Index -> Introduction -> What to buy first?

What to buy first?

When you sign up you'll have many options for Registration Packages and all of them include at least one Starter Deck. The Starter Deck is a readymade and balanced deck with everything you need to play and it makes a good starting point for new players to build a deck.

We highly recommend, but do not require, that you select a Starter Deck from the War Of The Ring Block. (What's a Block? Find out here). The Shadows Aragorn Starter, the Shadows Gandalf Starter, or any "Shadows" Starter will do. The sites found in the Shadows Starters are necessary to play in Standard and most formats. If you know for certain that you'd like to stick to older Block play, go ahead and get a Starter from the Block of your choice.

There are lots of starters though - which one might suit you best? Take a look at our list of Starter Decks to see the contents of each Starter. If you're new to the game, don't worry if you don't know what each of the cards do as all the Starters are relatively balanced. Find a deck that has heroes and villians that strike you as fun to play.

If you're looking to get into the game with more than just a starter, consider getting a Deluxe or Anthology Registration when you sign up. Click Here For a breakdown of what the different Registrations have to offer.

Once you've got the starter, become familiar with it by playing a few games (if you haven't gone through the tutorials first, check them out - they'll help a lot). Familiarity with your deck is often just as important as what the deck is capable of doing, when it comes to winning a game.

Having played a game or two, you'll start to see how the starter deck could be improved by the addition of this or that capability, or you may even find the deck used by an opponent particularly appealing, and want to try a variant of it. The next step then is to buy some boosters. Each booster will not only give you the ability to customize your deck further, but in short order you'll suddenly find that you have both the knowledge and the cards to build a new deck entirely from scratch, especially if you supplement the boosters with a little trading for cards that will particularly help the type of deck you're developing.