Help with Deck Building for new LOTR TCG League I am joining.

[Nrocket]

I have never played LOTR TCG except for once time last night and I loved it. I played it on tabletop simulator with a mod my friend made. It has every card included in it. (Mod will be available to the public shortly).

We are going to start a league in tabletop with 6 people in it. The way we will go about this is by each having individual decks. We build our decks with a cost system we have made. We each start with 15 credits and have the ability to purchase "booster packs" (7 random common, 3 random uncommon, and 1 random Rare) from different sets.

The sets cost differ:
Costing 1 Credit
Fellowship of The Ring
Two Towers
Return of The King
Shadows
The Hunters

Costing 2 Credits
Mines of Moria
Battle of Helms Deep
Siege of Gondor
Black Rider
Mount Doom
Realms of the Elf-Lords
Ents of Fangorn
Bloodlines
Rise of Sauramon
Treachery and Deceit

*Cost 3 and 4 sets have a little different rules for what you get when you purchase that "booster"*

Costing 3 Credits

For cost 3 you get 2 random cards from the set and 14 random cards from the cost 1 and 2 collection.

Ages End
Reflections (you get the option to roll a six sided dice and if you land on six you replace 1 of your Rare cards gained from buying this set with a Rare +)



Costing 4 Credits

when you purchase this set you get 1 random card from the set and 15 random cards from cost 1 and 2 sets

Promo Cards
Wraith Collection
Elvish Language
Expanded Middle Earth


Also we each will get to choose a Starter deck from this link free of cost. http://lotrtcgwiki.com/wiki/starter pack

I know this is a lot of information to throw at you guys but I am just looking for suggestions on what Starter deck I should choose and what sets I should look to spend my credits on for the best possible deck.

[ramolnar]

Hmm, this is a challenge! Given all the packs, I assume you'll play Expanded format. You have to think about sites here. No matter what format you play, if you pick a starter deck not from that format - like a Two Towers deck for Expanded - you'll have trouble assembling enough sites. If you want to increase the power level of decks, let people pick sites after the draft. Or maybe cost 1 credit to pick a site? At the least, I would just hand people a set of Expanded set sites.
Thinking quickly:
* Getting random cards from the 3 and 4 credit packs is not worth it. For many of them, I wouldn't pay 3 or 4 credits to get a card of my choice.
* The lack of "crowd control" in starters is a problem. Starter Shadows - and even with 15 packs, you're playing mostly starter shadows - have trouble against large fellowships. On Gemp, most leagues include extra cards that punish large fellowships Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul, or Southron Commander. If you're not doing that, my choices are heavily influenced by starters and sets with any crowd control.
* I don't see much advantage to paying 2 credits over 1. Yes, I know the rares are less common, but even at best you have a 7/40 chance of a bomb rare. I'd rather get more filler cards.

Starters I would consider:
- Shadows Gandalf. Gandalf Leader of the Company is great from sites 1-6; G for Grand would basically beat some of the weaker starters by itself. Also, Nertea helps a little with 6+ companions. You can fill out the deck with your 15 packs.
I think Shadows Gandalf is the best bet; my other options are to let you play different types of decks.
- Bloodlines Boromir. Stragglers is extremely powerful with a lot of minions out. Unfortunately, you'd have to commit most of your 15 packs to Shadows-block cards in order to get good bodies, and you won't have Mouth of Sauron from Black Rider to set it up like we do in GEMP. It's one of the more fun decks to play - for you.
- Mount Doom Sam. Sam, Great Elf Warrior is a great backup ringbearer, plus Tale of the Great Ring can be close to game-winning. It's not crazy because most starters have some pumps, but it does tie up a pump against someone. Unfortunately, the shadow side is only so-so.
- Fellowship Gandalf. This is the best swarm deck because you can get hand extension with Goblin Scavengers and Goblin Scimitar. Unfortunately, I don't think it's good enough because the paper starters only have 2 Host of Thousands. You could gamble, open 15 packs of Fellowship and pray for a Goblin Swarms, then pick your starter, but that's very risky.

[Shelobplayer]

Iirc the Black Riders Saruman starter was pretty strong on the shadow site, Uruk Dominator and Saruman, Agent of the Dark Lord can take care of business with some dmg+1 minions. You can open a few Two towers boosters with it and hope to get Uruk Regular and if you hit a jackpot then Saruman's Staff, Wizard's Device. On the down side it has a miserable fellowship, but Two Towers has the common defender +1 Aragorn and Faramir, Son of Denethor (also a common) which are both pretty strong.

The ROS evil man starter has 3 Ithilien Blades and fairly strong companions, and you can go 15 TH boosters and hope to get a Madril, DoO. If the random system is set up as it was with real boosters, you have a pretty decent chance as Madril was available as Regular R, RF and O, but even if you don't it can have Aragorn, Thorongil (laso R/RF/O) and Aragorn's Bow, Ranger's Longbow.

Would definitely stick to base sets until I hit some key cards, the double credit cost just simply not worth it imo.

I don't think that format regulations are necessary with your setup, it's unlikely that people would go Steadfast Champion combo or something degenerate like that.