Hi Nuge, thanks for your interest! In an upcoming blog post, you’ll see them both on the good side, but I think you could play them either way. If this was Star Wars Miniatures, I’m sure both would be considered “fringe” which includes a large, important swath of the Star Wars universe. Do check out the blog in 7-10 days, I should have a new post with a very pretty, painted Enfys Nest figure.
The revised special ability language would be: “At the start of your turn, you may remove 1 Death Trooper from the board. If you do, any opponent Moff Gideon attacks this turn must play their defense cards (if any) face up before you choose and reveal your attack cards.”
Hey Roman – I saw your reply on BGG and have the deck some more thought. I’m good with removing the action manipulation effect from Gideon’s special ability, but I want the ability to have some element of 1) sacrificing his own men to achieve his ends, and 2) having more information about his opponent than the typical foe. Here are some ideas for revised language that still works with the updates deck I proposed: “At the start of your turn, you may remove 1 Death Trooper from the board. If you do…
Option 1: All of Moff Gideon’s attacks are +1 value this turn.
Option 2: Moff Gideon’s next attack is +2 value this turn.
Option 3: Choose an opponent. You may look at that opponent’s hand and the top card of that opponent’s deck.
Option 4: Moff Gideon recovers 2 health.
I actually just thought of another option for this that does a better job of reinforcing the theme of Gideon is former ISB and knows everything about his enemies: “At the start of your turn, you may remove 1 Death Trooper from the board. If you do, any opponent Moff Gideon attacks this turn must play their defense cards face up before you reveal your attack cards.”
To clarify – Gideon removed a Death Trooper at the start of his turn to activate his special ability. He then announces he is attacking Bruce Lee. Because of the special ability, Bruce has to choose and play his defense face up; Gideon can see what he picked and play his attack card accordingly. The combo of seeing what defense card they placed before you pick your attack card is a massive advantage in lots of situations. If he can attack with either IMPERIAL MIGHT or DARKSABER, he can wait to see the opponent’s defense and react accordingly. For example, if the defender plays FEINT, Gideon would know to play DARKSABER. If the defender chooses not to defend, Gideon can throw down a normally useless REGROUP for guaranteed damage and 2 drawn cards. I do think it’s very powerful, but I don’t think he’d use it more than 2-3 times per game max because of how much he needs his support troops to pull off IMPERIAL MIGHT and deal big damage with BURN THEM OUT and the E-WEB.
How are the heavyweights progressing? Let me know if you need playtesters.
From a design aspect – how did you balance each fighter? Did you have a vague formula or apply values to combos and moves? I am asking because I am really into boxing and would like to make some boxers that fit in Cage Match. Some single discipline fighters would be cool to emulate the OG UFC (ninja vs Capoeira… etc.). Kicking around some ideas for WCW and WWE professional wrestlers. If you plan to do any of these let me know and I’ll back-off and leave it to the professionals.
Hi James, thanks so much for your enthusiastic support of Cage Match! And for stopping by the blog.
As for the Heavy Weights, I’m working on it 😉 I have some ideas set up already. For right now, Cage Match has a long way to go to be successful enough for a second printing and an expansion, and we have another game, Fearsome Wilderness, coming soon, but we will get there.
To answer your question about damage values: If you think of it this way, you can spend 2 focus and have a head punch (Hook) do 7 head damage. So, your special move needs to be a bit better than that or it isn’t worth it. If it costs 2 focus, it should do more than 7 damage or have a dice bonus, otherwise your move is no better than your opponent’s Hook . It’s a little trickier with the ground moves, basically 2 focus lets you reduce the need to win 2 dice rolls to 1, or 2 focus should give you more than the typical +2 dice bonus. Make sense?
If you do create some fan fighters, please post them to BGG. I’ll reply to your post there as well but without the detail.
So submission attempts always require 2 winning dice rolls to gain submission? (except for special submissions )
Also is Nayeli Robles special #2 supposed to be limb lock submission or is that a misprint?
Hi Sal, thanks for your interest. I never actually caught that typo regarding Nayeli, thanks for pointing that out. It should say “Attempt Choke” instead of “Attempt Limb Lock”.
[…] his four arms are an iconic piece of comics tech. I drew clear inspiration from Geektopia’s General Grievous deck, running with the four arms concept and expanding it into a complete […]
Hello !
I’m afraid that your link to the 10YA tournament set actually only points to Mace Windu’s altered 10 YA deck on the wikia. The full set of 10 YA tweaks can still be found, but requires a search on the wiki.
The three other links work like a charm.
My last of couple of duels with the new versions of these decks.
Team Left (Aragorn and Smaug) vs. Team Right (Sauron and Gandalf)
The luck of the draw seemed to pick favorites early with Sauron drawing INVINCIBLE on his second turn and Aragorn drawing SHARDS on his second turn. Gandalf was steady as always, which helped Sauron immensely.
Smaug’s MY BREATH IS DEATH and FIERY EXPLOSION combo went off pretty often, taking out the Orcs early and nearly killing Pippin. As I’ve seen before POWER OF THE RING laughed off BREATHE, but in an odd reversal DARK MACE was stopped by a DRAGONSCALES and THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE, which put Aragorn one draw away from an A9 ANDURIL.
It was at this critical juncture that Sauron had to make a choice to use INVINCIBLE or not and hope that Aragon didn’t have his last A1/D4 which would leave the king with 1 HP remaining and Sauron defenseless against the ANDURIL that Aragorn had been holding back while he bluffed out Sauron’s defense. Sauron took the chance and killed Aragon who only had a D3 and with Arwen already gone, Smaug wasn’t able to win the 2v1, although, he made Sauron pay by bringing him down to 2 HP, but Gandalf was still strong and in the end, the ignored nearly dead Pippin used his PALANTIR to find the STAFF OF LIGHT, which cleaned up what was left of Team Left.
Isildur and Treebeard vs. Sauron and Eye of Sauron
After seeing this match, I agree that Isildur might be too tough. Because of a daring and bold assault by The Mouth, Elendil did nothing except power up a COURAGE OF MEN (although Mouth didn’t last long after that.) Any decent Epic Duels player knows how to arrange their characters to avoid THERMAL DETENATOR like cards, but some will need to take a few lumps in order to do the same with RELEASE THE RIVER, which came up big, hitting Sauron, his Mouth, and an Orc. Sauron didn’t draw into his POWER OF THE RING until he had already been wailed on by Isildur’s A8s (all 3 of them!) and Treebeard managed to get an A8 NASTY LITTLE ORC through finishing the Dark Lord off although not before he knocked off quite a lot of bark off the Ent with twin DARK MACEs. The orcs of Mordor evidently built the Tower of Barad-Dur to last, as the Eye was able to survive the 2v1 for several turns in which he finished off Treebeard, but ultimately Isildur and the Ents won the day.
-Treebeard actually had a pretty great game even if he didn’t survive to the end.
-Sauron had a bad game with playing two DARK MACEs against Treebeard being his only contribution. He could have played INVINCIBLE, but since he had a POWER OF THE RING in hand it didn’t seem like the best move.
-The Eye is a deck I’ve actually come to like a lot. In this duel he had as good a duel as any.
-Isildur could stand to lose his BLADE OF THE HIGH KING although I’m at a loss right now as to what to replace it with.
Great report! I actually like hearing about Pippin coming through with PALANTIR. It’s like he kinda sucks but that’s a good card for him to have. It’s really cool to hear that Treebeard and the Eye of Sauron are fun, because if they are then this is a great set. The other decks are all fun because they all have these huge moves.
For now I’m removing BLADE OF THE HIGH KING and just giving him a 3rd COURAGE OF MEN but that’s a good card too. I feel like removing an attack card, though, would take a lot away from him. If we really need to water him down we could give him some kind of movement & draw cards or something but at least he’s fun this way. I thought about reducing Elrond’s A11 too but it’s his only big move, shouldn’t he have one big move? They’re fun decks to play, and yes, they’re tough and so is Gandalf, but so are Sauron, Smaug, Balrog and the Eye, even though they seem to keep coming up short.
Shortly after posting this I ran another play test and Sauron and the Eye pretty much mopped up Elrond and Isildur. Mainly, they killed Isildur before he did much and Elrond couldn’t do enough on his own.
I’m actually adjusting Smaug’s DRAGON SCALES to make them a little better, but I think I’m happy with the LOTR Legends set the way it is.
Glad to hear that the bad guys could get a win against the big two good guy decks. I haven’t played any more since my last report as other games have been taking up my time these days.
So, I guess for the time being this set is “done”; or at least as done as any Epic Duels deck can be. 😀
So I took Elrond and Isildur against Sauron and Smaug. This is what happened:
Elrond and Isildur won, and I tried to help Sauron and Smaug as much as I could, letting Smaug’s big MY TEETH ARE SWORDS get through for A10 on Elrond. Sauron didn’t get a great draw. He got the new A12 early, but it’s not a good card in the thick of the game since you can’t defend. He got off a big DARK MACE and a pair of MALICE AND HATE but it wasn’t quite enough to counter Isildur’s A8 and A12. He and Isildur basically canceled each other out, leaving Elrond to face Smaug. Elrond is just so very tough and played a patient game waiting for WEAK SPOT so he could carve Smaug up with his A11. In the end it came down to Elrond’s Elf Archer facing Smaug with 1 HP and both Fire Pillars, but he took them all down without really breaking a sweat. Those strong minors make a big difference. The new Sauron isn’t too strong, I can tell you that. Isildur might need to be toned down a little. I don’t know if he needs BLADE OF THE HIGH KING, he already has STRENGTH OF MANY as a potential big attack plus his A12. Elrond is just so very tough.
First, I’m glad to hear that someone got what I was going for with SEARING TOUCH. On the subject of that card, something I’ve been mulling over is changing it to a special card. I mean, it’s basically a direct damage card anyway, so if include your changes then it would be something like:
1x SEARING TOUCH (Special Card)
Place this card face up on the table as one action. On any subsequent turn you may use an action to play this card. Destroy an opponent’s character adjacent to Sauron with 10 hit points or fewer remaining.
Lots of directions we could go with this deck, but I think I like your final suggestion the most: modified red deck, 3 LOTR, and the new SEARING TOUCH.
10 points of direct damage is too much. Even 5 is too much without some mitigating factor, but there are 2 here: 1. It (now) takes 2 turns to play and 2. You’re restricted to characters with 5 or fewer HP. So it’s “A10, use one action to play face up, any turn after this one, you may play this attack against an adjacent character with 5 or fewer HP, they may not defend.”
I made in an A10 because I feel he lacks a big attack, but this isn’t really an A10, it’s a 5-direct-damage card that says it’s an A10 just for flavor.
But, by adding the “1 turn” delay, I’ve actually just made SEARING TOUCH weaker and worse, not really my intent. The modified Red deck will help but I kind of feel like there’s no big attack of Sauron’s to fear like there is with Elrond and Isildur. We have some options but I’m not finding any really appealing as of yet.
Yeah, I was wondering where you were going with that tweak to SEARING TOUCH. Although, honestly I don’t see much point in making SEARING TOUCH an A10; I’d rather have an actually A10 than a card that says 10 on it, but is actually a weaker version of a card that used to be in the deck.
If we want to give Sauron a big attack to fear, then maybe we should go the route of replace a copy of LOTR with another attack card; maybe something like:
1x HOPE FADES
A13: Sauron cannot defend until your next turn.
Now, I’m imagining this duel where Sauron uses this card to knock off Elendil and then plays SEARING TOUCH face up in order to kill Isildur next turn, but on his turn Isildur pulls out the BROKEN BLADE and finishes Sauron off first.
With the new card we could either go back to the blue deck and an A5 SEARING TOUCH (but keeping the new effect) or maybe keep those changes too, I’m not sure.
I guess that’s where I’m at: He needs another big attack, just for the threat of it as well as the theme of it, and his deck would probably play a bit better with one more offense card and one less movement. The current setup of 6 defense + movement cards is a lot. I guess I’ve been afraid to make him too strong but it’s Sauron, there is no “too strong,” especially with 20 HP and weak minors. I’ve seen the “big attack but can’t defend next turn” mechanic before and I like it a lot. I gave him an A12 and I think he’s done.
So I ran another game, this time was Elrond and Isildur vs. Sauron and the Balrog. It was a heavyweight match it played out really well, with the dark side triumphing on the last turn by drawing his final DARK MACE, and it was just enough to power past Elrond’s D2 and eliminate his final 6 HP. Elrond would have won on the next turn with WATER HORSES which would have eliminated Sauron’s 3 HP.
– Sauron had a pretty lousy draw but he still had enough to ultimately kill Isildur and Elrond. I was thinking he wasn’t tough enough during earlier parts of the game but he shone in the end. DARK MACE is so tough and MALICE AND HATE works well enough. Sauron was down to 7 HP when Elrond and Isildur had 13 and 14, respectively, but the power of the ring would not be undone.
– Isildur had a pretty good game, getting his A8 and some A5s. Elendil got off his A6, then got killed, then Isildur used LAST HOPE to get it back and used it as an A12 on the Balrog, which took away Balrog’s last 8 HP. He didn’t get much defense and Sauron killed him.
– The Balrog probably looked like the weakest of the 4 but these are the toughest of the tough and he didn’t look out of place. He dished out a good amount of damage but drew FLAME SWORD early before he really wanted it, so it took up space in his hand. Again, the lack of minors is a big deficiency in LOTRED, so I upped FIRE WHIP to A7 and I think he’s good to go.
– Elrond is really good and steady. He was able to do some damage this game with HADAFANG and one WATER HORSES and he used MITHRIL to completely stop a DARK MACE. However, his IMMORTAL BLADE was completely countered by Sauron’s POWER OF THE RING.
I might want to tinker with Treebeard but otherwise I think this set is really good, really fun, and about done.
Great stuff! I tried out that duel a couple of times today and the teams went 1-1 (although the good side had terrible luck in their defeat). After those duels, I’d say I’m at where you are: the Balrog is probably the weakest of the bunch and the set is both top notch and almost done.
One tweak on Elrond I want to suggest is removing the extra damage against Fire Pillars because they have 2 HP to begin with and so 3 dd vs 4 dd doesn’t matter at all. I guess you could argue that removing two words won’t reduce the card text that much and that there’s a one-in-million change that a deck might come along that increases a characters total health, but still I think it’s a change worth considering.
Actually the deck I’m not sure about is Sauron the Dark Lord. I think Elrond might be a tad tougher, and I’ll water down Water Horses just a little as well as change that wording, and possibly reduce his HP to 15.
Sauron has A) only 5 attacks in addition to his Blue deck and B) weak minors, so he’s not THAT strong. Also, Elrond has his A11 and Isildur his A12 and it seems like Sauron is lacking something there. At the same time, he has SEARING TOUCH so all he has to do is get you to 5 HP.
Yeah, Sauron’s offense has always been a bit wanting even in my original deck on the wiki. If it’s a problem of quality then maybe increasing MALICE AND HATE to A6, might do the trick; since it has a 3 card draw limit I’m not worried about the effect becoming unbalanced. On the other hand, if it’s a problem of quality (as in you want him to have a big attack), then we either need to drop SEARING TOUCH or something else. What to replace it with, I have a few ideas like maybe:
1x CRUEL SWING
A10: After attacking, you may move the defender any number of spaces in a straight line.
I like SEARING TOUCH because it’s like the end of the movie. Maybe must change it to an I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS A LONG TIME type of card that takes 2 turns to play, but is an A10 that bypasses power defense? That’s a finisher. You’d need to pair it with a LOTR to make sure you’d be in attack position the second turn, but you have 3 LOTRs so it should work out.
I also kind of think he should just have more attack cards he can use, instead he kind of has to sit around while his Orcs aren’t really good for much. Elite Orcs would go a long way towards making him better, and giving him more offensive options, but I feel like making Sauron the star. So we could just keep Searing Touch as is, add your A10, and I guess drop a LOTR?
Another idea I have is give him a modified Red deck swapping the A3D2 for a second A1D4, so he has those 4x A5s to work with, plus the 5 power attacks he has now, plus the 2-turn A10 that bypasses defense, all 3 LOTR. This might be the most interesting.
I wish I had a good excuse as to why it’s taken so for me long to write this, but I’ve just been lazy. 😛 Anyway, after about a month-and-half of playing, here are my thoughts on the game.
What I like:
-Simply put, it’s fun! It’s a well done, fast, light strategy game, which can have some truly epic moments (especially in the ground fights). For being a little strategy game it’s very enjoyable and I’m usually up for playing several fights in a row.
-Great component quality. Everything looks and feels great from the art, to the stands, to the action pads everything is top notch, which is especially amazing considering the price point. I honestly, only have one real negative about the components that I’ll get into below.
-It’s easy to introduce to others. I can go through the rules in about 5 or so minutes and after just a couple of plays most people “get it”. Unless the person is turned off by the theme I can easily see this becoming a great introductory game to the wider gaming community (like Epic Duels was for me).
What I Don’t Like:
-The score pad. Eh, I guess it works and is fine, but I’d like something both more visually interesting and reusable. Like maybe instead you have an actual board, that has an aerial view of a cage with the health still on the bottom and top, but the game comes with more blood cubes so you can track the health with those instead of using the pencil (honestly, I sometimes use LEGO pieces for this). Again, not a deal breaker, but could’ve been better IMO.
-The fighters are kind of “eh”. Maybe, it’s because I’m not the biggest MMA fan, but I haven’t found myself inputting any character or history into any of the fighters. Usually the fighters are just a different bonus or maybe they have a special move that I really like (Suzuki’s Whirlwind Kick is a favorite of mine), but it feels less like I’m picking a character and more like I’m just picking a bonus or move set. In one session, me and the person I was playing against had a lot more fun imaging that we were the fighters. And not really a pro or con, but on a related note, I’ve found it more fun to mix-and-match the fighters regardless of gender, which occasionally runs into the problem of two people wanting to play the fighters on the back and front of the same card, although I guess the easy fix to that is just to buy another copy of the game, so maybe this isn’t a problem. 😛
-I could also add that I ran into some rulesy questions early on, but your FAQ cleared those up nicely.
All in all, great job Roman! This is a really good game and one that’s really growing on me. I can see this hitting my table more often then a lot of big title games.
And if you know me, you know I was going to bring this up. Fan made content! I remember seeing you and Obi-Wan John talking on the wiki and you mentioned something about how Mortal Kombat characters would be a good fit for this game. So sitting here thinking about it, I’d have a lot more fun shouting before a match either “I’M PLAYING SCORPION! GET OVER HERE!” Than, “I’m playing Bruan Ferreira!” Of course, I need some more experience with the game and all the different fighters before I’d take on a project like that, but it is on my radar.
Awesome, thanks so much for checking it out! It sounds like you’re having fun, which is great to hear.
– Most important, PLEASE leave a short, positive review at Amazon and BGG (thanks for already showing up there).
– Your feedback on the fighters is so far unique. Most people like them, and many (though not all) are based on actual MMA fighters that are fairly easy to identify. Mainly, each brings some new moves and theme to the table, whether it’s a Flying Knee or an Arm Bar. I considered adding a history for each character but I’d rather let players develop their own narratives.
– Your feedback on the score pad is not so unique. It works, but we might have to figure something out for the next print run.
– I’ve played or witnessed hundreds of games but have never once seen the genders mix, but there’s no reason you can’t do it. However, as the sport itself always keeps the genders separate, I went ahead and double-sided the character sheets. So yeah, just buy another copy 😉
– I pushed hard for nice components, and am glad you appreciate that.
So your last comments invite this question, and please be honest, which you don’t seem to have any issues with providing: What do you think of this game engine, the “mat and screen,” rock-paper-scissors combat system? For any 1v1 game like a Mortal Kombat, which we’re both fans of, this is the system I’d prefer to even Epic Duels because to me, ED and Unmatched shine in 2v2 play. I think the Cage Match system could work with Star Wars characters (and even have some made), Marvel characters — you name it.
-Yeah, I get what you’re saying about the fighters, but I think my feedback on this and my mixing of genders speaks to where I’m coming from in relation to the theme. I mean I used to practice martial arts when I was younger and I really like martial arts fighting in movies and TV, but I wouldn’t really consider myself a fan of MMA as a sport (or any sport for that matter, but that’s a story for another day). For me, the theme is like, “Ah, cool fighting!” But, it’s my love of light strategy game that really draws me to the game.
-On the game engine itself, I do really like it, but with the caveat that I think you need something else going on to make it really “pop”. In the case of Cage Match that’s the focus tokens and the ground fighting. I think Star Wars characters would be really cool in this system if it was a lightsaber fighting game (not that Mace, Maul, and Grievous wouldn’t be intimidating hand-to-hand fighters), but it wouldn’t make sense to have the ground game in something like that.
If I remember correctly, the final Cage Match was a “simplified” version of the original game you designed right? Maybe, if you took that game and put the Star Wars theme over it, it would work, but for this current system you need something else (IMO) going on to really make it work.
And I’ll see about getting reviews up on Amazon and BGG. 😉
Yeah I think it’s true that a game that’s essentially rock paper scissors with hit points isn’t enough, you have to add some wrinkles. Star Wars characters would have Force instead of Focus, and 4 special moves instead of 2 specials and 2 combos, but is that enough without the ground game wrinkle to be an engaging game?
More specials does sound good; after all Jedi and Sith do have a lot of force moves they can use. I’m not sure if all that is enough to make an engaging game, but I think it’s at least worth trying out.
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Love this deck, but I tried to print it out at a print shop and got an error. Has anyone else experienced this and found a workaround? I would print the 10YA version but I prefer the stronger version of cowardly defense.
Hi Matt, thanks for your interest and sorry you’re having trouble. I’m not sure what to say about that one. I can confirm that I don’t have any problems viewing the file so I’m not sure why the print shop is having problems printing it. I wonder if something happened to the .PDF when I married the cards with the custom battle (hit point) card? I would need more specific info to figure this out.
I ran a play test of Smaug and Balrog vs. Treebeard and Elron. Smaug went first, Elrond last.
All of the characters lacked movement. Some damage was exchanged with many minors plus Treebeard taking some damage, but Treebaird laid into Balrog, and Balrog ran away. Treebeard stepped deep into enemy territory and hit Balrog a couple more times, taking him down to 5 HP. The Balrog played A8 + A8 and had just enough to kill off Treebeard. It took Elrond a bit, and Balrog did additional damage, but Elrond finished off Balrog and had an injured Ent on his side to take on Smaug. Elrond played defensively until WEAK SPOT came out, then used his A11. Smaug battled, made it close, but lost.
Balrog has some major weaknesses that rob from his overall strength. He has to discard a lot. FIRE WHIP is weak. I found myself discarding it for DURIN’S BANE, which you really need to save for defense, because he doesn’t have any big defense at all. Add to that, you kill him, and he’s got nothing left, no minors to bother you. It’s such a huge difference in this game. I’m trying another draft, with max HP. This version of DB would actually have failed to kill Treebeard last game so I don’t know, but it would be better in a lot of games.
Smaug had a bad draw, but I was really disappointed in him, to the point of wanting to adjust him. Displaying his A8s, Elrond just used his MITHRIL for 2 of them, defended with D4 on the third, and kind of shrugged it off. Smaug doesn’t have a lot else for offense. He really needs FIERY EXPLOSION. I might make BREATH into an A9 because it should probably be better than Cave Troll and just as good as powered up Aragorn.
Elrond is a hard ass. He’s as tough as anyone. Great offense, great defense, great movement, some game-changers — you name it, he’s got it. He got a really good draw and crushed the game.
Treebeard doesn’t have to be as strong as the others, but he has a lot of offense to bring to the party and a lot of defense and staying power to carve through. I kind of think he should have a card that activates the Ents and has them do some damage, but I don’t know what card it would be. FURIOUS KICK is fun and cool though it actually doesn’t fit the deck very well.
Balrog: based on my extensive experience with single character decks, I’ve definitely found that they sometimes need more power to compete with decks with a minor or minors. Personally, I think the new DB is a little weak; maybe 3 damage instead of 2? On the topic of discarding, I originally made the deck on the idea that it would power up FLAME SWORD (hence why they were two in the deck). Straying away from that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s just something to keep in mind.
Smaug: I’d support increasing his A8s to A9s.
Treebeard: I was having the same thought last night about wanting something to activate the Ents. Maybe change RELEASE THE RIVER! to include the Ent minors? Like, all three do 3 damage to all characters in a straight line, but no one can receive more than 3 damage?
I’m aware of the discarding power up to FLAME SWORD and I think it’s a very cool mechanic, so I want to keep it. Just pointing out that it does weaken him so he needs powerful cards.
We could try A6/D6 for DB but the deck already has up to 12 direct damage, and I’m against increasing it to 15.
What about making DB a straight up A7/D7 (or A8/D8) and then changing the effect to “you may discard a card to draw a card.” That way it’s still useful without having to discard. And if we don’t want it to have the same effect as FOE BEYOND ANY we could try and come up with something different.
I like the “discard to do more damage” effect, the way it adds to FLAME SWORD, and the way its different than FBA. Let’s just try it at A6/D6 with the 2 added damage.
Hmm, I don’t know what a “build the wall then break the dam,” would look like, but I took a look at that Lowbacca deck and you’re thinking of something like this right?
Treebeard: 18 HP, Blue Deck
2x Ents: 5 HP, Minor Orange+ Deck
3x Nasty Little Orc
A4*: If Treebeard did not move using the move die this turn, then this card’s value is 8 instead of 4.
3x ????
2x Boulder Toss
THROW BOULDER does 2 damage to a character Treebeard could attack at range. That character may not move on their controller’s next turn.
2x Furious Kick
A6: [same effect]
1x Entmoot
Draw 4 cards. For every space Treebeard has moved this turn, draw 1 less card.
1x Release the River!
Treebeard may not move until this effect resolves. At the beginning of your next turn, all characters in a straight line away from Treebeard receive 4 damage.
Any thoughts on this Treebeard deck? It’s kind of fun even if it lacks a strong deck theme.
Note that I’ve udpated Elrond to have more of an “action manipulation” theme. I haven’t tested that deck out and it looks very strong, but otherwise I’m happy with where it is landing. As for Isildur, I wouldn’t mind seeing better ideas, but his is a working deck as well. I’m satisfied with all 3 bad guy decks.
So once we finish this Treebeard deck, we’ve got a 6-set expansion, bringing this LOTRED set to 32 total decks. That’s a good number that allows for endless possible matches.
I’m pretty much on the same page as you. My only minor problems with this deck is it has a few “unfair” combos and cards. Like THERMAL DETONATOR is a pretty good card and it will be even more so in LOTRED and this deck has a card like BROKEN DAM to set it up; meaning Treebeard can inflict 6 damage to most (if not all) enemies and because of the high move of BD can avoid hurting his teammate.
I might suggest at least reducing the move on BD and maybe lowering BOULDER TOSS to 3 damage.
It’s also pretty easy to draw 5 cards with ENTMOOT unless you draw it late in the game. Maybe change it so Treebeard only gets one extra draw if at least one Ent is adjacent? That makes it pretty similar to a card Gothmog has.
Finally, I could complain about how GOING TO WAR is too similar to Isildur’s card and not very original (although the name is great), but it’s not a huge deal to me.
I dunno, this deck is fun but not very interesting. It’s an old school deck in that the cards work and use quotes and do what we expect Ents to do, but there’s no real deck theme here.
I’m thinking about some kind of “move and root” concept, or maybe a “build a wall then break the dam” concept. Lowbacca’s MIGHTY SWING card, that does more damage if you don’t move, might work here.
Hello !
There are small problems with Eomer and Frodo/Sam’s links. Frodo’s first and fourth link all link to his major Talent Cards, and the card backs are unavailable. As for Eomer, it’s his second and third links which both lead to his Major basic cards. Minors’ basic cards are unavailable as well…
That said, everything else is tip-top, and I can’t thank you all enough for making all this nice material so easy to access !
Excellent archive work.
Hi and thanks for your interest, for pointing out those errors and for the kind words. Everything has been updated with the correct files, happy printing and happy dueling!
Ran a couple of play tests of Sauron + Balrog. The first game, they defeated Isildur and Elrond, the second they defeated Isildur and Aragorn. Isildur didn’t draw much defense either game, and went down without doing much either time. This left too many HP for Elrond or Aragorn to dispense with on their own. Aragorn would have won the second game had the SHARDS OF NARSIL REFORGED been played early but it was the last card in the draw pile and Arwen had already been defeated.
Sauron is quite tough but I’m not a fan of cards like WILL TO DOMINATE, like we’ve talked about. A simple offense card like A4 no action or perhaps direct damage would round his deck out. It’s not like he needs more strength, he’s tough to bring down and the LOTR + DARK MACE combo is very effective so A4-no action might be too good. He does need something else though, he really just stands around waiting to draw DARK MACE.
The Balrog looks better with weak basic melee cards replacing FLAMES and 22 HP. He’s still a tough SOB but not so unbeatable. I think he’s looking pretty good. FIRE WHIP doesn’t really fit the deck but the card represents the whip from the movie pretty well.
Isildur is pretty good but he doesn’t look overpowered. He really doesn’t have great offense unless there are conditions in his favor. If you were to kill all his allies and isolate him, he really don’t have much to beat you with, well I guess except an A8 and an A12 which is actually quite a lot.
Even though I haven’t seen him lately, I was thinking about EYE OF SAURON and really, his ONLY DEATH card that skips a turn isn’t that great. You use one action and one card to deny your opponent 2 actions. It’s ok but nothing game changing like YOU WILL DIE. Maybe we can replace NO LIFE IN THE VOID and ONLY DEATH with some cards that give him more offense should the Mouth go out early. NLITV is actually an offense card but he might need more of a killing card, maybe A6-attack-from-anywhere or something.
So I’d like to come up with another card for Sauron, maybe tweak the Eye and potentially come up with something different for Isildur, but otherwise I think all of this is coming together pretty well. You could play any of these 5 decks right now and have fun. We mostly just need to finish out Treebeard.
Sauron: maybe give him a card that helps him get to his DARK MACE? Like 2x MALICE AND HATE: A5 For every point of damage done by this card, draw a card up to 3.
Balrog: glad to hear that the weak melee deck is working out.
Isildur: I agree he’s pretty good, but I unfortunately don’t have any ideas for this deck.
Eye of Sauron: ONLY DEATH has its uses, but he does need something more, like that A6 you’re talking about. But, why stop at A6? Make it A7 or more if you really want him to be good.
I’ve been meaning to make a testing version for Treebeard and take him for a spin. When I last saw him (a while ago) he seemed fine and his power level was about less than the other decks in this expansion, but better than all the other LOTRED decks.
I feel like this is the neglected child of the expansion. 😛
My take is it reminds me a lot of your Obi and Ani deck; as in it’s a deck that doesn’t do much it just beats you ’cause it’s so tough. Isildur has an A8 plus two A6s that are easy to power up and if you kill his tough minor (who has big attacks too) then you have to contend with an A12 that Isildur can search or recycle. And if you ignore Elendil to target Isildur then you have some solid staying power to get over. Their only real weakness is no direct damage, which they don’t really need.
If Elrond and The Balrog weren’t so tough (and if Sauron wasn’t intentional a bad match-up against them) then this would probably be the strongest deck in the expansion right now.
This duo defeated Sauron in combat, so they should be very strong! That stated, there’s not much going on with this deck besides the BROKEN BLADE card and a “leadership” theme I tried to instill. I kind of like the LEADER OF MEN – STRENGTH OF MANY combo but it might be a little too strong.
Here’s a rough draft I came up with for the Knights (as a 3-character deck).
3x Knights of Ren: 8 HP each, Brown + Weak Melee Decks
3x Hunters
A6: Apply the following based on the number of Knights adjacent to the defender. 1: Move the defender up to 4 spaces. 2: Move all Knights up to 4 spaces each. 3: Both 1 and 2.
3x Martial Prowess
A3: Apply the following based on the number of Knights still in play. 1: Move the attacking Knight up to 6 spaces. 2: The player controlling the defender loses an action next turn. 3: Playing this card does not count as an action.
2x Heavily Armed
Draw 1 card. For every Knight still in play, draw an additional card.
2x Encircle
A5: Apply the following based on the number of Knights adjacent to the defender. 1: Draw a card. 2: Add 2 to this card’s value. 3: Add 4 to this card’s value and draw 2 cards.
1x ???
A10: Apply the following effect based on the number of Knights in play. 1: Discard 2 cards at random. 2: You lose an action on your next turn. 3: Discard a card to draw a card.
1x Reinforcements
If you have 2 Knights in play, place a destroyed Knight adjacent to any other Knight with 4 hit points remaining. If you have 1 Knight in play, place 2 destroyed Knights to any empty spaces with 3 hit points each.
It’s going to be too much of a “strong early, fades late” deck. You kill one Knight and you’ve taken a lot away from them, kill a second Knight and you almost don’t even have to worry about the third.
I would make some cards unreliant upon the number of Knights and therefore dangerous even if there’s only one left. If you look at the Nazgul, DEATH GRIP and BLACK BREATH intentionally don’t care how many Nazgul are on the board.
If you wanna keep “Heavily Armored” the way it is I’d make it 2 cards plus one for each, otherwise its just a really weak gain power, this way it would average at 3 but could sometimes be 4.
All that said that card seems really generic and the kind of thing you really could replace with a card that has nothing to do with the number of knights. Alternatively you could maybe have a card where you get a 2nd reenforcement knight if you’re down to 1 and fulfill some extra condition. This is intentionally comedic but maybe something like
x2 Cry for Help- D0 If this is the last knight remaining, and you survive the attack, put 1 Knight of Ren on the board adjacent to the defender with 3 hit points
Thanks for the suggestions and that’s is a fun card idea, but now that I’ve changed my Praetorian Guard to fill the role of Nazgul-like deck, I’ve gone in a different direction with The Knights. Right now, I’m trying out two 3-personality decks (one melee squad and one ranged squad) of which only the ranged squad uses ideas from my above draft.
Since these aren’t easy decks to get right, I’m letting them both brew for awhile (although the melee squad (Ushar, Trudgeon, and Ap’Lek) is further along).
The only new characters from this movie I could see a deck being made for are The Knights of Ren. I mean, I know in the film they don’t do much, but they look cool and in the EU they all have names and unique specializations. Don’t know if they should be a triple personality deck or 2 two personality deck (although I’m not sure if they are worth making two decks for).
Yeah that’s a good call. I might suggest trying them as a 3-character deck like the Nazgul since we don’t really have one of those in SWED. I suggested that for the Praetorian Guard but I guess they come in pairs so I think the guy went with 2 sets of 2 guards for that one. If there’s nothing like that going on with the Knights of Ren just do 3.
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