Looking for deck suggestions

Post Reply
rpjacobs
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:43 pm

Hi,
I have a large number of cards as a result of building a collection, but I have never actually played the game. Since I would like to play it with friends and family, The Arda Game seems like the ideal format to try. However, since I haven't played I have no idea what cards I should assemble for a well constructed Arda deck. Does anyone have a list of the cards in their deck that they wouldn't mind sharing?
Thank you,
Richard
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

Well, the funny thing is, anything can happen in Arda, as it's totally improv., and the unexpected makes up part of the fun, so it is not really necessary to "construct" a deck in the normal sense of game, and you should not hesitate to throw in underused cards, you can throw in what you want, basically.
I take it you do know some of the cards, even though you've never played? I will send you my decklist.

Considering a few things might be useful. See also the rules file for this, there's a couple of tips there.

-keep a more or less equal amount of resources (non mp) and hazards in the play deck.

-determine how big you want the play deck to be. Take into account how often you want to play it (or rather, how often take the trouble to build another one), how many players usually play etc. You don't need more than 50 cards per player, and 10-15 MP cards per player.

-hazards: mix events with creatures, for a general Arda deck for beginners I'd say 50-50. Creature wise, choose mainly non-unique creatures as those are more generally keyable. But of course, throwing in a Smaug (or Smaug Ahunt) or Great Goblin is always fun, a few Nazguls too. Wilderness and Borderlands are the most common types of regions you'll travel, Ruins and Borderholds probably the most common types of sites you'll go to, so look for creatures that can hit there (but don't neglect Shadowlands or Shadowholds completely).

-resources: don't add too many combat cancellers, don't add too many combat helpers either, try to balance that a bit. In my deck I got like 20% cancellers, 20% fighters, 20% influence helpers, and 40% various (ringtests, movement enhancers and such), but it is an Expanded World deck which contains many alternative strategies, so you can also go a bit higher on the combat cancel/helper cards.

-MP resources: try to balance a bit items, allies, factions and events. In my deck I got almost 45% items, 25% factions, 15% allies and 15% events. Items are the bigger category because they are more flexible to play, and there's more of them around anyway.

In general for resources, certainly for new players, don't add too many character specific resources or site specific resources, as that will make the deck less flexible.

Hope this helps
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
rpjacobs
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:43 pm

This will definitely help. Thank you for the quick reply.
User avatar
Darksatin
Posts: 621
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:14 pm
Location: Chalon sur Saône, France

rpjacobs wrote:Since I would like to play it with friends and family...
The Arda game is not easy for beginners. They don't know the playability of MP resources. So, as suggested in the Arda rules, don't hesitate to use the following general rule for the playability of MP resources (in addition to what the site cards mention) :
-Greater items at any Shadow-hold, Dark-hold and Dragon- lair.
-Major items at any Shadow-hold, Dark-hold, and Ruins & Lairs.
-Information events at any Ruins & Lairs.
-Gold Rings at any Ruins & Lairs in Wilderland or in a Coastal Seas region.

Or, for the first games, you can limit the playing area (only sites in the western side of the map, for example).
User avatar
Thorsten the Traveller
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 1764
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:44 pm
Location: Tilburg, Netherlands

Well, any meccg game played with only beginners will be tough, but Arda is a good learning format for beginners, if there's 1 player present that is experienced.

Indeed, that suggestion for site selection is in rules for newbees.
But, there are also good maps around that can help you select sites. I've attached one here, with permission of the author hopefully (otherwise let me know).
Attachments
mappa_hero67%.pdf
(83.3 KiB) Downloaded 713 times
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
rpjacobs
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:43 pm

Thank you both for the help and suggestions. Now I just need to go through all my cards. I originally acquired them for a collection and not to play, so now I have to see what I have that's useful. By the way, I know some of you are trying to put together starter decks for beginners, has anyone ever thought of putting together a 'starter' Arda box for beginners?
thorondor
Ex Council Chairman
Posts: 727
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:53 pm
Location: salzburg, austria
Contact:

well, i thought about this indeed!!
we already have several comments here about how easy it is to put together an ARDA deck.
and it really is! provided, you know the game very well.

guess thats the problem: you will find out that putting together an ARDA deck is that esay after you have been playing it several times. but first you need to play, so the deck comes first.

we really should take care for several sample ARDA decks. its not that much work to do. lets have a beginners version (without any rares), a "niormal" version, a minion version, a virtual version, a DC version. its good to have them available, players can change them after several games anyway.
archange1
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:04 am

I am also new to MECCG and to this forum,
Collected years ago but could never get anyone else to play because "It was too hard..."
I stumbled across the ARDA format just the other day and I find it very intriguing and would like to give it a try.
I read though a bunch of posts on this forum and gathered some ideas.

The ARDA deck I have planned with consist of the base set The Wizards only.
Right now its huge and a mess. I have 1 of each unique card and 2 of each non unique card, I was going to do three but that was way overkill in size.
Anyone have additional pointers on how to thin down and streamline this beastie? Or does anyone have an ARDA decklist sample they woudl be willign to share?

Thanks,
Kjeld
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:40 pm

Here's a few thoughts on making a fun Arda deck. The general strategy is to provide lots of cards that can be readily played -- you don't need to (or really want to) go for big power cards and combos, since these can be too difficult to pull off given the random nature of Arda. Rather, you want simpler cards that are easier to play such that most of the players have a chance to play at least something on most turns.

One suggestion is to introduce themes or regions to help focus the Arda game. MECCG, even just The Wizards, is very sprawling if you throw it all together into one massive pot. You might, for example choose to make an Arda deck that focuses on Eriador and the MP cards that can be played there. Or you might choose a game that focuses on Palantiri or Magic Rings instead. This advice helps mostly in terms of forming the MP deck, which is a good place to start since each player's MP hand determines their strategies. Focus the available strategies and you focus the game. Also, if you're going to put a bunch of rings in, I'd recommend pulling out a separate ring deck for players to use. Otherwise it's really hard to accumulate all the cards necessary to play something like a dwarven ring -- you need a gold ring, a test card, and then the magic/dwarven ring itself all in the right order.

For the play deck (with non-MP resources and hazards), you can similarly focus. If you know that the game will play mostly East of the Misty Mountains, then you can avoid putting in a bunch of hazards keyed to coastal seas. If players have little reason to travel to [-me_dh-] or through [-me_dd-] given the MP pool you have chosen, then avoid hazard creatures that need to be keyed to those places. In general, selecting a good mix of basic hazard creatures that can be keyed to [-me_bh-], [-me_wi-], [-me_sl-], [-me_dd-], [-me_rl-], or [-me_sh-] is a good place to start. Then throw in some corruption, a bit of roadblock, some automatic-attack modifiers, and so forth. The key is to keep the hazards fairly general -- this will ensure that the hazard player has a decent chance of playing something on any given turn. Avoid anything that requires a complicated combo, since it's really hard with an Arda deck for players to store up the right combo cards (unless you allow players to trade cards in their hands, which can be a very fun variant).

With the non-MP resources, it's sort of the same deal. Keep to generalist, useful resource events that boost prowess, help influence attempts, protect against corruption or cancel attacks/strikes. Again, anything too specialized will most often be so much useless garbage clogging up players' hands, and the people you want to play with will get frustrated and stop playing the game with you!
Post Reply

Return to “Arda”