Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from the SoH/Haradrim cycle. The quests are:

1) Escape From Umbar
2) The Black Serpent
3) The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat

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 that you must have at least one of Spirit Legolas, Leadership Gimli, Fastred, or Folco Boffin.

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 Dungeons of Cirith Gurat 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 Black Serpent it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Escape From Umbar.

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 SoH/Haradrim, VoI/Ringmaker and a single core. Do not include outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck itself.

5) Tiebreakers have frequently mattered and decided last month's league. Here are the tiebreakers, in order:
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1st) The number of outside cards (i.e. not from SoH/Haradrim, VoI/Ringmaker 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 SoH/Haradrim or VoI/Ringmaker. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: LeGimli, SoLegolas, Fastred, Folco. More is better.

4th) The number of cards in the deck outside SoH/Haradrim and VoI/Ringmaker. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

5th) The number of cards outside Sands of Harad, The Black Serpent, and Dungeons of Cirith Gurat. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

6th) Performance in August's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish August'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 November'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 October's league. October's cycle will be chosen by the winner of August's league.

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

Escape from Umbar: September 16th
The Black Serpent: September 23rd
The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat: Sept 30th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZujgOM7JKAk6lvfm2BgW02s5Dxj4wsVoZ3Kerm9ySkI/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.

Escape From Umbar is one of the few quests that you can easily lose in the first round -- if you don't have a progress token on the main quest you lose. You start with an engaged enemy and get to choose a location. So you have options:

Choose the lowest threat option, Port of Harad. Since only one enemy is engaged at game start, it only has one threat.

Choose Narrow Alleyway. It's two threat, but since when you travel you can put an engaged non-unique under it, you can ignore your enemy and quest all-out. Hope that an enemy under your engagement cost goes under it.

Choose Umbar Square. It's two threat and you have to reveal a card to travel to it -- but if you're confident that you can take out the Sentry this turn, it will place a progress marker for you when it's defeated.

Choose Haradrim Estate. It's three threat and makes you find/engage an enemy to travel to it -- but if you're confident you can defend two, it places a progress when you travel to it.

I went for the first option, Port of Harad. But I got greedy, thinking that since there was a high chance of 2 or less threat, I could get away with questing for 4 and could used Fastred/Dunhere on the Sentry this turn as well. Oops....

After taking a token, I quested for five and made it through. But I took the only token (outside cards in parens):

0 philipneri (35)
0 Thanee (40)
1 dalestephenson (30)

philipneri is also using Fastred/Dunhere, but has TaEowyn instead of SpBard to get weapons.

Can't wait to get this cycle especially for Spirit Legolas. But alas don't have it yet so won't be in for this month. Have fun thoughz

The second quest I've always considered a tough one. I nearly beat it with zero tokens but got overwhelmed at the end -- the encounter deck was less kind the next five times, and then I won fairly easily with six tokens. But no one else had a problem with it (outside cards in parens)

0 philipneri (35)
0 Thanee (40)
6 dalestephenson (30)

There's not much time left to complete the league, but the good news is that it won't be hard to displace me from third place:

0 philipneri (35)
0 Thanee (40)
7 dalestephenson (30)

Sorry for the delay, I've been buried at work this week.

When I chose my deck for this league, I re-ran my Dunhere/Fastred/SpBard deck for two reasons -- I had fun with it in the first league, and September was the anniversary, and I remembered that Haradrim had obnoxious when-engaged effects that killing in staging should avoid.

I did not remember that the first stage of Dungeons of Cirith Gurat made guarding enemies immune to player card effects, and the second stage prohibited damage in staging at all. So perhaps not the best choice. As I only had time to run against the quest once, I wanted to guarantee victory, and since I had third/last place locked up, I used six tokens and steamrolled it. So the standings for the third quest (outside cards in parens):

1 philipneri (35)
1 Thanee (40)
6 dalestephenson (30)

This was the only token taken for both of the other decks, so final standings:

1 philipneri (35)
1 Thanee (40)
13 dalestephenson (30)

Since philipneri used less outside cards, he wins the tiebreaker and the league, and gets to choose the cycle for November. Thanee gets to choose a quest from that cycle to play. I get to choose a quest to exclude and also get to choose a supplemental cycle for player cards.

For October we return to the LOTR saga.

philipneri picked Heirs/AtS, Thanee picked Blood of Gondor, I excluded Morgul Vale. Quests will be Steward's Fear (Hirluin), Druadan Forest (Mirlonde) and Blood of Gondor (Caldara). I picked LOTR saga for supplemental cards.