The introduction of RingsDB has invigorated the Lord of the Rings community, sparking creativity and enabling the sharing of ideas at a rate never before seen. With this explosive growth in new content, however, it is becoming easier and easier for interesting and exceptional work to fall through the cracks. The Deck Spotlight project is an attempt by the Cardboard of the Rings community to direct attention to deserving decks that, for one reason or another, have escaped notice.
Selected decks and fellowships might be especially unusual, creative, unique, strategic, or thematic. They might be funny, illuminating, powerful, or noteworthy for any of a number of other reasons. In all cases, however, the decks are worth a closer look.
It’s amazing what diamonds you can find in the rough: As of this writing, today’s feature deck is four months old and has a grand total of zero likes, zero favorites, and zero comments. How good could it possibly be?
The answer is “really good”, and not only is it a capable solo deck, but also quite multiplayer-friendly.
In case you haven’t heard, the game is not dying. Seriously, go check the forums on your favorite board gaming site, and count the number of threads that have been started by newcomers asking about purchasing advice, deck-building fundamentals, or just how to get started. What you’ll find is that, six (!) years in, this game is attracting new players every day. We have a vibrant community, and gamers on the outside looking in can see that. They see all of the fun that we’re having, and are naturally curious as to what all the fuss is about.
In LOTR LCG a player may sit down at a table with a support deck, other players may bring specialized decks that focus on one area of the game, there are decks that are jacks-of-all-trades that do a little bit of everything, and myriads of other styles. The deck I choose to review today is a support deck that other players will always welcome at the table.
I fully admit that I’m stepping a little out-of-bounds with this one, as we generally feature decks from authors with low reputation (ie, authors that are less likely to get their decks noticed in the first place). That said, this is definitely a deck that has fallen through the cracks; and, having played alongside this deck many times, I can confidently speak to its power.
Confession time: After suffering from a horrible case of Dwarf fatigue, I hadn’t picked up a Dwarf deck since I finished On The Doorstep.
That was a long time ago, and we’ve since seen the release of many new, and powerful, archetypes. Last week I sat down and asked myself, “Are Dwarves still as insanely powerful, in the modern cardpool, as they were back in the Dwarrowdelf days?” With that question in mind, I downloaded a Dwarf-swarm deck from RingsDB and loaded up Into Ithilien. Five minutes later, I had my answer: Holy Manwe, they’re even better now!
How fun, we got both of our new tactics toys (Na’asiyah and Prince Imrahil) back-to-back! Now, just like a kid who got two brand new action-figures for Christmas, let’s mash them together and see what happens! Will it work? To quote stokesbook: “it’s ingeniously stupid”… but he also said that “it works surprisingly well”, so let’s take a look.
I have to admit, that the relatively recent introduction of Dunedain cards to our beloved card game stalled me out as I struggled to come up with a decent deckbuild. By requiring careful balance of risk versus reward, it’s a difficult mechanic to build around. Early on, it appears this was one of those archetypes that took a while for the community to wrap its head around, but, at the culmination of the Angmar Awakened cycle, there emerged some powerful and popular builds. I would be remiss if I did not mention Seastan’s Dunedain Trappers deck, which has become the de facto standard of the Dunedain archetype, and is worth checking out if you haven’t yet seen it in action.
As is the case with all deck archetypes, there is more than one road to victory. Variations in hero lineup and focus can shake up the way a Dunedain deck plays, without sacrificing that feeling of living on the edge.
Mounts are awesome!
Yes, I’ve been on an Elfhelm kick lately, and this week my delve has taken me to a wonderfully synergistic fellowship with Elfhelm at the center of it all. There is far more to it than that though, and the Rohan fans out there will be especially tickled.
Erestor has made quite a big impact on the meta-game since his hero version was released. By forcing you to discard all of the cards in your hand at the end of the round, he dramatically alters the value of many cards. For example, “safety net” cards like A Test of Will are less useful, since you can no longer save them for the optimal moment.
What he initially brought to the table was a mechanism to fuel the Noldor discard mechanic; however, since the release of leadership Denethor, the two have formed quite a partnership.
Here’s a fun game: Go to RingsDB and run a search for all decklists that contain those two heroes. There are a lot, and for good reason: tempo is very important in this game, and no two heroes get your deck rolling faster than Erestor and Denethor.
In today’s feature, we are going to explore a high-tempo deck with Legolas as the third wheel.
Many among the community, myself included, have been lukewarm on 2-hero decks; mainly because the early-game action/resource hit are difficult to recover from. While cards like Strider alleviate these problems somewhat, you still have to draw them, and you still have to pay for them. As community member Sechen shows us, Strider can be a useful addition if you consider that 2-hero decks don’t necessarily have to start with 2-heroes.
Cardboard of the Rings 