Unfortunately, the energy around the Gemp single-elimination tournaments ebbs and flows. Every once in a while 5-6 people try to band together and get one to fire off, but with everything else going on nobody seems to notice them much for the moment.
In other news, Gemp has two non-constructed tournaments you might find enjoyable, Draft and Sealed. Sealed gives each player a starter deck choice and some booster packs, then pits them against one another. After about a week, everyone gets a new set of starters to pick from and more booster packs. Draft on Gemp is sort of a mix between Sealed and Draft tournaments, since a synchronized draft would be really hard to get together. There's always one or both of them going on, give 'em a shot!
As for constructing your own decks, why start from scratch? My first deck was a near-carbon copy of the Gimli Mines of Moria starter. Didn't win me many games, but it did give me the exposure I needed to figure out what works and what doesn't. I recommend picking a format and looking through the decks in Lothlorien for one that interests you and rebuilding it in Gemp. After a few games you'll get a sense for what you want to accomplish with the deck and start tinkering with it. Here's the board for Fellowship block, for example:
http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/board,18.0.html