Hello to all players!

After Leadership and Tactic sphere from Core set comes to our sight the Spirit sphere , best known for the excellent questing abilities, high Willpower Strength and threat level.

Link: https://visionofthepalantir.com/2019/02/01/spirit-sphere-core-set/

I just remind you, what's all about (skip it, if you have already read the article from Leadership sphere):
I made a deep analysis of each player card, mention the positives and negatives of each card, possible combos and synergies and overall conclusion from my point of view. I set the goal of describing each card in at least 450 words , in 500 words at the best. It's written in " progression mode ", and it's because of 1) new players, who wanna to start this game from Core set in progression style, 2) the progression mode seems to me more challenging than "normal style" with accessible all cards from all expansions and adventure packs. I wanted to create such complex and detailed reviews because I think it's rare material in LOTR LCG community. And I think that each card, no matter how strong or weak, deserves own attention, not only that cards we usually use in decks.

Hope you will enjoy this set of reviews. Don't hesitate and comment, I'll be happy for your responses with own observation, experiences and opinions.

I see the Wandering Took as a 1 1 1 2 ally with built in Sentinel and Ranged, threat fixing is more of a side effect. The stats are as good as one can expect for this cost.

The Lórien Guide effectively has two willpower when there is an active location, as one additional progress token is nearly equivalent to one willpower with the added benefit, that the progress gets placed, even if you do not quest successfully. And paying three resources and one card for two willpower is better than any other option in the Core set save for Celebrían's Stone and Faramir, which are unique. I tried her and sorry, I do not agree with your sentiment here.

Regarding the Northern Tracker: While I think, he is a superb ally, in solo games I prefer the Lórien Guide. Most of the time you will only reveal one encounter card and if it is a location (probability approximately 33%) you can probably travel there in the very next phase. Thus the tracker only provides one willpower and nothing else. I would rather take the one willpower and the progress token from the Guide for one less resource, thank you very much. As soon as there are at least two players in the game, I will swap her out for the Northern Tracker.

The only time a group Greeting would be useful is in a four player game, but even then threat probably is spread out enough, that you better only reduce one player's threat in an emergency.

Strength of Will is useful after travelling to the Enchanted Stream for card draw, Eaves of Mirkwood for cancellation, East Wall of Rohan for paying allies, Outer Ridge for avoiding threat, Spider's Ring and Dry Watercourse to deal with Gollum. You might think, that this event is free, but you will need to exhaust a Spirit character for it, which you have to pay for first and not use its abilities or stats. The Loríen Guide can just as well place two progress on the active location (one through her ability and one through her willpower if questing succesful), although one round later which might matter or maybe not. At least the Guide does so every round, as long as an active location is there, while the event is one off.

A Test of Will is an overpowered card for sure: pay one resource and basically negate an encounter card barring surge and doomed. Cards like Gildor's Counsel or Wait no longer cost more and/or engage you with an enemy.

I really wonder how you get your willpower up: Faramir and Celebrían's Stone are of course outstanding but both are unique and other than that there is not much cheap willpower: Henamarth Riversong has an awesome ability especially in solo play you have to exhaust him for and Power in the Earth gets discarded as soon as its location is explored. Many allies from the Core set that can be used for questing cost two resources and still only provide one willpower. Of course allies can be affected by Faramir, but they are also susceptible to cards like Necromancer's reach. For more math check this post of mine:

In some situations attachments are better than allies and vice versa. I am okay with Celebrían's Stone being better than Favor of the Lady because it is unique and restricted. Sure it sucks that willpower is more expensive than attack or defence but with too less of it you are going to lose for sure. You can get away with low defence through chump blocking, snaring or feinting but with low willpower? Good luck! Éowyn with Celebrían's Stone is only getting you so far.

As I said above, Power in the Earth gives you effectively one willpower for one resource. You write how awesome Dúnedain Mark and Warning are because they give you one stat for one rescource. Power in the Earth basically does the same: minus one threat for one resource. The only downside is that you have to discard it once the location leaves play. But it allows you to ignore cards like Endless Caverns, Banks of the Anduin or Impassable Bogs etc. And compared to Blade Mastery (a card you gave 4 stars and I see as inferior to Power in the Earth) it gives a permanent pseudo willpower instead of a temporary buff. But this game allows everyone to build a deck fitting their style and that is fine by me.

Meanwhile Unexpected Courage is the reason I bought a third Core set and thus I make sure to include three copies of it in any deck that uses Spirit.

Spirit is my favorite sphere, so I'm glad to see you get around to this one.

I like Eleanor, but I would prefer that her ability be to cancel the "When Revealed" without having to replace that card with another one from the Encounter Deck.

In the description for Northern Tracker it states that you can use his ability twice in one round by using Ever Vigilant to ready and then commit to the quest a second time.

Unfortunately this is not possible as there is no option to commit characters a second time.

There may be some way to use the ability more than once per turn with an expanded card pool, but certainly nothing in the core set will enable this

Spirit Eowyn is a fantastic hero, though I like her tactics version better. She has the distinction of being one of the best heroes for one-deck play, yet an ability that gets better with more players.

Dunhere in the context of the core set is problematic, because he needs weapons and low threat to work effectively by himself. But weapons are in tactics (and aren't very strong in the core), which lacks low threat heroes. Spear of the Mark is made for him, but doesn't come out until Morgul Vale. Black Riders is a great expansion for him since it provides low-threat hobbit heroes and another weapon which is great for attacking staging. Spirit Glorfindel also helps build a lower-threat deck. But the card that makes Dunhere come into his own is Fastred, a spirit hero that not only defends, but can put the enemy he defended against *back in staging* while lowering your threat. Both Dunhere and Fastred need augmentation to do their job well, since Dunhere only attacks for three and Fastred is only a 3/3 defender, but it's a thing of beauty when it works well.

However, even within the context of the core set there are things that Dunhere does well. Hummerhorns are one of the nastiest critters around with a hero-killing when-engaged ability, but with high threat and 0/3 defensive stats, Dunhere takes him out with one blow. Goblin Sniper is another annoyance that Dunhere can always remove. Finally, in the second stage of Journey Down the Anduin there is no automatic engagement while the enemies pile up -- Dunhere can help you clean out the weenies that pile up there.

Eleanor I see mostly as a multiplayer card, since the more players you have the more likelihood of a treachery that you really want replaced (and a number of treacheries scale badly for 3+ players), and the loss of a hero action will bite less -- when she's not cancelling treacheries, her combat stats are weak. However, since she has 2 native defense and Gondor trait, she can turn into a good defender when Gondorian Shield becomes available in Steward's Fear. I had her in a two-deck fellowship with Dori, so she could defend if not replacing treacheries from the beginning of the game.

Wandering Took is your basic versatile 2-cost ally, rather like Guard of the Citadel, can provide a little questing, a little attack, or a little chumping -- Took can survive a weak attack so is strictly superior to Guard in his base stat, and his ability to change players can manipulate threat and allow him to shift for combat purposes with 2+ decks. His weakness is actually his trait, since you have to wait all the way until Mountain of Fire to get *anything* that buffs Hobbit allies (Tom Cotton), while Gondor/Silvan/Rohan/Dwarf decks become a thing much earlier than that.

Lorien Guide is underrated by you, since if you have an active location it effectively provides 2 willpower for 3 cost, with one progress absolutely guaranteed. You rightly appreciate Northern Tracker, but it's rarely the case where Northern Tracker provides progress (location in staging when committing to the quest), but there is no active location -- if you have a location in staging and no active location, most of the time you travel to it. Northern Tracker excels when multiple locations are stuck in staging, which happens most often in multiplayer and always when the active location hasn't been cleared -- the two cards actually work together against location lock, though that's not typically a problem with one-deck play. While an active location is less likely in one-deck play, I think I'd rather have Lorien Guide than northern tracker unless I'm running a combat-poor deck.

Northern Tracker's combat prowess is what sets him apart from the other spirit allies, at 2/2/3 he provides some attack and can take a hit or two. In a monosphere spirit deck that's as good as it gets for a while (ditto with Dunhere). As better combat allies come out (in other spheres) the value of the Tracker's combat is diminished, but his questing power continues to make him popular for 2+ players to this day as the primary tool against location lock.

Unexpected Courage is the main driver of purchasing more core sets, though if the Starter in the Collector's Edition ever becomes separately available it should replace multiples of the core set -- it gets nearly all the core set staples to 3x, including Unexpected Courage (It only has one Dwarven Tomb, though). Fantastic card, not least because it is not unique and does not take a restricted spot.

Favor of the Lady is not as cost-effective as Celebrian's Stone, but it shouldn't be -- the Stone is unique and takes a restricted spot, while Favor does neither. Willpower *is* more expensive than attack/defense, and it probably should be -- in the majority of quests you benefit from more willpower every turn, while you don't always need more defense or more attack. With that said, the problem with Favor is that it's competing with 2-cost allies that provide one willpower (lots of these), and the allies could also be used for other purposes and/or have special abilities. Extra attack can be useful to concentrate on specific characters (e.g. Dunhere) and extra defense is always important to concentrate on specific characters -- but with very few exceptions marginal willpower is marginal willpower, it doesn't matter whether it's coming from attachment or ally, or whether you put Favor on Theodred or Eowyn. (A few quests ally-hate or character-centric willpower tests can make Favor an attractive card, but it's definitely a sideboard card.)

Power in the Earth is a bad card in the core set and *long* after. Yes, if you're planning on leaving a location in staging it provides the equivalent of one willpower indefinitely -- but normally you don't want to leave a location in staging, you want to get rid of it by traveling and exploring (or just exploring...) . So you have a card that's rarely useful, but still takes space in your deck at expense of a better card. This card gets rehabilitated with the recently released Haldan and his Woodmen, who like location attachments a lot and get your card back.

A Test of Will and (to a lesser extent) Hasty Stroke remain staples to this day. It's a rare quest that has no treacheries not worth cancelling -- the need for Hasty Stroke depends on the shadow mix and your defensive strategy. There's three basic strategies -- hero defense, ally defense, chump defense, and it's a rare quest that punishes all three.

Will of the West is a sideboard card for certain deck-attacking quests, but it's most useful for decks with heavy draw that can run out of deck before you run out of quest. You don't often see those early in the game, but they certainly are present in the full card pool. So it's a card that's not much use in the core, but gets better later on.

I too use Galadhrim's Greeting mostly for the six-threat reduction, but even in two-deck play I've sometimes used for the 2-each -- generally when both decks are near elimination or both decks are just over an engagement threshold I don't want to meet. Having the second option makes the card more useful than if it just had six threat reduction.

Strength of Will is a card I rarely use, like most "free" cards the space in the deck is too much cost for me. It's a potentially useful sideboard card for locations that have obnoxious when-active abilities, like Enchanted Stream. If it were two progress on *any* location it'd be a much more popular card.

A Light in the Dark isn't very useful in a single deck, even if you're using a staging attacker like Dunhere -- it's too expensive. The real utility of this card is as an emergency option when you have a questing deck that can't handle combat, and a combat deck that doesn't have good sentinel/ranged to protect you for it. If an effect or accident ends up with an enemy on the wrong deck, for 2 cost you can get rid of it and let the other deck pick it up. Still not much used.

Dwarven Tomb in the context of the core can be used to recycle your staple events, at a cost. It's a great card, but it doesn't often make the cut in later decks.

Stand & Fight + Eowyn (or other card discarders) allows out-of-sphere allies to be played. The Killer Deck includes Beorn despite no tactics heroes, since it can both be used for Sneak Attack and can be played outright from the discard pile with Stand & Fight. But if you don't have a discarder, and you aren't chumping for defense, it's not a useful card.

13 minutes ago, rees263 said:

In the description for Northern Tracker it states that you can use his ability twice in one round by using Ever Vigilant to ready and then commit to the quest a second time.

Unfortunately this is not possible as there is no option to commit characters a second time.

There may be some way to use the ability more than once per turn with an expanded card pool, but certainly nothing in the core set will enable this

There is a way to do this in the full card pool, use Don't Be Hasty to remove and then Late Adventurer to recommit to the quest. But obviously a two-event combo isn't going to be practical, just putting more Northern Trackers in play would be better.

43 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

There is a way to do this in the full card pool, use Don't Be Hasty to remove and then Late Adventurer to recommit to the quest. But obviously a two-event combo isn't going to be practical, just putting more Northern Trackers in play would be better.

Thank you, Don't Be Hasty was the part I couldn't think of. And as you say, probably not worth it

10 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Dunhere in the context of the core set is problematic, because he needs weapons and low threat to work effectively by himself. But weapons are in tactics (and aren't very strong in the core), which lacks low threat heroes.

Dwarven Axe works well on him (from Tactics), although it would work better if he was a dwarf.

Sometimes I keep Eleanor around just so she can cancel Caught in a Web, that one's very annoying.

Dwarven Axe boosts his attack by 1, which in the core set alone is as good as you can do (Blade of Gondolin only gives you +1 attack against orcs). But 2 resources for 1 attack is pretty expensive for a weapon. Two Dwarven Axes will let Dunhere attack staging for 5 and cost you 4 tactics resources. Two Spears of the Mark will let Dunhere attack staging for 7 and cost you 2 tactics resources.

Thank you guys for your reactions! Good to see and read the opinions of you.:) I was writing you the response yesterday, but through my mistake whole text was deleted.:( So I'm writing it again now.

@rees263 You are absolutely right and it was my ignorance to not realize that you are not (commonly) able to commit one character to a quest twice. I fixed it in the article. Thanks for your attention!


@Amicus Draconis The questing within the Core set and without the Spirit sphere is a tricky matter, I suppose. I guess that 70-80 % of Willpower is generated by the heroes themselves. The rest is coming from allies and attachments. Hope that I haven't overstated these numbers, but when I was playing Core scenarios in a progression style (2-player mode), the majority of Willpower was generating Heroes, no matter of their sphere of influence. With expanding cardpool, heroes stop to have such monopoly role in questing and they move the reliability of the questing also at allies and attachments to a greater extent.

@dalestephenson Oh my Dúnhere ... did I really forget the mentioning of Hummerhorns , which can be easily killed by this hero? Thank you, I have mentioned it, but not in this article. I added them to the article as well, because Hummerhorns is a classic example of the enemy, for which Dúnhere is specialized to kill.

I was testing Lórien Guide last week (in a progression style) and I have made several conclusions:
1) The 3 cost was annoying, I was hesitated to pay it. Still, I have no choice. It was to have some ally on your side or to have nothing (there was a great chance you won't draw an ally because in overall you own only 9 Spirit allies). The first option was better actually.
2) Ability - didn't realize that it is like he is possessed by 2 Willpower - 1 of his own and 1 from his response. However, in the situation without an active location (not a rare situation), he couldn't serve you.
3) He could be "the response" on location lock. But Northern Tracker is "the answer" on location lock. Why? Because locations like Necromancer's Pass, Gladden Fields, Great Forest Web etc. are not desirable to travel there - yes, they have high Threat Strength and you should try to get rid of them as soon as possible. However, their traveling effect (or effect resulting from being the active location) means bad consequences and can you ruin that round. Discard 2 cards at random? What if among that cards you hold some good card? Exhaust one character? Are you in the luxury situation, where you can afford to miss the action of one character. Hardly. The presence of Northern Tracker calms you, you have a certainty that you get rid of these locations and simultaneously you needn't travel there. From this point of view, you don't need to travel anywhere - two rounds are enough to cleanse the staging area from many locations. With Lórien Guide, you have to travel to each location 1 by 1, in faaar slower way and with the necessity to travel to all these locations. Therefore, Lórien Guide isn't a true competitor to Northern Tracker, in most situations.

I know, that Northern Tracker excels in 2 and more players. In the solo play, he isn't so necessary, because you are revealing only one card. However, it also depends on the concrete scenario, the presence of Surge and other nasty effects.

The Favor of the Lady is the classic example of "not good exchange". 2 cost for 1 stat? Why it should be in this way? At least Dwarven Axe has the text in the bracket, guaranteeing +2 Strength to Dwarves . The higher value in sense of the cost of Willpower is somehow arguable, because in the Core set you lack the Willpower, therefore it could be more available. But the cost makes your effort even tougher. From this point of view, the Favor of the Lady can't stand its position beyond the Core set, or in the nearest future in competitions with other Spirit cards. Though, in the Core environment, we lack choices and removing this card from your cardpool from the very beginning wouldn't be also too wise.

You are right, that Unexpected Courage is the main reason for buying more copies of the Core set. Among others belong to have more copies of Steward of Gondor, Dwarven Tomb, Celebrían's Stone , more A Test of Will, Hasty Stroke etc. I personally own two copies of Core set and I think it's enough for me.:) Though three copies of Unexpected Courage or Dwarven Tomb would be very nice.

Obnoxious travel effects and obnoxious when-active effects do encourage clearing in staging, if you can. Meanwhile, obnoxious in-staging affects encourage travel. Over the course of game there's plenty of both.

As a solo player with a Northern Tracker already in play (and no Lorien Guide in play), which locations would I leave in staging rather than travel to, if I had no other location and no active location? Let's look at the locations that I definitely or possibly would leave in staging, as long as I had enough willpower to make progress with the extra threat present there:

Great Forest Web -- depends on whether I had a hero unexhausted that wasn't needed for combat -- with two threat and two progress, questing works out the same way whether I travel or not,.

Mountains of Mirkwood -- costs me a reveal, but a reveal in the travel phase is generally less painful, and the beneficial when-explored effect may come earlier if I travel. Takes three turns with Tracker, so trave ling saves me net one net progress.

Necromancer's Pass -- discard two cards from hand, with 3 threat and 2 progress, traveling saves me one net progress. Would probably only travel if I couldn't manage the 3 extra threat in staging or I had no cards I cared about in hand.

Enchanted Stream -- can't draw when active, and progress works the same either way. Leave in staging.

Tower Gate -- forced Orc Guard from traveling and only one quest point. Leave in staging.

Gladden Fields -- with three threat and three progress, you come out ahead three net progress by traveling, and if you clear it in one turn it will cost you one threat from it's when-active effect. Likely travel.

That's six locations, half of the ones in the deck. All these have 1-3 progress, so will remain in staging only 0-2 turns with a single Northern Tracker in play. Alas, the first cycle is as good as it gets for Northern Tracker. As the game continues, you get more options for avoiding travel requirements, higher progress requirements on locations, and locations that have obnoxious in-staging requirements. The next Deluxe has a location with *seven* progress and an obnoxious when-in-staging requirement.

There's two kinds of way location lock can occur:

1) More than one location comes out per turn. When this happens, even if you are clearing your active location each turn, the locations in the staging area multiply until the threat overwhelms you. This practically never happens with 1 player, and is very likely at 4 players, and Northern Tracker is *still* the best tool in the game for solving this problem by placing progress on *every* location is staging.

2) More than one location comes out over multiple turns because it's taking you so long to clear the active location. This sort is most likely to happen to single players who struggle with questing out of the gate. Lorien Guide *does* mitigate against this, by guaranteeing progress on the active location. Unfortunately, as a 3-cost spirit ally she is most affordable in dual or monosphere spirit decks, typically the best questing decks to start with. But if you use non-questing spirit heroes she may come in handy (and with core set cards, getting effectively two willpower for three resources actually makes her one of the best questers anyways). Northern Tracker doesn't help as much with this sort, because it takes him time to clear out staging locations and you're stuck precisely because you can't overcome the threat in staging.

With respect to Favor of the Lady -- while 2 may seem like a lot, 1 cost certainly seems too cheap to me. 2 cost for 1 willpower means that the longevity of the card is limited to a few special cases in the larger card pool (combos with Herugrim, sword-thained Rosie Cotton, Mount Doom quest) where it's important to boost a specific character's willpower. I'll grant that a special trait-related buff like Dwarven Axe would make it more interesting and more useful in certain tribes -- but honestly I think it's a shame that the core set didn't come with a more generic, cost-effective weapon instead of Dwarven Axe. The Axe itself is overshadowed by the cheaper and usually better Dwarrowdelf Axe even among dwarves as soon as you hit Khazad-Dum.

19 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Dwarven Axe boosts his attack by 1, which in the core set alone is as good as you can do (Blade of Gondolin only gives you +1 attack against orcs). But 2 resources for 1 attack is pretty expensive for a weapon. Two Dwarven Axes will let Dunhere attack staging for 5 and cost you 4 tactics resources. Two Spears of the Mark will let Dunhere attack staging for 7 and cost you 2 tactics resources.

Right, I was talking about strictly the core set. Spear of the Mark sounds great, but I haven't worked my way there yet. And none of the Dwarrowdelf cards have been available (which precede the Angmar Awakened cycle), so I haven't been able to get those yet. Hopefully they will get reprinted soon. I do have a Spear of the Mark card though!

Both kinds of locations (negative in-staging vs. active and travelling effect) demand different approach, I agree. From the well mentioned list of locations you describe, I agree almost with every "leave or not" statements. At Great Forest Web I don't remember, when I have travelled there last time, because generally I have no "free character" for voluntary exhausting. And Gladden Fields are big dilemma. Let it leave for 3 threat in the staging area or travel there and reconcile the increasing 1 more threat each round? It depends on the concrete situation. If you have Legolas with Blade of Gondolin , then it's enough you wait for some enemy for killing him, generate 3 progress tokens and get rid of Gladden Fields in the same round, when you travel there. But in other cases, if you can manage 3 threat for 3 rounds and Northern Tracker is present, then I would tend to let Gladden Fields in the staging area for Northern Tracker - you never know, when you stay "stucked" with your active location due to revealed cards. That's definitely true for 2 players and more, for solo the probability of this happening is minimal. Because I play in two-handed mode (actually 2 players, but both players played by myself :)), I know very well these situations. Last time yesterday with Hunt of Gollum. Location lock was 90% causes of my losses (tested Lore + Tactic sphere in progression mode). There I would give you anything for one Northern Tracker.:)

Lórien Guide can serve at locations with high number of progress tokens needed to fully explore that location (as I pointed in the review). The probability of location lock in this moment isn't negligible. However, with expanding cardpool, the options how to deal with all these bothersome situations is increasing, so Lórien Guide is fading away quite quickly, because you get allies like Escort from Edoras (1-time ally, but with great boost of Willpower in a single moment), West Road Traveller ... **** yeah, even that unique Éomund , which I hesitate to include to my decks (because 3 cost for 2 Willpower + his specific Rohan -ability). And we are still moving within the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. The options beyond this cycle expand greatly.

I definitely agree with Dwarven Axe vs. Dwarrowdelf Axe . The abilities of the second one exceeds Dwarven Axe significantly.

At last, Power in the Earth isn't really cup of my tea. In some sense, there is a good exchange 1 cost for -1 Willpower. But in summary and in practice, the difference in the staging area is very minimal, almost invisible. If you attach it to for example Banks of the Anduin, you probably can ignore it completely as well. I know that in cumulative way it can cause you some problems (1 threat to another), but if you haven't already lost control over the game, you should be able to deal with +1 threat of this location. I'm missing the sense of Power in the Earth in this way, if you won't attach for example Gladden Fields by 3 copies of this attachment (which is not very probably, I suppose).

With two decks Northern Tracker is significantly more useful than with one. In my fellowships I frequently sideboard Northern Tracker for location-heavy quests. Lorien Guide's effective two does get overshadowed by cheaper spirit allies that give you two willpower outright per turn. Escort from Edoras is burst, so doesn't fill the same role, but West Road Traveller certainly does, and 1x Eomund is a good alternative to a Lorien Guide. Still, getting obsoleted doesn't change that *in the core set* Lorien Guide gives you the most questing bang for your buck in spirit. It's a fine card for spirit-heavy core-only decks.

Great Forest Web has a difficult travel requirement, but not a punishing requirement. If you need a hero for combat, you just won't travel to it. But if you don't need a hero for combat, that hero that was standing around during staging just in case an enemy showed up can be exhausted painlessly.

Gladden Fields' when-active effect isn't much of a dealbreaker for me, since it's just not that punishing. One extra threat per turn isn't terrible, unless you're currently in danger of passing some important threshold (50 obviously, 40 with Hummerhorns in staging, 30 with Hill Troll in staging, etc.) . If you are making three progress per questing phase you can clear it in one turn, limiting the damage to one threat. If you *aren't* making three progress per questing phase, you need to get a 3-threat location out of staging ASAP so you can -- unsuccessful questing will cost you way more threat than having Gladden Fields as the active location will.

Hunt for Gollum isn't that location heavy, if you quest well enough to clear active locations each turn you shouldn't hit location lock with just two players. However, questing well with Lore/Tactics with just Core + that AP can be difficult.

Gladden Fields often is issued to me due to reporting of final scores, which I compare among different decks. Without this report, if you win with 30 threat or 49 threat, doesn't matter.:)

Hunt for Gollum , yay - it lasts me 2 days to beat it with Tactic + Lore monosphere deck in progression style.:D I'm veeery glad, that this task is behind me, because this monosphere combination really doesn't fit this scenario. If you want to ask me, why I'm doing these crazy things... you may find it out in some of my future thread here :)). Besides, it helps me to understand some of the cards, which I generally don't use. Classic examples in a Spirit sphere are Lórien Guide and Power in the Earth (as well as Will of the West or Strength of Will - but also cards from other spheres). However, I know that the "progression sight" can differ from the "non-limited sight", that means with all available cards from all EXP and AP. Thus, some of cards, which are bad in the progression style of playing, can be raised up by expanded cardpool, with new options and possibilites.

But it's good to read all your experiences with given cards, both in the "progression mode" and in "non-limited mode".:)

On 2/4/2019 at 10:28 AM, Silblade said:

Hunt for Gollum , yay - it lasts me 2 days to beat it with Tactic + Lore monosphere deck in progression style

Apologies if this is getting a little off topic, but Silblade, have you beaten Escape from Dol Guldur solo yet? I've been trying to, using only cards from the core set (I have two core sets), but no luck so far. I know it isn't really built for solo play, but I've read that other people have done it, so I'm giving it a try. I've thought of starting a thread about it.

I'm trying to go through the scenarios in order, using only the cards available up to that point. Maybe that's dumb, I don't know Hunt for Gollum would be next in line.

@Vince79 Never mind, I gladly answer to your OT, though my response wouldn't help you much, actually.:( It's a long time ago I have played in solo mode with only Core set this scenario. What I remember - it was extremely hard to complete this in a normal mode. Solo environment for Escape from Dol Guldur is very hostile, you are "bullied" from the very beginning - you can summon only one ally and in addition one hero is a prison, unusable till the second part of the scenario. This nasty effect is better tolerated with more players in game, because without prison you are still controlling 5 heroes. Only the limitation of "one ally per round" remains.

I believe that there exist Core solo deck, which could beat this scenario, even in normal mode. But I haven't tried it for myself. I have finished it only in two-handed mode, with 2 Core sets.

Hey, I'm playing this progression style as well, from Core scenarios until ..... It's not dumb at all, I think it's more challenging, because beating these scenarios with full cardpool (without Nightmare pack) is very easy and a bit boring. It's also occassion for testing of some uncommon cards, which you ordinarily won't include into your deck. From my sight, that cards would be Lórien Guide or Dúnhere from Spirit sphere, btw.:)

2 hours ago, Silblade said:

I believe that there exist Core solo deck, which could beat this scenario, even in normal mode. But I haven't tried it for myself. I have finished it only in two-handed mode, with 2 Core sets.

Most people agree that scenario is built for playing two handed or more, so I've felt even felt justified lately to try it in easy mode. Normally I would pride myself in not even considering easy mode, but in this case I've found it doesn't help that much anyway lol. I've read some guys claim they have solo decks that can beat Escape from Dol Guldur about 25% of the time, but I'm skeptical about that. Either they are not playing the game right, are straight up lying, or have a large pool of cards to draw from that I have no experience with yet.

One thing I like about playing through the scenarios and expansions in order is that you learn a lot about each card. I'm still tweaking my decks, if I notice I almost never play a particular card I will take it out, so there's a better chance something more useful will come up.

4 hours ago, Silblade said:

I believe that there exist Core solo deck, which could beat this scenario, even in normal mode.

I've actually done this with a single core set, so it is possible. It requires a healthy dose of luck, though.

I did this once and got very lucky but I have no desire to repeat it, there are funnier escape quests out there (Mount Gram for instance).

6 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I've actually done this with a single core set, so it is possible. It requires a healthy dose of luck, though.

You guys give me hope. Like you say, I imagine it will take a really lucky draw, especially from the Encounter cards.

I've tried several different decks, but lately I've been almost exclusively using a Spirit/Leadership deck with Aragorn, Eowyn, and Eleanor. Eleanor has to be the prisoner, of course. I feel like this will get me there eventually.

Well, I'm glad you'll keep trying! You might be more successful (I was at least) if you switched out Eleanor for Theodred.

I do not think it matters much at this point who the prisoner is: for me it was Denethor (in a Spirit Leadership deck).

Outside core-only, best odds for a single deck would likely be a Vilya deck, since the one-per-turn ally restriction is for playing, not putting into play.

Inside the core you hope for whiffing treacheries on the objectives. Or just do it with two decks, which I think is a more reasonable option. I've never actually attempted it with a single deck and feel no great desire to do so. It scales badly.

5 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Well, I'm glad you'll keep trying! You might be more successful (I was at least) if you switched out Eleanor for Theodred.

Thanks for the tip. Normally I always pair Theodred with Aragorn, but I started using Eleanor to avoid Caught in a Web.

A Test of Will will also cancel it, but that only helps if you have one. I don't believe Leadership/Spirit has any cards that remove attachments after the fact (although I think there are some shadow effects in the Encounter Deck that get rid of it, oddly enough) that are in the Core set.