Erkenbrand's Horn Debate

[King89]

sorry for this useless post NK and all you guys, but i'm done because of the fact that 1/3 of all fellowship decks here are follower decks. isn't it boring to play this fellowship just to get your shadow cards?
is anyone out there who is qualified to answer me this question!?


thanks and kind regards

king89

 

[TheJord]

I agree with K89 the Horn deck is a very shallow decktype.

No offense to you NK tho 

[Gate Troll]

Ditto, Erkenbrand's Horn should so be x-listed. Or at least one of those key cards in the engine. Perhaps New Chapter instead. On a different note, I love the shadow. Only suggestion I can think of is to add a few Morgul Gates.

[Gil-Estel]

is anyone out there who is qualified to answer me this question!?

I don't know.....

Yes a horndeck is indeed boring, shallow and very annoying to play against. But with both horns out you can survive a lot and I cannot think of a better way of empty your drawdeck. I made an agreement with NK, not to play a horndeck again.....

[FM]

sorry for this useless post NK and all you guys, but i'm done because of the fact that 1/3 of all fellowship decks here are follower decks. isn't it boring to play this fellowship just to get your shadow cards?
is anyone out there who is qualified to answer me this question!?

That depens entirely on how you see the game, and ALSO how the people you play against see the game. See, I could write a whole essay on how people often make the mistake of asserting that one can only "play for fun" when they don't "play to win" or, in other words, "go for the throat". However, to make it short (although, King, you DID give me an idea for a nice article, I'll think about it, thanks! ), if you like playing in a competitive environment, you can go for the throat and still have fun, since you'll both be playing these kinds of decks. It gets tricky, though, when you whip out your, let's say, Fiend/Horn deck in a table where people are playing Pipeweeds, Signets, Movie-Shadow and such decks. THEN, for those people, playing against your deck won't be fun. By the same token, that deck you tweaked and tested to wreck a single Fellowship, also, won't be fun to play in a table with 5-6 players, so "fun" and "boring" have to take a lot of things into consideration first. In another example, if you're a competitive player, you won't have fun by playing against a competitive deck being used by a bad pilot, since the game will end up being boring most of the time.
So, bottom line is, the deck is out there, so you either go for similar go-for-the-throat builds to fight it, or simply agree to not play it. Complain and whine to get this or that card X-ed won't do much good. If I were you, I'd simply ignore Horn decks completely, if you don't like them. However, this is not really the way to go on the long run, if I were you, I'd come up with something evil to spring out on unsuspecting Horn decks.

[SomeRandomDude]

sorry for this useless post NK and all you guys, but i'm done because of the fact that 1/3 of all fellowship decks here are follower decks. isn't it boring to play this fellowship just to get your shadow cards?
is anyone out there who is qualified to answer me this question!?


thanks and kind regards

king89

 

My opinion is that the Horn belongs in a dedicated broken deck. Horn/Fiend, Horn/Troll Swarm, Horn/Forestgul Swarm, any deck that wants a completely filtered deck to operate and can kill fast.

Because follower decks are a cinch to kill anywhere else. They only rock vs skirmish oriented decks. Any other deck, say, corruption, archery, etc slaughter them. Ah...makes you wish that Frenzy of Arrows was still around...

[King89]

[...] Ah...makes you wish that Frenzy of Arrows was still around...

oh yeah!!

[King89]

That depens entirely on how you see the game, and ALSO how the people you play against see the game. See, I could write a whole essay on how people often make the mistake of asserting that one can only "play for fun" when they don't "play to win" or, in other words, "go for the throat". However, to make it short (although, King, you DID give me an idea for a nice article, I'll think about it, thanks! ), if you like playing in a competitive environment, you can go for the throat and still have fun, since you'll both be playing these kinds of decks. It gets tricky, though, when you whip out your, let's say, Fiend/Horn deck in a table where people are playing Pipeweeds, Signets, Movie-Shadow and such decks. THEN, for those people, playing against your deck won't be fun. By the same token, that deck you tweaked and tested to wreck a single Fellowship, also, won't be fun to play in a table with 5-6 players, so "fun" and "boring" have to take a lot of things into consideration first. In another example, if you're a competitive player, you won't have fun by playing against a competitive deck being used by a bad pilot, since the game will end up being boring most of the time.
So, bottom line is, the deck is out there, so you either go for similar go-for-the-throat builds to fight it, or simply agree to not play it. Complain and whine to get this or that card X-ed won't do much good. If I were you, I'd simply ignore Horn decks completely, if you don't like them. However, this is not really the way to go on the long run, if I were you, I'd come up with something evil to spring out on unsuspecting Horn decks.

the main point is that the lotr tcg is one of the most compact and well structured card games which was ever developped. as no other game it gives you the possibilty to combine fun and the aime to win e.g. a tournament in ONE deck. nevertheless because there dozen's of useful strategies. playing the horn deck in this times is nearly the same situation as after Reflections, when most people played dwarfs, or after BR forestghuls / saved ents.

although, King, you DID give me an idea for a nice article, I'll think about it, thanks!

nice, i will wait for it

[SomeRandomDude]

Hey man, I'd say that as soon as a PC organizes, New Chapter's gonna hit the ban list. No worries. In the meantime, D left us a disaster of an environment so let's have fun with a smashfest while its here. F_M, nothing can beat Fiend/Horn, not even Fruit Loops compares, absolutely NOTHING is able to defeat the deck, you can't just slap down a counterspell, the Horn combo WILL go off and the Fiend combo will go off turn 2 about 60% of the time and turn 3 almost 100% of the time. No way to interrupt it. All you can do is run Infi Gandy and hope that the combo assembles by the time the Fiend engine hits.

With Horn/Troll swarm, its standard and it will go off turn 4 usually, at which point there's no way to beat it.

[Elrohir]

As you have said - Follower decks are very weak! I would not agree to ban one of the key cards, because you defeat these decks anyway easily...

[Gil-Estel]

I don't agree with you. You do not beat them easily. Sure with the right deck, and I know there are quite a few decktypes that will kill it, but the point is not only the fellowship, but the shadow. A deck that only contains shadowcards is very hard to play against, no matter what. And any strengthbase/swarm base shadow will have an extreme hard time vs a follower deck....Each follower is a double +4 strength....:S

[FM]

F_M, nothing can beat Fiend/Horn, not even Fruit Loops compares, absolutely NOTHING is able to defeat the deck, you can't just slap down a counterspell, the Horn combo WILL go off and the Fiend combo will go off turn 2 about 60% of the time and turn 3 almost 100% of the time. No way to interrupt it.

Which is the point I try to make. Instead of banning combo pieces, why not create cards that CAN "counter" it? Sure, it'd only work online, since IRL cards are not a possibility anymore, but even so. Of course, there IS the possibility that even such cards are not able to stop the deck (and not having sideboards is something that hurts deckbuilding a lot), in which case bannings would be necessary, but you usually should try to get around to it, so you preserve deck options.

[Gate Troll]

Personally, I think that instead of banning cards that key in Horn or Fruit Loops strategies they should just make it illegal to play, say New Chapter and Erkenbrand's Horn in the same deck. Just my two cents.

[Gil-Estel]

why not just expand the rule of 4 to playing cards from your deck.....

[SomeRandomDude]

That might be the best way to go, but still, auto 4 cards out of deck each turn is pretty bad.