I work currently on my solo decks. I try to build best build for every "good enough" mechanic. There is what convinced me, classed by strength:

1- Vilya: Arwen Undomiel / Elrond / Gandalf - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/43432
2- Outlands flash version: Erestor / Galadriel / Hirluin the Fair - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/62869
3- Outlands Doomed version: Aragorn / Galadriel / Hirluin the Fair - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/64889
4- Noldor: Arwen Undomiel / Galdor / Denethor II - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/57914
5- Dwarf Lore/Leadership: Bifur / Dain / Thorin http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/59598
6- Dwarf Doomed: Bifur / Dain / Nori http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/64895
7- Silvan: Celeborn / Galadriel / Grima http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/61849
8- Caldara: Arwen Undomiel / Caldara / Cirdan - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/79054
9- Rohan: Eowyn I / Théoden II / Théodred - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/64934
10- Three Hunters: Aragon II / Gimli II / Legolas II - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/54384
11- Eowyn II / Gimli II / Legolas II - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/54381
12- Ent: Faramir / Grima / Mablung - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/54379
13- Gloin: Elrond / Gloin / Mablung - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6016/gloin-superstar-1.0
14- Secrecy Mono Spirit: Frodo / Galadriel / Glorfindel - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/67007
15- Ranger: Amarthiul / Aragorn II / Damrod - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/66610
16- Secrecy without tactics: Glorfindel / Pippin / Sam Gamegie - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6024
17- Hobbit without tactics: Sam Gamegie / Merry / Pippin - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/67078
18- Secrecy without leadership: Glorfindel / Pippin / Tom Cotton - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/67935
19- Hobbit without spirit: Sam Gamgie / Pippin / Merry - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6026
20- Only one hero: Sam Gamegie - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/60874
21- Secrecy without lore: Denethor / Glorfindel / Eowyn - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6029
22- Fastred: Dunhere / Fastred / Glorfindel II - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/6030

I add some old decklist that people sometime asked me. They no longer work well since FAQ 1.9
Mono Tactics Hamà: Eowyn II / Hamà / Mablung - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/56487
Combo: Bilbo / Bifur / Denethor II - http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/50363
Boromir: Boromir / Galadriel / Glorfindel II - http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/42/seastan-s-boromir-1.0

I'm looking to complete this list with another concept. They need to stand against major part of the adventures of the game, nightmare included. I'm thinking about those decks for the moment:
- Gondor
- Harad
- Eagle
- Quest with thurindir
- Mono Lore

Feel free to ask and discuss about the gauntlet or a detail of any of those decks. I'm always happy to talk about strategy :).

Thank you. Always good to see decks from a great builder.

Thanks Rouxxor, these look great. I have not advanced far enough in the card pool to be able to create the decks for myself, but it is interesting to read your notes and imagine how they might work.

Thanks for the support :). I add three decks based on popular Seastan's decklists. They are okay (major part of deck I see or test would never pass the cut), but I found them a little bit weak compare to the major part of my decks. Probably because of the inherent thematic poverty (like gloin who need a lot of things to do anything), my lack of experience in playing them but may be also that can be upgraded by working on better decklists.

A couple thoughts/questions:

1. Is this for solo decks only, or for multiplayer decks too? Because your #1 deck is strong, but it links to a multiplayer-focused deck that you say should be played alongside a Boromir deck. If 2-player decks are included in this list, I think there are much stronger options, like this or this . I think there are many pairs of decks actually that would be stronger than a Vilya power deck paired with a Boromir power deck. So many things can be exploited in multiplayer that making a ranking of multiplayer decks is pointless, in my opinion. The entire top 10 would just be variants of broken multiplayer mechanics.

2. Your #1 link says it has Arwen hero, but it links to a deck with Glorfindel. You might want to fix the link name or explain that the hero choice depends on solo/multplayer.

3. I don't consider my Dunedain Trappers deck a "power deck". It's just a relatively strong solo Dunedain deck that came out at a time when people were questioning Dunedain's solo ability. I think it is popular for that reason, not because it's one of the strongest decks ever made.

4. I'm not sure how you defined "strength" here, so I won't get into too much discussion about the ranking. But there is no definition I can think of that puts the Boromir deck below a Silvan deck or a three hunters deck. If the ranking is simply "how many nightmare quests can it beat?" the Boromir deck should be #1. If it's "how many nightmare quests can it beat with a >75% success rate", I would say Caldara or Outlands.

5. One key archetype you seem to be missing is the Amartiul/Hama/Mablung deck that uses thicket of spears every round.

1/ This is only for solo. I made a mistake with my first link. This is corrected :). I made another topic with my multiplayer list too. It is way more complicated to see what is really powerful in multiplayer because I think many combinaison can win almost everything pretty easily. Thanks for your recommandation about this two decks (especially the one when haven't talk about already ^^).

2/ This is for the same reason. I play Arwen in solo and glorfindel in multiplayer. There is not a big strenght gap between them and having asfaloth is better there but getting resources from a leadership friend is more easy.

3/ I understand that :). Trap will never be a powerful theme since many enemy are protected from them on nightmare. I want to show the best dunedain deck for solo I know and it is this one for the moment tough.

4/ It would be "get the best success rate against the nightmare pool with a penalty for each adventure when you even have a 5% victory". So regularity and versatility. And for me Gandalf wins because of this incredible versatility he have. He can be good at rush, heal, cancel lot of treachery, cancel even more shadow cards. But in fact I have a top3 and I'm not sure if Gandalf is really better than Caldara or Combo.

I don't have a big experience of your Boromir but for the few I play I never felt powerful, I never get the feeling that the encounter deck where powerless against me since I can't react to many things. Not even easy ones like put some willpower on quest. Plus there is a sequence of cards who each need anothers. You need A Good Harvest for enable steward of gondor and the gondor blood and fire. Not any of those cards do something on their own. I'm not surprised that my test show it is better to get cards who do something on their own but work together after that. But my future tests may be show me something different . Silvan was pretty strong on my first test but I was pretty disappointed about them recently so I may overrated them. Gimli/Legolas work very well for me in both versions.

5/ I play it. In solo and multi. And in bot this is no more a thicket of spears each round but a wait no longer. I play Eowyn II / Hama / Mablung in solo since you have to get willpower more than resource production and Boromir / Hama / Amarthuil in multiplayer because you will face many enemies. But thicket of spear and oath of eorl are still played in those deck ;).

8 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:

I don't have a big experience of your Boromir but for the few I play I never felt powerful, I never get the feeling that the encounter deck where powerless against me since I can't react to many things. Not even easy ones like put some willpower on quest. Plus there is a sequence of cards who each need anothers. You need A Good Harvest for enable steward of gondor and the gondor blood and fire. Not any of those cards do something on their own. I'm not surprised that my test show it is better to get cards who do something on their own but work together after that. But my future tests may be show me something different . Silvan was pretty strong on my first test but I was pretty disappointed about them recently so I may overrated them. Gimli/Legolas work very well for me in both versions.

This is the opposite of my experience with the deck. Boromir is really one of the best reaction cards in the game. Extra enemies are normally the hardest surprises to deal with, and Boromir easily handles this. He also handles all sorts of "exhaust a hero" encounter effects.

The idea of needing the combo seems to turns many people off the deck. I don't know the cure for this other than experience. The mirror makes getting the combo pieces very easy. I've done computer simulations before with 100,000 games, and if you focus on getting the combo, you normally get it by turn 1 or 2, and almost always by turn 3 or 4. It is not very hard to keep Boromir alive this long. I'll often go for the Gondorian Shield first.

As for the rest of the list - it looks like some of them (9,11,14) would struggle against a simple quest like Nightmare Anduin, because of their starting threat. This is only one quest, but I have a hard time accepting it as a powerful archetype when it struggles with a basic testing quest.

Deck 10 just seems weak (almost no attack power). What do you like about it?

I update so all my current list are here or in my multiplayer gauntlet :).

I don't think extra enemies are the hardest surprises to deal with. More precisely I think they are at the beginning of the game, but not after some turns. Boromir know how to deal with enemies, it always have been true and it is even more in your deck. But about cancel or be able to rush your deck is not that good. Neither you can get back if something swap your 4/5 allies. It seem that there is not enough ally since we miss will at the start and the end of game.

I continue to experience this deck and feel the same fragility I say before. I will have to test on the hardest adventures to have a real point but I first have to play new nightmares :). But I also see what the deck can do and that only a few can, about dealing with many enemies and staying alive. It was upgraded to 9th place. That was I feel about it for the moment :).

Nightmare Anduin is a quest that I know very well since I play it something like 300 times when it was released. It is old so no one of my deck are similar to those deck anymore. But I guarantee this kind of quest is not a problem. In particular:

- Silvan will not be struggled against the troll, since he is a 28 at the beginning, have feint and get a board really fast.

- The tree Hunter may be the one who will have difficulty not engage or killing this big troll. Hopefully he have a lot of small allies and he can get back to a reasonable threat really fast.

- Mono tactics is the only deck who know he can kill the troll on turn one, just with his heroes. So get a feint sacrifice an ally if there is no other choice. Plus, in fact you begin at

- Rohan have enough attack when his combo is set-up (guthwine + Eomund). It is very pleasant to play and work better than you believe.

The only quests that have given the Boromir deck any difficulty are the very toughest nightmare quests (Dol Guldur, Return to Mirkwood, Five Armies), but I think all generalized solo decks would struggle against these quests.

Your Fastred deck says Glorfindel. Have you tried this against nightmare quests? I am curious how well it does.

Also, have you played much with Aragorn (Lore) / Glorfindel (Spirit) / Frodo?

Yes. I plan to do a contest among those best decks on those quests ^^. Probably add encounter at amon duin, nin-il-eilph and The Dunland Trap who are tricky too.

I'm sorry but I'm not even original enough to play Glorfindel with Fastred. It is Eowyn tactics, like everyone. Full list on the link ;).

I have never paired those three folks. But my mono spirit tactics is playing Galadriel instead of Aragorn. Be secrecy bring you good cards (resourceful, celduin traveler) and be only spirit give you Emery. I'm pretty happy of this one so I'm not convinced by playing Aragorn. Can you arguing on his favor? :).

With Aragorn you can reset the threat gain from Frodo. Having Lore right away makes it easy to get Asfaloth. Seeing Stone, Deep Knowledge, and Daeron's Runes help with card draw. You start the game with 6 attack on your heroes, which can kill enemies right away...

But Galadriel/Glorfindel/Frodo would also be strong, no doubt. Mirror+Resourceful is a good start.

I don't play either mirror or Asfaloth in my version ^^. Mirror is good when you try to put a specific combination in play but when you just got a bunch of allies and want to protect all this by counter it is very interesting. In this deck I prefer the pipe mechanic :).

@Seastan I start over my test. On most difficult adventures. Starting with Nightmare Battle of the five armies. In "easy" mode since I was able to play any treasure I want. Easy it was for Gandalf/elrond who win on turn 4 with only 10 cards left in the deck and the first deck who wasn't checked by a Harad first (Fyrial/Jubayr) was the two last shadow a few moment before I win ^^. I was very happy of my rules modification who five resources on setup instead of first resource phase because otherwise I will have loose on a nonsense treachery. On another hand I get my first defeat with Boromir. He wasn't able to put enough defense on the table to overcome the 4B stage. So he never have enough defense on Boromir. I cancel the first two shadow who would have put too many damage on him but since I was short of spirit resource (spend to succeed to put counter on stage 4B who have been removed straight away) I wasn't able to found and install a warden of healing fast enough. I wasn't lucky on those reinforced goblin but this "turn 8 struggle" was sometime I was afraid of since we don't play so many allies. I neither can quest enough nor engage enemy to clean the staging area because I can't block or trash them. So I loose even if I was able to have any of the card I wanted of this deck in my hand. I will probably have won with a Ioreth instead of this warden of healing, or if I was able to look after an arkhenstone (I will include it for the next time, it will not be the best cards in my deck like with Elrond/Gandalf but it is still great).

I will continue testing and come back with more data. Are you interested by this discussion? I don't want to push too hard about proving that deck with few allies cannot be top competitive. Proves that don't work very well since Boromir is now among my 4 best decks (I will update this list soon) so it come closed to the first place were you think it belongs ;).

To come on the other decks:

- Thinking about changing my TaEowyn for a Arwen in my Hama deck, getting spirit for cancel, willpower and elven-light seem great. I will have another mono tactics with eagle and Hirgon. Thicket of spears wasn't essential on solo anyway and oath of eorl do a similar job.

- Thinking about changing my Bifur for a Grima in my doomed dwarf deck. His threat was unaffordable in the original version but in doomed one it is probably worth it.

- Massive inclusion of Rosie Cotton in secrecy deck have already be done, but haven't be reported yet.

- I will create another hobbit deck with Tom Cotton but I'm not sure wich one. Probably a (Ta) Tom / (Sp) Merry / (Lo) Pippin because secrecy bring great cards (did I ever mention I like secrecy decks? :p).

I am having some trouble understanding what you are doing.

You are trying to compare a Gandalf/Elrond deck against a Boromir deck in Battle of the Five Armies Nightmare? And you are using treasures, or easy mode? I'm confused. What is this rules modification you are taking about with the five resources?

Beating BoFA with Boromir comes down to getting two things done fast: Progress on stage 4B, and the Steward/Harvest combo. I typically mulligan for Gondorian shield so that Boromir can quest for 4. Still, you can lose easily from a few high threat surging Goblins. Stage 4B s the perfect counter to the Boromir deck, but it can still win. Gandalf/Elrond probably has a higher win rate on this one.

I'll think about slight modifications to make the Boromir deck better against BoFA. Maybe swap Galadriel for Amarthiul, and swap Mirror, Nenya, and Daeron's Runes for Sneak Attack, Errand Rider, and Celebrian's Stone. This would let your heroes siege/battle quest for more from the start, and would allow you to just find Steward with no need for Harvest. It probably needs more testing.

Battle of the five armies nightmare with treasure. The rule modification I talk is about getting resources on the setup so you can play your response (especially test of will) when encounter deck reveal his first cards. Otherwise some treachery are way too dangerous (like discard all your hand except 2 cards in Dol Guldur, Bolg make an immediate attack against each player in this one).

You telling me you go straight to the 4B? Even when the combo is not set-up? I choose to first go on the willpower (2) to avoid discarding my steward and I'm pretty sure that was the good move since I spend all my resource on the first turn. Second turn I haven't my shield so I choose to go on the attack (3) so I will not resurect anyone. Then I was struggle.

Except for my combo deck I never get modification for a single adventure. I try to have deck who can handle every part of the game. So I will stick with the version you think is the best in general.

You even prefer celebrian stone to additional ally? O_o. A Ceorl for example can be great.

What do you think about the two changement I planned?

If you can use your resources then 2B is fine. But if you can manage to get the combo on the first turn then saving the Steward resource are important.

When I test against BoFA, I use no treasure and I do not place any resources until the resource phase. If the whole point of testing against this quest is because it's so hard, so I don't see the point in making it easier. I'd just play an easier quest in that case.

I have tried the Gandalf/Elrond deck several times now, and I can't make any progress.

Getting the resource at the beginning of the game instead of the first turns is something I always do. It seem to me a necessary change to avoid some killing situation on the turn 1 when you have a solution but no way to play it. It is even more true on multiplayer were a player will simply almost not playing since he lost a hero on a treachery first turn. That make of course the game easier but most of the time is just avoid absurd situation were you discard a major part of your hand or lose a hero on turn one, so you need to restart.

About the treasure part I wasn't playing this way since probably my last campaign, like two years ago. So my 100 most recent one don't use treasure and I was surprised by the enormous boost they give. I will replay with my deck decks without the treasure, and it will be, like you say, more interesting.

Your suggestion was even more welcome about the change on my hama and doomed dwarf deck, but thanks for Gandalf. What do you also think about the warden VS Ioreth debate. The first one will be way better for archery matter. Ioreth cost 1 green less and can heal way more quickly Boromir (what I'm looking), but can't be played with a good harvest.

I now think about a little trick and I want to know if you ever use it. If I have mirror of Galadiel and one (and only one) good harvest in hand I can play my good harvest before activating mirror so if I found my steward there is no chance of discarding my good harves. It seem very dangerous since if you don't find steward, or discard it you also loose the other part of the combo. May be if you have the feeling that installing the combo this turn is a matter of life or death (like high attack enemy that cannot be managed otherwise) it worth it. It seem still more realist that activating the other ability of Boromir (that I do 3 times in my LOTR career over the thousand of games played with Boromir's decks).

I now generally play two Wardens & 2 Ioreth.

Of course, you can play however you like. but starting with the resources on heroes definitely makes Test of Will an even better card than it already is, and it would give an advantage to decks with more Test of Will in them. Yes, in BoFA Bolg can attack you during setup, and and in Dol Guldur you can lose all but 2 or your cards during Setup. These may be bad card designs, but they are part of what makes the quests difficult.

Iroeth may be better than Warden for Boromir. Feel free to give it a try.

On 07/09/2017 at 7:51 PM, Seastan said:

Of course, you can play however you like. but starting with the resources on heroes definitely makes Test of Will an even better card than it already is, and it would give an advantage to decks with more Test of Will in them. Yes, in BoFA Bolg can attack you during setup, and and in Dol Guldur you can lose all but 2 or your cards during Setup. These may be bad card designs, but they are part of what makes the quests difficult.

I think you are right, test of will should not be upgraded like this. I will probably still correct some crazy loose on setup situations because I found them boring (I prefer doing this than restart the game, especially in multiplayer). But otherwise I will accept those effects.

I finish to play 5 games against nightmare battle of the five armies with combo, Vilya, Boromir and Caldara. I got those results:

- Combo get 4 wins and 1 loose (1 resource short);

- Vilya get 2 wins and 3 looses (each time more than 3 attacks at 5 on turn 2);

- Boromir have 1 win and 4 looses (sometime do to many nasty effects that kill Boromir on the three first turns, most are due to a staging area at 8 that can't be passed no matter with value you count);

- Caldara win only one game, and only because I allow it to counter a "killing on the setup" treachery with a test of will, so it is a 0,5 wins and 4,5 loose.

Those stats seem reason reasonable to me, if not a little good. I tried at least 5 times with the Vilya deck and never won, but I don't have as much experience with it.

I'm surprised Caldara did so poorly though. Was the siege questing the main problem?

Are you guys able to beat Belegost solo with any deck? It's turned into my nemesis.

@Bullroarer Took I got it recently and only play with two solo decks. I get stomped by mono Sam (one of my worst solo deck, obviously since I play only one hero ^^). Then I stomp it with my Gandalf deck (win even if I forget to remove counter and dragon when changing quests). It could be interesting to play it with the entire list below to test :). But since it is only the 9th most difficult scenario to me I'm confident about the success of almost all of the deck listed below. Since it doesn't disrupt you (remove a hero, discard your card in hand, stop your from playing allies, remove your allies by unavoidable text on the quest) it is all about getting on the board fast and a lot of decks can do it :).

17 hours ago, Seastan said:

Those stats seem reason reasonable to me, if not a little good. I tried at least 5 times with the Vilya deck and never won, but I don't have as much experience with it.

I'm surprised Caldara did so poorly though. Was the siege questing the main problem?

With Vilya / Caldara the main problem was dealing with multiple attacks on the first/second turns. The low threat of Caldara doesn't stop too many of those attacks. Only in second position come the siege. Not because I lack defense, I generally get faster like 9 willpower or 8 defense or 7 attack. But because I can't play fortune or fate before I get my 4 hero (+ Arwen effects) so I have to pay for my allies. So I things don't go well (either from questing and attack) straight from the beginning I was never able to get back in the game. I also discard among 6 times the Sword-thain that I just shearch for with mirror of Galadriel, but this only will have make a difference in one game. But until now I never discard such a key card on mirror of galadriel in boromir deck and I play more than twenty times so it is pretty unfair ^^.

With Gandalf my high threat got me too many times 3 attacks on the second turns. I was able to get back sometimes but in some others shadows effects kills me. He succeed in case where others decks wasn't able (one enemy + one locations on several turns straight) so I'm pretty disappointed about his only 2 wins.

Boromir was really more able than Caldara on this adventure. In fact I think that Boromir hero is the best hero possible on battle/siege since he cain quest a lot for only one threat. But in your case the rest of the deck is only looking for willpower so here is the matter. I think that the Elrond/Glorfindel/Boromir deck that I play many years ago was in fact better than all our actual deck in this corner case. But even with willpower with an active location and some thing struggle in staging area (like other locations) it is really hard to gather enough to pass the location and be able to travel to the next one. Even on the turns where I play Gandalf. That is, on every game I play, why I have hard time to consider it the best deck of the game. I always feel the lack of a ethir swordmen ally who give a lot of willpower even on the start of the game. I realized that since the deck relies on synergies so he need to play a lot of cards to connect one to the others (like draw or tutor). And the deck is clearly good like this. Way more that I originally thought. But I will probably to make a test with a "good cards" (captain of gondor, a lot more of allies, 3rd test of will) list with the same heroes instead of the steward+0-cost attachment for the comparison.

I realize something else. During our talk you never feel concerned updating your deck. Did you made your deck only as a one-shot?

10 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

I realize something else. During our talk you never feel concerned updating your deck. Did you made your deck only as a one-shot?

I have worked on an update to the deck many times I just never have the time to go back and play through all the scenarios to refine it. But there are some really interesting cards that have come out since that deck was published that could be used to update it. Obvious example is Silver Harp. You could also swap out Hasty Stroke for Sterner than Steel to save a resource since Boromir always gets a shield. Peace and Thought might be better than Daeron's Runes since you can play it with Good Harvest.

Then you can get into more drastic changes. I have one deck that uses Denethor and Erestor to start off Boromir with a huge pile of resources: http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/1782/the-very-wise-captain-1.0 ). I am slowly working on improving this as well, trying to make room for Burning Brand and Ioreth.

I have stranger version that uses Beravor instead of Galadriel. You keep drawing with Beravor and Peace and Thought and play doomed cards like Deep Knowledge. You often fail the quest early on because you are so focused on drawing cards and setting up Boromir with attachments. Your threat goes up pretty fast, and after 3-4 turns you have drawn most of your deck, and are at 49 threat. Then you take undefended attacks on Beravor until he dies, then play Vanish from Sight and O Elbereth, targeting an enemy with <30 threat. It's very effective and fun.