Deck Build and Strategy Black Gate Opens & Mt. Doom | Lord of the Rings LCG

The Campaign can grind to a slow death when you reach these tow quests. In this video i explain why it is so hard to complete the campaign (especially thematically with just Sam and Frodo), and what you can do to keep the quests difficult and also interesting and entertaining.
The Decks can be found here: ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/1...
To check out the podcast, head to cardboardoftherings.com or follow us at / cardboardoftherings .
Join our patreon at www.patreon.com/cardboardoftherings

[@kittogashi8561]

7:26 prolly the best wrap-up description of Easy Mode haha

[@marctimmins8806]

Agreed. Exactly in like with my experiences.

[@marctimmins8806]

Cant wait for Monday.

[@martinakovarikova8000]

This is the point in my campaing where... I gave up! And have to get back to it. Got sooo frustrated that I was like nah.

[@taurelin_gaming]

Doom Hangs Still is awesome tech in this/these scenario(s). Never thought about that. On a side-note: With my daughters, we often use the so-called "sleazy-mode". That means, we keep the encounter-deck as it is, but grant every hero that one extra resource. This is often enough to make some quests more enjoyable, because we get a decent head start.

[@carlswansonthereandbackagain]

nice video

[@Calvin714Hobbes]

I had to play with Seastan's Grace of the Valar variant in order to beat Mount Doom after lasting only 6 rounds at the black gate. I like this variant because sometimes I need more cards rather than just starting resources, and I like knowing that I'm playing with a full encounter deck. I won with 4 tokens.

[@PickleTheHutt]

I managed to survive to round 10 true solo in normal mode by getting lucky and having my threat hit exactly 80 at the start of round 7 with A Doom Hangs Still in hand. I had barely survived round 6 with my board state still in decent shape but just barely with several enemies still engaged and no way I would have survived 7 cards next turn plus what was already out. Next round I drew both other copies of it so I was able to skip the quest phase for rounds 7, 8, and 9. I needed that as my Bond of Friendship Hobbit deck just barely made it through Mt Doom in round 10 (had some rotten luck early and took way too long to clear stage 1). I played out round 10 at the Black Gate after just to see and every hero survived that round (barely) but I lost about half my board state in doing it. Both decks would have threated out the next round. I used a pretty standard Gondor swarm deck using all the willpower increasing cards (Faramir, Sword that Was Broken, Visionary Leadership, Banner of Elendil, etc.) and quested for around 80 solo on one of the rounds and just barely covered the threat (Towers of Teeth is nasty with a swarm). A fully deployed Gondor swarm with all buffs is utterly insane for both questing and attacking (so many Envoys and Squires gave their lives for the cause). I like to play thematic decks, but not follow the books thematic as I find that too restricting. Instead, I follow a "what if" retelling of the story. For me, the elves helped the 4 hobbits all the way to Mt. Doom while the rest of the fellowship (including Boromir who resisted the pull of the ring my version) followed the Aragorn path. So, a Three Hunters deck for most of the Aragorn stuff but a Gondor swarm for Pelennor Fields and Black Gate. I do have a question though. I played these solo in epic multiplayer like you did, but is that really possible by the rules as written? It seems like the rules are meant to split up the players into two teams and not one player playing both groups. This matters mostly for the burdens. I know the rules say you get to choose where the burdens go if they are in both, but for 2+ players you will have multiple copies of some burdens whereas in solo you only have 1 (mostly thinking about Wraith on Wings here, but others would also apply). To balance this, I had each deck start with Wraith on Wings since it was like I was two players and each should have a copy even though there was only 1 in the campaign pool. Is there a consensus on how to handle this for solo? Love the series btw, watching it for the 3rd time now!

[@JaimeR13]

Amazing!! Thanks for doing all this. And I agree that Easy Mode isn't really easy.

[@baschdiro8565]

I wonder how these quests would look like if they had a nightmare mode. But I keep telling myself, this is already nightmare and the original cards got mixed up. I am excited for monday.