In JatA it struggled at the start with questing, and I think I got 2 / 4, not counting the times I restarted due to getting too punishing of a start (like Eastern Crows, Anduin Troll Spwan 2x before the Troll actually went out.. I didn't even reveal the 4th card but just restarted - I don't think there are decks that could have made it).

This sounded like a fun challenge. I took it a bit further, and tried a start with 3x Troll Spawn, Gladden Marshlands, and a Hill Troll for the setup.

If there's a small mistake somewhere that I didn't catch, I'm not too concerned. I've completed it several times already only to find a minor mistake, that I'm convinced this deck can handle it.

Handled itself quite well vs The Three Trials but I just couldn't get it to work against The Battle of Five Armies. I don't know if I just had terrible luck with my card draw, but I had a terrible time trying to place any progress anywhere other than maybe one quest stage.

I normally try to get progress on the stages at all costs for this TBoFA. Nenya is a great early willpower boost. An opening hand with Nenya and a spirit ally would be ideal. First go for the discard a random card quest, then the discard resources quest, then the return enemy quest. No need to kill enemies until you have progress on this last one, because Boromir should be able to defend. If you can hold off until a couple quests have progress you should be able to win no problem.

@Duke,Seastan

I agree with what you say.

I think the main point of difference is that for me that a deck can beat a quest doesn't mean much unless it can do so consistently.

Anyway, I don't know of any deck that can do it against RtM Solo (unless it's tailored for that quest, and this is in fact a challenge I'm willing to try: building a deck to beat RtM Solo say, 60% of the times). I tried Boro/Glorf/Gala against RtM Solo because I was truly amazed when I read it could make it easily, having failed at that doesn't mean much beyond the mere fact that it cannot consistently beat it.

@Seastan

"I think you must be trying to get through Jata too quickly. This deck should basically never lose. I've gone back and played it again, about a dozen times, and went 11/12, with the one loss from a double Gladden Marshlands reveal in stage 2."

That I try to get through too quickly might very well be true: for me 12 rounds is a lot but it appears this deck is more apt at controlling the game flow so longer games suit it better.

@JatA Challenge

Cool video!

When I said "I don't think there are decks that could have made it" I was thinking about it under normal circumstances (i.e. no perfect hand) but it surely showed how powerful GF and BoN are.

Finally, I think there's one poor elf that has unjustly been left in the sideways of this discussion: Boromir and Galadriel are mentioned as the cornerstones of this deck, but, at the cost of stating the obvious, I think Glorfindel plays a role that is at least as important as those of the other two.

For me, this is just another proof the the much-maligned all-powerful Noldor is really someone you can do without when playing Solo only at the cost of having a significantly weaker deck, unless you're playing something very specific (such as dwarves or silvans).

I know we all know how powerful he is, but it still stings to see that, while the meta changes, many of the best decks still have Glorfindel (s) in them.

@Duke,Seastan

I agree with what you say.

I think the main point of difference is that for me that a deck can beat a quest doesn't mean much unless it can do so consistently.

Anyway, I don't know of any deck that can do it against RtM Solo (unless it's tailored for that quest, and this is in fact a challenge I'm willing to try: building a deck to beat RtM Solo say, 60% of the times). I tried Boro/Glorf/Gala against RtM Solo because I was truly amazed when I read it could make it easily, having failed at that doesn't mean much beyond the mere fact that it cannot consistently beat it.

I recant any statement I may have made before about RtM being easy with this deck. It's hard. But as you note it is hard with most decks, so I think we are both agreeing with each other.

Now step back and compare Boromir's win % against the full selection of quests, most of which he can sleepwalk through; it is then that you can see that he defines a powerful archetype of his own.

I will think about this 60% challenge though. I have a deck in mind that I might post later this week. Most of the decks that people consider to be the most powerful solo archetypes do not have a 60% win rate against any of the ultra-difficult quests (Escape NM, RtM NW, BoLT, SaF NM), so I think this benchmark may be set too high.

@JatA Challenge

Cool video!

When I said "I don't think there are decks that could have made it" I was thinking about it under normal circumstances (i.e. no perfect hand) but it surely showed how powerful GF and BoN are.

Thanks I started with a good hand because I wanted to show an even more difficult start, as I thought it would be more entertaining to watch. With the start you specified, it does not require as much luck (I think there is another video on my channel with a typical starting hand), and I managed to win several times without extra mulligans before I went on to increase the difficulty.

Finally, I think there's one poor elf that has unjustly been left in the sideways of this discussion: Boromir and Galadriel are mentioned as the cornerstones of this deck, but, at the cost of stating the obvious, I think Glorfindel plays a role that is at least as important as those of the other two.

For me, this is just another proof the the much-maligned all-powerful Noldor is really someone you can do without when playing Solo only at the cost of having a significantly weaker deck, unless you're playing something very specific (such as dwarves or silvans).

I know we all know how powerful he is, but it still stings to see that, while the meta changes, many of the best decks still have Glorfindel (s) in them.

​I agree with you somewhat, but saying he plays a role at least as important as the other two is going too far in my opinion.

After going through many iterations of the deck and working my way through 30+ quests with it, this is my opinion of the heroes:

Replace Glorfindel with Spirit Frodo/Merry and you will still stomp most quests. His most important contribution is not his stats (Boromir kills everything), but his low starting threat, providing a spirit resource, and being a rider for Asfaloth. A few other heroes can match 2/3 of these, and when playing MP I've had to swap out Glorfindel because someone else was using him, and the deck was fine.

Replace Galadriel with any lore hero and the deck can still work. With a lore hero you can get some crazy card draw with Peace and Thought and you'll have the combo up and running just about as quick as Galadriel and her mirror. You will suffer in how quickly you can place down spirit allies, but with decent card draw you can often get you hands on another Good Harvest and use Boromir's mountain of resources for playing allies.

Replacing both Galadriel and Glorfindel can get tricky. It helps to have a Noldor hero so you can always play Elrond's council.

Replace Boromir and the deck obviously doesn't function the same way at all.

The specific combination of the three heroes is what I found works best, but it is really only Boromir that defines the deck.

I will say, however, that Mablung is surprisingly good as a Boromir stand in. He obviously doesn't have the ready effect, but his synergy with fire of gondor and blood of numenor is actually better. On quests where the ready effect is not needed he is very good.

I will say, however, that Mablung is surprisingly good as a Boromir stand in. He obviously doesn't have the ready effect, but his synergy with fire of gondor and blood of numenor is actually better. On quests where the ready effect is not needed he is very good.

Maybe even throw in more unexpected courage and some miruvor and he could be a poor man's Boromir perhaps

@Seastan

About Glorfindel:

5 threat for a 3 WP hero is very strong in itself, especially in a deck like this in which you have only 5 questing allies and you need to draw and play Nenya to get WP from Galadriel, so you're basically stuck with 4 wp until you get one of those 8 cards.

Also, Glorf is 5 hp so he helps with direct damage treacheries too; I can see Frodo working under this respect, but surely Merry would not.

Finally, as far as his attacking power is concerned, I think if you say you can do without him you're relying a bit too much on the SoG-Harvest-GF combo to come up: what if you don't draw all those cards early on?

Speaking of which....

About the challenges:

In both the videos you posted for JatA NM challenge you were able to get Harvest+Steward very soon (T2 in the first one, in starting hand in the second, unless I'm mistaken).

However, even considering the Mirror, I don't think you can assume you're going to get them that early, and the Mirror can backfire, especially with a small hand - which you seem likely to have if you have to use Nenya to avoid huge threat increase or location lock.

Nenya too appeared in both games, and that plays a role that's almost as important as the SoG+Harvest combo, since without it your wp is not enough.

To sum it up, I think your deck is good and is surely capable of great feats, but it really needs many things to fall in place for it to work against quests that put some pressure on you right from the start: just looking at the decklist, between response events (Test, Stroke) and lategame plays (Gandalf,Unexpected,Tomb,Asfaloth,Runes,Warden) it looks like a signicant part of your deck (15 cards, without counting Mathoms that are sort of midgame play) is meant to be played to make the push for victory as soon as you have consolidated your position with GF/BoG+SoG+Harvest and Nenya+some allies.

However to consolidate your position might take a long time and in the meanwhile you're vulnerable: even for defense, if you don't get BoG+SoG+Harvest combo (that's a 3-cards combo, so it's not something that's going to happen in every game, at least not early), you rely entirely on Gondorian Shield to survive: that's a risky proposition with the enemies and shadow cards in NM.

"With the start you specified, it does not require as much luck (I think there is another video on my channel with a typical starting hand), and I managed to win several times without extra mulligans before I went on to increase the difficulty."

Your hand in the first video is not exactly typical (both Nenya and Counsel, the two cards that save your life with that very very difficult setup as far as questing is concerned, since engaging Hill Troll T1 would mean that with only a +1 shadow in two attacks Boromir would die) and you also drew SoG and Harvest one after the other in R2! Not exactly typical.

So kudos to you, because the deck is capable of winning in a very difficult situation (probably one of the few if not the only deck that could survive that setup) but it requires many things to go its way to be able to do so. This, in my opinion, means it is a very nice deck for a challenge, in which you cannot expect consistency, but it doesn't say much about its general effectiveness.

This is why I do not completely agree with your statement:

"Now step back and compare Boromir's win % against the full selection of quests, most of which he can sleepwalk through; it is then that you can see that he defines a powerful archetype of his own."

I do not know the exact percentages for this deck, anyway SoM NM quests are not so difficult in general (save for RtM and EfDG) and in particular for this deck because they do not require a quick game to be won.

Quick analysis: PtM just hits upon action advantage and is widely recognised as very easy, JatA is just about staying under 30 threat if you are ok with a very long game, tHfG is very easy if you have Tests of Will, CatC is just built for Boro+GF/BoN but is quite easy even with decks that can manage their threat, JtR requires sideboarding, tHoEM is again about having Tests and hoping Tunneling doesn't show up too early (or having Thror's Map), tDM is usually won by Glorfindel+LoV alone. EfDG and RtM NM are simply not doable Solo, in that to have significant chances you need to build a deck to beat them.

Moving ahead, KD-Dwarrowdelf is harder, so if it can sleepwalk even through those then it surely is very good.

However, quests from HoN-Against the Shadow look very difficult for your deck: not just because of the Battle/Siege mechanics, but also because they require a much quicker pace in order to be won: harder setup, enemy/location threat levels and some very nasty treacheries make it very difficult to control the game. It would be interesting to see how this deck performs there, even if there are some quests (Siege, Into Ithilien the foremost) that almost force a change due to Battle/Siege questing (not just for this deck, but in general).

Anyway, I have a strong feeling your deck will struggle a lot even against a wp quest such as Encounter at Amon-Din NM: since that quest requires a lot of WP right from the start, it's likely that if you don't get Nenya early on it will be very difficult to win.

Anyway, if being able to consistently defeat most of the NM quests in SoM and Dwarrdelf is enough to qualify a deck as a dominating archetype, this deck might very well be one of those. But then you should consider it's not the only deck that can make such a claim, and there are some decks out there I know of that can achieve the same results, and possibly even do better (Gandalf decks, for example, or Silvans deck, etc. etc.)

I think I talked about the HoN quests earlier in the thread, with a video too. The Steward's Fear NM is tough (unless Assassination), Amon Din NM is tough, not sure if any of the others were troubling. So maybe there are 5 or so quests in our pool of 60 that it can't beat consistently (but can still beat occasionally), which happen to be just as much trouble for other decks. The rest of them it blows through. That's my experience, although we may have different interpretations of what that means for a deck's strength.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harvest & Steward

It really isn't that difficult to get Steward and Harvest together. The deck is specifically designed to do just that. Now it's pretty hard for me to record enough videos to convince anyone that luck is not involved, so I developed a little script that can play through games for me, with the goal of trying to get the combo quickly. It's not perfect, and I had to make some adjustments because some cards are hard to simulate (like Ancient Mathom). So I swapped out Mathoms and Daeron's runes (and also the Warden) for some easier-to-simulate draw cards Peace and Thought and Deep Knowledge.

Here is 10 games played back to back:

http://pastebin.com/NeHXXhUS

Here is 100 games back to back:

http://pastebin.com/K5W9qTT7

Here is the distribution for 100,000 games played. As you can see, the combo comes up by the 3rd turn in >90% of games played, with an average over all games of 2.2 turns, and with the most common being the first turn at around 39% of the time. With this deck you don't have to try too hard to get the combo thanks to Galadriel and her Mirror. Now, normally in a real game I take a slower route to building the combo because it isn't needed that quickly. Boromir can last quite a few rounds with just a shield.

Many of the rounds in the higher bins (7+ turns, less than 1% of the games) are just a quirk of the algorithm because the mirror discarded away 3x Harvests or 3x Stewards and the combo is unobtainable. In a real game, once 2x of the combo is discarded I stop using the mirror and rely on draw effects only. I could build this into the algorithm, but it's not worth the time because I think the main point has been shown.

Sure, I think we might have different views about deck strength but that's ok.

I agree that this deck is strong, I just do not agree it is "the one to rule them all", if such a deck exists.

Just to make my point of view clearer: I think there are decks that are stronger than this one and I also think it cannot make the claim to "rule them all", since it cannot consistently beat all quests. As I think there probably isn't a deck that can make such a claim, for me it's not a big issue.

You think it can claim to rule them all because it is capable of winning every quest, even if with some of them the chance of success is far below the 50% mark, and I'm fine with it, we just disagree on this.

About SoG+Harvest:

I think there are a few things that you don't take into account in your simulation that have a big impact on the final result.

1.Adjustments:

Ancient mathom is nowhere nearly as strong as Peace, and Thought, so I think it's not fair game to swap the two, and here is why:

Obvious point: Ancient Mathom lets you draw only 3 cards, whereas P&T allows you to draw 5 cards. I think (didn't have time to search for confirmation program worked so, so I assume it did) Peace requires Gala to exhaust, so that's basically 1 less card gained, making it a virtual 4 cards gain vs 3, but it's still an edge you wouldn't have had otherwise.

Another point, more important than the former: it's true that P&T requires Nenya whereas Mathom does not, but I think there's something that more than compensates for this: Ancient Mathom requires you to explore a location. This means you have to wait for a location to come out and you have to explore that location. Since your deck struggles at questing in the first rounds, that's far from granted. So I think it's safe to say you will not get the cards from the Mathom as quickly as if you had played P&T instead; it will probably take at least 2 rounds more, on average (depending on when you drew it, locations in quest, etc. etc.).

2. Timing

I noticed the program counts "combo reached" the turn you have both cards in hand, but it doesn't consider whether it happens in the refresh phase or if you have the resources left to play the steward. Since there's no point in saying you reached the combo in a given round if you cannot play it, you should consider as having reached the combo the round after.

This alone could move the "reaching round" signifcantly ahead of 2.2.

2. Gameplay considerations.

a) Mulligan. In this simulation the program doesn't take into account whether or not it has the Shield in hand when it takes a mulligan, nor it takes into account other important cards such as Bofur or Nenya.

b) Again, this program just races towards the combo blindly, without taking into account that you might have to play a questing ally or the Shield, not to mention response events. It basically plays only Nenya (but it does so only if it needs the Lore icon and doesn't take exhausting Galadriel to add wp into account, so that it can always draw), P&T and the Mirror (and Gandalf, to draw, if it has enough resources); that's very far from practice, and I'm fairly sure such choices have a dramatic impact on the actual time it takes to draw and play the combo: you cannot go far with 4 wp, so you have to spend resources to play something that doesn't help you reaching the combo.

b') Not playing the cards in your hand of course has a positive impact on the accuracy of the Mirror; with a 7-8 cards hand it's much easier to hold on the 2 cards you need. Furthermore, also having Deep Knowledge instead of Daeron's Runes affects this.

c) Having the Steward+Harvest combo is not enough, you need at least one between GF and BoN to reap the benefits, so it's not a 2-cards combo, it really is a 3-cards combo (can probably be considered a 4-cards combo, since you cannot expect to defend in NM with 4 def and also your attack is not enough to kill enemies quickly, in NM).

From all the points above I think it's safe to say your simulation misses on some very important points, making the numbers you got far from the actual ones.

Anyway, I hope you take my criticism as constructive, because that's my intention.

Man, you guys have reached a whole new level.

Thanks for the feedback. I do take it constructively as I would like to tune my program to quickly test deck ideas in the future.

I did say up front that the algorithm is designed to maximize the chances of getting the combo together, and that in actual gameplay I don't really care about getting the combo so early. If you like P&T and Deep Knowledge better than Mathom And Daeron's runes, there is nothing stopping you from making the switch in your version of the deck . I think I may make the switch permanently in mine. Furthermore, if I naively adjust the algorithm to wait until BoN is in hand without thinking about whether I should play it when I get it or if I can grab it with Tomb, and only wait until the planning to consider the combo reached, it only moves the average up to 2.9.

Mulligans actually have little effect on the outcome, which surprised me. If I keep hands that have shield, it adds 0.1 to the average. If I turn mulligans off completely, it adds 0.2 to the average.

Now its hard to simulate the effect that playing cards (reducing hand size for mirror) has on the outcome. But I threw in a quick change to mirror to make it discard 2 cards at random. This is obviously stupid, because it will routinely discard pieces of the combo. Even still, the average goes up by less than 0.5. And since I was hoping to show the combo can be gotten regularly in less than 4 turns, I am content.

Boromir with just a shield is great in nightmare for a deck with threat reduction. The enemies that hit harder than this often have higher engagement costs and can be held in staging for a couple turns, which is all it takes.

The phrase "one deck to rule them all" is just a fun joke, relating to the one ring. I see term used a lot in the forums to refer to all-round decks that are not built with a specific scenario in mind. It was not meant to be taken as a statement about it having a 60% win rate against every quest and being better than every deck. Although, I would welcome other archetypes as suggestions to try out, because people watching my channel are probably sick of seeing the same deck over and over . I have tried Gandalf, Elrond/Vilya, dwarves, and silvan, but still feel safer with Boromir in front of me, so maybe I haven't been using the best decklists.

I'very never heard whether or not you tried my Gandalf/Hama feint deck. I have played your Boromir deck a lot and love it, but I still say the Gandalf deck is much better against most quests. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/176653-another-power-deck/

I'very never heard whether or not you tried my Gandalf/Hama feint deck. I have played your Boromir deck a lot and love it, but I still say the Gandalf deck is much better against most quests. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/176653-another-power-deck/

I have used it a few times. I will provide some feedback in the other thread.

Could someone please elaborate on any -unfortunately not to me but actually- obvious changes that spring to mind when using that deck for 3 player hard normal and easy nightmare quests?

When playing this deck with a group the most common change I have to make is to swap out Glorfindel (and LoV) for a different spirit hero, like Frodo or Merry. Other than that, some extra copies of Arwen to give Boromir sentinel more reliably could be a good idea. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an easy way of giving Boromir ranged, as Dunedain cache can be tough to fit in the deck. However, in most quests there are only a small number of enemies that Gondorian Fire is needed for, and you can normally find a way to give them to the Boromir player.

Grew tired waiting for the VoI/Ringmaker nightmares to come out so I gave the 9 quests a run through in standard mode. To add a bit of a challenge I decided to not allow any mulligans. The deck performed well, completing them without a loss and without a need for any adjustments or sideboard cards.

Scores were:

How much would the deck be affected if it run a Zigil/stargazer combo instead of Steward/good harvest?

How much would the deck be affected if it run a Zigil/stargazer combo instead of Steward/good harvest?

I think this option is also good - just make sure you include 1 or two WotW, and maybe some Stand and Fight.

I've been playtesting this deck all morning vs NM JDtA using Zigi and Stargazer. Bad random starts notwithstanding, I think the deck struggles quite a bit with questing. If you don't get Nenya out ASAP, you are in deep trouble. I am considering switching Galadriel for Eowyn, since the deck has less moving parts without the Good Harvest/SoG combo and Zigi/Stargazer allow for quick milling through the deck so card draw isn't as important.

I'll now try the original deck (SoG/GH).

Welp, just finished NM JDtA after 16 turns and at 47 threat. I even survived a double Gladden Marshlands reveal during stage 2. Two things:

1. SoG and Good Harvest are quicker to put into play than Zigi/Stargazer. The difference 2 resources make, even if you get them back in the same turn, cannot be underestimated! I think I will stick with milling for multiplayer games only.

2. I still think Willpower is a little lacking but I don't know what to add to the deck. I guess if one doesn't mind a little threat gain early on, it's bearable (those troll spawns though, man they are killers).

Nice deck, good job!

Welp, just finished NM JDtA after 16 turns and at 47 threat. I even survived a double Gladden Marshlands reveal during stage 2. Two things:

1. SoG and Good Harvest are quicker to put into play than Zigi/Stargazer. The difference 2 resources make, even if you get them back in the same turn, cannot be underestimated! I think I will stick with milling for multiplayer games only.

2. I still think Willpower is a little lacking but I don't know what to add to the deck. I guess if one doesn't mind a little threat gain early on, it's bearable (those troll spawns though, man they are killers).

Nice deck, good job!

Thanks for reporting back on the Zigil/Stargazer idea. You could try Eowyn but I have a feeling it will struggle with card draw. Are you using the modified version of the deck with UC? It allows Galadriel to add to the willpoer each turn and perform her action. I find it helps a lot for questing.

The other option is if you feel like your threat is under control is to swap out the Handmaidens for Ethir Swordsman.

I forgot about the modified deck, I will check it out.

Ethir Swordsman sounds good.

So i just finished NM The hunt for Gollum, which is one of my favorite quests and i kinda feel bad about it because the deck utterly trivialized it. It ended on turn 15 at a very comfortable 22 threat. Perhaps it was the luck of the draw (clues didn't show up until very late) but a couple of turns in and I had everything under control. I used 1 copy of UC and lowered Arwen down to 1 copy and it worked much better. Galadriel was drawing and questing every round plus she kept my threat very low. By turn 12 I had drawn my entire deck. By turn 10 I was questing too quickly and ending up in stage 3 prematurely, twice. Keeping Arwen in the game proved to be easier than i thought, I never felt like I was in danger of losing my only copy and Dwarven Tomb kept Test of Will in my hand at all times. In fact, with careful cancelation, I managed to take no damage throughout the game!

I am no expert, but this feels like a very powerful deck. It has many moving parts but there is always something to do even if things don't go your way.

If there is one thing I learned from this deck is how powerful heavy card draw really is. That one copy of UC played early helped a lot.

If you place more than one copy of Gondorian Fire, do you have to pay one resource from your resource pool for each card?