Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from Lost Realm and the Angmar Awakens cycle. The quests are:

1) Weather Hills (Deluxe)
2) Escape from Mount Gram (AP2)
3) Battle of Carn Dum (AP5)

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 at least one of Tactics Aragorn, Halbarad, Rossiel, and Amarthiul.

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 Carn Dum 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 Escape from Mount Gram it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Weather Hills.

4) You are not required to publish your deck, but providing a ringsdb link is encouraged (otherwise I may need to ask you for your decklist at the end of the month if required for a tiebreaker). You are required to reveal which Heroes you used, and how many cards in your deck came from outside LR/Angmar cycle, LOTR saga and a single core. Do not include outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck itself.

5) Tiebreakers have frequently mattered, though we haven't had a zero-token winner in the last three months. Here are the tiebreakers, in order:
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1st) The number of outside cards (i.e. not from LOTR saga, LR/Angmar or a single core) used in the deck. Do not count outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck. Less cards is better.

2nd) The number of heroes specifically from LOTR saga and LR/Angmar. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: TaAragorn, Halbarad, Rossiel, Amarthiul. More is better.

4th) The number of cards in the deck outside LOTR saga and LR/Angmar. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

5th) The number of cards outside Lost Realm, Escape from Mount Gram, and Battle of Carn Dum. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

6th) Performance in February's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish February's League, a median performance will be assumed). Whoever did worst wins this tiebreaker.
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6) 1st place gets to choose the cycle for May'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. In an effort to expand the diversity of decks used, the last place player will choose an additional cycle that may be used for deckbuilding in April's league. April's league will be in LOTR saga, quests still to be determined.

7) Weekly deadlines will be on Monday at 11pm Eastern. Only the final deadline really matters for scoring -- the first two deadlines are only to be included in intermediate standings.

Weather Hills: March 11th
Escape from Mount Gram: March 18th
Battle of Carn Dum: March 25th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yK0oi1aAeiMmtXUNBhIeJ8zGqkAHib5iyGtWWACW0LM/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. Please give a link to your deck if you built or published it on ringsdb, 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.

I have been so busy lately, but I hope I can find the time to do this month's league! Mount Gram and Carn Dum with the same deck is too good of a challenge to pass up!

Well I have two decks I can beat Carn Dum with. I've selected one and updated it to match the rules (I hope) and will give this a go. Carn Dum will give me troubles I suspect but oddly enough its Mount Gram that I'll probably have to make a few attempts at with this build. Anyway, been meaning to jump into these league things.

I might be able to do April's as well, depends on what Sagas are selected.

After 1 week, three out of four posting results have already taken a token (outside cards in parens)

0 Thanee (42)
1 Vermithrax (23)
3 dalestephenson (31)
8 skihorse4848 (41)

There's still two weeks left, so it's not too late to build your deck and enjoy the "fun" of surging weather treacheries. Although I admit it's nice when I can damage core Gandalf while Cold From Angmar is out.

I just finished “The Weather Hills” with the “Aragorn and the Blade of Legend” Deck from Rings DB. One change to the deck—Foe-Hammer replaced Deep Knowledge. What a fun deck!

Mount Gram splitting up your precious deck and removing your heroes can make your deck design go poof -- but fortunately it starts out easy and gives you free stuff, so in the end it's not too difficult. Here's the four who have posted results for this quest (outside quests in parens):

0 Vermithrax (23)
0 dalestephenson (31)
0 Thanee (42)
2 skihorse4848 (41)

And here are the standings so far:

0 Thanee (42)
1 Vermithrax (23)
3 dalestephenson (31)
10 skihorse4848 (41)

Just under a week left, so it's not too late to post a deck and get playing.

Mount Gram is one of my favorites. Have you tried the Fatty Bolger challenge? The challenge is to escape From Mount Gram using Fatty Bolger as your starting hero. That was fun. There’s an article on Dor Cuarthol that explains one way of doing it. I suggest trying it before reading the article as it does spell out some solutions.

Still have to figure out how to input results but I subbed in Tactics Aragorn into my Elrond/Gandalf deck and took on Weather Hills and beat it without needing any tokens first try.

Not sure which hero I'll pick for Mount Gram but we shall see as they all sort of need their attachments.

The google spreadsheet is set up to give write access to anyone following the link, so just click on the link in the first post and use the first empty line to add your name, heroes, outside cards, results, and ringsdb link.

5 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

The google spreadsheet is set up to give write access to anyone following the link, so just click on the link in the first post and use the first empty line to add your name, heroes, outside cards, results, and ringsdb link.

Awesome done, and first time trying the challenge but seems fun trying to build outside of my usual go-to heroes.

Finally finished the last two quests today. Mount Gram went really well with Gandalf as my chosen hero and lots of readying effects (plus getting all three heroes back by the end of round three). First pass success.

Battle of Carn Dum went... not as good haha. Got wiped out early on for my first three games, threating out twice (its hard when you start at 40) then dying the third time. Managed to get it the fourth time with a great starting hand of Wizard's Pipe, Vilya, and Path of Need, which meant none of my heroes exhausted to quest or battle and I was able to spend a few rounds summoning some friends.

MVP goes to Wiglaf with a bat belt full of attachments and Boromir who were able to help take hits from Thurdir until I got my Burning Brands online with Elrond/Gandalf.

I forgot how brutal terrible Carn Dum was but thank you for the reminder hahaha.

It took me a while. I was not finding the motivation to make a deck to play these quest. Then I remembered I have no Dunedain deck!

I used my new Outmatched Duendain deck , heavily based on Gizlivadi's Dunedain deck . I have to say that playing Mount Gram has been a blast. I took Halbarad as my hero and I was very lucky by having in my starting hand a song of wisdom and Steward of Gondor. Also, from the Prision Cell I freed a Ranger of Cardolan, so I was for sure lucky. Nevertheless, I have to say that his ability to quest for free when you are engaged with an enemy made all the difference.

For battle of Carn Dum I don't know what to say. It was not all that heavy, but then I think it is a quest that depends a lot on what the encounter deck throws at you, but on this quest Outmatched won the day for me, well that and Ancestral Armour, Burning brand, Armored Destreir... 😛

I am happy, I was about not to participate because I was lazy, and at the end of the day I had tons of fun and I ended up with a new deck in my library!

Carn Dum has a terrible reputation. A deserved reputation, if you have no protection against shadow cards. After finishing my first run, I tried running through these three quests with my Stereotypical Dunedain Deck. I started with 12 tokens, then went to 18, then went to 24, then went to 30--I'll admit I didn't play all those out, I just scooped in disgust after losing Amarthiul to a shadow in the first few turns. Fully healthy, six defense -- boom, dead. Finally managed to overwhelm it with 36 tokens and chump blocking with 3-cost Dunedain, and didn't feel like playing it again to see if I could lower my count.

But in the real entrants, all of which have Lore or Balin, here's how we did (outside cards in parens):

0 Yepesnopes (27)
0 Thanee (42)
2 Vermithrax (23)
4 Skihorse4848 (41)
6 Gillies2921 (44)
8 dalestephenson (31)

OK, I'm last with my official deck as well. But I'm first in the non-Aragorn division. For some reason, nobody else wanted to take down Carn Dum with Rossiel.

Here's the final standings:

0 Yepesnopes (27)
0 Thanee (42)
3 Vermithrax (23)
6 Gillies2921 (44)
11 dalestephenson (31)
14 Skihorse4848 (41)

Congratulations to Yepesnopes, second lowest in outside cards but taking no tokens against the three quests. If memory serves, this is the first time he's used regular quests instead of nightmare, and it paid off in the standings. Yepesnopes gets to choose the cycle for May's league, Thanee gets to pick a quest from it to play, and Vermithrax gets to pick a quest not to play. SkiHorse4848, courtesy of bad luck on Weather Hills, gets to choose a supplemental cycle for player cards. Thanks to all of you for playing.

Hi!

I already choosed cycle once. I would like to pass this “honor” to another player who has not have the chance to do it yet.

Yeah Carn Dum is pretty mean. I went into this one with a deck that could beat Carn Dum and worked back from that.

Balin saved my team several times. His ability only works on one shadow card per attack but many times you really only care about one of the cards in the stack.

Thanks for running this. Will try to join the April league. Might be a bit tardy as i'm just now at the Land of Shadow in my progression with the game. I'll need to finish those quests in saga mode before I'm ready to turn around and try them in the league.

Thanee has chosen KD/Dwarrowdelf for May's league. Yepesnopes can now choose a quest from that cycle to play.

I have finally finished the 3 quests. I got through the 2nd quest—escape from gundabad only dinged for one. But my legacy blade deck proved toooooo slow to develop against battle of carn dum—17 tries (16 tokens) and I got lucky by having enough chumps to survive long enough to get rolling.

I choose Shadow and Flame! 😈

Vermithrax gets to choose a quest from KD/Dwarrowdelf to exclude. skihorse4848 has chosen Hobbit saga for supplemental player cards, to enable the dwarf decks.

Dwarf Decks! I've come around to enjoying them again and have one I really like playing. I'm sure it looks just like everyone elses!

Looks like I get to veto a quest...

Dwarrowdelf had some ups and then it had some downs like Stage 3B of the Redhorn Gate (I need what to complete the stage???). Who can forget Sleeping Sentry from Road to Rivendell? One of my favorite quests Foundations of Stone shares way too much DNA with Into the Pit. Then there was The Long Dark with its Locate tests. I really disliked the locate tests.

I'd like to disqualify The Long Dark on the account of its locate tests.

Quests will be:

Flight from Moria (Khazad-Dum)
The Watcher in the Water
Shadow and Flame.

Mandatory hero will be one of Bifur, Dwalin, LoAragorn, and Elrond.

So, I can build my deck with Core Set cards, KD/Dwarrowdelf cards, and Hobbit saga cards?

6 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Quests will be:

Flight from Moria (Khazad-Dum)
The Watcher in the Water
Shadow and Flame.

Mandatory hero will be one of Bifur, Dwalin, LoAragorn, and Elrond.

No playing two-handed allowed?

No playing two handed. KD/Dwarrowdelf, Core set cards, and Hobbit saga cards are better for tiebreaker purposes, but you can use outside cards as well.

Thanks.