8/28/01 - Latest News

Clarifications on GenCon report from Decipher
DarthCaeser @ 3:04 am EST

The folks at Decipher were kind enough to post a link to our report from GenCon in their LOTR section. They also posted some clarifications on some of the issues mentioned in the report:

Clarifications on the Gaming Havens Fan Article

"Decipher plans to release the trading cards with a 50-card starter deck"

Plans for the starters have recently been adjusted; we are now expecting to have 63-card starter decks.

"Retail packs will include training and play for up to 20 players."

This will be our League Kit for retailers.

"During the Q&A, the designers said the game design is intended to be very simple, so that it can be learned in 15 minutes and that play would last approximately 60 minutes. It will be very similar to Magic."

The Lord of the Rings TCG will have unique gameplay, as befits the wonderful storyline. Its similarities to Magic will be that the learning curve will be relatively low, the gameplay will be relatively fast (probably averaging around 30 minutes), and it is designed to have good strategic choices that are card-based more than rule-based. The focus has been to create great depth but with low complexity.

"There are plans for auxiliary products, including foil cards that will "occupy common spots." (I'm not sure quite what that meant)."

The foil cards are not really "auxiliary products" but instead will occur randomly in the booster packs. Foils will replace common or uncommon cards rather than rares, so you will sometimes get a two-rare pack.

"There will be a maximum of three copies of any card in a deck. (I think that's what he said)."

The current design calls for a per-card deck limit of no more than four copies of each card title. [More]