Mormegil's Deckbox

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Mormegil 3085

Mormegil's Deckbox

1. Premise

2. Deck Design

3. Preferred Player Count and Rating

4. Deck Overview

5. Deck Matrix

6. Solo Deck Rating

7. An Offline Deckbox - 13 Decks Were Given to the Race of Men

8. FAQ

9. Closing Notes

1. Premise

After I started playing this game, it soon became apparent that there were two aspects of the game I enjoyed more than all other aspects, even more than playing: The community interactions around the game and deckbuilding. In accordance to these preferences, my list of decks had grown pretty large and extremely unorganized. I therefore wanted to take the end of official player card releases as an opportunity to update, categorize, finalize and publish my decks to have a “deckbox” of sorts on ringsdb, that myself (and other players if so inclined) can turn to when looking for a certain theme, archetype, role, synergy, combo or playing style to bring to the table.

This is of course a very long and time-intensive undertaking, however I am now at a stage where – while not finished – I decided to start publishing what I came up with. So expect this deck description (as well as the list of links for decks posted below) to grow and be updated continuously over the foreseeable future. One aspect of this is of course that you can influence the project since it is by no means done – if you have suggestions on specific decks, considerations for the project in a broader sense or want to request an archetype being posted sooner rather than later, feel free to reach out in the comments down below (or on Discord).

It is also important to mention that other people already have contributed in a significant way to this deckbox. Two I would like to call out specifically are Jban and Rouxxor – two good friends I made playing the game that also happen to be excellent deckbuilders. Pretty much every deck listed down below has been seen by and discussed with them. During that process, a lot of decks improved due to their valuable input and deckbuilding expertise. This project would have been a lot more cumbersome and of a much lower quality without their company!

2. Deck Design

In each archetype, I built four kinds of decks:

  • One Solo deck – the most powerful deck of that archetype I could come up with for solo play.

  • One Multiplayer deck – the most powerful deck of that archetype I could come up with for a multiplayer setting.

  • One Thematic deck – a thematic deck that presents the theme of the archetype in a prominent way (while remaining as functional as possible). If an archetype has no real theme (e.g. [Caldara](/card/06107)), there will be no thematic deck.

  • Any number of Alternative decks – here I explore ideas different to the most powerful versions. They are therefore by default not as strong (although sometimes only very marginally weaker), however often more fun, diverse and creative.

  • If there is an idea that needs more than one deck to accomplish it, I might built a Fellowship exploring that idea. Since there are exponentially more Fellowships to be built than decks (and thus creating a catalogue for them is almost impossible), I will not build them for any idea I have (as I do with decks), but much more seldom if a particular idea really intrigues me.

Sideboards

I stuck to a few rules concerning my sideboards.

There are no second or third copies of cards already in the deck in the sideboard – so when swapping cards in or out, cards that are once or twice in the deck automatically can and should also be considered as options in addition to the sideboard.

Every solo deck has three cards in the sideboard, every other deck five. I try to explain how and when the cards of the sideboard are meant to be used in the respective deck descriptions.

If a thematic or alternative deck is geared towards solo and multiplayer, I included your typical solo choices (like Henamarth Riversong) in the deck with the sideboard containing options to enable a better experience for multiplayer.

3. Preferred Player Count and Rating

The Preferred Player Count and Rating for a deck can be found in the beginning of each deck description.

The former is meant to indicate – who could have guesses – the preferred player count the deck was built for :). If a certain number is set in brackets, the deck will be functional in that player count but is not directly built with it in mind. Here is an example:

Preferred Player Count: 2-3, (4)

  • The deck is most efficient and built for a 2-/3-player-game
  • The deck is not built with a 4-player-game in mind but still useful in one
  • The deck is not very useful for a solo-game

The latter should hopefully give you an idea concerning the power of the deck.

The rating is scaled as follows:

=A solo deck that can win almost every quests with ease/a multiplayer deck way above curve

=A very strong deck that will lead you to victory more often than not

=A deck that can hold its own very well, however it might struggle against very difficult quests

=A deck that can contribute, however be prepared to record quite a few losses as well

=A deck that is ultimately more novel (in terms of fun, theme or interaction) than efficient

Note that the scaling method here are quests in Nightmare mode – so a deck with a rating of should hopefully still beat most normal quests.

Fellowships will be graded by the same metrics, although their preferred player count will logically never drop below 2..

4. Deck Overview

If you are currently using your mobile phone, the following section might be more orderly if viewed in desktop mode.

I sorted the decks by archetype. An archetype seems most commonly classified as certain themes/traits (like “Outlands” or “Woodmen”), however for this section, I decided to also include more abstract archetypes (e.g. “Mono Sphere”, “Combo” or “Tactics Aragorn attacking decks”).

The bold headlines in the following list indicate the overarching archetypes for the following decklinks, before the decks is described the type of deck (solo, multiplayer, alternative or thematic), afterwards (in that order) the player count that deck is suitable for and the power rating (for my rating system see above).

These archetypes have been added to the deckbox so far and can be found in the following section:

  • One Decks

  • Caldara

  • Dale

  • Dwarves

  • Ents

  • Hobbits

  • Outlands

  • Silvans

  • Vilya

  • Revised Content Only Decks

One Decks

NOTE: There are no published stats for the following decks including all scenarios, but I regard the decks/deckbuilders very highly and am thus confident in linking them as One Decks. While I believe that BoF-Vilya is relatively comfortably the best option for a One Deck, I encourage you to check these other decks out as well, they are all extremely powerful and unique!

Caldara

Dale

Dwarves

Ents

Hobbits

Outlands

Silvans

Vilya

Revised Content Only Decks

NOTE: The Revised Content Player Card Pool will eventually consist of the released products thus far as well as the already announced Ered Mithrin Hero Expansion and The Return of the King Saga Expansions. I included player cards from all repackaged expansions, even those not yet re-released. I put suitable options in the sideboards if you want to play offline now. Decks for archetypes which have their cornerstones in upcoming releases (like Dale) will be published once the corresponding product (i.e. the Ered Mithrin Hero Expansion) is released.

Coming Up Next: Core Set Only Decks (unless requested otherwise)

5. Deck Matrix

This table should hopefully provide you with a more in-depth analysis of the decks, their role as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Here is an overview what each column indicates:

  • Archetype: The archetype of the deck (as already sorted by above)

  • Deck Type: The type of deck (i.e. solo, multiplayer, thematic, alternative)

  • Deck Name/Link: The name of the deck in which its ringsdb-link is embedded

  • PPC: The Preferred Player Count for the deck (as explained above)

  • : The Power Rating for the deck from 1-5 (as explained above)

  • : The willpower capabilities of the deck ranked from 0-5

  • : The attacking capabilities of the deck ranked from 0-5

  • : The defensive capabilities of the deck ranked from 0-5

  • : The supporting capabilities of the deck ranked from 0-5. This is a little vague but includes numerous things such as healing, location control, scrying, encounter deck manipulation, cancelling capabilities as well as the ability to support other players with cards or resources

The table should also give you an indication on which decks to pair and which decks to play in which situations. For that, I use the , , and capabilities ranked from 0-5.

These are the capability numbers I target for a very difficult quests added up for all decks in play:

  • In 1P-games, I target values of: ≥ 2, ≥ 1, ≥ 2, ≥ 1

  • In 2P-games, I target values of: ≥ 4, ≥ 2, ≥ 3, ≥ 2

  • In 3P-games, I target values of: ≥ 6, ≥ 4, ≥ 5, ≥ 4

  • In 4P-games, I target values of: ≥ 8, ≥ 6, ≥ 6, ≥ 7

These numbers are of course not applicable to all quests and all fellowships, they are more meant as an approximation/a rule of thumb to help whenever problems occur. In higher player counts, I mostly (but not always!) prefer running specialized decks to having decks that all cover a bit of everything.

Due to CSS-related issues, I had to insert the matrix as an image, rather than code. The links to the decks in this matrix therefore don't work but you can either find them above or you can find the matrix with active links here.

table

6. Solo Deck Ranking

If your are currently using your mobile phone, the following section might be more orderly if viewed in desktop mode.

Ranking multiplayer/thematic/alternative decks is something I find almost impossible to do due to the high amount of variables involved in higher player counts. Power is however much more easily quantifiable when it comes to solo decks, which is why I created this ranking ordering all the solo decks presented above by power.

1. One Deck/Vilya: A Modern One Deck

5. RCO One Deck/Vilya: The RCO One Deck

6. Silvans: Hosts of Galadhrim
.5.

7. Caldara: Classic Caldara
.5.

8. Dale: Doomingdales
.5.

9. Dwarves: Doomed Dwarves
.5.

10. RCO Dwarves: Delving Deep

11. RCO Noldor: Chasing Dreams

13. RCO Noldor: Lords of the Eldar

14. RCO Hobbits: The Shirefolk
.5.

15. RCO Silvans: The Tree People
.5.

16. RCO Rohan: Riders of the Mark
.5.

17. RCO Gondor: Wise Captains
.5.

18. RCO Dúnhere: Spears of the Mark

7. An Offline Deckbox – 13 Decks Were Given to the Race of Men

Some time ago, Jban and myself challenged ourselves to build a set of 13 decks that can all be built with one complete collection offline.

The aim was to make the decks accessible, fun and diverse for newer players and veterans of the game while still being strong enough to compete against (almost) all quests in the game (be it in easy, normal or nightmare mode). We wanted this set of decks to keep a playing group entertained for a long time, to be suitable to introduce new players to the game and to be a viable option to take to conventions of any level.

Check out the project here.

Balanced

Willpower

Combat

Defense

Locations

8. FAQ

Q: Are the ALeP fan-expansion, the ALeP "Free To Choose List" or any other community-created contents part of this project?

A: At this moment, no. I enjoy the ALeP project and am even involved (albeit in a small capacity), however my motivation was to build definitive decks with a "finished" official cardpool. I do plan to introduce a section with ALeP decks after finishing the original project though! If you want to check out some good ALeP decks in the meantime, I can recommend this list by my good friend Rouxxor going over some multiplayer options for ALeP.

Q: Can I influence the project in any way?

A: For sure! If you want to see a specific archetype sooner rather than later for example, just reach out to me and I will see what I can do.

Q: I have a cool deck idea that you seemed to have missed. Can you still add it?

A: Of course, if I have missed something I am always open to adding it to the list. I am happy for all the support and ideas I can get!

Q: How I can reach out with suggestions, criticism or questions?

A: If you don't want to just comment in the comment section here, the best way to reach me for game-related matters is on Discord (my usertag is .mormegil).

9. Closing Notes

Thank you for your time, I am looking forward to your comments, questions and suggestions! As always, please be patient with my English skills which (I fear) are often reflective of me being a non-native speaker.

Thank you again at this point to Jban and Rouxxor for advising.

Thank you (a big thank you) to the people behind ringsdb.com and dragncards.com - I am aware of some of the great work done by Seastan, Beorn and Alsciende in that regard, but am probably missing a few people. Without the immense timesaver those platforms are, I would simply not have had the time for this project!

ENJOY!!!

26 comments

Mar 06, 2024 Alonewolf87 1921

Amazing idea, such a great resource for the community. Thanks for all the effort you spent on this and on your past projects!

Mar 07, 2024 Swordthatwasbroke 724

This is pretty cool! One aspect I really appreciate is the inclusion of functionality at different player counts. As a true solo player, it’s pretty helpful to know beforehand which decks are going to work. I’m particularly excited to see what you come up with for Dunedain, as they are what I consider to be the most challenging solo archetype in the game.

Mar 07, 2024 Mormegil 3085

@Alonewolf87 Thank you! That means all the more coming from someone who puts a lot of effort into the community and various projects as well.

@Swordthatwasbroke Thank you! Yes, my Dúnedain decks are finished for the most part, if you want to see them sooner rather than later, I will push them up in the schedule a bit. Little spoiler ;): In lower player counts, I tend to focus more on their synergy around side quests, with a little bit of the having enemies engaged theme sprinkled in, in multiplayer that swaps, being mostly the other way around.

Mar 08, 2024 rueful_knight 2

This is absolutely incredible. Thank you. As a newer player, I'd love to see some great decks highlighting Revised Content only, for all of us newbies with FOMO.

Mar 08, 2024 Mormegil 3085

@rueful_knight Excellent idea! After the release of Dale later today/tomorrow, I will release some Core Set Only/Revised Content Only stuff during the next week!

Mar 08, 2024 Kyeamo 14

Fantastic resource. Thanks for uploading. I found your ent deck suggestions very useful. Choosing hero lineups for ents is an interesting deckbuilding challenge.

Mar 08, 2024 Mormegil 3085

Update: DALE has been added.

@Kyeamo Thank you for the kind words. Yes, Ent lineups were quite interesting to figure out, especially in solo, where it took quite some testing before I settled on my final lineup.

Mar 08, 2024 jpkeaney 7

Wow, what an amazing resource!!! Incredible!

If you are looking for suggestions, some things I'd be interested to see:

  • Noldor, Gloin, Gandalf, Three Hunters, monosphere, other racial archetypes like Silvan, Rohan, Hobbit, etc

Mar 08, 2024 ktsmo 1

Such a cool project and huge inspiration/guide for trying different kinds of decks! I'd love to see some Isengard/doomed themed decks.

Mar 09, 2024 Mormegil 3085

@jpkeaney, @ktsmo Thank you for the mind feedback! All deck archetypes you mentioned are ones I plan to cover, with some of them already finished. They will be released in the coming weeks!

Mar 09, 2024 ricardojpmatos 1

Hi,

First of all, thank you for you work, this is amazing!

I'm a new player (RCO) and as @rueful_knight said, I would love too to see some decks for revised content and, if possible, a One Deck for RCO? It's something I've been searching since I've discovered that kind of decks but have found nothing for RCO.

Mar 10, 2024 jpkeaney 7

Two other comments:

  1. `@Mormegil your English is great! I love reading your analytical, Seastan-esque essays!
  2. It seems like RCO really destroys all of the top tier archetypes except dale/dwarves. Vilya pretty much has to have gandalf and Merry, which starts at too high threat for some quests, the contracts, outlands, and caldara are totally gone. Seems like a really different meta...

Mar 14, 2024 SamWAR 1

I wonder if there's anything close to a One Deck using only revised content cards... Might seem odd, but in my country for instance the game is only being published with regularity now, and it's not really possible to acess old sets like Darrowdelf, until FFG decides to reprint it. Either way, amazing job here.

Mar 14, 2024 Mormegil 3085

@ricardojpmatos @SamWAR @jpkeaney A One Deck using revised content only will be with you in the coming days, maybe next week. I almost finished the runthrough with one and will publish it as soon as the last quests are finished and a writeup has been done.

Mar 19, 2024 SamWAR 1

That's awesome, thanks for all the effort.

Mar 21, 2024 Crus 70

Impressive, thanks!

Mar 21, 2024 Mormegil 3085

RCO Decks are now part of the Deckbox!

I have added 13 new decks, all built out of the RCO pool, among them even a RCO One Deck (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/45965/thercoonedeck-1.0) that I have taken through all the RCO quests. Hopefully there are some newer players interested in these decks, they have been a lot of fun to build.

@ricardojpmatos, @SamWAR, @jpkeaney I hope that covers some of the aspects you wished to see included here.

Mar 21, 2024 ricardojpmatos 1

@Mormegil absolutely! Thank you again for your effort!

Mar 24, 2024 Bayoup 1

You're the best, thank you very much for all this work and all your effort.

Mar 26, 2024 Mormegil 3085

Hobbits have been added to the deckbox.

Raise the Shire! :)

Apr 08, 2024 Mormegil 3085

Two Hobbit decks have been added, as well as the first Fellowship of the deckbox (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/19280/friendoffriends) - where better to start with a thematic fellowship that only runs Frodo and Sam as heroes.

Vilya will be with you in the coming days.

Apr 10, 2024 Narook88 3

This is amazing thank you so much for sharing ❤️

Apr 10, 2024 Mormegil 3085

@Crus, @ricardojpmatos, @Bayoup, @Narook88

Thank you for all the kind words :)

Apr 11, 2024 Mormegil 3085

Vilya has been added. You can expect the usual stuff (very strong decks, some of them One Decks) but one thing might be a little more interesting:

This deck running Vilya alongside Ally Elrond

Apr 26, 2024 Mormegil 3085

Silvans have been added to the deckbox. Sorry for the long wait, but Silvans are one of the most tricksy archetypes to play (as well as maybe my favorite Trait-based archetype in the game) so I wanted to do justice to them.

I extensive write-ups, ridiculous combos or janky archetypes are your thing, I can only encourage you to check them out!

Apr 27, 2024 ricardojpmatos 1

Hi @Mormegil, eager to see those Core Set only decks!

Now, another request for RCO, after the Core Set decks could make some RCO + contracts decks, if that makes sense to you?

Since contracts are the easiest cards to proxy, I think that would be cool for RCO players to play with them.