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

1) The Steward's Fear
2) Druadan Forest
3) Blood of Gondor

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 Hirluin, Mirlonde, and Caldara.

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 Blood of Gondor 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 Druadan Forest it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat The Steward's Fear.

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 HoN/AtS, 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 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 HoN/AtS, LOTR saga 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 HoN/AtS or LOTR saga. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: Hirluin, Mirlonde, Caldara. More is better.

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

5th) The number of cards outside The Steward's Fear, Druadan Forest, and Blood of Gondor. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

6th) Performance in October's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish October'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 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. 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 January's league. December's cycle will be Dreamchaser.

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

The Steward's Fear: November 11th
Druadan Forest: November 18th
Blood of Gondor: November 25th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UCuPmP6UMtBKbZxZAibFwM6P_6ERq5A27X8fYdsbmxo/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'm in! Hopefully get my games done next week and since you are rocking the Outlands I'll give a Traps deck a go.

My first foray into The Steward's Fear did not go as planned, really regret not bringing any Test of Wills haha. It seems like every Knife in the Back and False Lead came at the worst times haha. Managed to get to stage two but got location locked and threated out. Another rough go then got it on the 3rd try.

Blazed through Druadan Forest with my Traps feeling like they were designed for that mission.

Blood of Gondor was a rough start and a poorly timed Lying In Wait caused me to threat out. Took it on again with two tokens and managed to scrape out a win.

Overall I definitely think I should have included some Spirit stables (Test of Wills and Northern Trackers) and probably would have had a better result with those. But overall Traps felt at home on these quests and lots of fun to be able to get them on the table. Scroll of Isildur and Forest Patrol were my most valued cards and really allowed me to take out a lot of enemies during the quest phase that would otherwise have given me a lot of grief.

Final score for me

Steward's Fear 3

Druadan Forest 0

Blood of Gondor 2

Total: 5

It took me two tries (one token) to take down The Steward's Fear. The first run was going nicely, I had a burgeoning Outlands army set up and thought I could complete quickly, though Poisoned Counsels was making me play Gandalf repeatedly (twice with Sneak Attack) and I was all out of Gandalfs. But Zealous Traitor damaged the whole army, then Knife in the Back took one of my two Anfalas Herdsman way, then another Zealous Traitor wiped out all my allies (and Imrahil too, who had been Outlandified and needed the Herdsman to stay alive). That was it.

The second time through I had Local Trouble hit twice early, so LeDenethor and LeImrahil spent the whole quest standing around not raising threat -- luckily the Outlands swarm survived and prospered, I was able to power through Unholy Alliance in stage two, and only a False Lead prevented me from clearing stage three in one turn.

General Grievous had more trouble with his traps-based deck and took three tokens for this quest: (outside cards in parens)

1 dalestephenson (7)
3 General_Grievous (0)

Against Druadan Forest I had a new experience, losing the first go with my Outlands deck. I failed to get Steward of Gondor or Lord of Morthond, lacking card draw and resources the swarm was slow to build, and the deck fed me enemies that I was unable to take out early. When archery killed off my enemies and I was still facing three enemies, I scooped.

Second go I had Steward early (mulligan failed, but it turned out to be the 7th card) and quickly had four colors for Imrahil's attachment. With plenty of resources and a steady diet of locations early I cruised to victory. But General_Grievous had no problems:

0 General_Grievous (0)
1 dalestephenson (7)

So after two quests the standings are:

2 dalestephenson (7)
3 General_Grievous (0)

While the league is supposed to end Monday night, those in the US have Thanksgiving coming up and could easily knock these quests out while digesting turkey. If you think you want to do that, let me know and I'll extend the deadline to the 30th.

(Note -- deadline was extended at Thanee's request on BGG.)

I ended up taking a single token on the final quest. The first time my Outlands deck had two Warrior of Lossonarch out quickly, so my plan was to leave the Crossroads in play and siege-quest to victory. And it would've worked too, if it hadn't been for *every single hidden card* turning out to be an enemy. Oh, and a lack of Anfalas Herdsman.

The second try I had no defense-boosters, but I quickly had the other three spheres out and was able to clear Crossroads with the help of Strength of Arms. With two Knights of the Swan out, I was able to finish off the Numenorean with the help of another Strength of Arms, then send everyone to clear stage two in a single turn of battle questing. Score for the third quest (outside in parens):

0 philipneri (10)
0 Thanee (27)
1 dalestephenson (7)
2 General_Grievous (0)

Final score:

0 Thanee (27)
1 philipneri (10)
3 dalestephenson (7)
5 General_Grievous (0)

Placement correlates perfectly with more outside cards, as Thanee's Caldara deck defeats two Outlands decks and General_Grievous' Gandalf/trap deck.

Thanee gets to choose the cycle for January, philipneri gets to choose a quest to include, I get to choose a quest to exclude, and General_Grievous gets to choose a cycle for supplementary player cards. December's league will be three sailing quests from the Dreamchaser cycle.

Thanee has picked the Hobbit saga. philipneri doesn't have it so deferred his pick to me, I'll pick Battle of Five Armies and defer the exclusion to General_Grievous (who can also pick the supplemental cycle for player cards).

I would like to exclude The Lonely Mountain and use supplemental cards from The Dream-Chaser cycle.

RNG selects Over the Misty Mountain Grim and Flies and Spiders. Mandatory hero list is Thorin, Ori, Nori, Oin, Balin, Bombur, Beorn, and Bard the Bowman.