Solo Love of Tales Deck - Erestor Bilbo Beravor

By Seastan, in Strategy and deck-building

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In general, I think being humble when posting deck builds is a good idea, so my apologies for the following statement: This solo deck completely dominates every quest to the point of trivializing the entire game.

I have posted Love of Tales (LoT) decks that break the game before, but so far they have relied on at least two players cooperating. Now, with the new Erestor hero, and cards like ​Silver Harp and Hope Rekindled, it's possible to combine all the elements necessary to win into a single deck.

​This deck has a 100% win ratio against every nightmare quest I've tried, even quests like NM Shadow and Flame and NM Steward's Fear with the Unholy Alliance plot. The only exception is Nightmare Dol Guldur, which it struggled with but eventually beat.
The idea behind the deck is to use your massive starting hand and draw effects to play down a couple copies of Love of Tales and a bunch of songs. After a couple turns you've played your entire deck, and Bilbo has 10-15 resources, 3x fast hitch, unexpected courage, Steward of Gondor, Blood of Numenor, Gondorian Fire, and Burning Brand. Then with repeated uses of Lay of Nimrodel he quests through the scenario.
Total Cards: 53
Heroes (starting threat: 29)
Beravor ( Core Set )
Bilbo Baggins ( The Hunt for Gollum )
Erestor ( The Treachery of Rhudaur )
Allies (4)
1x Henamarth Riversong ( Core Set )
3x Gandalf ( Core Set )
Attachments (24)
2x Steward of Gondor ( Core Set )
1x Gondorian Fire ( Assault on Osgiliath )
1x Blood of Númenor ( Heirs of Númenor )
1x Silver Harp ( The Treachery of Rhudaur )
1x Unexpected Courage ( Core Set )
1x A Burning Brand ( Conflict at the Carrock )
3x Fast Hitch ( The Dead Marshes )
3x Love of Tales ( The Long Dark )
3x Scroll of Isildur ( The Morgul Vale )
2x Song of Battle ( The Dead Marshes )
3x Song of Kings ( The Hunt for Gollum )
3x Song of Travel ( The Hills of Emyn Muil )
Events (25)
3x Sneak Attack ( Core Set )
1x A Test of Will ( Core Set )
1x Dwarven Tomb ( Core Set )
3x Lay of Nimrodel ( The Morgul Vale )
3x Will of the West ( Core Set )
3x Daeron's Runes ( Foundations of Stone )
3x Deep Knowledge ( The Voice of Isengard )
3x Mithrandir's Advice ( The Steward's Fear )
2x Word of Command ( The Long Dark )
3x Hope Rekindled ( Across the Ettenmoors )
​Sideboard:

Healing cards for AJtR

Ravens from the Mountains for RtM

Asfaloth for Into the Pit​

Edited by Seastan
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I will try this deck. I love those kind of decks to beat NM quests that give me trouble...

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Woww impressive !

I will try quickly !

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I love your decks. It's great to see someone so good at breaking the game like that! And solo now. :o

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Hope Rekindled?

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Hope Rekindled?

Yeah, a 0 cost song. Great resource generation for a Love of Tales Deck.

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I modified the deck slightly to make it more consistent.

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How are you playing lay of nimrodel/

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How are you playing lay of nimrodel/

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that gives you a spirit resource icon, it doesn't make you a spirit hero.

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Yes it does. If the game designers do not intend a card to work with color fixers like song of travel then they include the text "with a printed [spirit symbol]". Since Lay of Nimrodel does not have that restriction it works with song of travel, as does Silver harp.

By contrast, the cost reduction on the scroll of isuldur is worded to not work with a color fixing effect like song of wisdom.

Edited by DukeWellington
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that gives you a spirit resource icon, it doesn't make you a spirit hero.

Lay of Nimrodel does not specify that the hero needs to have a "printed" spirit resource icon. So Song of Travel allows Lay of Nimrodel to work by making the hero a spirit hero. This is the same logic that allows you to play Song of Wisdom and Burning Brand on Beregond.

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Lol, you and your Love of Tales-Deep knowledge decks. How does it fare against the card draw hate quests with the Dunledings? If it can beat those I have little hope for the desigers to make an encounter set that can counter this.

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Lol, you and your Love of Tales-Deep knowledge decks. How does it fare against the card draw hate quests with the Dunledings? If it can beat those I have little hope for the desigers to make an encounter set that can counter this.

Yeah I realize that Love of Tales is getting a bit stale, but with Treachery of Rhudaur released, some people were wondering if all 3 objectives could be claimed. As for quests like Dunland Trap, there is no issue whatsoever.

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I have posted Love of Tales (LoT) decks that break the game before, but so far they have relied on at least two players cooperating. Now, with the new Erestor hero, and cards like ​Silver Harp and Hope Rekindled, it's possible to combine all the elements necessary to win into a single deck.

I think it is about time they errata Love of Tales ;)

"Attach to a [Lore] hero. Limit 1 per hero.

Response: After a Song card is played, add 1 resource to attached hero's resource pool.

Forced: If Seastan is in the game, you lose the game."

Edited by cmabr002
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Does Lay of Nimrodel operate like Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor? Where it's at the time that the card is played that the willpower boost is calculated?

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Does Lay of Nimrodel operate like Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor? Where it's at the time that the card is played that the willpower boost is calculated?

Yes, I believe so. The wording structure is the same so I see no reason why it would be different.

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The "give" on Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor vs. the "gets" on Lay of Nimrodel gives me pause. Makes it sound like a phase long event.

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The "give" on Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor vs. the "gets" on Lay of Nimrodel gives me pause. Makes it sound like a phase long event.

Perhaps you are right. To me, it seems the reason they used gets versus give on various player cards is due to the sentence structure but not due to a significant different meaning between the two words.

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The "give" on Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor vs. the "gets" on Lay of Nimrodel gives me pause. Makes it sound like a phase long event.

I see what you are saying but I can also think of the word "give" as a phase long event, when it is actually meant to be taken at the time of use. I think these cards were meant to function the same way.

The updated decklist has been pretty nuts. With the 3x sneak-Gandalf it is much easier to grab all the LoTs with Word of command, and afterwards it's easy to sustain 2-3 sneak attacks a turn. No encounter deck can keep up with that.

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I'm sure you guys are right, seeing as how it would only make sense that Lay of Nimrodel is the willpower version of those two attachments, but I sent a question to Caleb because it will gnaw at me. I'll let you know what he says. This deck is pretty cool Seastan, made short work of NM Blood of Gondor. Nice work!

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Thinking of ways for this deck to be stopped by the encounter deck I think Across the Ettenmoors might do okish. Scavenge for supplies stops the combo dead because all free cards now cost 1 resource. Forage for Food puts some limiters on the deck as well, especially without healing. So I suppose Caleb and Matt have some chance to hit you back in the future! ;)

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Thinking of ways for this deck to be stopped by the encounter deck I think Across the Ettenmoors might do okish. Scavenge for supplies stops the combo dead because all free cards now cost 1 resource. Forage for Food puts some limiters on the deck as well, especially without healing. So I suppose Caleb and Matt have some chance to hit you back in the future! ;)

Well, as long as scavenge for supplies doesn't turn up during setup then you're fine. And I am fully expecting them to hit back with an errata to LoT :D

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But currently, it's definitely Seastan 1 - 0 Caleb and Matt. :)

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Maybe more than 1-0...