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September 13, 2014, 03:53:27 PM
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Severus

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Deck balance
« on: September 13, 2014, 03:53:27 PM »
Hi Guys,

I'm trying to figure out how to make a good deck. One of the questions is how to make a balanced deck. A rough estimation of percentage of characters, possessions, events, conditions in each side. Or may be something like: minions has to be at least some % of the shadow side...

I know there is maybe no solid rules for that and it could depend on the deck type, but if there is a general rule or something that could surely help as a starting point, then start tweaking the deck through test playing.

I'm mainly looking for a "starting point" not a final deck, and looking forward for your suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

September 14, 2014, 11:49:42 PM
Reply #1

dethwish07

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Re: Deck balance
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2014, 11:49:42 PM »
Since no one has jumped on this yet, I'll give a few thoughts. I'll use fellowship block examples to keep it simple.

As far as number of companions, perhaps I'm playing a Last Alliance of Elves and Men style deck. I start Frodo, Old Bilbo's Heir and the ring, Isildur's Bane, and then Legolas, Greenleaf and Arwen, Daughter of Elrond. This gives me three companions from the start, two of which count towards spotting for Last Alliance.

Now, obviously, I need some gondor companions to put those conditions on. So, I'll likely run 4 copies of Aragorn, Heir to the White City (4 copies because I'll draw him faster not having to rely on the Prancing Pony, and I can discard extras to heal him). I'll run 4 copies of Boromir, Defender of Minas Tirith. Playing this many copies will likely allow me to draw Aragorn and Boromir in the first few reconciliations I take for the game. Then, I'll throw in a copy of Sam, Son of Hamfast. Just one because I don't always want him, but if he isn't in there, I'll obviously never see him. I don't usually throw in a lot of extra replacement or splash companions in fellowship block (partly because there aren't as many options). Faramir, SoD is a great splash companion in any format he is available for play in.

Now, since I have my companions ironed out, lets look at what tools they need. Last Alliance, obviously. We have two Gondor companions, but we wanna see our last alliances early and have some back up in case some get discarded, so we'll run 3 copies in our deck. Also, we have two elves to spot in our starting fellowship but we need at least one more to reap maximum benefit from our Last Alliance, so we'll add in some elf allies. Three Galadriel, Lady of Light, one copy of Elrond, Lord of Rivendell , one Rumil, Elven Protector, and one Saelbeth, Elven Councilor. These allies have some great support abilities. We'll toss in a Filibert Bolger, Wily Rascal and a Bounder as well.

Since we are playing all these elves and Boromir, DoMT, lets throw in some Horn of Boromir. Two is probably a good number. It is unique and we wouldn't want multiple copies to combine with other unique card copies to clog our hand. We are also only running 3 Boromir, so we don't want to be getting the horn well in advance of getting him.

Aragorn is gonna be a key fighter for us, so lets throw in 2 Ranger's Sword and 2 Flaming Brand (one of which can be passed off to Boromir). We definitely want to get Aragorn geared up quickly. We'll also throw in a singleton Blade of Gondor for Boromir. Don't want any extra, same as the horn. We'll throw in a copy of Aragorn's bow to help deliver some archery or targeted wounding along side Greenleaf.

Because the Balrog and Uruks are a concern in Fellowship block, we'll run two copies of Armor to limit the number of wounds our Gondor guys will take.

We've shown the Gondor guys a lot of love already, so lets spread our attention to our elves. Lets throw in a copy of Gwemegil for Arwen and a copy of Bow of the Galadhrim. We'll put in 2 copies of Asfaloth for use on either her or Legolas (2 copies because they are discarded at undergrounds so we might want an extra to play post-site5).

What about our Hobbit? Lets throw him a Sting (or Frying Pan if you are really afraid of orc-based swarm).

We'll also support Frodo with another condition, O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! and some events: 4x Hobbit Stealth (you'd likely save one or more of these for a site 5 confrontation with the Balrog. Cancel these skirmishes!). We'll also include a singleton Power According to His Stature as a protection against swarming.

Now you may be thinking this deck looks a little large, and maybe it is. However, we're gonna pair it with Moria Swarm which cycles quite well.

We want a big portion of the shadow side to be comprised on minions, as we are looking to repeatedly swarm until the ring bearer is overwhelmed.

Let's run four Goblin Runner (more twilight never hurts), four Moria Scout (usually not hard to spot an Elf of some kind), four Goblin Sneak (reuse your dead goblins!), two Guard Commander (turn extra twilight into skirmish wins), four Goblin Scavengers (replay your scimitars for great card advantage), two goblin scrabbler (kill opposing Last Alliance conditions, etc.), three goblin warriors (bye-bye, thrarin), one Ulaire Enquea, Lieutenant of Morgul (crowd control), and one Ulaire Nertea, Messenger of Dol Guldur (play minions from your discard).  So, that is a total of 25 minions. Let's move into conditions/possessions, etc from there.

Four Goblin Scimitar is amazingly good. Card advantage for days. That will cover possessions for us. They will draw us cards and can be replayed with Goblin Scavengers. They'll also provide more twilight for us in conjunction with the four Goblin Armories we are adding next. These provide the aforementioned twilight as well as offer some protection for your Goblins from things like archery that can take them out of the equation before the skirmish phase ever starts. We want to see these cards early and often, so that's why we max em out.

Now, we'll also include three copies of Goblin Swarms. Multiple copies will let us draw into this valuable asset early in the game so we can get the most benefit from any of our skirmish wins.

Lets add four Hosts of Thousands, two They Are Coming, and one Relics of Moria.

Free Peoples: 43

Starting: 2
Frodo, Old Bilbo's Heir
The One Ring, Isildur's Bane
Legolas, Greenleaf
Arwen, Daughter of Elrond

Companions/Allies: 17
4x Aragorn, HttWC
4x Boromir, DoMT
Sam, SoH
3x Galadriel, LoL
Elrond, LoR
Rumil, EP
Saelbeth, EC
Filibert Bolger, WR
Bounder

Possessions: 15
2x Ranger's Sword
2x Flaming Brand
2x Armor
Blade of Gondor
2x Horn of Boromir
Aragorn's Bow
Gwemegil
Bow of the Galadhrim
2x Asfaloth
Sting

Conditions: 4
3x Last Alliance of Elves and Men
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!

Events: 5
Power According to His Stature
4x Hobbit Stealth

Shadow: 43

Minions: 25
4x Goblin Runner
4x Moria Scout
4x Goblin Sneak
2x Guard Commander
4x Goblin Scavengers
2x Goblin Scrabbler
3x Goblin Warrior
Ulaire Enquea, LoM
Ulaire Nertea, MoDG

Possessions: 4
4x Goblin Scimitar

Conditions: 10
4x Goblin Armory
3x Goblin Swarms
2x They Are Coming
Relics of Moria

Events: 4
4x Host of Thousands

So, this sorta got into a "final deck" as you put it, as opposed to a starting point. However, I tried to sort of give a rationale behind the inclusion of various things and at what quantity.

A few really general "rules":
For a swarm deck, you want at least half of your shadow cards to be minions, if not more.
For beatdown, its okay to have a slightly smaller amount of minion cards in your deck, as the minions you do play should hopefully have a big impact on the board.
Some decks, like Ninja Gollum play a very small number of minions, but this is because the deck has many ways to recur Gollum/Shelob, making the effective minion count higher in some ways.

If there are certain cultures/strategies you would like to build with, feel free to mention them and perhaps I can give more specific input as far as making a "balanced deck."

Hope this helps at least a little bit.

January 08, 2015, 06:39:16 PM
Reply #2

ScottieB

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Re: Deck balance
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2015, 06:39:16 PM »
As you said, as a general rule it's kind of related to the deck-type that you're using.  The example above, at 43 / half is pretty huge IMO, but the player can get away with it since Moria can burn through a deck pretty quick.

I play all sorts of decks (no Moria strangely) and could suggest that most of my Minion sides sit at approx 32 - 35 cards each.  The basic break-down goes - 20 minions + a mix of 12 conditions/events/possessions.  I've found that if you need a bigger half, more minions works better (perhaps at 22 minions + 13 conditions/events/etc).  Nothing worse than getting suck with a whole lot of cards that require a minion to be played, and you haven't drawn one !

As for the fellowship side - I honestly haven't thought about it.  Might have to check a few decks and see if there's any consistency to how I've built them.


January 08, 2015, 07:01:39 PM
Reply #3

ScottieB

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Re: Deck balance
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2015, 07:01:39 PM »
... as an aside to this, you might want to also think about the 'synergy' of a deck.  For example, Dwarves are pretty good at card drawing, and Moria are pretty good at recycling.  The card drawing can set up a fellowship quick, while the recycling can return things you needed to discard early. They're a nice combo and the number of cards used, and the ratios of those cards will naturally determine the size of the deck.

Having the actions of one side feed into the actions or another can create powerful decks.  Hobbits can do well with dwelling sites and can manipulate the path, while Forest Nazguls can use that path effectively.  They're a natural combo as well, and you may find a need to add a few more events/conditions in order to achieve the goals of the deck.

January 09, 2015, 10:21:34 AM
Reply #4

sgtdraino

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Re: Deck balance
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2015, 10:21:34 AM »
IMO what you need to include in your deck to make it balanced is almost entirely dependent on the deck strategy you are using, as well as the meta of the format you are playing. Particularly the meta, as this has a strong influence on what strategies are viable.

In other words, to really know how to balance a deck, you'd first need to know what format you are building a deck for, and what deck strategy you're thinking of going with.
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January 14, 2015, 12:00:22 PM
Reply #5

jdizzy001

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Re: Deck balance
« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2015, 12:00:22 PM »
Trial by fire my friend! I've made "highlander decks" (decks with only 1 copy of each card. No repeats), and I've made decks with 4 copies of every card. As Sgt said, it is going to depend on your strategy. Having said that, here is something I have noticed. 1 is going to be hard to pull during a game. 2 copies of a card means you will probably pull the card. If you are lucky, you will pull it in the beginning, it you are unlucky, it will be during one of the final phases. 3 copies of a card generally means you will pull the card around the time you are hoping to pull a copy of it. 4 copies of a card means you will most likely draw this card during the first few phases of the game. 4 copies of a card should be reserved for cards which are integral to your deck, such as PATHS in a solo frodo deck (for example). Again, it is all about your strategy. Also, take into consideration that my advice comes from a pretty strict personal rule of no deck being larger than 30/30.
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