Decipher Rules

If you are looking for Decipher-era rulebooks, those can be found in their many forms on the Rulebooks wiki page. If you are a first-time learner, download the Fellowship of the Ring Starter Rulebook for your first set of games.

The Comprehensive Rules 4.0 was the last complete rules document produced by Decipher, in 2004. The rules were supplemented for years afterwards until the last Current Rulings Document was released in 2007. A combined rulebook dubbed the Comprehensive Rules 4.1 contains all of those extra CRD entries, plus rulings which were earlier removed due to rotation as well as tournament-specific rules (such as the Mulligan). It is a one-stop spot for the last word that Decipher ever issued.

The Rules Council

In 2025, the Player's Council organized the Rules Council to issue rulings for each strata of the game. The Legacy Rules Team issues rulings for Decipher formats, while the Modern Rules Team issues rulings for PC formats.

The Legacy rules can be found in the Comprehensive Rules 4.2. By nature, these rulings are only made to fill in gaps or ambiguities left by Decipher, and only really touch on edge cases.

The Modern rules can be found in the Comprehensive Rules 5.0. These rules include the 4.2 document as a starting point, but in some cases the Modern Rules Team has chosen to overrule or contradict earlier Decipher rulings for the health of the game.

New Rulings

Anybody can submit a request for a ruling. If the rules concern is not one that is already an established understanding, then a ruling will be issued by either the Legacy or Modern rules team, as appropriate.