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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

– 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.

Love your MALICE AND HATE idea, simple and effective and what he needs.

So I made some adjustments to his deck, to the Eye and to Elrond. I think all 5 decks are now fine unless I get specific feedback on changes to make.