All of the auto-includes aside (Steward of Gondor, A Test of Will, etc), I can't seem to build a deck without Rivendell Blade these days. Severely limits my hero choices! How about you all? What card is your addiction?

nice thread.

my addictions are usually based upon theme and art (surprise surprise eh?)

so....that said, i cannot.....hardly ever, make a deck with strider in, and not have striders path. that card is lovely. and whats even better is that now thrors map has gotten killed with the errata, its actually worth putting in.

other cards at the moment are rivendell blade, yew bow and black arrow for whenever i have legolas about.

another two cards i constantly come back to are healing herbs and good meal....all the hobbity goodness

northern tracker and other dunedain cards feature heavily in my decks

...basically anything that make my games have an 'eriador' feel

rich

Even with the strong relience on combat in the latest pool I would still say that Lore and Spirit have the strongest cards in the game. I mainly play solo now, as my LoTR mates have all moved on to better games. So as a solo player you are looking at utility more than you need to when building games for multipalyer. This is where Lore excells. Yet "auto-includes" seam to reside in Spirit, also a extreamly strong sphere.

Lets skip Steward and Test of Will..... .

At 3 cost for 2 will + a song fetch this is just a really strong card and can go in nearly any lore deck. 2 Will is good enough, but a song fetch for mana fixing just makes any deck she runs in work better. Extreamly strong card.

Seriouly... 2 cost 2 will + add defence to any charicter? If she is not in your deck there is somthing wrong. Being unique is her only real draw back. She even has 2 health so she is immune ot 1dmg effects that can kill off West Road Traveller

2 cost, 2 will and can let you travel to high travle cost locations to remove them from the staging area.. Really great card. I usally run this is any spirit orintated deck. It is so strong.

Yeah, it is that good. If you can get this on your main blocker hero then you have just made the game a billion times easier. No shadow effects is just huge .. can not be understaned. The only time you wouldn't include this is when you are on those rare 9and they do exist) quests that have weak or small number of shadow cards. Otherwise this is a card you make room for.

your not running this? Go back to your room and learn to play!

I could go on... but I need to get back to work!

aside from the obvious choices like feint, steward of gondor, etc. I would pick the following

Vassal of the Windlord...even if its just a one time use, 3 atk for 1 resource is just too good to pass up. If its a battle quest than this card is even that much better. Even its natural discarding effect has synergies within its sphere with EotMM and Horn of Gondor

Warden of Healing...even though healing is not absolutely necessary in this game, it provides a comfort i almost always opt to use when creating a deck using Lore. The fact that he is a cheaper option than daughter of the nimrodel and can heal up two characters make him very appealing to me

Faramir...He is one of my favorite characters and has a stud ability. i always find room so long as at least 2 of my heroes are leadership since hes so expensive

The Riddermark's Finest...a less useful version of asfaloth, but i really enjoy this art and the ability is still quite useful if Glorfindel and his mount are not in play. Ends up in most of my spirit decks

Agreed Faramir is a boss. Even low will decks can sudenly become powered as you can commmit to a quest even if you have 0 will. Very strong card, but needs some planning to use I think, as his ability requires a rush deck so there is enough units on the field to make his ability really shine.. Still I have won many games of the back of this guy alone.

As for Riddermark... meh.. not so into this guy. The problem with this card is that teh effect requires a tap as well as a discard. So unless you are placing the card is usless. It just sits there. You can not even commit it to a quest. It used to be more powerful but 2 quest locations are not as common as they used to be. Also as you said, there is already asfaloth witch is just this effect but a billion times better, + but ti is really Ride to Ruin that makes this card kinda crappy. It places a 3rd token, has the same discard effect, but can trigger of any rohan, even if it is tapped. This card basically repalces Riddermark. The art on it is awesome though for sure. Also if you do run it, you can then run a very under rated card Strength of Will as you are nearly garenteed to have a untapped Spirit charicter at all times.

nice thread.

my addictions are usually based upon theme and art (surprise surprise eh?)

so....that said, i cannot.....hardly ever, make a deck with strider in, and not have striders path. that card is lovely. and whats even better is that now thrors map has gotten killed with the errata, its actually worth putting in.

other cards at the moment are rivendell blade, yew bow and black arrow for whenever i have legolas about.

another two cards i constantly come back to are healing herbs and good meal....all the hobbity goodness

northern tracker and other dunedain cards feature heavily in my decks

...basically anything that make my games have an 'eriador' feel

rich

I just cannot wait for being able to actually build good Eriador themed decks.

Though I really try to build different decks every time, I usually end up with hands upon the bow (since I usually end up with Legolas who in my opinion is the best hero in the game) and I'm obviously skipping things like feint. Also defender of rammas is a quite stable add to my decks since it came out. Another new card I'm trying a lot is the new silvan refugee. Amazing card. One of my favourite decks is a Legolas, Hama, Glorfindel (FoS) event recycle deck. I used to have horn of gondor+bofur (spirit) but now i took them out, added 3 refugees and a couple more events and the deck just became perfect (I tried many scenarios I had already done with the same deck and I scored much much better). they're just perfect for this deck. Anyway let's say that if I would nominate a leadership card I'm addicted to (except Steward of Gondor and Sneak Attack) it would probably be errand rider (he's a living song capable of chump blocking). Tactics obviously Hands upon the bow (Feint being out of the contest). As for Spirit maybe the West Road Traveller( again with A Test of Will out) and for lore perhaps Risk Some Light (in solo play it's just one of the best card of the game).

it always suprises me how how people like tactics so much. I have been playing form day one, admittidly with a break in the middle.. but I just can not eve nsee how to get tactics to work. I mean I have tried them a few times, but compared to lore and spirit they just score so badly. I would be interested to see some of your decks as there are quests i can not even win with tactic and leadership, yet own with ease using spirit and / or lore.

From the get go I have always included Aeowyn. She is just too good at the questing phase not to include in every deck.

it always suprises me how how people like tactics so much. I have been playing form day one, admittidly with a break in the middle.. but I just can not eve nsee how to get tactics to work. I mean I have tried them a few times, but compared to lore and spirit they just score so badly. I would be interested to see some of your decks as there are quests i can not even win with tactic and leadership, yet own with ease using spirit and / or lore.

i dont want to derail this threat, but if i may take a very quick detour, tactics really shines as a support deck in multihanded play. get a 3 tactics hero deck, have thicket of spears/feint, plenty of sentinel and ranged, and it pretty much takes care of all the enemies freeing the other to do things like lots of questing, card draw, healing and so on.

hama / beorn and legolas work excellently for this.

now onto the topic- im not fond of these 'must include' cards in the game. i admit they are autoincludes, but thats a bad thing in my opinion.

the two worst are test of will and dearons runes. test because you need it, and runes because it makes any deck run so much quicker

now steward however, i think its bad, but not so bad as the others as i have built decks with other resource drawing mechanics that i end up having so many resources theres no point in including it (i recently built a secrecy deck with resourceful....that card is so much better in secrecy)

of course i feel fortunate in that i get so much from theme decks, that i can take these auto include cards and leave them out, not feeling like im throwing my chances of victory away...however, they are pretty imbalanced

i used to place eowyn in this catagory, and i know this subject has been talked to death on, but i feel that she is good, just not that good. in a solo deck she works well, and she works well in a quest support deck....

however my flight to the ford deck for instance is better than any deck i have built with eowyn in. there are allies that get rid of the need for her to be there and given she is useless apart from her willpower, she is a wasted hero slot

rich

it always suprises me how how people like tactics so much. I have been playing form day one, admittidly with a break in the middle.. but I just can not eve nsee how to get tactics to work. I mean I have tried them a few times, but compared to lore and spirit they just score so badly. I would be interested to see some of your decks as there are quests i can not even win with tactic and leadership, yet own with ease using spirit and / or lore.

i dont want to derail this threat, but if i may take a very quick detour, tactics really shines as a support deck in multihanded play. get a 3 tactics hero deck, have thicket of spears/feint, plenty of sentinel and ranged, and it pretty much takes care of all the enemies freeing the other to do things like lots of questing, card draw, healing and so on.

hama / beorn and legolas work excellently for this.

ANY sphere works in multiplayer. It is only in Solo play that you need to cull entire spheres.

now steward however, i think its bad, but not so bad as the others as i have built decks with other resource drawing mechanics that i end up having so many resources theres no point in including it (i recently built a secrecy deck with resourceful....that card is so much better in secrecy)

Low and behold I agree with Rich for once.. that is a pretty darn rare thing. Resourcful is fantastic and dosn't require a leadersplash. This is great for solo, as a out of sphere splash can require quite a large card commitment in your deck to run smoothly.

Still steward, is in no way a bad card. If you are running solo and a leadership hero there is zero reason not to run it apart form self gimping reasons. Same gose for multiplayer. Among the players SOMEONE will be running leadership, and they should be running steward.

i used to place eowyn in this catagory, and i know this subject has been talked to death on, but i feel that she is good, just not that good. in a solo deck she works well, and she works well in a quest support deck...

I agree with this as well. She is training wheels for new players and for solo decks before the card pool got larger. She makes everything easier in the early game, and in that respect she is great, but as the game gose on, her ability gets less and less useful and you end up with many more will than you need though allies. There are SO many heroes that have way way way better power text that affect the game for its entire length and never start to be unneeded.

The only "real" deck she is in that I know of are Stand and Fight decks where you use her ability to discard and then rez with stand and fight. Still now there are cards that let you discard AND do other stuff.. so even this combo is now defunct.

Nice thread ... I have not used cards after the Kazad Dum Box (I have all packs but I try to add one after I win another)

The cards I can say I am addicted (and the reasons for) are

Eowyn (for Questing, when playing solo only once or twice I think I did not included her),

Steward of Gondor (no need to explain),

Faramir (because everyone quests better),

Glorfindel (he can quest and attack very well ... I cannot wait to reach the point to use the spirit one),

Northern Tracker (saved me on some occations exploring locations),

Galadhrims Meeting (who doesn't want to gain some extra turns without enemies engaging him without his will),

Unexpected Courage (cause I can use a hero more than once),

Gildor Inglorion (Expensive but once in game and with a proper use he can do nearly everything you might need),

Burning Brand (no need to say),

Sneak Attack (cause I can play Gandalf for 1 )

Have never used them cause I'm not there yet, but I know I will love Aragorn (Strider), Asfaloth (if only for the art, but it is a good card with Glorfinel), Arwen, Glorfindel (spirit), Light of Valinor and Elrond with Vilya

Well you see no tactics cause I usually play alone and tactics cannot help me, but when playing with my wife I take tactics deck cause I love nearly all the cards hehehehhehe

Ranger Spikes-A WP booster AND neutralizing an enemy? Yes please.

Denethor or Henamarth Riversong-These cards are almost unfair in solo play, giving you the leg up on the encounter deck

Expecting Mischief-Combos nicely with Denethor and Henamarth, softening them up or finishing them off with Thalin/Spear of the Citadel/Mighty Prowess/Gondorian Spearman

Radagast's Cunning/Secret Paths-I have won games with these cards. Very underappreciated.

Dwarven Tomb-Spirit has (arguably) the best card pool in the game. Being able to recycle any of the myriad cards in that sphere is extremely powerful

Erebor Hammersmith-2 cost, decent pool of HP, the ability to fetch the topmost attachment from ANY player discard pile in the game, Dwarven synergy, amazing card.

Master of Lore-If I am running mono Lore, I have to have this card in my deck. It's expensive and was nerfed pretty hard, but I feel it is worth it.

One card that I used to be addicted to but has fallen to the wayside is A Burning Brand. I appreciate the power of the card, but for defense I am using either a) a chump blocker, or b)using a character with such high defense (e.g., Beregond with Gondorian Shield+ Citadel Plate) that an ATK boosting effect doesn't matter. For those 10 or so shadow cards that are really nasty, I like Hasty Stroke (or even Balin) a bit better. I would rather save the two Lore resources for something a bit more valuable in the Lore sphere.

@tragic the blathering : I play most of my decks (and I'm talking in solo play) with at least one tactics hero and I win most of the times. As I said I don't remember where, one of my favourite decks is a Tactics Spirit event recycle deck (Legolas, Hama, Glorfindel) with which I won practically every single scenario (most of the times getting pretty good scores).