Competitor’s Corner #1: Introduction

Editor’s Note: As a passionate fan of the game, and as someone who really enjoys contributing to the community around it, I’m always looking to add more content to Tales from the Cards. I am therefore extremely thrilled to, for the first time, provide a space for another writer to contribute content for loyal TftC readers to enjoy. With Competitor’s Corner, IshallcalluSting (you may call him Sting for short) is tackling an area of the game that I probably wouldn’t touch, and I think the site will be all the richer for it. 

                                                                                    -Ian-

Motivations: Why do you play?

Hello all, my name is IshallcalluSting. LOTR LCG just happens to be my favorite game, and I would like to help build the community that surrounds it. For this reason, I have decided to join in with all the fun on this particular website and compose a regular blog series. Hopefully, this article will be the first of many.

This site already features so many interesting topics and well written posts; my personal favorite is 5 Things I Wish I Would’ve Known When I Started Playing LOTR LCG. Needless to say, it was a challenge to add to the mix, but I decided to focus on something a little different, something my own, something unique. That is why this article, and those to follow, are focused on something rarely discussed. I would like to explore the competitive tournament mode of LOTR LCG.

As most of you know, FFG just released a set of official tournament rules in which teams will race each other to the finish line. Winning is almost entirely based on who ends the game in the fewest turns, and scoring only really matters if both teams finish in a tie. For those of you who aren’t already familiar, the link is found on the games support page here (look under “other rules”).

Now, I have to be honest, I have my doubts about LOTR becoming a regular fixture in tournaments. I think that the game is fundamentally cooperative and therefore non-competitive. The reason I love to play is because it gives me a break from competition and allows space for constructive communication with my other gamer buddies. That’s why co-op is my favorite game format. Trying to turn that unique cooperative experience into a race and thus make it competitive feels forced and inauthentic. I just don’t think it will work. Even if it does work, the format will probably be plagued with mirror matches that come down to the luck of the draw 90% of the time, which doesn’t sound very fun.

Apparently, I am not alone in my feelings because when FFG announced the tournament rules they made a point of stressing that the game was NOT going in a competitive direction. I was happy to hear that. I suspect many agree with me. Now that I have said my peace, however, I am going to ignore all of those legitimate doubts and willfully embrace the competitive format because it provides an opportunity to play the game from a different perspective. It gives the fans like me a chance to flex some different mental muscles. I’m going to explain what I mean by that, but first, let’s unpack tournament mode a little further.

The Bigger Picture

To understand why FFG did this, we have to take a step back and look at gaming in general. Why do people game? Believe it or not, I have studied that very topic quite extensively and read several books on the subject (like this one). Allow me to give you a little insight. Hopefully, you find it interesting.

Games are a pastime in which people make choices and role play. Games are extremely similar to puzzles. Essentially, we humans like to waste our free time trying to gather information in order to solve some arbitrary problem that we have imagined for ourselves. This means that the primary motivations for playing are entertainment and accomplishment. Different people will gravitate toward different aspects of the gaming experience. Some like puzzle solving, others like role playing, and others like to compete.

Game designer Mark Rosewater, of the Magic the Gathering fame, divides people into four styles Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and Vorthos (you can find the article here).

To put it in my own words, I would say that the four types are:

• The Competitor: Pretty straightforward, this guy wants to win. He doesn’t care about theme or making sure that the character mix makes sense in the story. He tends to approach learning the rules like a lawyer learns the law, wanting to master tiny details in how the game is conducted to build many small advantages.
• The Artist: This guy sees games as an opportunity for self-expression. Winning often takes a backseat to winning with style. This is the kind of guy who would feel dirty if he copied a deck-list off the internet. He has to do his own thing. This type learns a lot about the kind of rules that fit his set of interests, often searching for hidden synergies.
• The Buddy: This guy is a social and casual gamer who likes playing games when everyone is having fun. Winning takes a backseat to seeing cool things happen and reaching other goals (like pulling off a sweet combo). This is the kind of player who gravitates away from cheap efficient cards and prefers huge awesome effects.
• The Collector: The collector type is more common among collecting card games rather than living card games (in living card games there are no random packs—thank you very much) but there is still that element.

A while back, FFG gave their own take on these different player motivations. I disagree slightly with their take, because Pippin and Bilbo do not neatly line up with Buddy or Artist. I would say something like Boromir = Competitor (we can all agree on that), Frodo = Artist (because he has to be his own Hobbit and do things his own way), and Sam = Buddy (doesn’t need to be the star as long as everyone is in their place doing their job). Anyway, these things are always so debatable.

Here is the point: FFG wants to sell more copies of its game. In order to do that it has to appeal to as many different types of people as possible. Right now the game is great for expressive types and casual fun types, but currently it has no appeal at all for competitive types. Unfortunately, it is the competitive types that tend to really drive popularity and sales. The “winners” tend to set the trends and then the other groups follow because they want to participate (even if they don’t win) in their own unique way. I, myself, tend to fall into the artist/competitor hybrid. Winning makes the game more fun, but I still want to win in some way that nobody else has found.

Why do you like to play? I would love to see some comments on this.

Let’s look at it from another angle. In deck building games—like LOTR—there tend to be roughly three main archetypes of decks: aggressive decks, control decks, and combination decks. The aggro deck tries to win as quickly as possible by controlling tempo (roughly, being faster than the other guy). The control deck doesn’t just try to win; it tries to dominate and suffocate its opponent to death while denying them any action. The combo deck tries to win by utilizing synergy between cards to create ridiculously powerful effects. The balance between these deck types creates a metagame as players try to figure out which type of deck is the king of the mountain and which type of deck is the paper to everyone’s rock.

That all gets thrown out the window in a cooperative living card game. We can have those kinds of decks, but we have to completely rethink our approach to the metagame. No deck I build can ever effect what you are doing, unless perhaps it inspires you to copy me. I can’t ever go into a tournament for LOTR and say, “Well my spirit/lore deck was mopping up, but then I ran into a guy who was running  ‘mono lore control’ and that is just a bad race for me.” There is no context in which a compelling balance between types of decks can arise. We don’t fight each other; we fight the quests. There are decks that beat quests and there are decks that don’t. In order for the metagame deck landscape to evolve, the quests have to evolve. We see that happening with the coming of Heirs Of Numenor, yet FFG is trying to figure out more ways to do that, especially in a way that appeals to those players who want something more like a conventional competitive community.

It’s an interesting challenge. How would you tackle this issue?

One could argue that the tournament rules actually restrict the styles of play because it forces everyone to go aggro style. Yet I am not going to look at it that way. Instead, I am going to say that right now there is no real incentive to play aggro. The closest thing is the scoring system, but that is more self-measurement then true competition, and it only means something if you want it to. I mean, if my Dwarf secrecy deck wins on turn 10 or turn 60, who really cares? That is especially true if the deck wins every single quest with a final threat level of 0. I am more satisfied by that achievement than a low score, but maybe that is just me. In any event, embracing the tournament style gives me a much stronger reason to go aggro. Anybody with me?

The Challenge

I am going to be exploring these types of topics with more detail in articles to come, but for now I want to give you the first competitive challenge. I made the choice to go for an aggro style of deck design, in which the single most important goal was to beat quests on the earliest possible turn. I wanted to embrace my inner Spike and act like I was training for a tournament. I started with the quest “Hunt for Gollum”, because it is so darn easy. I experimented with tons of deck lists and styles until I found something that could really hum. With that deck I was able to win every game (5 total) on an average of turn 6. Three of my games ended on turn 5, one on turn 9 and my fastest win was turn 4. Next week I am going to tell you all about it. First, however, I want to see what you can do.

Here is the challenge. Build a better deck.

Here are the rules. It has to be tournament legal. It has to be a solo deck. Other quests are totally irrelevant. If the deck loses to every other quest but can beat “Hunt for Gollum” on turn 3—cool. Later I will give you challenges with teams and larger quest pools. For now, let’s start simple. Most importantly, you have to track your turns and submit a written battle report of your fastest game. We are on the honor system here, so don’t ruin it by stacking the deck(s). I look forward to reading your battle reports, and next week I will comment on some of the better ones I read, so get them in early. Any other questions or comments you have, leave them below.

That about wraps it up 🙂

Until next time, delight yourself in the slaying of spiders,

IshallcalluSting