Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from Heirs of Numenor and the Against the Shadow cycle. The quests are:

1) Into Ithilien (Deluxe)
2) The Steward's Fear (AP1)
3) The Druadan Forest (AP2)

Here are the rules:

1) Each player will construct a 50+ card deck, then use that exact deck against all three quests. You may use that deck freely against any quests (include the three quests in the league) prior to the run for testing purposes, but you may not use any trial runs for your official results.

2) At least one of the heroes must be from a box with those quests -- this means you must have one of Tactics Beregond, Leadership Boromir, Hirluin the Fair, and Mirlonde.

3) Your score against each quest will be how much help you need to defeat it, based on the Grace of the Valar variant invented by Seastan. It works like this:

For each token you have, after you draw/mulligan your initial hand you can choose to draw a card or give a hero a resource. This happens one at a time, so if I use my first token to draw a card, I see the card before I decide whether to use my second token for a card or a resource.

The original variant starts at zero tokens and gains two tokens if you lose quickly (first five turns) and one if you do not -- however, for the purposes of this league I will allow you to start a quest at any number of tokens, and adjust by as many as you want. The only rules for adding/reducing tokens are these:

Rule 1) If you lose a quest with X tokens, you cannot play that quest again with X or less tokens.
Rule 2) If you defeat a quest with Y tokens, you cannot play that quest again with Y or more tokens.

So for example, if I start with six tokens against Into Ithilien and defeat it, I can play it again with 0-5 tokens. If I then try with three tokens and lose, I can play it again with 4 or 5 tokens. If I try with four and lose, I can play it again with 5 tokens. If I win, my final score for that quest is 5, and if I lose my final score for the quest is 6. (Alternatively, I could've decided that 6 was a good enough score the first time I played it, and just have my final score be 6 without playing again.)

Remember that tokens do not carry over between quests. When playing The Steward's Fear it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Into Ithilien.

4) You are not required to publish your deck, but you are required to reveal which Heroes you used, and how many cards in your deck came from outside Heirs/AtS cycle and a single core. When breaking ties, the first tiebreaker is number of outside cards used (less is better), the second tiebreaker is number of heroes outside the cycle (less is better), third tiebreaker is number of heroes outside the boxes with the three quests (less is better). Fourth tiebreaker is how well the player performed in the previous month's league, if not in the previous month's league treated as a median performance.

5) 1st place gets to choose the cycle for January's league, 2nd place gets to choose a quest from that cycle, and 3rd place gets to choose a quest *not* to be used from that cycle. Last place gets to choose a single player card outside that cycle (may be a hero) that will be counted as an honorary cycle member and may be used without counting for the tiebreaker. December's cycle has not yet been chosen by Rouxxor.

6) Weekly deadlines will be on Monday at 11pm Eastern, but only the final deadline really matters for scoring -- the first two deadlines are only to be included in standings.
Into Ithilien: November 12th
The Steward's Fear: November 19th
The Druadan Forest: November 26th

7) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11X4Wf9eUBjNtPGkwzXLw6skA-F4Vy8-4B4a8AjKW0uk/edit?usp=sharing


To join the league, merely add your name and information about your deck to the spreadsheet, then enter your results as you have them. You may give a link to your deck, but it is not required.

If you wish you may run additional decks against the quests and record your results (I hope to do this), but only the first entry will be considered for the competition itself.

Only you can write on your google doc so we can't add our names ;). That let me a little time to think about what I want to play...

Should be fixed now, sorry about that. Did you decide what cycle to choose for December?

Yes. Like I said previous month I choose ANgmar Awakned. It is even more true since it only challenger could have been Against the shadow, the actual cycle ^^.

Druadan forest in solo is one of the easiest quest of the game. Into ithlien and steward fear are way more challenging though, I will have to think about what can I achieve :).

I understand that changing rules every time is annoying but does recent results make you reconsider the deckbuilding rules? I know it wasn't your only decision, it was a poll, but we have so many people who defeat it with 0 valor and 0 tiebreakers, and I personally beat it 3 times in a row without any loss. So with those new datas may be the polls would have been different. So imagine we have this kind of situation again do you want to make another poll session?

I also find that having 2 scenario choose at random is not satisfying. Why make someone choose a scenario that will not be played? It could be better to make everyone (2nd, 3rd and last) choose for a scenario to be played.

Thanks Dale for putting this up!

I am going to try a first run with my You shall not pass! solo deck and see if I can go nightmare against these three quests. It has 41 cards outside the cycle... ?

I may give it a second run with an Outlands deck

I want to try, but I only played each scenario 1 time in 2 player game, and in easy mode. It won't be easy for me

With enough help from the Valar, anyone can beat a quest! In the first cycle, I did a run with a mono-tactics Eagle decks against the three willpower-loving quests, and managed to defeat all three with a cumulative token count of 74. I'm not *recommending* bringing a bad deck to the league, but with enough help you *will* beat these quests.

This month I'm using my previously published Stereotypical Outlands Deck:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/9192/a-stereotypical-outlands-deck-1.0

I don't imagine it'll get zero tokens, but I don't think it will need *too* much help from the Valar to succeed.

Challenge accepted ! I'll try to defeat these quests with less than 74 tokens !

47 minutes ago, Rouxxor said:

I understand that changing rules every time is annoying but does recent results make you reconsider the deckbuilding rules? I know it wasn't your only decision, it was a poll, but we have so many people who defeat it with 0 valor and 0 tiebreakers, and I personally beat it 3 times in a row without any loss. So with those new datas may be the polls would have been different. So imagine we have this kind of situation again do you want to make another poll session?

I also find that having 2 scenario choose at random is not satisfying. Why make someone choose a scenario that will not be played? It could be better to make everyone (2nd, 3rd and last) choose for a scenario to be played.

I'd like to see how November/December leagues turn out before having another rules discussion thread -- I doubt they'll both have the top three with zero tokens, so we should have some better information. Of course, I didn't think the September league would make it through with zero tokens, even with outside cards, so I could be wrong again.

The October league did make me wonder about the tiebreaker, not just because the top three were all perfect on tiebreakers, but because the early finish by perfect decks left no hope of anyone possibly doing better, and that might have discouraged some from either trying the league or finishing once they earned a token. But honestly I'd rather have perfect scores broken randomly than treat the official scoring system as if it were a good thing.

The rewards were modeled on the Legendary league, but I like differentiating rewards at each level. Of course, whether it's better to pick a quest or to avoid a quest depends on your point of view. For a given cycle, do you feel more strongly about the quest you like the most, or the quest you hate the most? Frankly, for September's league I'm glad I finished third instead of second, just to make sure I didn't have to play Morgul Vale again. But randomly varying the quests gives a chance for each quest to actually be played, and every hero a chance to be on the short mandatory hero list.

I will stick on the deckbuilding challenge of no outside of cycle+core cards. In practice this will mean outlands as well for me.

I already pass for Druadan forest since I don't have that pack.

@dalestephenson Ok. Let's go with this rules and see on December if we want to adjust some things for january. About the tiebreaker you can make another one tiebreaker for playing the most cards inside the current cycles, it would be half the way between what I ask before and what is actually done. This will probably broke the ties, so for once it earn his name .

@PigsAreOurEquals To me if you win the other two with no tokens you will win the challenge as well, since Druadan forest is 10 times more easy ^^.

1 hour ago, Yepesnopes said:

Thanks Dale for putting this up!

I am going to try a first run with my You shall not pass! solo deck and see if I can go nightmare against these three quests. It has 41 cards outside the cycle... ?

I may give it a second run with an Outlands deck

I've got to say I like the idea of playing with Thurindir, though. Side quests can rock in Into Ithilien and Steward's Fear.

1 minute ago, Rouxxor said:

@dalestephenson Ok. Let's go with this rules and see on December if we want to adjust some things for january. About the tiebreaker you can make another one tiebreaker for playing the most cards inside the current cycles, it would be half the way between what I ask before and what is actually done. This will probably broke the ties, so for once it earn his name .

Rouxxor, I kind of like the idea of having in-cycle cards as the fourth tiebreaker and in-box cards (from selected quests) as the fifth tiebreaker. But I doubt it will be necessary the next two months.

Question : in Into Ithillien, can we heal Celador (as he is in the staging area) ?

30 minutes ago, Miceldars said:

Question : in Into Ithillien, can we heal Celador (as he is in the staging area) ?

It depends on wich card you want to use; Warden of Healing, for example, can heal him.

59 minutes ago, Miceldars said:

Question : in Into Ithillien, can we heal Celador (as he is in the staging area) ?

Yes.

Into Ithillien is very hard... I tried at least 10 times, losing a hero on turn 1, 2 or 3... The last time I lost on the very last turn before victory because I reach 50 threat because of a treachery with doomed 3... It was with 3 token, I will play with 4 next time (but another day)

37 minutes ago, Miceldars said:

Into Ithillien is very hard... I tried at least 10 times, losing a hero on turn 1, 2 or 3... The last time I lost on the very last turn before victory because I reach 50 threat because of a treachery with doomed 3... It was with 3 token, I will play with 4 next time (but another day)

I'm still testing what I'm going to play, I haven't decided if I'll play some gondor-eagles deck, outlands deck or even something else.

I agree with you that is really hard, i had to try 4 times before winning. On my first attemp I drew the mumakil on turn 2 and another harad band on turn 3... Then I went into the Steward's fear and I got crushed with high threat locations. It's going to be really hard to build a deck this month.

1 hour ago, Miceldars said:

Into Ithillien is very hard... I tried at least 10 times, losing a hero on turn 1, 2 or 3... The last time I lost on the very last turn before victory because I reach 50 threat because of a treachery with doomed 3... It was with 3 token, I will play with 4 next time (but another day)

I'm sure you realize this, but as a reminder, when you do your official run you *must* take at least one token every time you lose. But if you're just practicing before your official run, use as many tokens as you like (or none at all).

Yes I remember. I begin to count after 5-6 try, and add a token each time I lost.

So i've already done into ithilien. I must admit that those valar tokens can make any quest a walk in the park. During my initial run i lost in second turn due to some wargs blocking the way with some Mumak sneaking right behind them but the second time with two valar tokens i had a start so explosive nothing could have stopped me. I'm pretty proud of the deck i've built for this cycle, it seems it can handle both battle-questing and willpower-questing pretty well.

Quick clarification: Core Set heroes do not count against you for the first tiebreaker, but they do count against you for the second one, correct? That is, Core heroes are considered to be outside the cycle, yes?

But heroes from the deluxe do count as being part of the cycle, right? So Beregond wouldn't count against me for the second tiebreaker, for instance.

Trying to make sure I fully understand the tiebreakers.

You have the tiebreakers correct. For the first tiebreaker, core cards, cards from Heirs of Numenor, and cards from Against the Shadow do not count against you. For the second tiebreaker, only heroes from Heirs of Numenor and Against the Shadow don't count against you -- core heroes do count against you. For the third tiebreaker, any heroes except LeBoromir, TaBeregond, Hirluin, and Mirlonde count against you. And at least one of those four heroes *must* be used.

For all regular "cycles", I consider the cycle to consist of the Deluxe plus all its APs. I also consider the Hobbit Saga (two expansions and six quests) to be a separate cycle, and LOTR saga (six expansion, 18 quests) to be a separate cycle.

Got a nice free day so I decided to just knock out the solo league in one sitting. Deckbuilding for this one was much harder because I was trying to get a perfect score for the first two tiebreakers too, but I couldn't get the deck consistent enough without bringing in some more card draw.

Here's a link to the deck:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/10272/november-solo-league-1.0

It's your standard Outlands fare, supported by Beravor so I have the card draw I need. Boromir is super useful during Battle questing, making all of those little Gondor Allies much more effective during the questing phase.

I managed a perfect score this month, first try victory on all three quests!

Into Ithilien

I was actually aiming to keep Celador alive, but a few early game Spiders of Mordor forced me to chump block a few times, meaning I had to do the Siege questing instead. It turned out okay, though; after all, once it gets going, Outlands can handle any type of questing without trouble!

I only saw one Blocking Wargs (on the second turn). If I had seen more, I might have had a tougher time of things.

The Steward's Fear

This one gave me the most trouble. At first, I couldn't get any Locations to show up, so I was just building up my Outlands army in relative peace. Both Beravor and Boromir ended up in Local Trouble, but that was okay--I didn't really need to use them any more.

At some point, however, I realized that I had made a critical error in playing down a few Knights of the Swan when I started to reveal copy after copy of A Knife in the Back and my beefy Outlands Allies started turning against me.

As soon as I went into Stage 2, I ended up with a huge surge train (there's those Locations I needed!) and the plot that reveals extra cards each round. I was able to stay ahead of the curve, but just barely. My Outlands army was looking worse for wear due to a few Zealous Traitors but my bigger concern was that I shuffled those Knife in the Back cards back into the encounter deck.

In the end, both Boromir and Beravor fell to A Knife in the Back, but the rest of the Outlands army was able to take down the Villain and bring the quest home.

The Drúadan Forest

Compared to the first two, this one was really easy. I had a couple of Treacheries whiff early on, and on turn 2 I got down Henamarth Riversong, which meant that I could easily prepare for whatever came off the encounter deck. At that point the game was pretty much over.

This was a fun challenge! Looking forward to seeing how others take it on.

Congratulations! Going first is the hardest part, since from now we can be inspired by your decklist and trying to improve it. I will playtest for a perfect three tiebreaker since it is the only achievement left.

Steward Fear is really not a rush scenario. My advice would be to play only an ally if you know it will be useful. And do not reveal the plot unless you are sure you can win quite fast. The best case possible is already have the clue in play when you do so so you can finish the game in 2/3 turns.