The Lord of The Rings Trading Card Game - Deck Strategies

Deck Strategies

As the game expanded, several basic deck strategies were identified and developed. As decks are separated into Shadow and Free People sides, the two sides are to some extent interchangeable, but the best decks usually contain some synergy between both types of cards.

For the Free Peoples side, the most common strategies are tank, choke, minion wounding and mass healing.

Tank

Tank decks try to play as much as possible and build up as many companions to combat the opponents Shadow side with force.

Choke

Choke decks, the opposite of tank decks, try to put out as little twilight as possible, denying the opponent resources to play their minions, and clogging their hand with unplayable Shadow cards, thus hampering set up of their Fellowship.

Archery/Minion Wounding

Minion wounding decks try to use "archery fire" and direct wounding to destroy the minions (Shadow characters) before they even have a chance to attack.

Mass Healing

Mass healing decks rely on cards that heal companions, under the theory that if the Free People's removal of wounds can out-pace the Shadow player's placement of wounds, the Fellowship will be unkillable. 'Refuge', a card from the set Black Rider is critical to most of these decktypes, as it allows the player to cycle his Free Peoples side while healing his or her companions in order to set up the Shadow side.

For the Shadow side, the most common strategies are beat-down, swarm, bomb, archery/wounding and corruption.

Beat-down

Beat down decks focus on making one or two minions very powerful, with the intention of killing all of the companions one by one; eventually killing the ring-bearer.

Swarm

Swarm decks have an opposite strategy of a beat-down: their goal is to play as many minions as possible as cheaply as possible. While one swarm minion might not be very powerful by itself, each minion is very cheap which allows many to be played, easily outnumbering the companions and assigning themselves to the Ring-bearer.

Bomb

A bomb deck combines the strategies of both beat-down decks and swarm decks. Instead of focusing on one or two powerful minions, they play several minions of medium strength. The goal of a bomb deck is to destroy the weaker companions, and then swarm the Free Peoples player.

Archery/Wounding

Archery and wounding decks rely on wounding companions outside of the skirmish so much that they die from their wounds. A variation of this strategy focuses on wounding the ring-bearer and killing him.

Corruption

Corruption decks focus on adding enough burdens to corrupt the ring-bearer, or playing cards that require certain conditions to be met to corrupt the ring-bearer outright.

Mill

Mill decks focus on playing minions that will discard cards from either your opponent's hand or their draw deck.