New format proposal: Narrow

[beards]

More pipes, wraiths, and Dunlendings! Fewer trolls, forestgul, and Gil-Galads!

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Hey all,

LOTR TCG is coming up on its 20-year anniversary. Like many of you, I mostly play expanded on Gemp for the fun of unique deckbuilding. And nothing is more unfun than playing a janky deck against a "meta" pile (telepathy, forestgul, troll swarm, ringbound rangers, etc.).

So, I wanted to propose a new format: Narrow! Narrow restricts X/R-lists cards based on three principles:

• Enables a strategy that is markedly overpowered (like Forestgul by Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders)
• Disables an entire type of card or strategy, forcing other players into meta decks to stay competitive (like Namarie)
• Abuses boring loops (like Erkenbrand's Horn)

Four kinds of cards are especially weakened in Narrow:

• Easy site manipulation
• Fellowship condition removal
• Follower abuse
• Shadow twilight/cost manipulation

By allowing less powerful archetypes a place to be more competitive, the hope is to create a whole new deckbuilding environment.

I need your help! This is just a draft. What did I miss? Disagree with any of the bans or restrictions? Let me know here or in-game (@beards).

X-list - All current expanded X-list cards, plus:

Sites
Steward's Tomb
Mithlond
Cavern Entrance
Doorway to Doom

Dwarves
Slaked Thirsts

Elves
Gil Galad, High King of the Noldor
Cirdan, The Shipwright
Elrond, Witness to History
Namarie
Glimpse of Fate
Seclusion
Forearmed
Woodhall Elf

Gandalf
Gandalf, Powerful Guide
Beorning Axe
Shadowfax, Greatest of the Mearas
Pallando, Far-traveling One
A New Light
Deep in Thought
Traveled Leader

Gondor
Madril, Defender of Osgiliath
What are they?
Throne of Minas Tirith
The Faithful Stone

Hobbit
A Light in His Mind

Rohan
Eowyn, Lady of Ithilien
Erkenbrand's Horn
Gamling's Horn

Gollum/Smeagol
Shelob, Her Ladyship
One Good Turn Deserves Another

Evil Men
Mumak Commander, Giant Among the Swertings
Rapid Reload

Orcs
Troll's Keyward, Keeper of the Beast
Mountain-Troll
Bound to Its Fate

Sauron
Grond, Hammer of the Underworld

Nazgul
Dark Approach
Ulaire Toldea, Black Shadow
Ulaire Nertea, Dark Horseman
Ulaire Nelya, Third of the Nine Riders
Moving This Way


R-list (1 per deck)

Hobbit
Scouring of the Shire
Everyone Knows

Golum/Smeagol
Still Far Ahead

Gondor
Well-traveled
Pathfinder
Citadel of Minas Tirith

Raiders
Castamir of Umbar
Black Sails of Umbar

Uruks
Ugluk, Ugly Fellow
Mauhur, Relentless Hunter

Nazgul
The Witch King, Captain of the Nine Riders

[Phallen Cassidy]

So this is basically Expanded format with enforced casualness? Not a bad idea; is anyone else on board? I'm not an expanded player myself, but conversations about which individual cards are OP and which are fine always end in tragedy. I mean, just look at Pre-Shadows Multipath: it aims to fix a lot of problems people have with Movie block and yet nobody plays it. I'd look for some support before getting too far ahead of yourself.

The tricky thing is you're not simply making lesser strategies more viable, you're changing the meta. The reason Expanded falls flat for me is that while it has the most cards available, the meta constricts that card pool quite a bit. It's hard for me to see Narrow "fixing" that since you'll wind up with a different meta and a different pool of worthwhile cards. On the whole I think you'll still be limited to the top tier Movie strategies (minus Elvents) plus the new stuff, which means it's still Standard but with buffs from cards in 1-6. A different meta from Expanded perhaps, yet not really a different format. But hey, Expanded is consistently the third most popular format on Gemp: maybe a breath of fresh air for the fans is all it needs to be.

For the list, it seems as if some bans aren't needed in conjunction. Madril, Defender of Osgiliath being banned makes What Are They? a lot less problematic, right? Others confuse me, but that's probably just because I'm not an expanded player. Why ban Shelob, Her Ladyship instead of Promise Keeping, for example? There are plenty of strategies which go around one buffed up fighter instead of through, Her Ladyship is just another one of them. Why not Blood Runs Chill? Why take out Dark Horseman when he's a legitimate (and in my opinion much-needed) counter to otherwise powerful mono Dwarf / Knight / Elf / Hobbit strategies, especially without weakening any of them? Maybe if you write out your rationale for each card you've got up here it would help to see where the hammer might be falling too hard and where it's not falling hard enough.

[beards]

Thanks for the reply Phallen!

So this is basically Expanded format with enforced casualness? Not a bad idea; is anyone else on board?

That is effectively the aim, yeah. I think most expanded players who enjoy the deckbuilding portion of the game are itching for something that accomplishes this.

I'm not an expanded player myself, but conversations about which individual cards are OP and which are fine always end in tragedy. I mean, just look at Pre-Shadows Multipath: it aims to fix a lot of problems people have with Movie block and yet nobody plays it. I'd look for some support before getting too far ahead of yourself.

For sure, I didn't expect to get the list entirely correct on first pass. That said, decades in, I don't think it's an inane task to identify a list of cards that the majority of regular players agree are markedly overpowered in expanded. Biases will show, but there are just a handful of decks that negate the viability of maybe 50+? other strategies.

The tricky thing is you're not simply making lesser strategies more viable, you're changing the meta. The reason Expanded falls flat for me is that while it has the most cards available, the meta constricts that card pool quite a bit. It's hard for me to see Narrow "fixing" that since you'll wind up with a different meta and a different pool of worthwhile cards. On the whole I think you'll still be limited to the top tier Movie strategies (minus Elvents) plus the new stuff, which means it's still Standard but with buffs from cards in 1-6. A different meta from Expanded perhaps, yet not really a different format. But hey, Expanded is consistently the third most popular format on Gemp: maybe a breath of fresh air for the fans is all it needs to be.

The thing that makes the current expanded meta unfun is not that there are good decks, but that the best decks shut down entire design spaces. It's not fun to deckbuild if you know your deck, because it relies on conditions or has no counter site manipulation, has no chance of winning before ever playing a game.

The aim of Narrow isn't to take a weedwhacker to T1 decks just to allow a few new ones to rise up, but instead to get rid of individual cards that obsolesce entire strategies.

A few examples...

• The Faithful Stone isn't just meta, it often stops swarm deck from skirmishing even once in the late game
• Madril, Defender of Osgiliath + What Are They? prevents beatdown decks from using strong minions
• Elven condition removal wipes out dozens of shadow builds that rely on any conditions
• Heavy shadow site manipulation sours the entire game mechanic of moving + sanctuaries

For the list, it seems as if some bans aren't needed in conjunction. Madril, Defender of Osgiliath being banned makes What Are They? a lot less problematic, right?

I think that's fair. May also be true of Toldea + Dark Approach

Others confuse me, but that's probably just because I'm not an expanded player. Why ban Shelob, Her Ladyship instead of Promise Keeping, for example?... There are plenty of strategies which go around one buffed up fighter instead of through, Her Ladyship is just another one of them. Why take out Dark Horseman...

I included both Shelob, Her Ladyship and Dark Horseman for the same reason. Expanded players have watched dozens games where both minions forced a site 2 or 3 concession with an assignment to the Ringbearer. They existentially threaten decks designed with small fellowships that set up a bit more slowly (which was most in earlier sets). And they force unequal usage of The One Ring, The Great Ring.

I've spoken with several players who wish they could be errata'd to exclude assignment to the ringbearer. Though to be fair, I think Shelob is less of a problem than Dark Horseman.

Why not Blood Runs Chill?

Open to debate here, but IMO Blood Runs Chill is beautifully-designed and well-balanced. Requires a heavy cost (double exertion), is conditional (only discards up to damage +), isn't splashable, and is the only tool dwarves have to remove sticky shadow cards. Narrow's aim isn't to ban all removal, but instead that which makes removal far too easy.

...mono Dwarf / Knight / Elf / Hobbit strategies, especially without weakening any of them...

Dwarves: Would need suggestions here. To me, Dwarves are strong, but they don't have cards that shut down entire shadow strategies. My feeling is that they are not invincible against any particular kinds of shadow (minus, of course, the Slaked Thirsts loop with other cultures).

Hobbits: IMO banning A Light In His Mind and restricting Scouring of the Shire and and Everyone Knows hits solo Hobbits hard. It also solves the main problem with them, which is that a good early draw makes their snowball unstoppable. Another player also suggested that Fates Entwined should be R-listed in Narrow, which is obvious.

Knight: My understanding is that Knights aren't even considered T1 in expanded. Without Throne of Minas Tirith and
The Faithful Stone, are there cards that make them problematic?

Elves I felt were hit pretty hard in the initial list?

[Phallen Cassidy]

The aim of Narrow isn't to take a weedwhacker to T1 decks just to allow a few new ones to rise up, but instead to get rid of individual cards that obsolesce entire strategies.

Ah okay -- this is a bit different than what I was thinking. In that case I definitely think we need to see your thoughts behind each of them. What strategies does Captain of the Nine Riders harm, for example?

Yes, you're right. Elves were definitely hit hard up front (a good thing, I say), the Slaked Thirsts ban lets Wormtongue through and maybe that's all Dwarves needed. I don't suppose I know much about Hobbits or Gondor. I mean, the No Visitors + Daddy Twofoot loop is usually thwarted by Cavern Entrance, right? I'dve thought the same goes for most every gimmicky deck. Maybe the site bans aren't necessary if there's so much less site manipulation?

I disagree on Blood Runs Chill, but I do say that as an outsider. It costs exerts, yes, but a Gimli RB will usually have vitality to spare and Damage +5 or more. Seems to me a supremely easy way to clear the support area. I'll grant that Dwarves don't really have anything else worth playing for conditions. Is that necessarily a bad thing? For Shelob winning at the start... If you drop 12 twilight at site 2 with just two or three companions and your RB can't survive 13 strength, there are no shortage of ways for you to lose. Isn't that basically the point of Uruk Rogue? It's either a bad deck or a bad play, in my haughty opinion. Dark Horseman makes sense because (4) at site 3 can be guaranteed through no fault of the Free Peoples player, but Shelob sounds heavy-handed to me. As an aside, The Great Ring is just a smart choice (some might even say a great one) for a RB who needs strength more than vitality or resistance (i.e., Frodo).

[ents]

My two cents... a lot of expanded fans, including myself, have actually enjoyed the Open-like challenge of expanded at times. Expanded is still fun sometimes in its own way, but I like the idea of Narrow too because...

...isn't what Narrow is addressing the reason why other people play older set formats? Because the game plays perhaps more 'as it was intended' in Fellowship block in a sense? What if I have an idea for a combo between two cards from a later set and a Fellowship block card. But they are conditions so I won't build around them in expanded unless I'm ready to be really vulnerable in a lot of games. Maybe this analogy is a stretch.. but can I play expanded (using all the cards in the game) more 'as the game was intended' and use conditions? Or do all sets have some kind of bias that arguably eliminates entire mechanics? Perhaps it's possible to focus on balancing the entire format. And perhaps there are cards that a consensus could actually bring in more meta, without chopping to pieces expanded 'elves' or whatever else. I like the focus on cards that perhaps nullify entire strategies or mechanics like you all were saying above. Bring in more new challengers in expanded, and more players into the format as well. It seems like that goes a little beyond creating "a fresh new meta" and just chopping down Ringbound Rangers and beefing up West Farthing Business Man with a new X list because that sounds like a fun deck.

So I would wonder what sort of fun new things get enabled in Narrow. "Should the Ringbearer be able to go 50 strength and at what cost?" (Maybe your answer is yes!?) Or "should the shadow be able to block the sanctuary healing?". "Should the shadow player be able to play 5 Nazgul for 10 twilight (exaggeration) while simultaneously Buckland Homestead-ing all my conditions or are Nazgul thematically supposed to be expensive?" "Should Gandalf be able to remove 5 burdens in one fellowship phase?" This stuff gets commented on on gemp over the years, but it seems like underneath each of these questions is usually a card that sometimes doesn't even really have a big cost creating the npe for a percentage of players. Stewards Tomb, Shadowfax in the examples above. Now, as I've seen, some people will argue that e.g. Forest Gul are not THAT good and are not broken, and that a good expanded freeps can handle them. Or that you can just flip out Stewards Tomb or go play another format. I have used Shadowfax (the add threats to remove burden version), mithlond, a new light, etc. in my expanded decks. It's the way the format plays. There would be opinions on this. Ok..

I wouldn't cut down Forest Gul for example. I would maybe errata Nelya to say limit once per shadow phase or something like that so Buckland Homestead stays after one turn unless they do more work with freeps to get it back. Narrow could choose to curb either site manipulation, or the sites themselves. Maybe not just everything, but in some consensus way to balance it a bit for everyone. I like the idea of being able to play Sauron corruption in expanded even if it's not the best deck. Removing some of the total strategy/mechanics breakers that don't necessarily destroy that culture that they belong to if you change or take them out.

Or maybe a rule change as another possibility. Like use the old numbered sites. Or take the Great Ring away but allow them to cancel skirmishes again. I haven't thought this through a lot but more possibilities to create a "casual expanded"...

Hope other players have interest in considering this.

I agree with a lot of the cards listed on the opening post x list and R list. I think by taking away Namarie and Gil Galad, elves can still play. They'll just have to play better because their opponent will have more of a chance. Perhaps Deceit or Promise Keeping from Gollum shadows should be R listed. What would further help to tone down the power levels of the entire format so that people could experiment more with deckbuilding in different ways, and win by playing better rather than prepping for the superpowers as much (at least that's how the final design of Narrow would play out in my dreams)? There must be other players who think this as even a tournament rules format sounds fun.