|
by Arturo "Ancalagon" Robles Maloof
November 19, 2004
As Gandalf said after Pippin's mistake in Moria... "They are Coming!"
Many of you have been asking about leagues, and finally we can give you some info about this great addition to The Lord Of The Rings Online TCG. Worlds Apart, Girlfriends, Elves, Wizards, Dragons, and even Driving Cats and Chickens are working very hard to give you leagues by early December. These are very exciting times for the online game! We’ve had a great deal of fun testing leagues and soon you too can enjoy the league cards, the Race to Mount Doom sites and the many joys of league play!
A League is basically a big, long tournament where you can play a fixed number of games each week. The individual games need to be played at any fixed time -- you play your games when your schedule and schedules of your opponents permit. This is a huge plus for players that can play at least 2 to 4 games a week but can’t necessarily make the scheduled event times or who don't have enough time in one sitting for a 4-hour tournament. An Online League is even more flexible, because you can play a league game as long as there is another player in that league online. For example I can log in at 5:50 P.M. my time and play with my friend, Demos99 who lives in the UK (I live in México) while he logs on at 11:50 P.M his time. You can either set dates with particular players you’d like to challenge or hop into your league and challenge whoever is online at the time! Also you can play more league games than the weekly maximum, those games will not increase your League Points nor your League Character Points and they will be used as tie breakers only.
There will be 4 types of Leagues: Sealed/Constructed and With/Without Race to Mount Doom Rules:
- Sealed Leagues: At the start of the league you will get a Starter Deck and 3 Boosters to build a deck and you may acquire an additional Booster each week to augment your card pool.
- Constructed Leagues: You can play with decks built from your online collection.
- With Mount Doom Rules: While you are playing games in the league you "advance" (based on your score in the league) through 9 sites, each with special text that affects all games played while you are at that site. One sample Race to Mount Doom site text would be...
Shadow: Exert a Nazgûl twice to play a Nazgûl from your discard pile
-or-
Your starting companions may have a total twilight cost of 6 instead of 4. (For more information about Race to Mount Doom Rules visit decipher.com for articles like this one, or stay tuned for the next leagues article here at this site)
- Without Mount Doom Rules: For those of you who wish to play without the Race to Mount Doom sites, you can select this kind of league.
So you can have four base types of Leagues (Constructed, Constructed with Mount Doom, Sealed and Sealed with Mount Doom)... and how do you access them?
See the nice Rohan button in the Game Lobbies and the "Coming soon" sign? The soon is much sooner than you think… That button will take you to the League Lobby. It is pretty much like the other lobbies (only with a cool Helm's Deep Picture to the left) with the chat and user list in the bottom. Unlike the other lobbies, there are three panes in the window with all the queues. The top pane of the League Lobby is queues waiting to kick off, the middle pane is running leagues that you are not in (though you can still observer them without joining or you may opt to join them late) and the bottom pane is running leagues in which you’re competing.
Good news for all the members of The Guild of the White Tree, The House of Bag End, The Halls of Valinor, or any of the Online Guilds out there: when Guild Support is released in the future, the Leagues will also have a "Guild-Only League" option, so your Guild could run its own special leagues, just for Members... this is like the expression I learned in The LOTR Online TCG forums: Icing on the Cake!
You can enter a queue for a league and you will remain there even if you log off the program. When the minimum people needed to start the league join that league queue, a league will launch – just like an on-demand tournament. At all times you can see which people are in the league, how many points they have and, if the League has Race to Mount Doom rules, which site each player is at and the game text of all Race to Mount Doom sites (or as we call them in playtesting: Uber Sites).
Anyone can join a league in progress by using the Join Late option. Of course, those who join late start with 0 points, no matter how many points the other have. If you join late, your maximum number of allowed games will be increased based on the number of weeks you missed. If you joined a league and missed the first two weeks of play and in those two weeks, each player was allowed 5 scoring games per week (all games above that being tie-breakers), you'd have 10 extra games you could play for scoring purposes. So if you go out of town and a league starts without you, don't despair, joining late gives you the same chance to win as if you had joined on day 1 and waited several weeks to play your first game.
You can be in as many leagues as you want and all those leagues will appear in the third pane. If you enter any of them (right click on the league / select the Enter action) the lobby of the league itself will show up. There, you can challenge another player in the lobby (right click his name / select Challenge) to start a league game.
When you are in a specific league's lobby you can enter the League Deck Builder (Deck Builder tab in the right). In a Sealed League, this is where you can build your deck with the limited cards available (you must do this before playing your first game in a Sealed League). If you are playing in a Constructed League, you can use the League Deck Builder to open, build and save decks from your online collection. In your League Deck Builder you will have the option of customizing your League Cards... and this opens the most pertinent question... what are the League Cards?
Unique to the Online Leagues are the Online League Cards. While you play in an Online League you earn League Character Points (like the points you earn for winning or losing). With them you can "purchase" league abilities for your customized league cards throughout the course of the league (for some more information on this, read the last paragraphs of the article here or stay tuned for the next League Article on this site). League Actions purchased for a card work only in that particular league -- should you participate in three Leagues at once, you could modify the same League card three different ways! This also means that a veteran of one league can't transfer highly-modified League Cards from a past league to a newly-formed league for an unfair starting advantage/
Since this is all I am permitted to tell you I will end my article here...
But wait! I really can spoil a League Card! I introduce to you: Eomer, Forthwith Banished. An unimpressive 7/3 Rohan Companion for 3 twilight. Off course, like the Gimli in the article referenced before, you can purchase league abilities with league points, sadly… none of which I can spoil here on penalty of death (or being fired from the playtester group which is kind of the same).
Wait! Just teasing you again! I can tell you about Éomer, Forthwith Banished and all his League Actions!
- Gandalf Signet
- Frodo Signet
- Aragorn Signet
- Théoden Signet
- Valiant.
- Damage +1.
- At the start of each turn, you may heal a (Rohan) ally.
- While you can spot a (Rohan) Man, Éomer's twilight cost is –1.
At only 1 League Character Point each, these League Actions are the easiest to get. The signets are exclusive, so if you purchase one, you cannot get the others. Which one to select (if you want one at all) depends a lot in the type of decks you want to play. I would recommend Gandalf’s for a Trust Me as you Once Did deck, while Aragorn’s is excellent for a Help in Doubt and Need deck (maybe with King in Exile and Hard Choice). Although less used, Theoden’s signet is fun for playing No Living Men and Forth Eorlingas!, and Frodo’s signet works well for Mind your Own Affairs (paired with horses, it's pretty powerful. Remember, there aren't any Rohan companions with the Frodo Signet). The Damage +1 upgrade is especially useful if you plan to use him without Firefoot / Éomer’s Spear, and more since you can stack the League Action to Damage +3 (spending 1 points for each +1). Valiant is a wise investment for all those copies of Simbelmynës and No Rest for the Weary you might wish to round out your deck. It's not hard to imagine how the last two League Actions can be put to good use...
These are League Actions that cost 3 League Character Points each:
- Strength +1
- Twilight cost –1
- Fellowship: Exert Éomer to play a mount on him from your draw deck.
- Éomer is strength +2 for each wound on each minion he is skirmishing.
The Strength bonus can be purchased three times, to a total of Strength +3. So with 9 League Character Points, you can have a base 10 strength Éomer! The Twilight cost reduction is useful since it makes Éomer a good splashing companion in any deck, and combined with the cost reduction if you spot a Rohan man, he could be played for 1 twilght! (Theoden / Éomer, Elite Rider / Éomer / Merry are just some possibilities). The ability to play a mount on him in any fellowship is very good since you will have a very well-equipped Éomer from the beginning. And that last League Action: +2 for each wound on each minion he is skirmishing, well, we know well Third Marshal, and we know how powerful that ability is!
The most expensive of Éomer's League Actions is +1 Vitality for 5 League Character Points. Maybe it’s not that impressive but take into account that this ability is stackable. If somehow you manage to get 15 League points you can have an Éomer that is vitality 6. Every Rohan Player wanted in some point or another at least 4 vitality points for Éomer, now you can have six!
So if you get all the necessary points (40) your super-improved Éomer, Forthwith Banished could be this monster:
Twilight Cost 2
Strength 10
Vitality 6
Aragorn Signet (whichever one you want, the Aragorn's signet goes well with his lore text )
Valiant. Damage +3.
While you can spot a (Rohan) Man, Éomer's twilight cost is –1.
At the start of each turn, you may heal a (Rohan) ally.
Éomer is strength +2 for each wound on each minion he is skirmishing.
Fellowship: Exert Éomer to play a mount on him from your draw deck.
”Do I hope in vain that you have been sent to me for a help in doubt and need”
Take that Third Marshal! Of course you, will have to be selective in your abilities since you can also have customizable League minions, and you may want to improve them as well. Perhaps you'll wish to balance your points across multiple companions since your opponent may have a way to neutralize a single companion. Anyways, believe me, this is really very, very fun.
This is just a preview of what the Online Leagues will be like. Stay tuned for more articles about Online Leagues, and please, if you can, comment in this article in The LOTR Online TCG forums, we want to hear your opinions!
-Arturo “Ancalagon” Robles Maloof
¡Saludos a Todos!
| 
