Yuletide 2020 Player's Council Preview: FOTR Block Starter Deck Supplements

[TelTura]

Greetings, everybody!  It's Christmas, and the Player's Council comes bearing the gift of cards!

Details here: https://blog.lotrtcgpc.net/2020/12/24/2020-yule-gifts-from-the-players-council/


Here is a sampler of the cards from the above blog post:





As noted in the blog post, the intent for these cards is that they be used to supplement the FOTR block starter decks, bringing each one up to a legal 60 cards while bolstering the strategy of that deck and ideally be useful outside of them as well.

We welcome any and all feedback you may have for us; you may use the feedback form at https://forms.gle/LWkDKvx8zZdiDEAZ7, or leave a comment here or on Discord: https://lotrtcgpc.net/discord. 

We hope you enjoy it!  Merry Yuletide!

[elfwarrior]

I played two games with the Mines of Moria Starters (which were the most balanced fellowship block starters to begin with) with the playtest cards added. In game one (which I played with an opponent) there was a misplay with Pippin, fool for a took.  I am a relatively new player and not an expert, but here are my comments on the playtest.
 I won that one with Gimli but those cards I drew from the opposing pippin in the wrong phase gave me 2 cards before I should have got them. I may have played them. Game two (which I played both sides of) was won by Gimli. No time for Wonder was useful. Strength of spirit went well with it. I reused Mysterious Wizard with it and used strengh of spirit to cancel the exertion.. Pippin seems like a gamble maybe (gave me at least 1 more nasty minion), but he can be fetched with farmer maggot's fields on turn 1 along with merry. My opponent (also a new lotr tcg player) did not want to use pippin a second time. Having more weapons for the 3 hobbits is good. The dagger got played. Have not tested the daggers vs the deluxe deck with Nazguls in it. For the shadow side of Gandalf the conditions seemed very conditional and did not do much.

Gimli's shadow got help from the extra minions which were useful, but I did not draw any search conditions so I had to keep exerting orcs to play my wargs. That made orc hunters tougher to use. I did not want to waste the hunter's exert on playing a warg. that slowed me down. I kept getting mordor's stranth stuck in my hand because I had to exert to ply wargs. In the second game I got search cards and spies of mordor was made useful because I let me play wargs. In game 2 I found the hollin snarlers' exerert ability was dangeorus with 2 snarlers giving me just enough twilight to get out two 2 cost roaming trackers with the wargs at site 5. That was half of an all shadow had at that points. Gandalf only had 3 companions so fordo was toast if gandalf did not have a staff, which he did. More companions came later. Gandalf needed to use a lot of events to keep everyone alive. Strengh of spirit was great for staff and no time for wonder and Boromir son of Denethor.

Still Gimli was too far ahead anyway. Extra dwarf companions helped. Retrieving a discarded hand after having to throw both axes to keep the dwarves alive axe helped. If gandalf gets some shadow light hands gimli can get set up and race ahead. More dwarves and another axe (which I did not draw) help gimli. Gimili raced ahead both games, thanks to throwing two hand axes to get rid of a spearman with a spear and facing smaller numbers of minions. Barred the gates might help vs the long dark or Goblin runners and flankers. But those playtest Moria conditions did not do much to help gandalf's shadow against the dwarves.

-elfwarrior

[5tein]

Just played a couple more games with some of these.

First, the cards look great. I had FedEx print copies for me, and the colors were bold.

Second, I like that these are presented with starter decks. It makes it easy to try them out without the cognitive load of applying these to all cards / decks across constructed formats. Frankly, I dislike v cards in general for reasons both practical and psychological (I'd rather exhaust x/r-listing or remix formats like Extended Fellowship before introducing new cards), but I suspect it's much easier for players to get on board with v cards if they are released in a strictly limited format like this (even if you do intend for them to go beyond that format).

As for the cards themselves, well, I expect you've gotten a lot of feedback already. But my 2c:

I like the themes that I'm seeing (recycled events, permanent cycling, tracking/searching, team-based gains).

Some cards are quite elegant and support underrepresented themes in Fship (e.g. Thrice Worthy..., Arroch, No Hope..., And in the Darkness..., Gladden Ambush).

Some cards may be OP (e.g. Dagger..., Longbeard, Goblin Warchief).

Some cards are, imo, too complex, interdependent, or just a bit confusingly worded (e.g. Stand Together, Old Man Willow, Deft Aid, Goblin Warren).

A couple cards seem designed solely to break Lost to the Goblins

I'll be playing more with a different friend this weekend, so I can give more feedback after that.

[TelTura]

For the shadow side of Gandalf the conditions seemed very conditional and did not do much.

Yeah, some of the cards are some of those that make sense outside the starters but got shoehorned in a bit, with either limited or unfeasible use in the starters themselves.  It'll be something to continue addressing as we move forward.

Gimli's shadow got help from the extra minions which were useful, but I did not draw any search conditions so I had to keep exerting orcs to play my wargs. That made orc hunters tougher to use. I did not want to waste the hunter's exert on playing a warg. that slowed me down. I kept getting mordor's stranth stuck in my hand because I had to exert to ply wargs. In the second game I got search cards and spies of mordor was made useful because I let me play wargs. In game 2 I found the hollin snarlers' exerert ability was dangeorus with 2 snarlers giving me just enough twilight to get out two 2 cost roaming trackers with the wargs at site 5. That was half of an all shadow had at that points. Gandalf only had 3 companions so fordo was toast if gandalf did not have a staff, which he did. More companions came later. Gandalf needed to use a lot of events to keep everyone alive. Strengh of spirit was great for staff and no time for wonder and Boromir son of Denethor.

Glad the wargs worked out lol.  The extra twilight might be something to pay close attention to, as FOTR Sauron definitely isn't used to being able to play a lot of minions, and the wargs flip the table on that.

Still Gimli was too far ahead anyway. Extra dwarf companions helped. Retrieving a discarded hand after having to throw both axes to keep the dwarves alive axe helped. If gandalf gets some shadow light hands gimli can get set up and race ahead. More dwarves and another axe (which I did not draw) help gimli. Gimili raced ahead both games, thanks to throwing two hand axes to get rid of a spearman with a spear and facing smaller numbers of minions. Barred the gates might help vs the long dark or Goblin runners and flankers. But those playtest Moria conditions did not do much to help gandalf's shadow against the dwarves.

-elfwarrior

*nods* yeah, the gandalf shadow conditions should probably be rethought to actually matter for this starter.  Too much focus on out-of-starter use.


Thank you so much for the review!  It is really invaluable.

[TelTura]

Just played a couple more games with some of these.

First, the cards look great. I had FedEx print copies for me, and the colors were bold.

Glad to hear it!  We've been wondering if we could maybe go slightly lower resolution to not thrash the file size so much, but I'm glad to see it's at least getting us pretty cards!

Second, I like that these are presented with starter decks. It makes it easy to try them out without the cognitive load of applying these to all cards / decks across constructed formats. Frankly, I dislike v cards in general for reasons both practical and psychological (I'd rather exhaust x/r-listing or remix formats like Extended Fellowship before introducing new cards), but I suspect it's much easier for players to get on board with v cards if they are released in a strictly limited format like this (even if you do intend for them to go beyond that format).

*nods* Having these as extensions of existing products instead of standalones definitely works well.  For the foreseeable future, all of the virtual cards we aim to release are aiming to be extensions of a given block rather than their own self-contained products for just the reasons you point out. 

We also plan on addressing the X-lists here in the future; errata are essentially v-cards as well from a certain point of view, and that is also coming.

As for the cards themselves, well, I expect you've gotten a lot of feedback already. But my 2c:

You think wrong!  This thread and one other post are the sum total of feedback we've received. We're in the process of getting the cards into gemp, at which point it should be easier for people to test without needing to deal with printing and scissors etc, but atm you're part of a very exclusive group.

I like the themes that I'm seeing (recycled events, permanent cycling, tracking/searching, team-based gains).

Some cards are quite elegant and support underrepresented themes in Fship (e.g. Thrice Worthy..., Arroch, No Hope..., And in the Darkness..., Gladden Ambush).

Some cards may be OP (e.g. Dagger..., Longbeard, Goblin Warchief).

Some cards are, imo, too complex, interdependent, or just a bit confusingly worded (e.g. Stand Together, Old Man Willow, Deft Aid, Goblin Warren).

A couple cards seem designed solely to break Lost to the Goblins

I'll be playing more with a different friend this weekend, so I can give more feedback after that.

Thanks for the feedback!  It's definitely helpful to see the results of actual use, and we'll take a closer look at each of the cards you mentioned moving forward. 

[Phallen Cassidy]

I haven't played with them at all and I'm thinking of them in the more broad Fellowship context, so feel free to discount this for at least twice as many reasons as usual. These cards were designed for FotR, will they be legal in the Movie sets? Gondorian Broadsword, for example, is a decent Sealed card but too expensive for Aragorn or Boromir if there's another option available. It would be strong in Two Towers though, throwing your spare Gondorian Ranger at two Uruk-hai (and then perhaps canceling the skirmish with Curse Them).

For Stirruk, wouldn't the optional response be after wounds (and a mandatory response be the FP choice)? I don't see the damage bonus ever coming into play.

Some nice cards in this set. Tower Shaman, The Deeds of the Steward's House, and Strength of Servitude are all really neat. Dagger of Westernesse is particularly clever to counter Cantea, and I like how Rivendell Sentry fulfills the role of Glorfindel/Arwen. Thither We Are Going Against My Wish and Barred the Gates are both quite interesting because they're not particularly valuable at the start or end of a game, but can have a big impact on the middle.

Unlike Steino I'm not as keen on recycling events, especially with such low costs. They Have a Cave Troll is fun because you pull the cards you need right before you need them, but then why would I ever exclude this card? No Time for Wonder and Relics of the Second Age being permanent is bothersome. Relics is hard to use more than twice in one turn (and really shouldn't be, unless you're 3 sites ahead), yet pulling any card just begs to be abused in later sets. Even in Fellowship, how many times do you want to see Gondor Bowmen?

I'm not a fan of allowing the FP to trivially return companions to hand either. One of the reasons WoBaS and Swordthain are such incredible splashes is for 1 twilight and 1 fewer card in hand, you can heal up to 3 wounds per turn. Shadow archery took a huge hit with they were released. I'd be particularly worried about the skirmish phase ones allowing Sam, Proper Poet to ignore 2 minions every turn (or Son of Hamfast to remove all burdens, all the time). Deft Aid preventing overwhelms makes Aragorn, Ranger of the North a lot less suicidal, and really cripples Nazgul by discarding Blade Tip and Black Breath (and keeping Flaming Brand or Aragorn's Bow). Circumvents the rule of 9 in some ways, I think.

All in all I like the way you're approaching this, supplementing the starter decks. I'll send you some more thoughts on the other cards later.

[elfwarrior]

Please note that I am new player at Lotr TCG, but I've played a lot of casual Magic: The Gathering and had learened strategy for that game.

I did my playtest of the Mines of Moria Starters to see how balanced they were after adding these new cards. I read that the Morina Starters were the most balanced Fellowship starters. I think that it is important to use the Fellowship Block Starter Supplements to balance the starters  for starter deck games. That would also be good for limited.

The pre supplement Fellowship of the Ring Starters (Gandalf and Aragorn) are sort of balanced but Gandalf's Moria Swarm shadow can win a starter game as early as site 4, while IF Aragorn builds up he fellowship he's tough to stop. Before the supplements, I started testing the fotr Aragorn and Gandalf starters to see if they were balanced, because my starter deck discussions on this forum got no replies (except for the one about trying to balance two Towers block starters).  Also those Uruk hai really slow down Gandalf's fellowship. And East road is Nasty if Aragon goes first because Playing Gimli or Legolas would be 4 twilight each and Boromir would be 5 twilight. That really sets up Uruks. In one playtest I got out Uruk slayers with lots of twilight and had bred for battle and overwhelmed Gandalf. Then there was that game where I had only Aragorn and Frodo At site 2 and Frodo got overwhelmed with double drums of the deep or something. This is a kind of balance that the Starter Deck supplements could fix.

Also I think since LOTR starter decks are out of print not every LOTR GEMP player would have paper starters. Yes putting the "supplemented starters" on GEMP to test them and use them in limited online. Perhaps some sort of starter deck duel format that works like limited where you get the deck you pick so you don't have to build a starter deck the hard way. And of course have the full deck lists available.

I read the that Deluxe starter would start at a disadvantage in limited with an inconsistent shadow and a fellowship that is not good at double moving. I needs to be powered up to keep up with the FOTR Aragon and FORT Gandalf Starters.

Thank you
-elfwarrior

[5tein]

Unlike Steino I'm not as keen on recycling events, especially with such low costs.

Yeah, I think what I'm saying is that I like the emphasis on making events more attractive, and the recycling theme is one viable approach. I was commenting more on the principle than the cards. Your comments on the cards are very astute.

Having played more rounds with these cards I come back to a central concern: Some of these cards are complex and interdependent to the point that they are not too situational, but open up the possibility of abuse if taken out of the sealed/starter format. I've only just started thinking about this beyond the starter format, so I don't want to point to specific cards just yet.

But on that note, my local playtesting friend and I have begun to think about each by asking ourselves the following questions:
- How could I break this card?
- What card(S) would I pull out of my (format) deck to make room for this?
- What decks does this card make viable /competitive that weren't before?
- Does this card make the game more or less enjoyable, especially for newer players?

[TelTura]

Yeah, one of the issues that has come up repeatedly is that while most of the cards work alright for their original purpose (fleshing out the starter decks), they're inconsistent in the general formats.

We're rethinking how we're going to handle this particular project.  I think the starter supplement concept is going to be rearranged so that there are more decipher cards and fewer virtual cards filling in the gap, and the most successful new card ideas are going to be incorporated with our virtual set plans, which we should be announcing relatively soon.

We still love to see the feedback for specific cards, tho!  Any thoughts anyone has on specific issues cropping up with cards is more than welcome.