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Author Topic: King Standard Sample Decks  (Read 1624 times)

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November 23, 2022, 07:48:14 PM
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Phallen Cassidy

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King Standard Sample Decks
« on: November 23, 2022, 07:48:14 PM »
In light of the PC's tool for easy proxy printing, 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 explained) 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 went through and detailed what I thought were the important interactions of each matchup, which was all well and good until I added two 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 something 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, and then in the deck notes I'll put the more specific details and maybe callouts for specific matches. Eventually.


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. Kept Safe keeps him appropriately safe so he can still skirmish, and Merry's Armor appropriately makes it nearly impossible to overwhelm him -- I know the vitality penalty bites, but pass up on it at your own risk! Between the sanctuaries and the extra copies you should be able to use him whenever you need it most.

On the Shadow side, a tracker build. I always prefer to lean into Uruk Hunter, but I've seen how having more minions in the 2-4 twilight range can put a lot of stress on the FPs second string fighters. This is a slight compromise, I cut some of the strongest minions to add a few Uruk Seeker and max out Uruk Runner. With 2x What Did You Discover? I think there's still something to discourage doubles no matter who you're up against.

Edoras
An 11-strength, 5 vitality companion is just fun to have around. 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. 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
The simplest Free Peoples by far: play a bunch of Ents and shrug your way to victory. I tried to make it 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. Ent Horde and Skinbark are there to lend a hand too, of course. And if you need to clear threats for Merry, Ents are great at dying and soaking up wounds. Watch out for Helm's Deep Parapets, which has Greed, and The Shire, which has Shotgun Enquea and Morgul King to play him plenty of times. 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.

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. Use Unhasty to get your hand down to just what you expect to play (plus an extra 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 and Haldir (mostly for the pictures, I admit), but that's 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 Arwen and Fearless Marksman. 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, so it's not a weak site anyway.

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 an 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. I can't tell if this build is balanced or bad; I've seen both wounding and skirmishing decks work well but I'm not sure if I've seen a deck try to do both, much less succeed.

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, but in practice you're trying to get one of 2-3 cards in play for each matchup. Going up against The Shire or Edge of Fangorn will, in all likelihood, be the hardest because Make Light of Burdens is a terrible card. There, note that Dwarf Guard with two Axes is 7 strength, a pump away from surviving anyone. Once one dies, pull back the weapons with Beneath the Mountains. Shadow players often don't want to waste cards on them, which can delay Black Breath or Blade Tip until Bilbo can discard them next turn.

The deck worked well when I saw it, but I only played against it once and consistency is going to be its greatest challenge. I wound up dropping MLoB and streamlining parts of the deck so there's more of the core stuff you need (weapons and conditions). I think it's in a better place now than it was in August. I have ideas for ways to make it work better, it's just to the point now that I can't tell what its shortcomings are. If I wind up doing any real playtesting, this is the one I'm going to playtest the most. All else fails, there's an overhaul I have in mind for this deck with Gandalf that would still be thematic enough for me.

The Shadow part of it is more familiar to everyone, but unfortunately I don't play a ton of swarm and I find them pretty easy to manage. 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 all 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. Against most decks you just build up your support area and then turn lose, but with Fangorn you'll want to spend them whenever they make an impact so that Saruman's Power doesn't ruin you. Turgon is mostly for Moria and The Black Gate, but Enquea will only be able to place two wounds with him around (transfer First Level then exert Turgon to exert Enquea) which sometimes means he's the only companion Enquea can target. 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. 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, which hopefully I'll detail in the deck notes one day. 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. Poor Wretch isn't in there for the strength bonus but the damage, something that will probably escape most new players unless it's explained. Being able to kill one minion and simply remove another with Don't Follow the Lights often leaves the door wide open for a double, and this deck can skip through an unfavorable 6 much of the time. The Uruk Trackers in Edge of Fangorn are gonna be hard to handle in multiple ways, the matchup I'm keeping in mind whenever I look at this deck.

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 all the other decks. At this point, though, it's all just theory.

The Shire
FPs is a lot like The Black Gate in what it does, but substantially different in how it does it. Much better choking with solid condition discarding, but much worse skirmishing. The Shadow side will do most of the heavy lifting for this deck, which all-in-all will 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. Not everyone will like how they play, but I do think it's worth everybody playing at least once.

The Shadow, on the other hand, will appeal to just about everyone. Play big Nazgul. That's basically it. I've decided against Fell Beast for now, both thematically and mechanically, but it's possible that 2x to cycle Nazgul out of hand when necessary is gonna be too good to pass up.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2024, 05:06:06 PM by Phallen Cassidy »

June 09, 2023, 01:44:17 PM
Reply #1

Yanko Markovic

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Re: King Standard Sample Decks
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2023, 01:44:17 PM »
The link for the archery deck doesn't work, i'd really appreciate if you could reupload the deck please!
"To ask if Orcs "are" Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs." - JRR Tolkien, regarding his "allegory".

June 09, 2023, 03:42:27 PM
Reply #2

Phallen Cassidy

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Re: King Standard Sample Decks
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2023, 03:42:27 PM »
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.

June 21, 2023, 05:08:31 PM
Reply #3

elfwarrior

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Re: King Standard Sample Decks
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2023, 05:08:31 PM »
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

June 23, 2023, 07:20:58 PM
Reply #4

Phallen Cassidy

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Re: King Standard Sample Decks
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2023, 07:20:58 PM »
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.