The Last Homely House
Middle-Earth => Lothlórien => King Standard => Topic started by: Phallen Cassidy on November 23, 2022, 07:48:14 PM
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In light of the PC's tool for easy proxy printing (https://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php?topic=12130.msg99183), I decided to make King Standard decks that I could print out and use for introductory matches. Unlike Decipher's starters I didn't shrink away from any mechanics of the game, and I tried not to pull punches if possible. Most of the lists are sanitized versions of my own decks and all of them I would run on Gemp (though there'd need to be some meta adjustments). I restricted these decks to be King Standard legal and 35/35 cards (44/44 for the Moria deck, for reasons I'll explain) so that with the 9 sites, Frodo, and Ring, they would print on a whole number of 9x9 sheets. The Gondor decks and The Shire could perhaps go for some extra cycling, but otherwise I don't think the inflated deck size will be a problem.
I also wanted each deck to have a theme, because 1) it's more fun that way and 2) the IP is the only real way I expect to draw anyone in. Obviously there's a lot of room with this and I don't have everybody covered, so if the need arises I'll add some more. Still, unless I create set of starters with a different theme, a ton of decks I just won't make in this fashion -- even important ones such as the standard Elf+Man build. For now though, I'm satisfied with what I've got here. The perfect outcome would be that they're worth playing and make people think about how some cards in one deck would go well in another. They're still basically starters, after all.
Decks
Edoras (Rohandalf / Isengard Men) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gRWRvcmFz
Edge of Fangorn (Rohan / Uruk-hai Trackers) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gRWRnZSBvZiBGYW5nb3Ju
Fangorn (Ents / Isengard Orcs) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gRmFuZ29ybg%3D%3D
Helm's Deep Parapets (Elf Archery / Uruk-hai Archery) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gSGVsbSdzIERlZXAgUGFyYXBldHM%3D
Helm's Deep Inner Walls (Elven Telepathy / Uruk-hai Berserkers) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gSGVsbSdzIERlZXAgV2FsbHM%3D
Ithilien (Ring-bound Rangers / Mumaks) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gSXRoaWxpZW4%3D
Minas Tirith (Noble Leaders / Besiegers) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gTWluYXMgVGlyaXRo
Moria (Dwarves / Moria Swarm) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gTW9yaWE%3D
Osgiliath (Knights / Morgul Orcs) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gT3NnaWxpYXRo
The Black Gate (Frodo Sam Smeagol / Easterlings) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gVGhlIEJsYWNrIEdhdGU%3D
The Shire (Hobbits / Nazgul) - https://play.lotrtcgpc.net/share/deck?id=UGhhbGxlbnxTdGFydGVyIC0gVGhlIFNoaXJl
I have PDFs for each of these decklists, but they're too big to attach (~130MB for hi-res, ~35MB for the normal). If you're interested in having any of them, get in touch and we'll figure something out.
I had detailed what I thought were the important interactions of each matchup, which was all well and good until I added more decks and now there's ~60 games to speculate. Luckily for everyone this would probably require more writing than one forum post allows, so instead I'll do a quick summary. If anyone actually wants the very long writeup detailing how I think one deck would do against any other, let me know: I've got it stowed away because it was a lot of words to just delete. If anyone wants me to write even more about these decks for some reason, let me know because I apparently have nothing better to do. Anyway, my aim for writing this is that there's some info on all the decks in one place. The deck notes have more specific notes on card interactions and how to approach certain troublesome matchups.
Edge of Fangorn
For all the beatdown matchups, this will be a pretty straightforward Rohan build. Eomer gets big and smashes things, Hrethel and Elite Rider are basically also Eomer. Those games are all about the ability of minions to stay on the board and prevent a double, I don't suppose there will be a ton of opportunity for killing companions if the FP moves once per turn. And even then, the FP might be able to move with a big minion on the board and use the exertion it earned in the first move to kill it in the second.
The burden and swarm matchups are a little more involved: you're forced to rely on Merry, Friend to Sam to exert Easterlings with his sword before they add burdens, or to make sure Frodo has enough strength to survive. 4 copies mean he'll be drawn fast and provide plentiful healing so you're not just limping from sanctuary to sanctuary.
On the Shadow side, a tracker build. Other people have had success building decks around Uruk Seeker and other cheap minions but I've always preferred the big guys. The smaller ones go really well with Saruman anyway, and he's already in 2 decks. No need to over-represent him.
Edoras
An 11-strength, 5 vitality companion is just fun to have around, but the whole fellowship here is pretty tough and ready to rumble. Hearken to Me comes into play against Edge of Fangorn and The Shire, which you always love to see. Gandalf is supposed to be the swarm protection, you'll probably want to avoid doubling to 3 in order to actually get the cards together for site 4 if you're counting on it. Past that, really not much to say here.
Isenmen aren't the best shadow but I think they're still underrated on the whole, I'm hopeful about how they'll match up against most other FPs. Normally they're disruptive which isn't so much fun to play against, so I took away Twisted Tales and Saruman's Power. They're keeping Wormtongue though, which is going to easily toss back some possessions every time with all the Desertion.
Fangorn
I've made this a bit more interactive with fighting versions of Merry and Pippin along with Unhasty Ents. If you don't wanna pay the unhasty penalty, just let the Hobbits fight. You've got some "hasty" Ents too of course, and if you need to clear threats for Merry remember that Ents are great at dying and soaking up wounds. There's a bit of big fellowship hate in other decks but not much -- my testing so far has been against regular decks so I haven't seen how much of an impact that will make. If this deck overperforms, easy fixes available to most Shadows. The Black Gate will add plenty of burdens over time, so in that case you may want to mill through your hand with unhasty to get Good Work out ASAP. Remember that doubling is important for Ents, they come into play about as strong as they're gonna get so there's not much reason to hang back if you can help it!
IsenOrcs are either a stupid swarm or disruptive, so I feel I've picked the lesser of two evils by going the high-cost route. Saruman's Power deserves to be seen anyway. In this pairing, they'll hopefully keep opposing Free Peoples from being prepared and doubling to keep pace with your Free Peoples. Use Unhasty to get your hand down to just what you expect to play (plus an additional minion in case your opponent gives some extra twilight) each turn so you don't get bogged down.
Helm's Deep Parapets (archery)
I don't actually play archery FPs thanks to Isengard Warrior, so I have a lot of unsurities here. The goal is that the archery is there and matters without having to simply wipe. To that end we have Lorien Swordsman and tokens to make the deck more interesting -- the Shadows will hopefully be torn between spreading wounds and losing skirmishes or killing minions and having fewer skirmishes (which you can then win). I wanted to use Archer of Mirkwood, but that can be a pretty weak start and there's really not much going for the FP until they get a lot of cards on the board. So we've got Fearless Marksman instead. One to watch, for sure.
The Shadow side is a classic bomb: with Devilry of Orthanc and Weapons of Isengard, you're looking at 13 wounds on a 5-person fellowship, plus however many archers you play. Such a Weight to Carry can soak up a ton of that as burdens though, so everything that happens to prepare for that moment matters too. The ideal is to use Devilry at 8 and then have vitality at 9 for the archer text or Cloud of Arrows; the FP is also forced to wear the ring just in case you decide to launch everything at 8, potentially adding a burden for naught. Dagorlad would be a better site 9, yes, I just wanted to avoid its dynamic of "if you have to kill a companion during archery here, you lose." Slag Mounds effectively adds an extra wound for killing a companion and carries on into the skirmish phase anyway, so it's not as if it's a weak choice.
Helm's Deep Walls (Forearmed)
Forearmed + Manager of Wizards can be a pretty frustrating combo. For this reason I've swapped out the original Arwen and her gear for Legolas and his: it'll lower the average strength of the skirmishing companions while doing more to cover for swarm. Gandalf, Galadriel, and Agility are reliable, milder skirmish aids while Forearmed hitting a 6 or 7 cost minion turns a loss into not just a win but a potential overwhelm.
The baddies here are basically a skirmish version of the bomb Parapets deck uses. Scaling Ladder might let you use Slayer twice in one turn which is pretty devastating. I think Assault Ladder and Battering Ram are highly underrated and, in the interest of having as much diversity between decks as possible, I've removed Devilry here in favor of maxing out Assault Ladder. The lowly Uruk Sapper can get to 12 strength with an Assault Ladder and Bred for Battle (and then made damage +2 with Battering Ram), so no assignment can be taken for granted once you're set up!
Ithilien
All these companions are Ring-bound, which is something to keep in mind when checking card effects. Wormtongue in the Edoras deck infamously will not affect you, for example, and you're immune to the primary burden effects from The Black Gate. For the deck itself, it's mostly geared towards wounding but with enough skirmish support to beat minions the old fashioned way too (or survive when wounding can't get you out of a bind).
This Southron deck has evolved into a bit of a "Southron Greatest Hits" deck -- some Mumaks, some wounding, some threats, some ambush, but not overly invested in any of them. I haven't tried such a thing before and I think have even cautioned against it. But I really wanted Mumaks to make an appearance and the FPs doesn't have good cycling for my usual tactic of playing one or two big minions a turn. At the moment I'm making a small change to this part of the deck basically every time I look at it. If I can't get it to work then I'm interested in trying out an initiative-mumak build. All else fails I will make threat-mumak work here, potentially adding some cycling to the FPs side.
Minas Tirith
I think this could be the strongest FP. Great healing, great skirmishing, great swarm protection. No burden removal, but against The Black Gate Faramir will prevent plenty and Gollum will have a very tough time surviving to the regroup phase. It's such a fun deck too, interactive without being difficult.
The Shadow is also strong, but perhaps requires more planning and understanding than the rest. It's the only one to deal in site control and does so in a relatively costly way. Discarding minions at the wrong time could open the door to a double early -- not discarding minions at all could make the deck weak towards the end. Good thing the FPs is straightforward, there will be plenty of space for Shadow strategy in the deck notes.
Moria
Alright, this one is a bit complicated. I put together at least a dozen builds before giving up and allowing this deck an extra 18 cards: KS forces mono dwarves to lean into their tricks and I didn't feel like the deck had much hope against an arbitrary Shadow side here without basically all of the tricks available. On paper it has everything it needs to succeed, and in all the games so far it lays a quick foundation. I'm hoping that newer players can just sort of survive with FPs and focus on the swarm, but even that requires some clarity on what it means to put a competent swarm on the table. Suffice to say this is not the first one a player should pick up.
The Shadow part of it is more familiar to everyone, it's swarm. I don't struggle much with swarm anymore so I'm kinda guessing on how to balance the FPs properly to make sure the swarm has a chance without a 6-7 minion hand being all it takes. There are plenty of levers to push, so at least long-term I'm not worried about it. I noticed that between Goblin Sneak and Ever My Heart Rises, ensuring 12 minions at site 9 is almost trivial. So I buffed up the FPs that I felt might be lacking to be able to handle that once. Swiftly and Softly in the Rohan Rider deck, Mithrandir! Mithrandir! in the Gandalf one, Sam in the Osgiliath one. I hope I didn't overdo it.
Osgiliath
A very solid FP, interactive enough to keep peoples' attention without being convoluted. Turgon will shine against Moria and The Black Gate; Ingold, Alcarin, and Aragorn will be healing a-plenty; and Citadel of the Stars / Stone Tower is a way out of basically any hard skirmish when combined with Gondor Bow.
For the Shadow, I didn't want to go the typical route because it can be complicated to play and play against, there's a lot for both players to keep track of. And I have a fun Morgul Axe deck that I use, so we'll see how this does. There are some legitimate reasons to pick this deck over that one anyway, I think it loses some power but picks up a bit of consistency. Since only 6 cards are non-minions, there is basically always a meaningful Shadow hand. That, combined with the FPs, should make this a good first deck for people who are familiar with card games.
The Black Gate
This deck has the most potent healing, the strongest Ring-bearer, and arguably the best skirmisher of any deck. It pays for it in speed, taking full advantage of all those strengths means you will be marching to 9 slowly to get everything together. It's probably got the widest variation in how games could go too, every opponent has weaknesses to exploit and trouble to impose. I expect this one will need more fine-tuning, particularly for the trackers in the Edge of Fangorn deck (middling fierce minions are terrible for Hobbits and Weary will make keeping A Promise online tough).
This deck has the only corruption Shadow, which makes it very easy to balance. Wins should be possible without being forgone. All decks had this one specifically in mind when I built them, so I'm optimistic about how it plays against the FPs. At this point, though, it's all just theory. Both halves of this deck are in the greatest need of head-to-head testing, which is convenient since I'll know where to start if I ever get around to doing that.
The Shire
FPs is a lot like The Black Gate in what it does, but substantially different in how it does it. Great choking and healing with solid condition discarding but no star skirmisher. The Shadow side will do most of the heavy lifting for this deck, which all-in-all may make it tricky for newer players to play against. Should be plenty of fun to play though. I really enjoy the way Hobbits can simply survive whatever you throw at them, at least until site 7. Many important concepts for succeeding with other decks can be learned from this one. I wouldn't quite say that this should be the first deck a player tries since winning skirmishes is more fun than losing them, but it should definitely be one they try.
Even if I don't expect the Free Peoples to suit everyone the first time around, the Shadow has plenty of appeal. Play big Nazgul. That's basically it. There's a lot of supporting cards and no cycling though. This isn't necessarily a problem (and learning how to manage your next Shadow hand is a key skill to learn), but I may wind up increasing the Nazgul count and adding Fell Beast if it trips too many players up.
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The link for the archery deck doesn't work, i'd really appreciate if you could reupload the deck please!
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Oops, all fixed! Humbled to see someone ask about them, doubly so for someone as experienced as yourself!
So far I've played against the Moria and Shire decks, and I was pretty pleased with them both. If you wind up doing anything with these, I'd be interested to hear how it all goes.
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Did you mean the Shire and Moria decks play well against each other or against the archery deck? I would like to try some of these decks.
Thank you,
-Elfwarrior
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Oh, neither! Someone had imported those two decks to Gemp and played them against my usual decks. It definitely didn't feel like I was playing against a "starter deck," haha. The Hobbits were as sturdy as I'd hoped, the Dwarves didn't immediately crumble, and Moria was able to get minions stacked on Goblin Swarms. I'll keep tinkering with them, I'm sure, but I'm glad that those two decks in particular were able to come together how I wanted.
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Thanks for creating these decks and adding notes! I've just used your Osgiliath deck as a template for a King Block deck.
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Uh-oh :P Knights play quite differently with every set that gets introduced, so I hope it doesn't let you down too much. The Shadow side for Osgiliath is a bit off-beat, but I'd be more hopeful for how it does even if it's not, you know, the A-list Shadow in King Block that it could be. The Nazgul substitutions you'll have to make will get you halfway there anyway.
I've gone through and added more specific notes to all the decklists. I've also played a few matches with nearly all of them against casual decks on Gemp and made some changes based on what I saw. Both sides of Edge of Fangorn and the Free Peoples of the Fangorn had the biggest changes: Merry's Armor was just too complicated an answer for the problems I included it to solve and my effort at leaning into the cheaper Trackers was too half-hearted. For Fangorn, I overdid the number of unhasty Ents and way underdid support for the Hobbits that fuel them. I think both decks will be simpler and more effective now, better suited to the first-time players I had in mind when I started.
I still haven't played the important head-to-head games so I have some matchups I'm concerned about. Overall though, I think the decks are in a good place. I expect any edits from here on out to be minor, mostly cutting the niche cards that I find valuable for simpler cards more suited to first-time players. There's an idea I have that would offer some extra depth for players who have a few games under their belts if it ever becomes worth developing, so I hesitate to say I'm ever really going to be done with this project :lol: If nothing else, I'm glad that these have been interesting to players so far!