So beside the ovious Spirit/lore and Tactics/leadership combo, are ther any viable deck combos that could possible work?
I was thinking maybe Spirit/Tactis and maybe leadership/lore might be possible, exchanging Beravor for gimli and eleanor for Dunehere, and going Aragorn, theodred, Beravor. Eleanor vs Dunehere is a toss up gimli can definitely handle combat but treachery cancellation is always important.
even go for a 3 colour deck - lore/spirit/leadership. I wouldn't put tactics in with just core set cards, its too weak.
I would say Aragorn for questing, that's your leadership, beravor for an all round hero, then you will need a low threat person...dunehere probably.
it depends if you want to set up specific combos - like gloin taking damage, then pair with lore to give him self perseveration to heal,...giving you a resource generating combo.
I agree with richsabre! Keep in mind.. it's about survival. The ability to win is 1 thing.. the ability to stay healed
and reach the goal of winning, is another. For that I have to add to keep your threat as low and stable. That in
mind, the next focus is health for your heroes to stay in the battle!
My first successful deck was Leadership/Lore/Spirit. Eowyn, Dunhere, Denethor. Threat starts out pretty low, and Eowyn and Dunhere questing every round gives you really good resource smoothing for the Leadership and Spirit cards, which you should focus on.
Abirum, you might want to check these options out… http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/
how many cores do you have, is it for solo or multiplayer?
Abirum, Booored,
I am a fairly new player to this game.
Lately, I have been using the solo deck based on the single core set that Xanalor posted here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1108855/back-to-basics-a-killer-deck-using-only-cards-from. He used a deck of 42-cards, but I wanted to see if I could beat Journey Along the Anduin solo using a 50-card tournament legal deck, one-handed, using a single core set.
It took me 25 attempts (!!!)… but I finally beat the quest with 50 core cards last night… after 10 rounds, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and cursing! My score was 129… which I am sure is not nearly as good as that achieved by players using multiple core sets or cards from packs and expansions beyond core.
This is what my "winning" deck looked like:
HEROES
Theodred (Leadership)
Eowyn (Spirit)
Beravor (Lore)
LEADERSHIP (16)
x2 Faramir
x1 For Gondor!
x3 Guard of the Citadel
x2 Sneak Attack
x3 Snowbourn Scout
x2 Steward of Gondor
x 2 Valiant Sacrifice (not part of Xanalor's 42-card deck)
x1 Celebrian's Stone (not part of Xanalor's 42-card deck)
LORE (13)
x2 Erebor Hammersmith
x2 Forest Snare
x1 Henamarth Riversong
x1 Lore of Imladris (Xanalor used x3 in his 42-card deck)
x2 Miner of the Iron Hills
x1 Protector of Lorien (Xanalor used x2 in his 42-card deck… I subbed in x1 Celebrian's Stone instead)
x1 Gleowine (not part of Xanalor's 42-card deck)
x1 Secret Pathways (not in Xanalor's 42-card deck)
x2 Self-Preservation (not in Xanalor's 42-card deck)
SPIRIT (17)
x2 Northern Tracker
x2 Lorien Guide (not in Xanalor's 42-card deck)
x1 Unexpected Courage
x3 Stand and Fight
x2 A Test of Will
x1 A Dwarven Tomb
x2 Hasty Stroke
x2 The Galadhrim' Greeting
x2 Favour of the Lady (not in Xanalor's 42-card deck)
TACTICS (1)
x1 Beorn
NEUTRAL (3)
x3 Gandalf
I had previously attempted to beat Journey Along the Anduin using a 50-card version of a 40-card leadership/lore deck proposed by Beorn (see http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/), but really didn't do well with it. I was, however, able to beat the quest using a 45 card version of Beorn's deck (I succeeded on first attempt, having only made the following modifications to the deck: replaced x2 Radagast's Cunning with x2 Secret Pathways (Lore); added x2 Lorien's Wealth (Lore), x2 Ever Vigilant (Leadership), and x1 Grim Resolve (Leadership). I made other experiments using the 50-card deck (e.g., including a few Spirit cards like The Galadhrim's Greeting, Favor of the Lady, Unexpected Courage and Strength of Will -- cards that Aragorn might have been able to put in play if he had Celebrian's Stone attached to him, but failed to win during my first 10 attempts… maybe I just needed to try another 15 times! :-). NEVER have I had draws as favourable from the Encounter deck as Beorn reports on his blog (and as some observers noted in the comments below his article, it seems he may have made a few small errors during play that may have affected the outcome of his game).
I had a lot of "near wins" with the 50-card version of Xanalor's leadership/spirit/lore deck before I finally won yesterday, many more than I had with the modified version of Beorn's leadership/lore deck.
For the most part, I followed Xanalor's strategy, as presented in the first link in this post. I preferred to have x2 Self-Preservation and x1 Lore of Imladris instead of x0 Self-Preservation and x3 Lore of Imladris, because I found that Berevor in particular needed repeat healing as "blocker" (especially when then goblin sniper was in play); if I was fortunate enough to draw/buy a second Self-Preservation, I would put it on Eowyn, who can take only 3 damage and is particularly prone to damage from Treacheries (both Eowyn and Beravor are more critical to winning the quest than Theodred is). I would save my x1 Lore of Imladris for Theodred.
Despite the many defeats I've suffered being pig-headed and wanting to win straight solo with 50-card deck using a single core set only, I'm still having a blast with this game… and my core set is getting a lot of mileage!
That having been said, given the horror stories I've read about Escape from Dol Guldur, I doubt that any one-handed solo 50-card deck I assemble using one core set only is going to beat that quest… but I'll give it a shot some day.
I hope this helps.
Bottom line is… don't give up! And remember, it's a game… have fun!
Edited by TwiceBornh
It took me 25 attempts (!!!)… but I finally beat the quest with 50 core cards last night… after 10 rounds, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and cursing! My score was 129… which I am sure is not nearly as good as that achieved by players using multiple core sets or cards from packs and expansions beyond core.
Hmmm… Went back and reviewed my score sheets… Seems I had a mix-up. It was actually on my 12th attempt that I successfully defeated Journey Along the Anduin using the solo 50-card Leadership/Spirt/Lore deck adapted from Xanalor's deck. The other 13 results pertained to other deck configurations.
Though not great overall, that's still significantly better than 25 attempts!