretty straightforward, but this Hammy tactic is kind of cool, especially as it does not affect solo play as much as multiplayer.

What I would like to see are treacheries that will be shuffled into the player deck. And they should include mean stuff like "discard all your cards" or "raise your threat / reveal one encounter card for each card that you have drawn this round" etc.

leptokurt said:

also very good idea! Also when staging can reveal more encounter cards for each 2 cards i players hand more then 6 or 8.

leptokurt said:

That's a pretty cool idea. The only problem is that you could still abuse stuff in every quest without those treacheries. But still, maybe like an errata to Will of the West or something and then the inclusion of treacheries like that in some quests could be a way to make drawing decks look less enticing.

Bryon said:

Yeah, that's a concern of mine as well. Keeping track of how many card draws, or even watching to make sure you don't go over a hand cap size, is just kind of clunky and not very fun. It's another monotonous task to keep track of, just like when we had to start keeping track of game rounds. Too many things like this and the game upkeep becomes more of a chore than it's worth.

We might be okay for a while again if they just stop the Hammersmith trick, don't make many more drawing cards, and then start making some of leptokurt's treachery cards.

The power of some of the cards in this game has been a constant surprise to me, I think. Stuff like the Zigil Miner, Will of the West etc, they're cards I didn't expect to see so early in a game's development. I mean, Will of the West is a core set card! Good lord, it makes you wonder sometimes whether the designers know what they're doing. I do remember the discussions about the Zigil deck where people were including loads of high-cost cards in their decks to get the resources they wanted, then they brought out scenarios that discard allies from play (Long Dark) and that use your high-cost cards against you (Foundations of Stone), which I've always thought were elegant ways of countering these ludicrous decks. It makes me think the designers do know what they're doing, and were just waiting for people to get comfortable with these crazy decks when they then make scenarios you don't want to play with them. So now there's a stupid idea of drawing your deck into your hand during setup or whatever, so what's the betting we'll be getting scenarios that say "during the planning phase, reveal x cards from the encounter deck. x is the number of cards in your hand" or "each enemy (or location) in the staging area has threat equal to the cards in total in each player's hand" and the like? Having the encounter deck copy the players could be interesting, too, so every time you bring an ally back from your discard pile, you have to put an enemy into the staging area or whatever. Basically, what fresh hell have they got in store for us now?

This doesn't really have any effect on the already-released scenarios, of course, but then up until they announced these new nightmare cards, I was firmly of the opinion that the designers thought we all only played the current adventure pack, and the other quests would gather dust once they were "beaten" etc. I dislike errata, either to cards or the rules themselves, so I hope they find some other way. The idea of mixing treacheries into the player deck sounds absolutely inspired, I'd like to see something like that happen. I don't want to give the impression that I think the game was badly designed from the start, but the fact that there are no upper limits has always really bugged me. Even the fact the rulebook suggests using alternatives when you run out of tokens etc - to me, if I've pulled all of the resources that were in the pool when I started, that's it, I don't go digging around for change to use! So I suppose if it came down to a rulebook erratum to introduce a hand cap or draw cap, I'd be happy enough with it. I'd prefer, though, if they found a way to use hand size against us in-game.

Errata are not the way to go. I think FFG have been way too liberal in their errata already.

As I see it, an errata should be used only to correct a true mistake (think Impulse in MTG) or some typo; not to completely change the original intent of a card's designer or correct a badly designed card.

(For example, the way I see it, the current errata on Beravor and Zigil Miner are bad).

The solution here is to simply use the banned / restricted list.

Puttting Will of the West on a restricted list with a number of other combo-oriented cards would quickly limit the possibility of abuse while leaving room for "some" powerful 2-cards combo to still exist (such as Beravor with multiple Unexpected Courage to quickly go through your deck).

Adding a hand cap is also a possible solution, although it again raises the question of why did they decide to let player draw infinite in this game in the first place.

Card errata are bad in general but I think they are far worse in a competitive game . Here if you use or don't use the errata then who cares really? I see them more as guidelines on to how to keep using cards that are otherwise problematic. A banned list or even a restricted list seems really odd for a solo/coop game though again you can ignore it at your option or institute your own banned list for things you find make the game too easy to be fun.

I have found playing bad decks against easy scenarios as much fun as trying to figure out how to beat all the scenarios with one deck/pair.

Nothing needs to happen.

Nothing.

At all.

Not banning, not errata. Nothing.

There is no competitive parity to enforce. If somebody organizes a competitive event, he/she can compile a banned/restricted list or otherwise structure the tournament to eliminate degenerate combos. Apart from that, if you and your friends enjoy using this deck, then more power to you. Have fun with it. If you don't like it, exercise some self control and use something else.

starhawk77 said:

this, right down to the word

rich

starhawk77 said:

I would agree with you, except for FFG must feel otherwise because they have already established precedent that they will fix things like this. Why would they fix one major problem (Zigil Miner) while leaving a worse one?

And there IS going to be a events everywhere very soon with the incoming game night events. What you suggest is fine when it's just your friends or people you know, but for people like me that plan to run a lot of these events and hopefully grow a player base, it's a bit harder to tell someone you just met that they definitely can't use their deck or a certain combo even after they drove however far to get here. Especially when there is nothing official to point to.

We played this again yesterday and found a thing that can make it even worse. We thought you were at least limited to the amount of turns it took to get through all of the quest cards. Usually you can get through one quest card a turn, so your score (while still being ridiculous with this deck) is still limited, barely, because of the +10pts per round.

But my friend took Legolas today. After we pulled off the combo, he dropped two Blade of Gondolins on Legolas. We purposely left enough enemies in the staging area or engaged with us or in the Encounter deck (after milling it down to like 3 cards because of Out of the Wild), that at four progress each kill, Legolas cleared all of the remaining Quest stages by himself with infinite Blade Mastery and Grim Resolve.

Our final score was a 14, on Seige of Cair Andros, on turn 3. Going through all five quest stages. And this was a pretty bad go at it because we lost two of the three battleground locations on turn one due to horrible flips.

My starting hand even kind of sucked and after taking a mulligan I only had one of the five combo pieces. But after I used all of the drawing cards that I had, I had all five pieces before the end of my first turn.

I don't see the need for errata on these cards either. If you enjoy these types of games, where winning can be 100% certain the second you have a special card combo in hand, then great, here you go. I prefer to duke it out. I prefer to lose in a tight struggle than win in a landslide. (Well, every once in a while a landslide can be nice.)

For game nights, they seem like a more organized casual event anyway. Each location will play it slightly differently and can ban or restrict combos as they see fit.

I do have to say kudos to the ones who found this crazy combo. It is a pretty thoughtful and creative use of the cards!

Mattr0polis said:

None of the cards in this game should have received errata. That was a philosophical mistake by FFG. If you're worried about certain combos in your tournament, publish a banned/restricted list beforehand. That will give the players plenty of time to plan accordingly.

starhawk77 said:

Yes they should. If you want to ignore the changes in your own home then fine. I however want to know that all organised play is the same. There is no reason for them not to release errata, so that this consistency can be achieved for those who want it.

I have to agree. Infinite draw and infinite hand size are really bad! This can/will brake allmost all possible games. Think about playing a poker in a tournament agains a player who draws hole deck in his hand and the select his 5 cards for the game… fun? Definitely not!

Most of my friends are allready in the way of making their deck to draw more and more cards. It is not fun anymore and it allso makes most scenarios ridigilous easy. It is not fun any more after you find the way how you can draw all your cards in you hand. It is fun to make that deck, the plaing with it is really boring.

Summasummarum: we need errata or banned list or rule changes to help this situation! There can not be tournaments if and when there are so broken combos like there are today.

What about going back to the original post ?

Blade Mastery and Longbeard Map-Maker can be replace by a single song of durin with grim resolve/miruvor, you'll have unlimitted stat for the turn. (you lose the ranged/sentinel of Haldir though) (there is miruvor alone for infinite will, and also Grave Cairn for attack, Blood of Numenor for defence)

Out of the Wild is good, but you can't ban the discard pile. If you had just one The End Comes, you'll be able to empty a lot of different scenario. You just need a dwarf that leave play, but it's not impossible to find one (the irony )

Gandalf can be played indefinitly when you play a born aloft on him, allowing you to have 0 threat, and clearing all the enemies. Problem with the locations ? add a snowbornscout.

I never though to play with this cheat code on multiplayer, I would like to see the face on the one who wasn't informed about it .

For your friend, you can add Wandering took with Elfhleim to reduce their threat for the score, and a Fortune or Fate.

In solo, this combo is prety easy to set up if you only got treachery or location. Ignore the quest, just defend enough to not lose hero and combo cards. Ending with 49 threat and a lot of damage to make the combo is worth it.

I think a dual deck building can be made to speed up the setting of the combo for some cards don't need to be owned by yourself (Legacy, Born aloft and the Horn).

Keep in mind that this combo only works during the planning phase. FFG has yet to make more broken cards !

alogos3 said:

This is what I figured at first too, but then the first game we played these decks, there's chances during the quest phase to play actions and once you've did the combo and have infinite resources you can loop events whenever you want: Out of the Wild/Will of the West/Lorien's Wealth on yourself/Out of the Wild/Will of the West # 2/Lorien's Wealth # 2/repeat. So even that's not a problem. As soon as the encounter deck reshuffles you can do infinite Out of the Wild again unless it's in the middle of staging but you can control when it empties by leaving just the right amount of cards in the Encounter deck.

alogos3 said:

Elfhelm does not work with Wandering Took

Got that one wrong, too hasty, it's Song of Earendil that work with wandering took.

For The end comes, it's to finish it all before hand, you cannot do the infinite draw loop out of the preparation phase, and you could only play 3 out of the wild at the start of the questing phase… not like you would draw anything that would make you lose, but… you know… conscientiousness.

alogos3 said:

No, you don't need the infinite Hammersmith anymore after that first planning phase. You can play WAY more than 3 Out of the Wilds. You only need the Hammersmith trick to draw your whole deck in that one planning phase. Then you can play any events at any time and an infinite amount of times because of the things you have.

For example, QUEST phase:

1. play Out of the Wild

2. play Will of the West to reshuffle the 1 Out of the Wild back in

3. play Lorien's Wealth to redraw that same Out of the Wild

4. play Out of the Wild again

5. play Will of the West #2 to reshuffle the 3 cards in discard pile (Out of the Wild, Lorien's Wealth, Will of the West #1)

6. play Lorien's Wealth #2 to draw those three cards again

7. play Out of the Wild again

8. play Will of the West #1 again to reshuffle those same 3 cards

9. play Lorien's Wealth to draw those three cards

10. play Out of the Wild

11. repeat infinite

You can do the same with pretty much ANY event card you want to loop at any point in the game where you have an action step, alls you need is to have the infinite resources you got during the planning phase from looping Wealth of Gondors on that turn you hit the Hammersmith combo.

It's really dumb, lol.

Bryon said:

well there are times you will have a lot of cards in hand (e.g. Escape from Dol Guldur, one ally per turn) and it is perfectly normal to draw and keep over the initial hand size of 7

I'd love to have the rule of 4, at least it was not a problem to me when I was playing the decipher Lotr TCG

Drawing caps would kind of suck since it's another thing to remember. Not hard to do, just annoying.

I think in a perfect world I'd just like a hand limit you must discard down to at the end of a round. However that doesn't stop this deck at all so it would have to be in addition to some errata.

Where does "Master of Lore" come? I can't find it on lotrlcg.com

On the other hand I get the point that it's "not fun" that many are making, but keep in mind that FFG is trying to get this game into competitive and these combos aren't good for that…

Maggical said:

Master of Lore just came out in the Heirs of Numenor box.