I found out a way to avoid earning the burden card Poisoned Counsels in the scenario Helm's Deep while still going to stage 1. This exploit can prevent all but one of the players from earning it.

It actually uses a card that was dubbed the "worst card of the Ring-maker Cycle" on TftC -- no, not Mirkwood Pioneer -- but Message

From Elrond! Each player who wants to pull it off needs a copy of Poisoned Counsels in his hand (Gather Information anyone?) and a copy of Message From Elrond.

On the last round of the game, in the action window right before the last enemy is killed, each player sends Poisoned Counsels via Message From Elrond to one unlucky player. The Campaign card says that each player with a copy of Poisoned Counsels earns it, not each copy of Poisoned Counsels is earned, so the players who used this trick don't earn it and the player who received all of the cards only earns 1.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

That's a fun approach to the problem. Now the next question is how you decide the unlucky person.

You could accomplish the same thing without screwing over one person with several other cards. For example: Will of the West, Gildor, Wizard Pipe, Ered Nimrais prospector, or White Council. But none of those are as amusing as your idea

EDIT: Disregard my post. I read the card wrong.

That's a fun approach to the problem. Now the next question is how you decide the unlucky person.

You could accomplish the same thing without screwing over one person with several other cards. For example: Will of the West, Gildor, Wizard Pipe, Ered Nimrais prospector, or White Council. But none of those are as amusing as your idea

The campaign card says that as long as Poisoned Counsels is in a player's hand, deck, or discard pile that they have earned it. Unless there is a way to get it into the victory display or removed from the game, I think Message from Elrond is the only way to mostly avoid the burden after shuffling it in.

It would definitely have to be Message from Elrond, as you earn Poisoned Counsels whether it is in your hand, deck, or discard pile. If there were a way to get it into the victory display, that would be the way to go, but I can't think of any cards that would do that.

I read the campaign card differently than you do, Ecthelion-- it says "Each player with a copy of Poisoned Counsels in his hand, deck or discard pile has earned that burden. " I took [that burden] to mean [that particular copy of Poisoned Counsels]. On other cards, the wording "that card" is always used to refer to a particular copy of the card that has just been manipulated in some way, as far as I can tell. Examples: The Last Bridge, Seat of Seeing, Pippin, Celeborn ...

And then, going forward, the player with 4 Poisoned Counsels just needs to play Erestor!

Ah, I missed the "deck" in that clause. I need to play more Treason of Saruman obviously. I'm with GrandSpleen on the interpretation that the one player would be stuck with all copies.

Also,if you have it in your deck: Wizard Pipe(+Gandalf Hero ),Expert Treasure-hunter and any card that ,,add" it in your hand(not ,,draw" ) will not trigger Poisoned Counsels effect.

I messaged Caleb and he agrees with GrandSpleen--one player would indeed end up with all copies. He is also glad I am enjoying Helm's Deep.

Just give them to the Erestor player....

On a side note, Erestor against Saruman would get interesting quickly.

Good to hear that Caleb is not yet tired of us enjoying the quests.