Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from the core and Mirkwood cycle. The quests are:

1) Journey along the Anduin (core set)
2) Escape from Dol Goldur (core set)
3) A Journey to Rhosgobel (AP #3)

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 the core heroes or Leadership Imrahil.

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, 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. This can be done *anytime* during setup.

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 Journey along the Anduin 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 Rhosgobel it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Dol Goldur.

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 Mirkwood, LOTR saga and a single core. Do not include outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck itself.

Note: Contracts (from the most recent cycle) are not part of the deck and should not be counted. A Loot Deck (from the Burglar's turn contract) is also not part of the deck and should not be counted. The One Ring or the Messenger of the King ally/hero should also not be counted *unless* your deck uses those cards to reach 50 -- the Master card fetched by the One Ring should be counted. You may follow contract/One Ring setup instructions at the same as hero setup, ignoring Caleb's ruling.

5) Tiebreakers have frequently mattered in this league. Here are the tiebreakers, in order:
---
1st) The number of outside cards (i.e. not from Mirkwood, 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 Mirkwood and LOTR saga. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: LeAragorn, Theodred, Gloin, LoGlorfindel, LoDenethor, Beravor, SpEowyn, Dunhere, Elanor, TaGimli, TaLegolas, Thalin, LeImrahil. More is better.

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

5th) The number of cards outside core and Rhosgobel. Less is better, and core cards beyond a single core are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

6th) Performance in May's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish April's League, a median performance will be assumed). Whoever did worst wins this tiebreaker.
---

6) 1st place gets to choose the cycle for August'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 August's league. July's cycle (LOTR saga) was chosen by the winner of May's league.

7) Weekly deadlines will at 11:59pm Eastern on the 14th, 21st, and 28th. Only the final deadline really matters for scoring and cannot be extended -- the first two deadlines are only to be included in intermediate standings.

Journey Along the Anduin: June 14th
Escape from Dol Goldur: June 21st
A Journey to Rhosgobel: June 28th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ABp4BtC1so6YZ2BpH3MMQNI-JQFF9CwavdVMzBOIlu4/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, but only the first entry will be considered for the competition itself.

Couple Dol Guldur questions:

Can use of Valar tokens be postponed to after deciding the prisoner hero, since that occurs during setup?

Can resources on the prisoner be used? For neutral only? Also the sphere of the hero?

Valar tokens can be used anytime during setup, so you may use them after the prisoner has been decided. Can you give them to a captured, facedown hero? I'm not sure -- in easy mode the captured hero would have a resource, and since the hero's resource pool is not the same as the hero, I don't think those resources would go away just because he's captured, absent instruction to do so. On the other hand, it is the hero's pool and not yours, the hero is not under your control, so you wouldn't be able to spend them anyways (and if you could spend them, facedown heroes have no spheres). Unless there's a ruling I'm missing about the interaction between captured heroes and easy mode, I will allow you to use tokens to add to the captured hero's resource pool, but it will be useless until that hero is rescued.

I'm really excited to try this for the first time now that it's a cycle I have this month.

I've got a provisional deck built on ringsdb, I think I'm going to go for Lore Denethor, Damrod and Beravor, but I will test the deck against at least Passage through Mirkwood before settling on a final lineup.

I haven't played solo very much at all, and not for quite a while so I don't expect to do very well against Escape from Dol Guldur especially.

Thanks to whoever picked this cycle for this month!

I decided to go for the full blast of the past approach with a LeAragorn/Theodred/SpEowyn lineup with the usual Stand and Fight shenanigans (but no Reforged). I will test it a bit then decide if try to play it against this month quests

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/16336/backtobasicssololeaguejune2020-1.0

Just a question: is there really any need for rule 2 relating to the tokens? The lowest number of tokens is better, but is there any need for a rule that says you can’t play quests with more tokens than you’ve already won it with?

10 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Valar tokens can be used anytime during setup, so you may use them after the prisoner has been decided. Can you give them to a captured, facedown hero? I'm not sure -- in easy mode the captured hero would have a resource, and since the hero's resource pool is not the same as the hero, I don't think those resources would go away just because he's captured, absent instruction to do so. On the other hand, it is the hero's pool and not yours, the hero is not under your control, so you wouldn't be able to spend them anyways (and if you could spend them, facedown heroes have no spheres). Unless there's a ruling I'm missing about the interaction between captured heroes and easy mode, I will allow you to use tokens to add to the captured hero's resource pool, but it will be useless until that hero is rescued.

I thought Caleb ruled somewhere along the line that you DO still control the prisoner? It is certainly "in play", but "cannot be used" I think. (this may or may not affect a strategy I have in mind!). Though having said that if your other two heroes are destroyed then you are deemed to have lost notwithstanding the captured hero, so maybe I am wrong.

The quest card says that the prisoner "does not" collect resources, but I suppose you could add resources to it via tokens before 1B triggers. It is face down, so resource icon isn't in play (?) but I guess you can use the resources as neutral, seeing as the resource pool is indeed a separate entity.

12 hours ago, Bobbymcbobface said:

Just a question: is there really any need for rule 2 relating to the tokens? The lowest number of tokens is better, but is there any need for a rule that says you can’t play quests with more tokens than you’ve already won it with?

Not really, but it makes a nice pair to Rule 1.

5 hours ago, Trumpet95 said:

I thought Caleb ruled somewhere along the line that you DO still control the prisoner? It is certainly "in play", but "cannot be used" I think. (this may or may not affect a strategy I have in mind!). Though having said that if your other two heroes are destroyed then you are deemed to have lost notwithstanding the captured hero, so maybe I am wrong.

The quest card says that the prisoner "does not" collect resources, but I suppose you could add resources to it via tokens before 1B triggers. It is face down, so resource icon isn't in play (?) but I guess you can use the resources as neutral, seeing as the resource pool is indeed a separate entity.

I'd be interesting in seeing the ruling -- I believe it's in play but not controlled by the player, and there are a handful of cards out there that care if you control a hero or not.

I think you would be able to add resources via tokens after 1B triggers, simply because the simple rules for Valar tokens permit you to give a resource to "a hero", not just a hero you control. The original variant was intended for any number of decks, so in a multiplayer situation the tokens are for the entire group, not per deck. But if you don't control the hero I don't think you can even spend the resources as neutral. This issue should've already happened to someone due to Easy Mode (or less likely, LeDenethor), so I would've expected a ruling on this point already , but haven't seen it yet.

Journey Along the Anduin went fairly well at one token. My zero token run resulted in a turn one second hill troll and went downhill from there...

With a horribly brutal start, my 8 token run at Escape from Dol Guldur was a slim victory. Ungoliant’s Spawn, and two cavern guardians Put the pressure on early. But I finally got the momentum to swing in my favor and built up a nice board of allies (it is difficult when you can only play one per turn) and ended the game at 39 threat, with 19 victory points.

21 hours ago, Bobbymcbobface said:

Just a question: is there really any need for rule 2 relating to the tokens? The lowest number of tokens is better, but is there any need for a rule that says you can’t play quests with more tokens than you’ve already won it with?

You are locked out. Never to play that scenario with those heroes under these conditions ever again. It is an unspeakable suggestion.

The only exception is if boththe scenarios and card pools open up again for a different month of the solo league.

I will say (and I am not sure if this is legal), but I've run my deck against anduin and rhosgobel and got 0 tokens for both. I've had a blast with it, but I just don't think it has a prayer for Dol Guldor. It's the hardest solo quest in the game, and to restrict it to saga/mirkwood cards makes it rather difficult. I am really going to have to strategize to see what cards I would need to see captured, who I would need to be guarded, and what cards I would need in hand, and then just keep scooping and adding cards with tokens until I can overpower whatever flips.

It will unfortunately be more luck than deckbuilding skill 😞

I just finished playing the three quests all in a row over a couple of evenings with my first idea of a deck and I got through all three without having to get any Valar Tokens, this was a big surprise, even though I felt that the games were quite lucky on my part. Along the Anduin went easily as predicted, Escape from Dol Guldur was a hard fought victory ending at 48 threat and in great part thanks to a death revolving door of Snowborn Scout + Guthwine and a couple of Stand and Fight, Journey to Rhosgobel was a really lucky game with Athelas coming out non stop. I included playthrough of all the games below (EDIT: even though the spoilers have been somehow fused into one)

Journey Along the Anduin

Great job Alonewolf87!

I don't think the link your to the deck works in the above post, but I guess it's much the same as the Back to Basics Solo League June 2020 you posted a few days ago.

I'm very impressed with your Journey to Rhosgobel game, did you test the deck against it prior to your official attempt? I used to think it was almost impossible without Lore of Imladris, but maybe I have always had rotten luck against it.

My testing has not gone very well, I think I'm going to drop Damrod and might try Imrahil instead. Mono-Lore didn't seem to cut it very well.

Also I have a query about Iron Shackles , after reading your playthrough of Escape from Dol Guldur. Once it is attached to a player's deck it reads "The next time a player would draw 1 or more cards from attached deck, discard Iron Shackles instead."

I have always assumed if you draw X cards from an ability while Iron Shackles is attached to the deck you don't get to draw any cards. So if I use Gandalf's enter play ability to draw 3 cards while Iron Shackles is attached to the top of my deck I instead draw 0 cards and Iron Shackles is discarded. Is that correct?

8 hours ago, Adaepholn said:

I'm very impressed with your Journey to Rhosgobel game, did you test the deck against it prior to your official attempt? I used to think it was almost impossible without Lore of Imladris, but maybe I have always had rotten luck against it.

I played a similar deck against it a lifetime ago (minus the Saga cards), it simply requires some good luck (I had lot of that in this playthrough, not seeing the many "only ranged/eagle can attack/defend" enemies). Lore if Imladris is indeed the silver bullet against that quest. I made a big mistake in the deckbuilding actually since I thought Daughter of the Nimrodel could also heal Wilyador in a pinch, thankfully it didn't matter, but it was a really close shave.

8 hours ago, Adaepholn said:

Also I have a query about Iron Shackles , after reading your playthrough of Escape from Dol Guldur. Once it is attached to a player's deck it reads "The next time a player would draw 1 or more cards from attached deck, discard Iron Shackles instead."

I have always assumed if you draw X cards from an ability while Iron Shackles is attached to the deck you don't get to draw any cards. So if I use Gandalf's enter play ability to draw 3 cards while Iron Shackles is attached to the top of my deck I instead draw 0 cards and Iron Shackles is discarded. Is that correct?

Indeed it's correct. Did I make a mistake on that end?

EDIT: yes you are right, when I played Valiant Sacrifice I also draw Dwarven Tomb. I shall replay Escape from Dol Guldur then. Good catch, thanks

May as well as called this the triad of the Necromancer’s Reach, such a savage card and it killed Most of my heroes in two games. haha

Wow super close game, things were going pretty good, I had a Winged Guardian take the Hill troll’s attack so only had to raise threat by 2, then I took an undefended attack from a goblin and used Gandalf/Eowyn’s super strike to take out the Hill Troll. Things were then going pretty smoothly as I built up my Eagles through a couple elf-stones. Then while questing on the final portion of phase 2 for my tow cards I drew the neceomancer’s reach and evil storm. This cleared out all of my forces including Éowyn and Beravor and left only a crippled but fully equipped Gandalf and 2x Eagles of the Misty Mountains. I had to battle the final phase with these but thankfully Gandalf hAd unexpected courage and Shadowfax to be able to take on the horde of final enemies. Finished the game at 49 threat and by the narrowest of margins. No tokens used but a humbling game, and now onto Dol Goldor....

0 tokens used

Dol Goldor, I had Beravor chosen which was basically a best case scenario for me, but also for phase 1 I drew three enemies for the encounter cards, and one of them happened to be Ungoliant’s Spawn... so yeah that was a quick game. Two tokens later I went at it again. This time Eowyn was taken out of play but I drew mostly locations for the guards. I used the two tokens for extra card draw and got steward of Gondor and wizard pipe. Things went much smoother and I turned a Gandalf into an attachment machine and was able to power through the quest, using Elf-Stones to drop in an Eagles of the Misty Mountain, Legolas, and Beorn respectively. I was able to kill the Nazgul the round it appeared using Beorn, Legolas and Eowyn, but using her and claiming the objectives shot my threat to 48, end of the round to 49 and final questing phase I quested hard with everyone with Faramir boosting the team, and thankfully got Necromancer’s Pass, victory again at 49 threat (I really should have put some threat reduction in this deck!).

2 tokens used.

Onto the final quest...

This was the quest I felt best about having the two counters for it with Ranged (including on a hero with Shadowfax) and a flock of Eagles. It actually went fairly smoothly as I blazed through the first phase then quested slower on the second so as to try to get some Athelas in play and let my Lore of Imradris cards appear. Shortly I got a forest grove and was able to use shadow of the past to put it back on top once I cleared it. Small snag in my plan occurred when a Necromancer’s reach and Festering Wounds killed Beravor and Eowyn, man those cards are savage. then let me gain a second Athelas and I finally found a Imradris. I healed I Wilyador and then power quested with a Wilyador at 8 damage. Nice smooth quest and much better than Dol Goldor went for me.

0 tokens used.

Total Tokens for all three quests: 2

A few questions/clarifications: Should Valar tokens only be spent *anytime* after step 5 (referring to the Rules of Play) of Setup (Draw Setup hand)? I saw that it used to be after you draw setup hand/mulligan.

Also is using a Valar Token an Action rather than a Response?

This is the deck I've decided to go with https://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/16404/sololeague22june2020jataefdgajtr-1.0

I've recorded the games as I go in word and have put the quest logs on Ringsdb.

I've played Journey Along the Anduin and won it easily on 0 tokens. I was very lucky and only revealed 2 other enemies than the initial Hill Troll, and only revealed 2 locations. I was able to defeat the Hill Troll in one round with a Sneak Attack Gandalf. I quested through stage 2 in one round with Faramir, and didn't reveal any enemies in the 4 total reveals of stage 2 staging and stage 3's When Revealed effect.

I've played Escape from Dol Guldur 4 times now with no success. Lasting 8, 4, 1, and 11 rounds and with 0, 1, 2 and 3 Valar Tokens respectively. I've had Pippin as the prisoner twice and Beravor as the prisoner twice. I haven't made it to stage 2 yet. In my prior testing I managed to win twice with 2 treacheries in setup but so far I've had at least 2 non-treacheries in every attempt. I'm hoping for some better luck on attempt 5

I've haven't found that the Valar Tokens have made a big difference so far, but I might just not be using them to the best effect.

Edit: (Added "setup hand" for clarity in the first question)

Valar tokens can be spent at any point during setup, and are not considered Actions or Responses -- they are a Setup effect that can be inserted at any point prior to the first round.

A single Valar token by itself is not going to have a large impact, even three of them (if used for resources and spread evenly) is only equivalent to the commonly-used "sleasy" or semi-easy mode (Easy mode without removing encounter cards). But since the number keeps rising, *eventually* you'll beat practically any quest. 20 tokens can make a huge difference in most quests....

In the specific case of Escape from Dol Goldur, they are less helpful simply because the one-ally-per-turn limit means you aren't typically constrained early by cards or resources. Dol Goldur's difficulty, especially with one-deck play, is directly related to how important the captured hero is and what the opening three reveals happen to be. There's no substitute for luck in this quest!

Thank you.

Perhaps I should have described the exact situation I was thinking about.

I have the card Strider's Path in my deck and am playing Escape from Dol Guldur.

Suppose I have Strider's Path in my opening 6 card hand and keep it, and I am using 1 Valar token. Then for the setup of stage 1A The Necromancer's Tower, I reveal and attach a card to each of the objectives.

If I reveal a location, (say Mountains of Mirkwood for example) can I 'interrupt' and use the Valar token as a resource for a Lore hero then use the Response of Strider's Path to immediately travel to the location before continuing with the rest of setup?

Similarly if I had a Test of Will in my hand and revealed a treachery in setup that I wanted to cancel, could I use a Valar token to add a resource to a Spirit hero's pool and use A Test of Will to cancel that treachery?

My next games against Dol Guldur didn't went so well and I had to get to 2 Valar Tokens before winning again. I didn't have the time to make a complete walkthrough this time around but the first couple of games were wrecked by very bad reveals for the 3 Guarded Objectives. The time I won again was once again thanks to recurring the Snowborn Scout with Guthwine and a couple of well timed Stand and Fight on Beorn.

3 hours ago, Adaepholn said:

Thank you.

Perhaps I should have described the exact situation I was thinking about.

I have the card Strider's Path in my deck and am playing Escape from Dol Guldur.

Suppose I have Strider's Path in my opening 6 card hand and keep it, and I am using 1 Valar token. Then for the setup of stage 1A The Necromancer's Tower, I reveal and attach a card to each of the objectives.

If I reveal a location, (say Mountains of Mirkwood for example) can I 'interrupt' and use the Valar token as a resource for a Lore hero then use the Response of Strider's Path to immediately travel to the location before continuing with the rest of setup?

Similarly if I had a Test of Will in my hand and revealed a treachery in setup that I wanted to cancel, could I use a Valar token to add a resource to a Spirit hero's pool and use A Test of Will to cancel that treachery?

That's a good question. Since the rules state that they can be used "anytime" in setup, I will rule that you *can* interrupt resolution of a revealed card to use a token. Note that if you have multiple tokens, you do not have to use each of them at the same point in setup.

After 4 failed attempts at Escape from Dol Guldur I manged to win on the 5th attempt with 4 Valar Tokens, and with a lot of luck. I had Pippin as the Prisoner and 2 Treacheries revealed in setup. I used one Valar Token to ensure I could afford Steward round 1, and used the other 3 to draw cards.

I was able to get Henamarth Riversong in round 1, and he helped me plan massively. I was able to stay on top of the locations and kept threat low. In a change from almost every other time I've played this quest I claimed Shadow Key instead of Gandalf's Map to progress to stage 2. I wanted Beravor to be able to attack and defend if necessary and I had a Daughter of the Nimrodel to keep healing her back to full. I was able to defeat the Nazgul of Dol Guldur in a single round with the help of an Elf-Stone into Gandalf. I cleared stage 3 in a single round at the end.

I did record the whole game via text, but it's very long. I haven't really got a very good system yet, but the quest log is on ringsdb: https://www.ringsdb.com/questlog/view/11078/escapefromdolguldur5-1player-2020-06-08averyluckywinhenamarthsavestheday

Journey Along the Anduin: 0 Tokens

Escape from Dol Guldur: 4 Tokens

I just had a very easy win on A Journey to Rhosgobel where I was able to get away with Beravor drawing 2 cards every round. I drew 2 copies of Lore of Imladris early on and had one Athelas revealed and one Forest Grove. I didn't have any Treachery cards revealed and got Steward in round 2, and in play on Round 3, from a Mountains of Mirkwood. I was able to use Elf-Stone to great effect, getting Gimli and Haldir into play for 1 resource each. The full questlog is on ringsdb, under the deck I linked before.

So my total Valar Tokens used is 4. 0 for Journey along the Anduin, 4 for Escape from Dol Guldur and 0 for A Journey to Rhosgobel.

Good luck to anyone still yet to play!

I did it!! I really didn't think it was possible, but truly, the Valar tokens helped jump start Dol Guldur and I FINALLY got a good bounce on the guarded cards... one treachery and 2 locations.

My three heroes are Aragorn, Eowyn, and Pippin. I failed on 0, 1, 2 tokens, threating out on the last one (coming so close too!!)

I started with Galadriel, Celebrian Stone, and Golden shield in hand. I knew if Pippin was chosen, I could dump resources on Aragorn and play Galadriel -> some attachment and get the early jump I needed. Pippin was chosen at random and so I placed 5 resources on Aragorn to play Galadriel, Celebrian Stone and still have 1 for readying. Card number 7 was Steward! Talk about a fast start!

I had Snowmane as my next card but Self-preservation seemed like an easy lock for Aragorn. Then I knew I could grab the shadow key when it was free and have no worries. Snowmane would have to wait one more turn (and with a rich blue aragorn, I knew I would be able to play it).

With early questing now in control, I was ready to roll. I got some more luck bounces, including discarding two of my three cards in hand that WEREN'T Gandalf. Eowyn and Aragorn dispatched the Wraith the turn it came in and on the last round, I grabbed the other objectives and quested all out. 44 threat and engaged with two stout enemies, I knew it was now or never.

I've only ever beat Dol Guldur solo twice, and I really thought this deck wouldn't have a prayer, even with infinite cash and cards. But per usual, it came down to whether or not luck was in your favor.