For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to build a single solo deck specifically to beat Escape from Dol Guldur. My criteria for the deck were that I wanted it to be capable of winning no matter which hero was taken, and that it should be able to achieve a win ratio greater than 50%. Bonus points if I could come up with a multi-sphere deck that could do it.
I thought some of you might enjoy my thoughts on this process.
Quest Analysis
This quest hits hard right from the get-go. You'll be dealing with three cards in the staging area at setup, and they could really be anything: enemies, locations, or treacheries. If you get treacheries during setup, it turns out to be a bit of a softball, but most games seem to start out with you having to quest through 5-9 threat on round one. Having heroes with high enough willpower to keep the staging area under control from round one is a must.
Most of the enemies in this quest don't hit very hard compared to more modern quests, so you can get away with higher hit point heroes with lower defense. Most of the enemies swing for 2 (some for 3). In a pinch you can take a hit like that undefended, but the shadow effects often punish undefended attacks (and often in a game-ending way) so do it sparingly.
The magic number for attack values seems to be 3. One character with attack 3 can kill many of the smaller enemies in one swing. Most of the larger enemies can be killed by two characters with attack 3. The Dungeon Jailor and the boss-type enemies are the exception, they require three or four attack 3 characters to kill in one turn.
Allies can be a problem in this quest too. You're only allowed to play a single ally per round, so you'll have to try hard not to lose the ones you build up. To get the most out of your allies you'll probably want to play at least one per turn because you'll need a solid set of stats to keep up with the pace the encounter deck sets, but that's difficult on the two-resource budget you'll have for the first part of the quest. I've had the most success with cheap, efficient allies so I can ensure I can get one out every round.
Threat is a huge problem in this quest as well. Just picking up the three objectives required to complete the quest results in a +6 threat gain. One of those objectives results in an additional +2 threat gain per turn. Furthermore, Ungoliant's Spawn's shadow effect can result in a threat gain of 4-8 if you don't cancel it--and you're bound to fail a quest phase or two in the beginning of the game as you struggle to get control over the board state. Worst of all, crossing 40 threat too soon can result in some dire consequences: Hummerhorns pretty much kill a hero when they engage you, and the Nazgul will engage, so you'd better be ready for it by then.
The biggest complication I found was that given a set of three heroes, any two of them need to be able to handle all three parts of the game: questing, attacking, and defending. In Dol Guldur, the magic numbers seem to be 3+ willpower, 3+ attack, and 5+ combined defense & HP. Logistically, the easiest way to achieve this is to have two "all around" heroes (such as Treebeard or Gandalf) and any third (hopefully low-threat) hero. This way, no matter which hero you lose, you'll definitely have at least one hero to cover the bases the other one can't.
My Solution
After a lot of tweaking and trying out different strategies, this is what I came up with:
Total Cards: (50)
Hero: (3)
1x Aragorn (The Watcher in the Water)
1x Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone)
1x Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret)
Ally: (25)
3x Dunedain Hunter (The Lost Realm)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
3x Saruman (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Anfalas Herdsman (The Steward's Fear)
2x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
2x Silvan Refugee (The Drúadan Forest)
3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor's Secret)
3x Ethir Swordsman (The Steward's Fear)
Attachment: (10)
3x Nenya (Celebrimbor's Secret)
2x Elf-stone (The Black Riders)
1x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
2x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
2x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor's Secret)
Event: (14)
3x Daeron's Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Elrond's Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
2x Power of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)
Side Quest: (1)
1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)
Glorfindel and Aragorn serve as my "all around" heroes, with Galadriel as my support hero. The vital theme is keeping threat low: two unique Noldor characters means I can always use Elrond's Counsel (no matter who is taken). Aragorn provides an enormous one-time threat reduction, while Galadriel can provide continual threat management, and Glorfindel provides fantastic stats for his starting threat cost (which also improves the threat reduction that Aragorn provides).
I was hoping to find a strategy that didn't involve Spirit Glorfindel, but to date I haven't been able to find one. His ability to serve any role for such low threat solves a lot of the problems that this quest throws at you.
Some might find the lack of Asfaloth and Wingfoot or the single copy of Light of Valinor strange. I omitted these cards over time because I found that having too many hero-specific cards made the deck too unreliable when that hero wasn't present. By limiting it to Galadriel's attachments (which really make the deck run smoother, even if you have to wait to rescue her) I minimize the number of dead cards. Dead draws can really kill the tempo of this deck, especially in those vital first few turns.
Playing the Deck
Mulligan if you don't get Nenya. You might lose Galadriel, but in 66% of games, you won't, and having Nenya will make the start of the game so much smoother. If you lose Aragorn, Nenya will be vital to make sure you can still play your Lore cards.
Do your best to drop an ally each turn when possible, even at the expense of most of the attachments and events. You'll note that most of the allies are inexpensive to allow this.
You'll also note that there are a few Tactics allies in this deck. The reason is so that you can get some 3-attack allies into play to help deal with enemies in ways the Lore and Spirit allies can't. These Tactics allies will have to be cheated into play using either Elf-Stone or Stand and Fight. Note that both of those allow you to "put into play" an ally, so you can use them in addition to your normally-played ally each round. Don't be afraid to use Stand and Fight to cheat into play a second questing ally in a round when that's what's needed.
Make sure you time your transitions from one quest stage to the next. Get all of the needed progress on the quest card, and then grab the needed objective only after the staging step once you're ready to proceed. Only advance when you have enough allies down to make sure you can rush through the second and third quest cards relatively quickly, because the presence of the Nazgul really makes things difficult. Typically I put the Gandalf's Map objective on Galadriel (when possible) or whichever of the other two heroes is least needed. Sometimes I'll grab the Shadow Key objective instead when Galadriel isn't present and just let one of the other two heroes die in a few rounds--the deck runs fine with two heroes, so I've had some luck with this strategy when I only need a few rounds to kill some enemies to gain control of the board.
It's of the utmost importance that you stay below 40 threat. The Hummerhorns kill a hero when they engage, so stave that off as long as possible. Furthermore, you can't afford to chump block very often and your heroes can't take a hit from the Nazgul, so you'll need to prevent that from happening. Later in the game, after you've already used Aragorn to reset your threat and you're getting up there again, you might be able to use Galadriel to tread water for a while until you're set up for the end game.
For some reason, I always seem to get the Caught in a Web condition card very early in the game (turn 1 or 2). I always attach it to Galadriel when possible. Unexpected Courage can be a good way to deal with it if none of your other condition-removing cards are available.
All of the games that I have won with this deck have ended this way: On quest stage 2, I play Saruman. I declare the Nazgul as "not in play" for the round. Then I commit everyone to the quest. After staging, I claim the remaining objectives and quest through the final quest card to win the game.
Final Thoughts
I've been able to achieve about a 60% win ratio with this deck, but with each additional playthrough I find myself more skilled at beating the quest. It's definitely hardest when Galadriel is captured--both Nenya and the Mirror of Galadriel really help the deck run smoothly from turn 1 and help deal with the swingy nature of Dol Guldur. Without her, you can still get by but you'll be a little more at the whims of the encounter deck to throw things at you that your draws can handle.
I haven't tried using this deck against Nightmare Dol Guldur yet. I'd like to, but I'm going to take a break from this project for a little while before I come back to it.
I'd be interested to hear if anyone has other solutions to Dol Guldur solo--especially if they don't use Spirit Glorfindel.
i imagine monosphere makes it much better to resource manage and play cards with one hero captured, but also hard to cope with the encounter decks contents being limited to the strengths of just one sphere so would be really good to see what you put in there to tackle the challenges.