Council of Elrond

I have a silly hazard deck that's all Orc creatures. It's fun but it's not usually effective (unless you're against Hobbits). A local MECCG Guru told me that this deck wasn't "honest" because I did not include any copies of Twilight - I'd have no way to stop Doors of Night. Months later I was playing with a full-blown roadblock deck and the same Guru commented on my opponent's deck not being "honest" by not having enough copies of Twilight.

This concept of deck "honesty" is not the same as simply including powerful staples like Mount of Sauron, Uvatha the Horseman, Daelomin at Home, etc. And it's also not about being lucky enough to have the right cards at the right time. I think "Honesty" has more to do with acknowledging some of the fundamental aspects of the game and building your deck to Balance the Powers: Rangers v. River, Free GI v. Call of Home, Twilight v. Doors of Night, Corruption Cards v. Items. Or going deeper: Fallen Wizard Hazards v. FW, hazard coverage v. unlikely sites, Reluctant Final Parting v. allies, Foolish Words v. influence, canceler-counters v. attack cancelers v. creatures, tappers v. un-tappers, company size v. hazard limit, etc. The list can go on and on.

Do you guys ever build decks that are "dishonest" in some aspects? And what's your favorite way to catch an opponent whose deck is not honest?


For myself, playing casually, I often run out of room in my 30+30 cards because I'm trying to achieve some "cool play" type thing. Of course, I could always use a larger deck, and maybe I should. Though I do include 3 copies of Twilight now.

As for keeping my opponent "honest," I often run out of space in the deck, but I always like to put a copy of Call of Home, Long Winter, Lure of Nature, and The Roving Eye in the sideboard.

I build my decks to follow a certain strategy, and often some your mentioned cards will not make it to the deck.
I give a damn about "acknowledging some of the fundamental aspects of the game" - no offense please. I acknowledge the game by playing it since 20+ years.

Not including river (and alas not playing it) can open you to other strataegies, because you opponent will "desperately" try not to tap his ranger when he want to play major points.

My 5cents,
i.g,

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like your opponents always assume that you are playing with River in your deck. Which makes sense, many people play carefully. And like you said, your hazards are now open to other strategies. It's hard to find room in 30 cards to have an interesting or fun hazard strategy if you include all of the cards mentioned above.

But then what about your resource deck? Do you always design your companies to include Rangers? Or do you skirt the line and have 1 or maybe none? This would also open up other strategies. Instead of using Ufthak as a Ranger, you can get 1 more prowess with Lugdush or 1 less mind with Grishnakh. It seems more risky to have a "dishonest" resource deck (no Rangers, no Sages, 20 GI used, etc), than to have a dishonest hazard deck.

99% I also include rangers, and if I want to score, I also try to save them. But as I wrote it opens possibilities.
If I start with none - and my opp has 3 rivers + some unexpected - uhoh that will go probably south.

First of be careful who you call a GURU, a guru is someone not only with old knowledge -being in the game 20 years- but not playing balrog or FW alignment does not make one a guru,

also 20 years of only playing tourney decks trying to max out the same 400-500 cards, missing out on the other 700 does not make one a guru,

I rarely seen someone with really deep knowledge to be able to be called a guru.

that said I am among one of the few players with over 1000+ actual finished games, on all kind of levels, I dislike GO tourney play, but I can still hold my ground in it...

that says, being honest does not mean to pack enough, Twilights, Rangers/Piercing All Shadows/Promptings of Wisdom and Marvels/Voices to deal with anything opponent throws at you, but what to do to deal with what you face without resorting to these above.

I use Aware of their ways often to great affect though one has to get lucky,

so experiment around more, give a shit about honesty - and think outside the box

yours Nicolai

i gwanunig wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:31 pm 99% I also include rangers, and if I want to score, I also try to save them. But as I wrote it opens possibilities.
If I start with none - and my opp has 3 rivers + some unexpected - uhoh that will go probably south.

It will probably go south, but how often does everything align their way in a situation you're describing is the question. Can you disrupt them?

Vastor Peredhil wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 1:04 pm First of be careful who you call a GURU, a guru is someone not only with old knowledge -being in the game 20 years- but not playing balrog or FW alignment does not make one a guru, also 20 years of only playing tourney decks trying to max out the same 400-500 cards, missing out on the other 700 does not make one a guru, I rarely seen someone with really deep knowledge to be able to be called a guru.

Hey Gatekeeper! Us Americans can have our own local Gurus.

Vastor Peredhil wrote: ↑Thu Jan 02, 2020 1:04 pm being honest does not mean to pack enough, Twilights, Rangers/Piercing All Shadows/Promptings of Wisdom and Marvels/Voices to deal with anything opponent throws at you, but what to do to deal with what you face without resorting to these above.

Right but I'm seeing this as a different alternative for playing "well." You can either (A) play "honest" by packing Twilights+Marvels+Promptings or you can (B) have a "dishonest" but robust deck/play style that can overcome your opponent's attempts to keep you honest.

For example, say you play a deck with very low GI and are susceptible to Call of Home. Well, maybe you plan to have a large amount of characters, only carrying 1 item each, with multiple characters of each skill, no allies, and maybe effects/means to bring characters back into play as needed. So you can "get away" with being dishonest instead of adding items to boost Influence.

Or, say you don't have the resources to keep a ranger untapped or have no ranger at all. Well, maybe you don't need to worry about River because you have 3 or 4 companies and one of them might be able to play something in the site phase. But maybe you still pack Twilight for Long Winter.

For me, playing dishonest is all about entertainment. Like, do you always want to see the same old favourites (river, cave drakes, assassins) or do you want to see a deck that surprises you? So being legally dishonest is a good thing for both the fun of the player and the opponent.

One thing to do is to bend the hazard/resource strategy as much as possible. So playing resources that are there to primarilly support the hazards, and visa versa (like the GoM + Fog to increase wilderness, mentioned on another thread). Also, then couple this with completely ignoring whole gropus of heavily played hazards (like corruption) at the same time.

For 'dishonest' resources I am thinking of playing a vertical game rather than a horizontal game plan. So many standard 'honest' decks will have x allies, y items and z factions in the main resource faction to get the target 30-40MP for a win, etc. But why? This is what I would call a horizontal resource strategy. A vertical resource strategy is not so honest. Leave out all the factions and pull them in only later (why I like Choice of Luthien so much as a card not just for the brilliant art of Ted Nasmith), play with no items at the start but use Strider squatting at Barrow downs to pull in an endless supply of Hauberks of Bright Mail/Swords of Gondolin. For me pulling off this sort of thing is just pure fun.

I played such a vertical resource strategy recently against a really experienced player and he was delighted to see it, even though he lost the game. We both had a great time.

Keeping yourself and your opponent "Honest".

"And they told us that in our days
Different words said in different ways
Have other meaning from he who says
In our time"

Ultravox - Hymn