I've been going through the campaign for the first time and this quest has been driving my crazy. I'm trying to take Sam, Merry, and Pippin all the way to Mount Doom in solo. Due to the resolution of the quest (recording enemies that escape), I have been trying for a perfect run, not knowing how difficult it would be. Three decks and 30+ attempts later, I finally succeeded. I'm asking for advice on how I could make my deck better since I'm just an amateur deck builder at this point and I feel like I had a lot of luck with my win. (I had great luck with Sting, I had one lucky turn where I was able to Sneak Attack Gandalf and Beorn into the same combat phase, and I also pulled an opportune The Dark Lord's Summons on the 2nd to last turn which cleared the Crossroads.)
My first deck tried to set up Straight Shot with Speak Your Promise! and Frodo (LoS). I could pull it off an average of twice per game, but it was rarely set up when I needed it the most and I found myself sometimes using Speak Your Promise! when I needed to ready Frodo as another defender.
The deck that won it for me was this , after about 8 attempts. I needed Frodo (MoF) for a powerful start and would sometimes use him to trigger Frodo's Intuition on the first turn (the added willpower is great since it's easiest to place progress on the first turn). I mulligan for any starting hand that would allow me to handle a first turn Oliphaunt, even if it's Feint or Rosie Cotton for a defense boost. Also, there are 6 allies in the deck that can engage enemies out of phase. I would discard Westfold Outrider after combat to engage an Oliphaunt so my allies weren't affected. Another neat trick is to engage a Haradrim Soldier during the planning phase; Sam can defend for free since his response will trigger after the Soldier's forced effect and Sam will go into the quest phase with +1 to all stats (not to mention the bonus card from Pippin). I'm thinking of swapping out a couple of events for Master of the Forge. I think it was Sting that really helped with my win, so having Master of the Forge to fish it out next time would be nice.
Any thoughts? (I own cards up to the Voice of Isengard deluxe + all sagas but I'm fine with proxying).
Edited by afteryule