The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game - Tips & Strategies

Leadership sphere has some very key cards in it’s sphere, one of them being Sneak Attack which is one of the top 3 Events in the game. I currently run Prince Imrahil in my Spirit/Rohan deck to great success. Imrahil because his ability keys off nicely with all the Rohan allies who leave play and by having Leadership in the deck, it allows me to play Sneak Attack and Steward of Gondor. Steward of Gondor usually ends up on one of the Spirit Heroes while Imrahil’s Leadership resources are used to sneak attack Gandalf, Faramir, or Eomund. Dropping Gandalf for 1 resource really needs no explanation as to how good that is. (his ability lets you draw 3, lower threat by 5, or do 4 wounds to one enemy when he comes into play… all for 1 resource is huge!), Faramir’s Will boosting ability is great when you suddenly have a large stack of cards in the staging area, and to be able to drop him for 1 is helpful. With Gandalf costing 5 and Faramir costing 4, those are expensive allies that require a bit of banking of resources, sneak attacking them allows for quick uses of their abilities almost as if they were event cards. Eomund is another character that Sneak Attack works well on in a Rohan deck since you can Sneak Attack him, quest with him then when he disappears all your other Rohirrim ready just in time for the combat phase.

I’m missing some of the Kazad-dun adventure packs and the core set, so I haven’t seen if Sneak Attack synergizes with any other Leadership/Spirit allies yet, but if they do, I’ll be sure to post an updated gametip. Until next time, have fun questing!

Most of the time when I play CCGs, eventually after playing for a while I wind up focusing strictly on game mechanic. There could basically be white cards with mechanic text and that’s it, no pictures, no flavor text, no title, no art and I wouldn’t even notice. I’ve observed that a lot with gamers and ccgs over my 10+ years of card gaming. With Lord of the Rings I try to take a different approach and allow myself to get caught up in the setting. So when my group plays, I turn on the stereo and pop in one of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack CDs (or pull up the playlist on youtube, or start up iTunes, etc). While playing I take the time to read the card titles and sometimes the flavor text, instead of, for example, just paying 3 resources and saying “I’m lowering my threat by 6″ when playing The Galadhrim’s Greeting. The music really draws you into the Tolkien’verse and I feel it’s enriched my gaming experience while playing this great game. It’s really made the game that much better for me and I hope it enhances it for you as well, but as always, YMMV! Enjoy!

Undefended attacks by monsters can be rather disastrous, especially when a nasty Shadow effect is added to the attack. So, it’s a rather automatic response to make sure all attacks are defended.

However, sometimes it can be beneficial not to defend against an attack so that you have one more character that can strike back. The (undefended) attack will deal more damage, but you’ll get rid of the Enemy sooner, so in the long run, you’ll sustain less damage.

This approach can be especially useful if you can assign the damage to a hero such as Gimli or Gloin, for whom the damage triggers some positive effect. Furthermore, if you have some way to predict or cancel the Shadow effect, you can prevent this approach from backfiring. But even if you cannot control the Shadow effect, sometimes it’s worth it (and neccessary) to take the risk.

Be wary when building your deck that a common problem you’re likely to run into is Location card buildup in your staging area. This can be devastating if you get distracted with killing monsters and you can’t generate enough willpower to get past them.

So ensure your decks have enough allies and events to deal with potential buildups (e.g., Northern Tracker and Strength of Will) or that you can generate massive amounts of willpower to punch through them. Legolas always comes in handy too.

It is easy to be seduced by the power of the high cost cards. Cards that cost 4 or 5 should be limited to those cards which will help you execute your strategy.

If you are to be seduced by a 5 cost card, Gandalf should be up there in the running. In the first few months of the game, he was a staple of every deck.

The problem with these powerful cards is that they end up being a waste, sitting in your hand with not enough resources to play them.

For these reasons, make sure to build your deck with a 0 cost card (if one fits your sphere), a couple of 1 cost cards, and a good number of 2 cost cards.

The number of times it has even been difficult for me to play a 3 cost card, even one as awesome as Forest Snare leads me to believe, even 3 cost cards are often times too expensive.

If it does not directly help your decks strategy, beware that cost.

The exception to this is, of course, if you play a resource heavy Leadership deck.