2022 Retrospective

In the first retrospective, I shared some stats over the first year of reviews (July 10, 2021 – July 10, 2022.) I’ve decided that going forward I would like to these at calendar year end instead at the blog anniversary. This is to make the stat collection and compilation much easier. Apologies this will overlap some with the first anniversary retrospective, but it will be all new next time.

Overall

Views	43,701
Visitors	18,981
Posts	169
Card Reviews	55
Written Playthroughs	69
Most Viewed Post	FAQ on Revised Core Set and New LOTR LCG Release Model (6,021 views)
Most Viewed Card Review	Tactics Glorfindel – Spoiler Review (534)
Most Viewed Card Review Excluding Spoiler Reviews	Leadership Aragorn (323)
Most Viewed Written Playthrough	Core Campaign Escape from Dol Guldur 6 – March 1, 2022 (202)

The most viewed posts continued to be those most beneficial to new players. You can see this with the most popular card review and playthrough are both from the Core Set. Then there is the FAQ I wrote because there were many questions about what was different and if the older expansions would continue or not. I was answering those questions often on reddit and wanted something I could just link to people. It consistently has been the top viewed post since it was published. I’m so glad many people are finding it and hope it helped answered their questions.

Traffic really took off with the release of the revised Core Set and the new Starter decks. I’m sure it brought an influx of people looking to learn more about the game. Then it settled down again until the first anniversary extravaganza when I had posts every weekday. The rest of the year has settled down again and has stayed very solid aside from November which I’m sure is just due to the holidays.

Card Reviews

I reviewed a total of 39 cards in 2022. My average rating was 4.9, but 7 rings was my most common rating. As you can see below, I give nearly half of the cards 4 rings or better. Not many cards got a 5 or 6 especially compared to how many I gave a 7 to. It is possible this year we just had more limited use or niche cards to rate. Still I’m going give some more thought to what a middle of the road card is to me.

Below I’ve broken down the reviews by sphere with the average ring rating for that sphere. (I know Neutral is not a sphere, but you get the idea.) Leadership isn’t my lowest rated sphere but Fellowship hardly counts with its 1 card I’ve reviewed. I blame a number of more niche cards being reviewed this year. I’ll have to squeeze in Steward of Gondor next year to help that average. The rest are all pretty close around 4 or 4.5.

Sphere	Reviews	Ring Rating Average
Leadership	9	6.2
Lore	7	4.5
Neutral	4	4
Spirit	6	4.2
Tactics	11	4.5
Fellowship	1	8
Grand Total	39	4.9

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the blog also featured reviews by other members of the community! We had 2 from Joe Hoffman, and stoneoferic. Joe, our resident Rohan fan Horseback Archer for our series of Core Set reviews. It sports the most complex ring rating determination on the blog thus far. stoneoferic reviewed Gleowine known as one of the best early card pool card draw cards and gaining a new relevance with Messenger of the King.

We also had 16 community reviews from participants in the blog’s first contest. People generally picked cards they really liked. In a few cases, card they really disliked. This is great because they wrote some fantastic reviews about cards they were passionate about. I’m glad to feature all of them here.

Playthroughs

Written playthroughs surpassed card reviews this year with 64. I expect this to continue considering I still have many more from 2020 and 2021 that are unpublished and I continue to make more as I play the game.

Scenarios and Cycles Covered

• Paths of Mirkwood campaign (includes Core Set and Dark of Mirkwood scenarios)
• Against the Shadow Cycle
• Fords of Isen
• To Catch an Orc
• Into Fangorn
• The Dunland Trap
• Intruders in Chetwood
• The Weather Hills
• Deadman’s Dike
• Fire in the Night
• Under the Ash Mountains
• The Land of Sorrow
• Fortress of Nurn
• Massing at Osgiliath

The playthroughs covered a double different ends of the game because this last year I was nearing the end of the cycles. The playthroughs from when I started logging quests began with Against the Shadow. There were also detours to play the new exciting stuff like the Paths of Mirkwood campaign. Now I’m finally playing the Angmar Awakened campaign with a revised card pool minimum purchase deck.

Thanks

Thank you everyone that has come here and read a news, card review, and/or playthrough post. It’s been a great year of reviews at the blog that I plan to continue through 2023!