Advice on Initial Purchases, by CDavis7M

2020-07-30 post on Facebook
If you are truly just exploring this game, I would ONLY buy starter decks from "Middle-earth The Wizards." The game is entirely playable using 1 starter deck for each player. Here's why you should get The Wizards starter decks and nothing else:
--The Wizards Starter decks include "fixed packs" containing many of the best characters, sites, and "point" cards in the entire game. You NEED these cards. There is no getting around this.
--The Wizards Booster packs include many useless region cards and they don't include the "fixed cards" which again, you need. The non-rare characters and sites in the booster packs are not good.
--The Dragons booster packs are great if you are already into this game and have plenty of The Wizards cards, but they are not as generally useful as The Wizards cards, and certainly not as useful as the Starter Decks and their fixed packs.
--The Challenge Decks are nice. They include reprinted cards with errata and they actually include most of the import "fixed cards" from The Wizards. But in addition to 5 "Wizard" decks you are buying 5 Ringwraith decks, which are even more complicated. You would be better served by buying 10 Starter Decks from The Wizards instead of the Challenge Decks. The challenge decks are missing a lot of the interesting cards that flavor "beginner" games of Middle-earth. The game is entirely different when both players are just trying to get the most out of a handful of available cards. Get the Challenge decks later when you know you like the game.


2020-09-03 Discord message [additional editing and formatting by Theo]
I know everyone seems to recommend the Challenge Decks.  I see a lot of casuals recommend the Challenge Decks.  I haven't seen any veteran recommend them.  For a beginner I would recommend getting a box of The Wizards Starter decks instead.

First, I see the 5 minion decks challenge decks as not being helpful for a beginner. So [if buying a box,] you are looking at 5 Hero Challenge decks VS 10 Starter Decks.

=== Cards ===
--The starter decks come with all sorts of good cards, some of the best cards in the game.
--You also get a lot more random characters.
--Not all of the METW rares are great, but you have a chance of getting twice as many.
--The METW starter decks will give you Hobbits, but by the way, some of the Hobbit cards are actually "CB" (booster only).

--The challenge decks have decent cards, especially characters and items.  But they definitely dont have "a lot of cards."  The selection of event cards from the challenge decks is VERY limited.
--The Challenge Decks are just missing many of the "fun" cards that make entry-level MECCG fun.
--The CD's are missing things like Ringlore for Magic rings and Dwarven Rings (uncommons), Thorough Search, a lot of the Wizard spells, Block and Lucky Strike and some of the other "basic combat" resource and hazard cards, the auto-attack boosters, Greed, a lot of the environment effects, and so on.
--As for rares, having just 1 copy of great ship, vilya, snowstorm, Lucky search isn't doing anything for deck building.  The CDs give you Tolfalas, Carn Dum, Wormsbane, Assassin, and Return of the King.  That's really it for a beginner.

=== Deck Building ===
--Deck building is the heart of the game.
--Deck building in METW is not difficult since the fixed packs literally give you a working deck with characters and factions.  They are simple.

--If you get to the point of wanting "strategy" the Challenge Decks are nice because they have that.  But that is it.  You can't do much deck building beyond the original decks.
--I have tried to re-craft decks from the Hero Challenge Decks and there really isn't too much you can do.  It's possible to combine the Gondor decks to make a better deck (Aragorn, RotK + White Tree).  And you can also make the Greater/Hoard item deck a bit better (steal Orcrist from another deck).  But there isn't too much else you can build beyond that.

=== Complexity ===
--The starter decks are definitely more "optional" for a beginner because they are less complex.  They are not necessarily competitive.  There are cards that "do nothing or little," but this is fine if everyone is playing METW.  The game has a lot in it that gets lost once you become "competitive".
--The METW game is also a lot simpler [fewer and simpler rules].

--The challenge decks aren't very well suited to a 1-deck game, which is the best way to learn how to play.  Many of the cards and strategies go well into the 2nd cycle, which often doesn't happen in a 2-deck game, and would almost never happen in a 1 deck game.

=== Summary ===
The Challenge Decks are best for someone who is an excellent gamer that plays a ton of card games.  Someone who can easily pick up the rules.  And then they can just use the Challenge Decks to play this game every few months between their other games.  For beginners, I think the starter decks are better in every way.