The Last Homely House
Middle-Earth => Bag End => Topic started by: Alazzar on October 14, 2009, 09:16:29 PM
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I only ever played through set 12 (though have since rounded that out to set 13, as Bloodlines cards are dirt cheap), but I didn't really see how they "ruined" the game in that time frame. Sure, they made some broken cards, but that was a problem they usually fixed with X-listing.
Granted, changing to the new shadow cultures in sets 11+ was pretty lame, but they did a few things right as well. The site path, for example -- being able to choose which site you play on any given move adds more decision-making to the game, and more decision-making = more fun!
Yes, the game was better in 1-10, but I didn't think it was too horribly ravaged when I was playing 11 and 12. Maybe that's just me. =P
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I hated the site-path changes personally. A Mod can move this to a new topic, but I am posting it here.
Explain how the Fellowship can start at Mount Doom, and then move to Helm's Deep, then finally get to site nine at Bag End! It doesn't make any sense to me and really caused the game to lose a lot of its purpose.
Movie Block (Standard, pre-Shadows) was amazing. It was where the game was supposed to end and it is where the game should have ended. Decipher took away all of the coolness of each shadow culture and combined them onto crappy templates. I liked the idea that [Moria] meshed with [Moria]. Or playing Southrons, Easterlings, Corsairs, and Dunlenders all meant something. Sure, you can build decks in Movie block which combine them, but it is much tougher.
The [Isengard] culture most of all should have never changed. Saruman built his own army, and it is a shame to get them thrown into the Cirith Ungol crowd...
...I don't know...I could keep going, but I won't. Certainly Hunters and beyond is where the broken cards are, but Shadows is where Decipher first ostracized a lot of their players.
-wtk
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I liked the idea that [Moria] meshed with [Moria].
I never realized that until now. :gp:
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And then you start building decks according different sets of rules. Culture bound, specific card centered, that is where the fun is. I mean, I won recently a game with forced march and Enqeua Duplicious Captain, adding 7 burdens at once.....mhuahaha. I love competitions where you try to build the best LTTG deck ever, that is so much fun, onorthodox methods of winning this game. Love it!
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My opponent has an orc out and I end my turn with thin and stretched adding a burden. Can he the play the ring is mine! or is the minion discarded first?
To also contribute on topic...no you can not :mrgreen:
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They ruined the game, or made it difficult to keep the game alive by their decided lack of support for a very loyal player base. Even before the Ages End announcement there was very little support form Decipher. The forums and/or the tournament page would go down and stay down for weeks. They stopped supporting even the local tournaments let alone the larger conventions. The last GenCon Indy convention where there was any LOTR attendance (about 30 - 40 players - 2006) was not even run by Decipher, it was run by a volunteer and Decipher gave him a few cards to hand out. Shortly after Ages End came out the Message Board and Tournament page went down and was never fixed. Then on top of this tremendous decline in support of the player base you had some very poor sets come out. I really didn't mind the site path change or the new cultures it was simply that Decipher turned its back on thousands of players who spent a lot of money to support them.
Chuck
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Not to keep this off topic, but another big blow to their fan base was making entire blocks illegal. When you look at Star Wars: CCG which doesn't have a single banned card (it creates new cards that act as silver bullets against overpowered cards), that's a cool idea. Even maintaining an X-List and R-List is a good idea. But telling a group of pretty loyal players that their work in two-plus years of collecting sets 1-6 didn't matter anymore? Well, that's just lazy.
I am so glad that my hiatus from the game (I stopped playing some time around my senior year of high school, I started again this summer) included the time that this insanity arose!
-wtk
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I remember when the news of set rotation hit, and I remember how much it SUCKED. But, at the same time, I can understand the necessity of it. I mean, there's a reason Open format is a mess (I don't actually play it, but I gather it's something short of "balanced") -- in a game where players will search for abusive combinations of cards, letting your card pool continuously expand only results in restrictions placed on your card designs.
By that, I mean, Decipher would have had to worry about how a card in, say, set 11 would work with the cards in sets 1-3. Maybe there'd be an overpowered combo there, so they'd have to nerf the card they're designing or maybe just scrap it entirely. By limiting the card pool, they're given more flexibility in their designs (and there's less chance of an oversight, where a crafty player finds an obscure combination that breaks the game).
I'm pretty sure that Magic rotates sets as well, though I don't know about other CCGs... isn't it kind of standard practice?
Once again, I remember thinking it was a pretty crappy deal when they announced rotation. But, just like every time they announced something I didn't think I'd like, it didn't take me long to accept it (and, in many cases, didn't take me long to agree that they'd made the right decision).
As far as the later stuff goes (anything that happened after set 12), it sounds like Decipher just didn't give a crap about the players. That sucks.
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So I asked my son about this - his credentials are that he finished 7th at the Worlds in 2004 when a lot of people still played.
Thin and streched is an end of turn action. If the free peoples player decides to move on then no burden is placed at that time because the turn has not ended. When the player decides to reconcile "the Shadow player discards all minions in play ( and cards borne by them ), and your turn ends". [Comprehensive rules 4.0] At that point end of turn actions would trigger. The burden is added for Thin and Streched but since there are no minions The Ring is Mine! can't work.
Neat scenario though!
Chuck
long time no talk, Chuck. That is if I've got the right person (did your son happen to get in that year because *I* had a deck list error? OSGILLIATH CHANNEL why do you haunt me!)
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I'm pretty sure that Magic rotates sets as well, though I don't know about other CCGs... isn't it kind of standard practice
Magic does rotate. That is a major reason that I have never purchased Magic cards and really have no intention of purchasing them (I did trade for three starter decks from Sweet_Stuff so that I could play with a friend, but I won't be purchasing more).
I think the issue I had is that this could've been avoided. Don't think the cards will work with older cards? Build them so that they will! It's an easy solution in thought, maybe takes more effort in practice. I think that is the betrayal a lot of people are talking about.
-wtk
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I think the issue I had is that this could've been avoided. Don't think the cards will work with older cards? Build them so that they will!
-wtk
See, this is what I was getting at, though. By having to ensure the new cards worked with EVERYTHING else that had EVER been printed, the designers would be tying their own hands. It would limit what they could do, because maybe they wanted to make a card that did X, but that wasn't an option because of how it would work with something from Mines (or whatever).
And yeah, I definitely think a big part of it is how hard it would be to take into account all possibilities. I mean, players were able to come up with broken combos even in cards that were standard-legal (Fruit Loops, anyone?). Decks like these just happened to be stumbled upon by a few very creative deckbuilders -- even the other top deckbuilders in the world didn't come up with the idea, so how are we to expect the designers to see these broken combos? The bigger the card pool gets, the harder it is to spot these errors.
And it's not like the cards become completely useless once they're rotated out -- there's still always block play and stuff. =P
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X-List a few particular cards. Gondorian Captain had to be X-Listed two sets after he came out because of Base of Mindolluin. But that's okay because they realized the potential brokenness of that one, specific combination!
Honestly, if they thought that the old cards hamstrung their new ones that much, they should have stopped making cards for the game.
-wtk
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long time no talk, Chuck. That is if I've got the right person (did your son happen to get in that year because *I* had a deck list error? OSGILLIATH CHANNEL why do you haunt me!)
Same Chuck - PM sometime and bring me up to date on how life has been treating you these last couple of years.
Chuck
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I didn't really have a big problem with a number of the changes that caused people to gnash their teeth.
The site path I just looked at as challanges that happened to be named after locations in Middle-earth. Wasn't crazy about the new cultures. If you could keep all the fellowship cultures the same and Nazgul (although dropping Nazgul Orcs) then why change the minions? I do agree that it would become increasingly harder to make sure cards would work properly for all blocks whether they were rotated out or not. It became an impossible challenge when you reduced the staff to one game designer and upset all the play testers so that they left. At first I didn't really care when they stopped making a complete alternate foil set - but in hind sight I think it cost the game a lot of collectors who were also players. A number of people on the old Decipher boards claimed to hate Reflections - I again thought it added some neat strategy elements. The new minion cultures also added some new strategies - but not much that I could see requiring a new culture.
That's my rambling. I still think that, not without some effort, a relatively small percentage of cards could be errated and you could have no cards banned and have them viable for all the major formats. I would suggest starting with the Fellowship Block - probably the easiest. Fix the cards in that set - with knowledge that it will also have to fit with the remaining sets. Come up with the erratas, open to the group for play testing and then finalize. When completed move on to the Tower Block.
Just a thought.
Chuck
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The site path I just looked at as challanges that happened to be named after locations in Middle-earth. Wasn't crazy about the new cultures.
Why not just remove the One Ring from the game then? Just have the Fellowship get to site nine? Every preceding block, site nine was closer to Mount Doom than site eight, etc. And the idea that you could play a game without leaving the Shire and actually ending up at Bag End! Well, that's just terrible.
If you could keep all the fellowship cultures the same and Nazgul (although dropping Nazgul Orcs) then why change the minions?
The rationale that was used is that no one played Rainbow minions decks. Well, an easy solution would be to make minions that worked well in rainbow minions decks. Hate and Anger is one of the coolest cards ever printed if there were more low-cost Uruk-Hai for a great swarm. Just an example, but more of those would've been great. And even when they did combine all of the orcs into one culture, how many people played [Orc], [Men], [Uruk], and [Wraith] decks? There were just fewer cultures in the rainbow!
I do agree that it would become increasingly harder to make sure cards would work properly for all blocks whether they were rotated out or not. It became an impossible challenge when you reduced the staff to one game designer and upset all the play testers so that they left.
I agree. Decipher had some bad stuff happen, but they should have just hung up this game.
At first I didn't really care when they stopped making a complete alternate foil set - but in hind sight I think it cost the game a lot of collectors who were also players.
That is true, a lot of people did stop collecting. They decided that the Masterworks idea would be a great way to sell more packs--and it did for the later sets. But my near-foil decks are just so cool to look at and I am still trying to finish them...they could still be selling cards to me!
A number of people on the old Decipher boards claimed to hate Reflections - I again thought it added some neat strategy elements.
I have played Dwarves since the Fellowship block. And let me say, it is much more competitive with Reflections. In fact, with the exception of Gimli, Feared Axeman, all of my dwarven companions are from Reflections. I like the alternate Ring-Bearer idea and they came up with some cool cards in that set. I am one person who has no qualms with Reflections (outside of opening up a box and getting 16 copies of Vilya, Ring of Air!)
That's my rambling. I still think that, not without some effort, a relatively small percentage of cards could be errated and you could have no cards banned and have them viable for all the major formats. I would suggest starting with the Fellowship Block - probably the easiest. Fix the cards in that set - with knowledge that it will also have to fit with the remaining sets. Come up with the erratas, open to the group for play testing and then finalize. When completed move on to the Tower Block.
Absolutely! Or, just X-List a number of cards from those sets. It still wouldn't be as big an issue as having no access to those sets at all. I don't think the number of X-ed cards would even be that high. There would certainly be obvious ones--The Shire Countryside, Legolas, Dauntless Hunter, etc., but I think it would be a relatively short list.
-wtk
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me and my bro and friends actually play what we call "expanded movie" with cultures and cards from sets 11-19 but with pre-shadows mutipath http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,2049.0.html
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The site path I just looked at as challanges that happened to be named after locations in Middle-earth. Wasn't crazy about the new cultures.
Why not just remove the One Ring from the game then? Just have the Fellowship get to site nine? Every preceding block, site nine was closer to Mount Doom than site eight, etc. And the idea that you could play a game without leaving the Shire and actually ending up at Bag End! Well, that's just terrible.
I was simply pointing out that this was how I dealt with the change - I didn't need to have the path follow a guided tour through Middle-earth with the goal of reaching Mount Doom. The change was made, I had no say in the matter and that was that. Besides, as soon as the fellowship split up it was always possible that the site path would jump around - Helm's Deep to Osgiliath and back to Rohan. To me the variable adventure path added some new strategy elements, not unlike alternate Ring-bearers. Based on how the game was going you could play any number of different sites. I liked the change but I understand how some people might not.
Chuck
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me and my bro and friends actually play what we call "expanded movie" we play movie sites with cultures and cards from sets 11-14 but with pre-shadows mutipath http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,2049.0.html
That's interesting. But for the new cultures doesn't that make a lot of sites ineffective?
Chuck
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I bought a few Shadows boosters here and there, and I think I grabbed a couple of the starters, but I stopped buying the cards after that. I would have continued playing in spite of the irritating changes and banning the earlier sets, however they drove away all the people I was playing with at the time and it was pointless for me to buy cards when I had nobody to play with. I had absolutely no interest in starting from scratch in the online game, either, and I had been hearing that Decipher was having issues, so I just let it go.
Personally I really liked Reflections. I actually got a lot of good cards from other sets in those boosters.
The fact that cards were x-listed did not bother me so much... what bothered me more was how many of them there were. There really ought to be only a small handful, but it seemed like every set, new holes were found in the game and more awesome cards became useless. It would have been more efficient to simply create new cards that countered the less-drastic loopholes. Frankly I think it's poor design that they didn't do that.
Creating a new cardpool after the RotK block by banning sets, slapping cultures together, and even the new "every companion having resistance" thing bothered me. I can see where they struggled to come up with new ideas after the movies ended. Still, they should have quit while they were ahead. It's better to stop making sets and keeping the game balanced and fun, than to try to milk a slowly dying cow and driving down the popularity of a very valuable card franchise. Decipher made some horrible management decisions, IMHO.
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me and my bro and friends actually play what we call "expanded movie" we play movie sites with cultures and cards from sets 11-14 but with pre-shadows mutipath http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,2049.0.html
That's interesting. But for the new cultures doesn't that make a lot of sites ineffective?
Chuck
no, not really, theres good sites that have different wording such as deep of helm and shores of nen hithoel that will work with shadows cards
:EDIT:
Bag End
Hobbiton Party Field
Uruk Camp
Hollin
The Bridge of Khazad-dum
Deep of Helm
Deeping Wall (imagine this with saruman, SoS)
Caves of Aglarond
Shores of Nen Hithoel
Nan Curunir (technically, if we played with [Orc] wargs)
Orthanc Balcony
and all the free peoples culture specific sites work as well since those didn't change.
i once made a deck with saruman, of many colors and Deeping Wall and Orthanc Balcony
theres also sites like Brown lands, anduin banks and pelennor plain that work for any archery deck
and it prevents the horn deck which is a big bonus (no dammed gate stream)
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I have little problem with the newer series, little problem with the newer sites, I like the element of tactics added to the game, I have never had problems with reflections, for a long time these boosters were all I bought, just for the fun of it.
The problem lies in the lack of cultures, I love culturespecific decks, or well thougth rainbowdecks. I dislike the fact that certain cards weren't 'clever', i.e. way overpowered in combination with others. With the right amount of testplaying those mistakes would have been avoided.
But the biggest problem I have is that the balance has shifted. At first you were to keep your fellowship safe, and that was not an easy task. 2 9 strength Uruks could cause quite some damage. You had to make choices and certainly you didn't want to generate too much attention, in other words make too much pool. Nowadays with the powerlaunch powerdecks around some make like 20-30 pool setting up a massive fellowship and not having to fear too much. That is what I dislike most, some fellowships are so NPE to play against, just for them being so strong, and more important being set up so fast.
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I know exactly what you mean gil. I've been pondering how the power creep could have been eliminated or severally diminished.
If decipher had stuck with their original plan and kept companions at str 4 and 5. If you look at sets 1-3, only specific characters had a str higher than 5. They should never made str 6 average. It should have been lower like 4 or 5. This would have made the game more challenging. honestly, aren't legolas and gimli paragons of their race? Suddenly come set 4, they are no better than anyone else, and you could have 8 companions of str 6 or better. where as before you could have 1 8, 2 7's, 2 6's and four 3's. Had the average companion been str 5 or 4, the game would have maintained its "sacrificial" feel as opposed to the feel we have now.
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Amazing point jdizzy001. I never thought about how companions got stronger and stronger...wow.
I think that five for the standard "guy" (or gal!) of a race would make perfect sense. But man...I really never thought like that about companions getting stronger and stronger.
I look at my Dwarf deck now and think about where it was during Towers Standard: Farin, Dwarven Emissary, Fror, Gimli's Kinsman, Thrarin, Dwarven Smith with an Endurance of Dwarves, 20 pumps...those were the days!
-wtk
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Well, from a begginer's point of view, I feel that the removing of number on the sites and allowing them to be placed anywhere on the site map does offer more stragety and thinking. But, I think it totally kills the flavor of what the LotR is about. The journey should always start at somewhere near Hobitton, then end at Mount Doom. Having the journey start at Mount Doom and ending at Bag End totally kills the flavor.
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Companions DEFINITELY got stronger and stronger. However, escalation wasn't just one-sided -- it was across the board. Minions got stronger as well, and there have definitely been times in the game's history where Shadow was more dominant than Free Peoples.
I mean, think about it -- back in the day, a 9-strength minion had a better-than-decent chance of winning a skirmish. Then people like Durin and Cirdan started runnin' around, and 9-strength minions became laughable unless they came in large quantities.
Rubbercarp actually pointed out an excellent example of this to me recently. Take the Uruk Guard from Fellowship and compare it to the Uruk-hai Guard from Black Rider.
Exact same home site.
Exact same game text (well, not word-for-word, but same effect).
Exact same cost (that part is important).
However, the newer minion has 2 more strength. Just... 2 more strength. For free. It's like he has a built-in weapon.
And we're not talking about a strength-3 vs. a strength-5, or something; yes, that's a 2-strength difference, but it's no big deal. Going from 9 to 11 could very well make the difference between winning and losing against a reasonably well-equipped companion.
Honestly, the main reason for escalation is likely just from a business standpoint. If the newer cards are stronger, you can't just keep playing the older cards, or else you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. Yes, it sucks for the players, but we have to remember that Decipher was a company, and that means that its #1 goal is making money (unfortunate though that may be). After all, if they're not making money, then they stop producing games, and then we're all kinda screwed.
Sure, they could have avoided escalation and just made different companions instead of definitively stronger ones, but then a lot of people would just keep using the older ones, even if some people used the new ones.
On top of that, there's the fact that a lot of the companions from Fellowship block were retardedly good, probably because the game was new and the designers just didn't realize what impact those companions would have on the game. Has there ever been a Legolas as good as Greenleaf? Some might argue that Dauntless Hunter had a bigger impact on the game in a certain time period, but he was very one-dimensional and only usable in a single style of deck. Greenleaf is one of the greatest splash companions of all time.
And Sam, Son of Hamfast -- there's a reason he was on the X list, and there's a reason corruption decks were almost completely inviable in the early days. I remember that the number of decks I could build when I first started playing was directly proportionate to the number of Sam SoH I had. If I had 8 Sams, I could make 8 decks. He ALWAYS got a card slot in ANY deck most people made. Can you think of any Sam since then that can make such a claim?
So the thing is, they started out with stupidly powerful companions to begin with. With that in mind, they could either A) just make weaker companions, in which case no one would care about collecting them because of their clear inferiority, or B) make stronger companions. They went with option B for the most part, and "stronger" could have meant either "better special abilities" or "higher strength." Throughout the years, it seems as though they leaned towards higher strength (or abilities that resulted in higher strength, like the aforementioned Durin and Cirdan).
But, I don't know. Maybe shadow escalation happened first. It's hard to say. Whatever the case, if one side got stronger, the other had to get stronger to match it. And they could never really go BACKWARDS in the strength department, because, once again, no one would buy new cards if they were decidedly inferior to the old.
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Along the lines of minion power escalation was the cost reduction strategies they were put in place. Forest Nazgul could become rediculous - very cheap, high powered and fierce.
Again, it really came down to too small a staff towards the end.
Chuck
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I honestly find the current Standard format to be the most entertaining format since Fellowship block. There are just a few cards that give good reason for an x-list/restrict list, but overall I think it is still pretty balanced. It's in Expanded format where you start to have more problems imo ( and obviously much worse in Open ).
With the 22 current standard decks I have put together (I know.. it's pathetic) I have pretty much covered almost all the main strategies provided in the post-shadows realm. For the most part, the fellowships tend to struggle to make it to the finish. During Towers & King block it was more of a race to the end in which a player once and a while got toasted along the way. Currently, most of the victories with my decks are accomplished through shadow kills. This is the way I like it. :twisted:
But maybe I'm just better at working with the bad guys 8-)
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I would say that each of my three Movie Block decks is based on Shadow kills with a strong enough fellowship to run to site nine if necessary.
Uruk Rear Guard is to blame. One [Isengard] guy bigger than Lurtz, Servant of Isengard. Or [Dunland] in general.
-wtk
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The more I think about it, I am incredibly disappointed that the Nazgul are not among the strongest minions in the game.
-wtk
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Witch-king is always way overpriced.
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Yeah he is. There really isn't a Witch-King (in Movie Block) worth using except maybe Lord of the Nazgul in a specific deck...
But let's face it. Ulaire Attea and Ulaire Toldea should each be [5] at least.
Edit: Morgul King has pretty nice text too.
-wtk
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You know, the shadow creep never bothered me. However, Fellowship always bugged me. The built-in weapons provided by stronger minions made it easier to build a shadow deck without weighing them down with meaningless weapons. Now, I'm refering to strictly str. Once you add in the weight of their text, then it is a whole different ball game. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make, is that fellowship power creep resulted in minion power creep.
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Well, I think that minion weapons are part of the game too. There wasn't any Nazgul creep and it does bother me. The Witch-King should be strength 20 (see, Seige Troop) with competitive game text.
-wtk
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Most Shadow decks don't run pumps of weapons, at least in Movie Block. A few Fell Beast or Mumak, every once in a while. But really, I can't think of the last time I've seen a Shadow pump.
-wtk
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Raider Bow, Raider Halberd, Easterling Polearm, Broad-Bladed Sword, Gothmog's Warg... to name a few of the more common ones.
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Raider Bow, Raider Halberd, Easterling Polearm, Broad-Bladed Sword, Gothmog's Warg... to name a few of the more common ones.
Well, I think the point people were making is that players rarely include weapons just to get minion strength up -- after all, this part of the discussion all stemmed from JDizzy saying that he liked how Shadow escalation meant he didn't have to keep including meaningless weapons in his deck to keep his minions strong.
Pretty much every weapon you listed is actually used more for its text/special ability than the strength it provides (the exception being Gothmog's Warg). Raider Bow is used for the ambush, Halberd is used for twilight and/or to exhaust Castamir, Easterling Polearm is for wound immunity, as is Broad-bladed Sword.
And there are more examples of this as well. Look at Goblin Scimitars and War Clubs. Would people use Scimitars if they didn't draw cards and if Goblin Armory didn't exist? Let's pretend that you can't get twilight or a card-draw from playing a Scimitar, but instead of +2 strength for 0 twilight it's a +4. I think you wouldn't see it in many swarm decks, even with that strength boost, because people would just as soon use the slot on another minion. And if War Clubs didn't discard possessions, well... what would be the point?
Don't get me wrong, strength boost at no twilight cost is great, but it's not enough, I feel. If you made a list of Shadow weapons that people use and Shadow weapons that have never seen the inside of a decklist, I think you'll find a common trend -- the weapons that don't get used are the ones without a cool ability.
Of course, you could say that Evil Men decks using Countless Companies and The Mouth of Sauron use weapons that only provide a strength boost, but the difference there is that there's a built-in mechanic that allows those possessions to be replayed without costing card slots in your hand. So, once again, having a "cool feature" is what makes the possessions work.
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Good analysis, Alazzar. :up:
BTW, I use Gothmog's Warg for it's vitality not the strength (Mordor Brute + Orc Hunters + Gothmog's Warg).
There are still some common events that are used as pumps, such as Wind That Sped Ships. But, event pumps are not very common in general.
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Alazzar is right. Take away half of the game text of Easterling Polearm (either half, even) and it is not going to see as much play. Of course, the two burdens part is the best part...
The draw with Goblin Scimitar is nice and even without Goblin Armory I would probably run four (if not at least two).
-wtk
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There are still some common events that are used as pumps, such as Wind That Sped Ships. But, event pumps are not very common in general.
Well, pumps at least bring with them a surprise factor. The problem with a weapon is that the opponent gets to see what it's going to be adding right away (though, in some cases, even seeing everything that's going to happen won't save the Free Peoples player -- Castamir and a Raider Halberd comes to mind as a good example =P). While it's true that pumps aren't all that popular on the Shadow side, the times they do get used are because they're somehow better than the average pump.
Wind That Sped Ships, for example: +6 is a huge amount for one twilight, and part of why it works is because Corsairs are already large. This event allows them to get surprise overwhelms. If the limit were, say, +3 (or maybe even +4), you probably wouldn't see it nearly as often. You probably also wouldn't see it if Corsairs didn't have a few huge minions to begin with.
And look at Savagery to Match Their Numbers, back in Fellowship: that was included in decks because it could basically guarantee 4 wounds (two wounds from the Uruk winning the first skirmish, two more for the fierce). Whirling Strike is also great for surprise kills in Raider decks.
Yet pumps that just give a basic +2 (or +3 under a certain condition) aren't too common. Why?
Because, once again, the same theme seen in possessions reappears with events: you need something more than just getting bonus strength. You need something that warrants the card slot over a condition that will have a continuous/repeated effect or a minion.
The only culture I can think of off-hand that will use a fairly basic, not-too-huge pump is Dunland using Burn Every Village. And the whole reason behind that is because playing against Dunland is a very "no-room-for-error" experience -- if you can keep them from controlling sites, you win. If they grab sites, there's a good chance you'll lose. Having that surprise pump in a Dunland deck is nice because so much of their victory chance can hinge on just winning a skirmish at the right time.
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The only culture I can think of off-hand that will use a fairly basic, not-too-huge pump is Dunland using Burn Every Village. And the whole reason behind that is because playing against Dunland is a very "no-room-for-error" experience -- if you can keep them from controlling sites, you win. If they grab sites, there's a good chance you'll lose. Having that surprise pump in a Dunland deck is nice because so much of their victory chance can hinge on just winning a skirmish at the right time.
Use it with Freca for +4.
On the topic of weapons... don't all weapons basically have some other perk that makes them worth playing?
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Iron Axe, Vile Blade, Orc Scimitar, Besieging Pike, Uruk Axe ... there's a reason you don't see stuff like this played much. =P
But the point is, if you look at the weapons that never get used, the strength boost isn't what keeps them from seeing play -- it's their crappy "perks." This just goes to show that the strength boost is really just an added bonus in addition to whatever perk the weapon has. The perk is the important part!
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agreed. In fact, you could argue that if the str bonus was removed from these weapons they would still see play. The weapons with perks i mean
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I can see how Besieging Pike could be used in [Sauron] initiative decks... but probably not worth the card space.
Howver, I personally do use Vile Blade in FotR block, since Men and Elves are very common. Not otherwise though. Vile Blade + Orc Swordsman gives a strength 15 minion vs. those races. ;)
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Orc Swordsman is a personal favorite of mine.
-wtk
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Orc Swordsman is a personal favorite of mine.
-wtk
mine too. I love the expression on his face, and with the vile blade... OH YEAH
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I have to agree with Alazzar on everything posted before.
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About the increased strength of companions, I guess it can be made (taken into account it's a business to sell these new cards) if the new increased strength is supported by the story.
I mean, see any version of Two-towers' Theoden and he is vitality=6 (because of the particular part in story which twotowers start); and then after he is "exorcised" he becomes stronger and 'healthier'??(well, more vitality) ---in Return of the king---.
Mainly the main characters could and would become stronger as the story advances (f.e Sam as in mount doom's version), but not boost up any companion, much less those nonmain characters or even those without a name (nonunique).
This way, you could have bigger minions but also stronger-in-the-process main companions, so the skirmishes would just get more epical (strength number wise, f.e strength 15 vs 16).
See Dwarf Guard turn into Dwarven Warrior .. that just doesn't seem right.
For me, remembering FOTR days, it was fun being bold and playing Dwarf guard only to see him being killed on the very same turn. Or even making him combo with Disquiet of Our People and making him go honorably taken down by the balrog and 2 other orcs (the stronger ones)...
Miss those days
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See Dwarf Guard turn into Dwarven Warrior .. that just doesn't seem right.
For me, remembering FOTR days, it was fun being bold and playing Dwarf guard only to see him being killed on the very same turn. Or even making him combo with Disquiet of Our People and making him go honorably taken down by the balrog and 2 other orcs (the stronger ones)...
Miss those days
I was much more impressed with the people who gave Dwarf Guard Endurance of Dwarves, Dwarven Axe, Dwarven Bracers, and Hand Axe to have an 8-3 beast for 2 twilight!
-wtk
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Today I played a game vs Pepin. He is a nice guy, no doubt about it, but for 6 pool he played an orc (that exert to wound dude) and relentless warg. So vs Dwarves (all I had he had a str 13. fierce and damage +1 minion....early game....:no: That is not good people. Oh and ofcourse there are 3 pre skirmish wounds...madness.
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I was much more impressed with the people who gave Dwarf Guard Endurance of Dwarves, Dwarven Axe, Dwarven Bracers, and Hand Axe to have an 8-3 beast for 2 twilight!
-wtk
That seems logical but the problem with boosting a guard is that is far way better to have: Fror, Gimli and Gloin with the axes and stuff put in them (assuming it's a dwarf deck). Then you'll have 4 companions including Frodo, which leaves a slot for 1 more companion if you --sanely this is-- don't want to go all the way with 6 or more companions.
I really don't think a dwarf guard should cope that slot.
The extra twilight for these unique dwarves instead of a dwarf guard really pays off (by even playing Farin, though I don't find consider him good enough: skirmishing against orcs really doesn't need strength, you need instead anti-swarm for frodo).
Then the only use for the guard was to play him at a dangerous site where you know he (with Thrarin) were to be killed.
In my dwarf FOTR deck, I fit legolas and he is starting with gimli, then play gloin and fror.
Having elf + dwarf can be dangerous against moria, but then you can fit 2 copies of The Council of Elrond and early get Greatest Kingdom of My People or Song of Durin.
Toss in Bilbo, Well-spoken Gentlehobbit and you have a competitive dwarf deck.
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Or for just over the twilight of the original Lurtz:
Scouting Orc + Relentless Warg + Mordor Scimitar.
8 Twilight nets you a Str. 16, vitality 4, fierce, dmg+1 minion. (Sounds almost like the Balrog!)
But he gets an automatic wound (exert) per skirmish plus 3 other wounds to deal out... aside from the normal skirmish wounds.
Add Rider's Gear and there's no fear.
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In my dwarf FOTR deck, I fit legolas and he is starting with gimli, then play gloin and fror.
Having elf + dwarf can be dangerous against moria, but then you can fit 2 copies of The Council of Elrond and early get Greatest Kingdom of My People or Song of Durin.
Toss in Bilbo, Well-spoken Gentlehobbit and you have a competitive dwarf deck.
My Fellowship deck started Frodo, Gimli, and Gloin. Gandalf, the Grey Pilgrim was key, and Farin and Fror were my whipping boys. And Sam...
-wtk
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I used to play the Lord of the Rings Online game (from Worlds Apart) quite a bit, and I recently logged back in and started playing the occasional game again. I'd stopped playing at set 12, so I didn't have any of the newer cards. I'd also never had a huge online collection, so I only ever had enough cards to make a single deck, and if I wanted to change decks, I basically had to trade my old one away to make a new one.
Anyway, I've been playing in a variety of different formats online (Fellowship block, Highlander, all sorts of stuff), and I've actually done reasonably well in Standard and Expanded, considering my inferior cards. I basically end up having to make gutsy (some might say "stupid") double-moves and hope that my opponent didn't get a very good shadow draw on the reconcile. My fellowship can stay alive reasonably well (Gondor/Gandalf), but my Shadow just isn't up to par.
Now, why is this relevant to this topic? I'll tell ya why:
I just got done playing a Standard game with a guy that had a very impressive collection of Hunters Block cards.
It was one of the least-fun games I've ever played. Total NPE.
On his first turn, he used Gamling, Defender of the Hornburg to play Erkenbrand's Horn. He also dropped a copy of New Chapter.
He then proceeded to play every single Follower in his deck. 16 followers at site 1. I don't know if this is a well-known combo or anything, as I've never really played with or against Hunters Block stuff, but it was nasty.
On top of that, he was using Pippin, Brave Decoy -- this allowed him to just transfer every single Follower he had onto Pippin, then have Pippin fight all of his skirmishes. It was kinda ridiculous.
I actually thought I'd have somewhat of a chance because my Shadow was Corruption Orcs and he didn't appear to be playing any events. But once he played Jarnsmid, I knew I was dead, because Jarnsmid could fight every turn and have Pippin take over to thwomp my Orcs.
Still, it was his Shadow that ended up killing me. Uruk Hunters tore me up in a way I didn't know I could be torn up.
Long story short: When playing set 7-12 stuff against Hunters Block stuff, you REALLY get to see the difference in power levels.
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No one will argue with you there. Horn filter is the most stupid deck around, and what I miss in lotr nowadays is some kind of intelligence. The resemblance with the gym hits me more and more. Guys going nuts on steroids, gazing in awe at themselves in the mirror, the one being more muscular than the other.
Decks are extremely powerful in what they are supposed to do and even on top of that you have decks that go beyond. I don't like it one bit.
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Just found this thread searching for something else. It was an interesting conversation, so I'm bumping it!
As many of you know, I don't really have any problem with power creep, or Shadows and beyond. I continue to believe Expanded is the best format in the game, and remains consistently the 2nd most popular on Gemp.
Horn Filter decks can generally be beaten without much difficulty if you know what you're doing, and are prepared for it.
Nazgul may not have gotten any "power creep" in their literal strength levels, but they remain probably the single most powerful Shadow culture in Expanded format, so that seems fitting to me.
Expanded is where I see the most variety, including lots of cards from earlier sets, not just stuff from Shadows and beyond.
Back when the game was still being made, I did get alienated by both rotation (hated the concept) and the new Shadow cultures (didn't like 'em). Nowadays, I still don't like rotation (and I think that's borne out by the low popularity of formats that use rotation), but the new Shadow cultures don't really bother me much, since the older cultures are still quite popular too.
And as far as the new site mechanics go, I think it's a great additional element of strategy. And if you think about it, at the end of Return of the King, some of our heroes did indeed end up back at Bag End. :)
Long live LOTRTCG!
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In terms of physical cards, I gave up at Movie, there are so many overpowered cards in Reflections, as well as some of the other sets. Glorfindel, RIW is a perfect example of power creep; if he's in your deck, with no reason not to have him in your starting fellowship, you're getting a strength 9 for 2 twilight, whereas in Fellowship it was 5 or 6 (as Jdizzy pointed out), and I never understood why GLR was basically free.
On Gemp, where you have all the cards, it's not so much of an issue. The biggest problem for me is the power difference between casual/fun decks and very competitive decks, which (in my opinion) is a much wider gap than it was in Fellowship Block, but that could be resolved by having Expanded Tournaments, or adding the Austrian format. As long as you fight fire with fire (With both players having really powerful decks) the game stays fun, because the power of certain cards/strategies is completely relative to your opponent. In the end, I think I agree with Draino, and I am glad that Decipher kept going, even though the game's nature did completely change from what it used to be.