Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from Voice of Isengard and the Ringmaker cycle. The quests are:

1) To Catch an Orc (VoI)
2) The Dunland Trap (AP #1)
3) The Three Trials (AP #2)

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 Tactics Eomer, Grima, Celeborn, and Idraen.

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:

IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to setup effects being moved after step seven, tokens are now used *after* encounter setup, instead of directly after the mulligan. This should make tokens slightly more useful on average.

For each token you have, after encounter setup 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 To Catch an Orc 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 Three Trials it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat The Dunland Trap.

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 VoI/Ringmaker, KD/Dwarrowdelf 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 VoI/Ringmaker, KD/Dwarrowdelf, and 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 VoI/Ringmaker and KD/Dwarrowdelf. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: TaEomer, Grima, Celeborn, Idraen. More is better.

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

5th) The number of cards outside Voice of Isengard, Dunland Trap, and The Three Trials. 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 May's league. April's cycle will be chosen by the winner of February's league.

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.

To Catch An Orc: March 16th
The Dunland Trap: March 23rd
The Three Trials: March 30th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q7t7azb6lH6juUxIo_G33-TpfxuVfZn67IFCUrIXSLw/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.

Going to give Grima and Saruman and try together for the first time. Hopefully get this done this week.

To Catch an Orc went great. Drew Saruman's Staff and some solid doomed cards and Ents in my opening hand. I managed to quest pretty heavily right out of the gate with all three heroes and Quickbeam on the quest, keeping a resource being added to the quest each round. Mugash was literally the last card in my set aside pile so it was a long game to find the Orc captain. But thankfully Fall of Gil-Galad and Merry's ability kept my Threat manageable until I let Saruman take an undefended Attack and drop my Threat down 13 to a reasonable 34. Firyal was also an excellent fit for helping me control when to draw extra cards to find key locations and when to stall so I could deal with what I had. By end of game I had a good spattering of Ents in play and a fast hitch on Merry so I could keep my Threat at a constant level. Very happy there wasn't much doomed from the encounter deck this game or it would have been a different story. Lots of fun running the Isenguard pair together with their prisoners.

0 tokens used.

The Dundland Trap was a much tougher fight and a very savage game. I knew about the twist so I only put Treebeard and Quickbeam into play for the first phase. Using Doomed cards to help Saruman defend and attack against enemies. I drew an in need of rest from the encounter deck and put it on Saruman since I had just placed Fall of Gil-Galad on him. Then I slowly took damage on the Wizard as I progressed through the first quest. The ambush destroyed Quickbeam but thankfully I had saved up 5 resources per hero and was able to let Saruman die during the combat phase to drop my Threat and then Fortune or Fate him back into play. The final phase against Chief Turch I played ever Ent ally I had and tried to build up a force. Treebeard loaded with resources and Saruman+doomed cards again was key to surviving a berserkers constant attacks. The chief cut down my Derndingle Warrior and a couple more Dunlands engaging at my high Threat meant by the next round I had to trigger the end game defense.I lost Merry in the final rounds combat phase right before the refresh phase from an undefended attack getting +3 damage.

EDIT: this made me lose and I'll have to try again after I go find Merry floating down the Dunland river...

Lots of fun and I'll share my next run which hopefully goes better haha.

Doesn't Merry dying make you lose?

http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR/Details/No-Way-Out-TDT?Lang=EN

Still need to work out what deck I'm playing for this. Should have plenty of time to play this month at least!

2 hours ago, naverag said:

Doesn't Merry dying make you lose?

http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR/Details/No-Way-Out-TDT?Lang=EN

Still need to work out what deck I'm playing for this. Should have plenty of time to play this month at least!

Yep cancel last I don't know how I missed the giant bold text but definitely lost. I will be returning to Dunland again. And yes lots of downtime for the forseeable future haha.

It was a trap!

Alright in the end it took a total of 3 tokens to be able to beat this Savage quest.

Summary of the attempts:

1 token - things went crazy in 3B and some nasty shadow cards slew Merry.

2 tokens - same as above, except it was Chief Turch attacking a second time and making it against an exhausted force, slaughtering Merry.

3 Tokens - I chose a different strategy, went full in with a massive force in he first phase, stalled forever, lots of doomed events to boost cards and resources and easily destroyer whateve enemy popped up. All the while slowly building up a horde of Resources on all my heroes but especially Treebeard (who went into phase 2 as my chosen ally with 9 tokens on him!)

I also waited until I had peace and thought in my hand before progressing which allowed me to combine the massive card draw with all the resources I had saved and play a horde of Ents, Firyal and the Steward. Treebeard was able to hold back the attacks until his sent friends got a bit hasty, and at last Victory. Though Merry is still traumatized from dying so many times.

Final score 3 tokens.

Final mission The Three Trials went much better, I chose the trials in this order: intuition, perseverence and then strength, drawing Wolf + Cave Barrow, Raven + Hill Barrow and then Boar + Stone. Worked out great as I was able to build up a major Ent force and then immediately progress through the last trial because it was during the combat phase that I gained the key. Allowing me to kill off the Wolf again once all three engaged me for the finale. This let like a quest my build was a lot more prepared for. 0 tokens used for total of 3 tokens for this month, Saruman curses the Dunland Trap and wishes he had sent a group of adventurers instead haha.

At long last, I am closing March's league, and I am making two rules changes for future leagues:

1) The deadlines will change to 14th (progress), 21st (progress), 28th (final) at 11:59pm. My allowance of extra time to finish was used pretty much just for me, and that's not fair to other players -- and isn't good for me as a procrastinator. By having a hard deadline, updates and posts will finally be done in a consistent fashion.

2) I'm changing the use of Grace of Valar tokens to be done *anytime* after setup. Last month I changed to the post-quest-setup stage, in part to be consistent with Caleb's idiotic Contract ruling, and in part because Escape From Mount Gram showed me how useless the tokens could be against that quest. This month showed me how much the new timing made tokens much less useful in a quest like Dunland Trap. The *point* of the Valar tokens is to help a player win, and that shouldn't be hamstrung by the specifics of a quest, they can be used whenever the player deems the most useful before round one starts. (Hmm.... maybe I should allow them to be saved for use *during* the quest. What do you think?)

Anyway, on to the results from Ringmaker

To Catch an Orc caused Thanee's deck (Elrond/Grima/Gandalf), and General Grievous's deck (Saruman/Grima/SpMerry) no issues, as they both defeated the quest with zero tokens. I took my Lothriel/TaEomer/Celeborn deck against it, but until the Elvenking/Elf Friend combo hits it burns through your hand quickly, I was overwhelmed by enemies on the first attempt but then defeated the quest easily with one token.

0 General_Grievous (20)
0 Thanee (22)
1 dalestephenson (35)

Then my troubles began with Dunland Trap. I was worried about it, because Lothriel loves card draw, and Dunland Trap hates card draw, but I thought if my combo came together I'd be OK. I'd be able to pull allies into my hand before the quest resolved going into stage two, then play them again after I've been washed away. Sounds like a good plan, right?

The first time I was overwhelmed in the first stage, as my combo never came together. The second time (one token) I made it to the final stage, but too many enemies brought me down. My deck has a fair amount of attack in it once the Silvan bowmen comes out, but only Celeborn can really defend and survive, so too many enemies is a huge problem.

With two tokens I got to the final token removed with only Turch left to attack me, but was out of allies to chump and had to rely on Celeborn for one last defense. If there was no shadow, I would win. +1 attack, I lose.

With three tokens I lost Lothiriel in stage two (chumped with her, since Need of Rest would've killed her in stage three anyway, costing me the game) but I still ended up getting to one last defense by Celeborn with no allies left to chump. If there's no shadow, I would win. +1 attack, I lose again.

With four tokens I actually ran out of cards with Plains of Ededwaith (no card draw in resource phase) as the active location, so even though I was enemy free I got location locked. And I'm also noticing that these tokens aren't doing me much good, because I'm using them with a Boar Clan enemy engaged and I'm not wanting to buff him up -- so I just take resources, but I run out of allies. Besides, the cards I draw have only two turns to be played before the Time throws them all away.

With 6 tokens I was done in by a 2-strength undefended attack (taken so I could eliminate the last non-Turch enemy), which got increased by a shadow to 4 damge.

With 10 tokens I got those cascading shadows in stage three, making what should've been a harmless attack punch right through Celeborn.

With 15 tokens I ran out of allies in the final stage.

With 20 tokens a need of rest came out without A Test of Will in hand, and even with a single Honour Guard in play the engagement time removal killed her. I had switched to Boar Clan Warrior by this point so I could draw cards (even with a kazillion shadows, he can still be chumped and slain by TaEomer).

With 50 tokens I finally fully embraced card draw. As long as I clear the first stage in two turns, I can keep a massive hand, and with Feigned Voices I don't have chump the Warrior. I ended up drawing 23 cards, giving the Warrior (with the initial card draw, 24 shadow cards on him -- after which I used Sneak Attack/Gandalf to dispatch him in the questing phase. I placed 15 progress on the first turn, and with Silvan events, Elvenking and temporary allies only had to discard one ally when I cleared stage one -- the rest was easy, as it ought to be with 50 tokens. I didn't even have to chump, since I had Celeborn at four defense, three Honour Guards in play, and Armored Destrier. To think I almost won with 2 tokens... I didn't repeat the quest with 21 tokens, since I'd already safely secured last place.

0 Thanee (22)
3 General_Grievous (20)
50 dalestephenson (35)

The final quest was the one I expected to be the worst, the notoriously solo-unfriendly Three Trials. Since the league was already late, I just dropped to 25 tokens. Due to the five-ally limit not being cleared until near the end it took a while to build the board state, but the turn after that was gone I dropped a ton of attack, killed one Guardian immediately after the final Guardian was slain to plop me in stage three, then the following turn polished off the final two. I think less tokens could've managed it, but I had delayed the results long enough. Thanee and Grievous had already polished it off with no tokens.

0 General_Grievous (20)
0 Thanee (22)
25 dalestephenson (35)

So final standings:

0 Thanee (22)
3 General_Grievous (20)
76 dalestephenson (35)

Thanee finishes first and gets to choose the cycle for May's league
General Grievous finishes second and gets to choose a quest from that cycle.
I finish third and last, so I get to exclude a quest and pick a supplemental cycle.

Thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy Ered Mithrin in April. I think this month I will take more time in choosing a deck....

Thanee has chosen the Haradrim cycle, General Grievous now gets to choose a quest from that cycle.

Have to pick The Mumakil, that quest rocks

I'm going to exclude Race Across Harad, I have enough stress in my life right now without that. RNG picks Long Arm of Mordor (Deluxe) and The Black Serpent (AP #4). Mandatory hero list is LeGimli, SpLegolas, Kahliel and Fastred. Obviously, if you choose Kahliel you can't use his objective-hero version in Long Arm of Mordor. I will choose LOTR Saga for supplemental player cards.