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

1) Flight to the Ford (Black Riders)
2) Breaking of the Fellowship (Road Darkens)
3) Mount Doom (Mountain of Fire)

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 Sam, Lore Pippin, Fatty, Tactics Merry, Gandalf, Tom Cotton, and Leadership Eomer. As the quests all use fellowship Frodo, you must also choose one version of fellowship Frodo to use against all three quests.

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 Flight to the Ford 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 Mount Doom it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Breaking of the Fellowship.

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 (including the fellowship hero, and how many cards in your deck came from outside LOTR Saga, Lost Realm/Angmar cycle 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:
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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 LR/Angmar and LOTR saga. More is better.

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: Sam, LoPippin, TaMerry, Fatty, Gandalf, LeEomer, Tom Cotton. More is better.

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

5th) The number of cards outside Black Riders, Road Darkens, and Mountain of Fire. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

6th) Performance in June's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish June'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 Setpember'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 September's league. August's cycle (Dwarrowdelf) was chosen by the winner of June'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.

Flight to the Ford: July 14th
Breaking of the Fellowship: July 21st
Mount Doom: July 28th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mjdR5YxFj6x5I-3AQquUjn5_uReT4UiA_Jq8fjmE4MU/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.

Despite mentioning Master cards in the rules boilerplate, they are not allowed in any saga quests and cannot be used this month. However, I will allow using (non-fellowship) Aragorn as one of your heroes even though it is prohibited for Mount Doom; it violates no uniqueness rules and is only there for theme, and thematically Aragorn *intended* to go with Frodo to Mordor before Frodo slipped away.

Can we use the spoilered Bond of Friendship Contract from The Fortress of Nurn?

Yes. All the cards have been released somewhere by now, so they are free game for anyone to proxy. My deck is using Bonds of Friendship and Thorongil.

Question, can we use Smeagol as a hero despite Gollum potentially popping up in mount doom?

No, it's both prohibited by Shadow in the East rules and has a potential uniqueness conflict issue.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

No, it's both prohibited by Shadow in the East rules and has a potential uniqueness conflict issue.

Curse it! Foiled again by those meddling hobbits and their rules hahaha. Alright I’ll come up with something else.

For this League I decided to simply try to enjoy the new fun which is Bond of Friendship and I went for a semi-thematic hobbit deck, without too much regard for tiebreakers or other stuff

Flight to the Ford went quite well (I used 0 Valar tokens) and showed that this deck can be quite fun once it starts rolling. We shall see how it will fare against the two other tougher quests.

Here you can find a playthrough of the game

I am entering, using 0 outside cards, even though I own no cards from the Angmar Awakened cycle. We'll see how it goes!

Started the league off with a good Flight to the Ford. I quickly established Sam as a defender (hobbit cloak), drew two Gandalfs, one Sneak Attack and Treebeard. After Gandalf, Sam and Merry dispatched the first Fell Rider, I quested on and after letting Bruinen do its work, I was left with two (soon to become three) riders. I Gandalf-damaged two of them in consecutive turns, but that shadow effect kept them dancing around me. When I drew the third, I had Elladan and Elrohir out and Treebeard with two resources. I stalled a turn around the Hobbit monuments to give the hobbits a welcome attack and defense boost, letting the Fell Riders engage me. Hobbits and Ents and Elves striking at two saw me killing two, but one danced off. I was now at six health left on the wound, managed not to draw another nazgul for two turns, killed the last Fell Rider and made it to Rivendell at 4 health on the Evil Wound at Threat 27.

The deck worked fine. I had Sam with Fast Hitch and Unexpected Courage and Fast Hitch on Merry to reduce my threat. This quest is gold for Pippin since you always engage higher-threat enemies. I did not see any of Frodo's Intuition. I hope he is saving them for the other two quests.

Breaking of the Fellowship went also surprisingly well, I was again able to win with 0 Valar tokens. When Red Book of the Westmarch comes into play it's really amazing I must say. Here you can find the playthrough for this game also.

Well done. In my practice runs, I also used Argonath to keep my hobbits from Archery, especially after having made it through the falls. I love it when there are tactical terrain advantages to play with, like the petrified trolls or the upcoming Water-course.

From your deck I gather there are more hobbits to come in my unopened boxes. Love to see the Shirefolk do so well. Hobbits really make for fun games.

Broke up the Fellowship! I drew a fantastic starter hand. First round saw me playing Bill the Pony, Resourceful on Merry, Frodo's Intuition for a second Sneak Attack to go with the Gandalf I had, and Arwen for Merry's second planning phase. I also played Out of the Wild to snipe any thoughts on claiming the ring for themselves out of the deck. (I really wanted to get that pesky archer as in one practice run, but no). I then proceeded to draw Black-Feathered Arrow with only one ally in play. Frodo's Intuition saw me off to a head start, clearing quest 1 in three phases, only drawing one enemy (the warrior who had planted his axe in Sam's pony upon arrival). I Sneak Attacked Gandalf in for defense, since the Hobbit Cloak did not show up until next turn.

I picked Orc Hunting as quest, which saw off the steady but small trickle of Uruk Captains and Scouts. Rosie Cotton appeared, to get struck by an arrow. Frodo's choice was stuck in the bottom five, but I managed to find and travel to the location where the encounter deck is searched and shuffled to speed things up. Discarded Frodo's Choice after the third quest phase. By then I had a minstrel, a warden of healing, Arwen, Elrohir and Treebeard up. It felt a bit like the meeting in LotR (the book) between the hobbits and the elves bound for the Grey Havens, travelling secretly in style. I quested for 20 something to clear Parth Galen and put 14 progress on the final quest. Played Faramir for a final 24-will questing phase to see me safely off.

Now that went according to plans. My plan (and only plan) for Mount Doom is similar, to get one or two Frodo's Intuition off early and then hit Faramir to keep me ahead of the Doom race. That is how I beat it during practice (oh, and Grim Resolve on Sam with a Good Meal).

I only had one real hail of arrows. Drew Black-feathered Arrows with six allies out, but one of them was a committed Gandalf, so that was an easy choice. I knew he would come back. To be fair, I do think MoF Frodo is a bit overpowered in the two first scenarios. Before spoiling the box, I found BR Frodo better than TRD for the first two quests, but the resource acceleration is so powerful. It really lets you get a head start. Combined with Frodo's Intuition and Faramir, it is my Fool's Hope for Mount Doom, though.

10 hours ago, Fredmans74 said:

Now that went according to plans. My plan (and only plan) for Mount Doom is similar, to get one or two Frodo's Intuition off early and then hit Faramir to keep me ahead of the Doom race. That is how I beat it during practice (oh, and Grim Resolve on Sam with a Good Meal).

Frodo's Intuition ended up saving my hide during my run against Mount Doom, letting me overcome the final Fortitude test and winning me the game. It was a fairly thematic run, with even Gollum coming out when I moved to stage 4 and Wicked Master as treachery in my last turn. It was quite the lucky game in hindsight but still I really had a blast with this contract and some of the new hobbit cards.

Here is the usual playthrough for those interested (and hoping to not have made any mistakes). I never would have imagined to finish this League with 0 tokens, I must say that playing without burdens the Saga quests can be quite easier (also my only other foray into Mount Doom was in 4 players, which is a whole different beast).

Flight to the Ford

Drew an amazing starting hand of all weapons and Light of Valinor so great start right from the go. And putting Raiment of War on Boromir allowed him to hold off the initial Nazgul while he also readied and attacked back with Legolas. Gandalf, Legolas and Frodo quested and once the unexpected courages, Magic Ring and Shadowfax were added to the grey wizard I was able to use Gandalf to help with combat as well. The weapons drawing trickled down and I regretted throwing two citadel plates into my deck as having to wait to afford those meant my contract wasn’t flipped until literally the last round of the quest which helped to finish stage 2. But due to Boromir and Gandalf being able to obliterate any Ringwraiths that popped up and always questing for at least 6-8 I was able to win without needing the extra willpower all game. Also really helped that I drew all of the minis willpower and then deal damage to allies treachery cards which did nothing to my deck. Onto the next quest and zero tokens used.

3 hours ago, General_Grievous said:

Flight to the Ford

Drew an amazing starting hand of all weapons and Light of Valinor so great start right from the go. And putting Raiment of War on Boromir allowed him to hold off the initial Nazgul while he also readied and attacked back with Legolas. Gandalf, Legolas and Frodo quested and once the unexpected courages, Magic Ring and Shadowfax were added to the grey wizard I was able to use Gandalf to help with combat as well. The weapons drawing trickled down and I regretted throwing two citadel plates into my deck as having to wait to afford those meant my contract wasn’t flipped until literally the last round of the quest which helped to finish stage 2. But due to Boromir and Gandalf being able to obliterate any Ringwraiths that popped up and always questing for at least 6-8 I was able to win without needing the extra willpower all game. Also really helped that I drew all of the minis willpower and then deal damage to allies treachery cards which did nothing to my deck. Onto the next quest and zero tokens used.

I also toyed with the idea of using a Three Hunters Deck for this League, but having to outfit an additional hero to be able to flip the contract seemed a bit too hard, especially when one thinks about Mount Doom (even though I can see how a boosted Boromir can be excellent for the Fortitude tests). How are you finding yourself in that regard?

33 minutes ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I also toyed with the idea of using a Three Hunters Deck for this League, but having to outfit an additional hero to be able to flip the contract seemed a bit too hard, especially when one thinks about Mount Doom (even though I can see how a boosted Boromir can be excellent for the Fortitude tests). How are you finding yourself in that regard?

Pretty good, I recently took a three hunters group consisting of the same hero lineup with slightly different cards through the whole campaign and they performed excellently. There is a ton of ally hate in the game and these guy don’t care. And the other advantage is if you build it with enough generic restricted cards that can go on anyone then with Gandalf’s card draw you can usually get what you need pretty quickly and I found I was flipping the contract usually by turn 3. And thankfully you get enough of a go questing with all four heroes and just readying Boromir or using Legolas’s readying to have Gandalf ready for any enemies that pop up.

It’s not a perfectly synergistic deck as there are some better restricted cards and some card draw that I cut to keep it more in line with the selected cards for this month but it worked great so far. Mount Doom will be the true challenge.

Just finished Breaking of the Fellowship and here Forth, The Three Hunters really shined. Due to having no allies, the encounter deck was really on my side. I drew three copies of Black Feathered Arrows in the game and other than one Uruk-Hai Hunter, the only enemies I encountered were Uruk-Hai Archers, which with no allies made their reveal effect meaningless and with the contracts healing I was able to better deal with the arrows raining down on my heroes.
On the player card side I started with Wizard Pipe, Gandalf’s Staff, Shadowfax, War Axe, Dwarven Axe, Citadel Plate and and seventh card and Gandalf’s top deck were Elven Spear and Light of Valinor respectively. So my engine got going quick and I was able to flip the contract third round (with Frodo duel-Wielding Dwarven axes). This was great fun and really a quest where Three Hunters is made to dominate. But now onto the final challenge.

0 tokens used

So, I made it to the crack at 4 Valar tokens. I was making good progress all the first tries and made it to quest 3, but I was a little short of steam every time. I felt I really had to almost clear the staging area every turn to not get caught in a vicious ally/threat race into the wall. Bad encounter draws and shadow cards did not help in the first three games. The final game I finally drew some lucky cards. Celebrian's Stone on Sam with an Unexpected Courage and Fast Hitch on Merry helped me a lot to make all the Fortitude tests. I drew the Heavy Burden treachery on quest 2 with A Test of Will in hand to save Sam from it. I managed to draw some Gandalfs and Arwen and then drew into the other two Frodo's Intuition. I did not see a lot of enemies until the penultimate round where I was charged by three orcs and Gollum, but I was prepared for it, except that there was another attack from a shadow card, so Pippin bit the dust. By then I had Faramir, Treebeard, Arwen, Bilbo, Rosie Cotton and Gandalf to help clear Mount Doom and still have 15 will for my 9 card fortitude test. I drew 6, and Frodo saved Middle-Earth.

It felt good. I feel I had decent tries with every game. On my second run I had three "raise threat by 10" to spoil the day. I was otherwise in a good spot to travel to Mount Doom but by then I had accumulated a Threat of 85. The deck performed exactly as planned. I had not played Mount Doom enough to properly deck build for it. I did change my Tactics Merry to Spirits Merry during the practice run. I felt that spirit allies were more valuable than Tactics allies at Mount Doom, and as the other scenarios showed, it performed equally good or better during the first two scenarios. If I had stuck with Tactics, I believe I had accrued something like 10 tokens to make it work.

I hope I will have better luck in Khazad-dum.

Mount Doom was a success (good thing, I did a number of test games first to familiarize myself with the quest; lost a few games initially, but then I won two in a row and figured it is time... third time's the charm, after all), the One Ring is no more. 🙂

Finished with 91 Threat (one more round would have been doable). Could have been one round faster, if I had not discarded my hand earlier to a treachery card (which had my one Elrond's Counsel; not a huge loss, thanks to the Dire keyword), as I "only" managed 18 Threat on the 3rd stage in one round (and had Dwarven Tomb in hand, so with Elrond's Counsel, I could have added the two more).

Instead, I "only" sent 22 Willpower into the quest in the penultimate round, and still had two Fortitude tests, for the stage and the travel effect of Mount Doom (the first one from the stage was mostly to prevent Gandalf from losing all his stuff, as I only needed 2 more progress), which were done with 16 and 15 Willpower respectively (with Nenya ready to help out, but didn't need it), and then I still had to fight off four enemies with a total of six attacks (Gollum, Ringwraith, 2x Big Uruk, which were both engaged during the round). After all that, I could still kill one of the Big Uruks at least. The last round was pretty straightforward in comparison (quest with 22, because there was only 2 Threat in staging, and Fortitude test with 27 willpower). 😉

Bye
Thanee

Just completed my run of mount doom as well. It was quite the slog as I drew a mixed hand at the beginning and not enough restricted attachments. I found myself stuck on stages for much longer than I wanted too, having to use Boromir, Frodo and Gandalf to quest. I didn’t produce much willpower but Strider on Gandalf and his Shadowfax allowed me to be able to handle the fortitude tests. Also it super helped only having to raise my threat by three each round since it was just for the three heroes. And Boromir with his shield and Raiment of War was able to hold off the beastly enemies coming out of the deck and with a later war axe and golden belt he was able to defend and then strike back for a powerful killing blow along with Legolas. The game lasted very long and when I finally got the contract flipped then I was able to start clearing locations and progressing through. Favor of the Valor kept me alive and in the game long enough to finish the final phase with my ending threat being 98 on my first run. I swear the game was like an hour and a half and if we had done black gate before I would for sure have lost because it took me a crazy amount of time to make it through Mordor. 0 tokens used and The Three Hunters proved their worth and strength against one of the hardest quests in the game.

I've entered this month with a Fellowship hobbit deck, with Sam, Tom Cotton and Merry forming a classic quester-defender-attacker lineup - in a month with lots of wicked Nazgul and brutish Uruks, the hobbit lower-than-engagement-cost strategy plays well - with Hobbit Cloak, Ring Mail, Bill the Pony and Staff of Lebrethon, Tom has 6/5 defence with no shadow card against the right enemy! Merry is of course strong with effective 4 attack from the go, and Sam's response allows action advantage where it is needed, be it help to polish off that tougher enemy, or make an extra defence.

Flight to the Ford was a fairly easy ride in the end - I drew the right cards early enough that I could defend and dispatch the Nazgul as they came out. My questing was a little light, given I was running slightly shallow on allies, and I was threatening to run low on Frodo's life, but Fellowship of the Ring's boost, and a well-timed Ford of Bruinen meant I could clear stage 2 with just the 15 tokens, to win with 4 life force remaining. It was quite refreshing to feel able to take extra burdens for some of the encounter choices - I ended up with three in the deck by the end!

Breaking of the Fellowship was a tougher affair - my first attempt failed as I dawdled too long on Stage 1. As the staging threat grew, I had to quest heavily to get past the stage, only to be ambushed by 3 Uruks on Stage 2 - that would have put me down to 1 hero, so I folded. Attempt 2 was better - I chose The Seat of Amon Hen for stage 3, thinking that the threat and card draw covered my deck's weaknesses. But I struggled with too many locations - I ended up with 3 copies of River Anduin spiking my threat. Then, having shuffled the encounter deck from Wooded Shoreline, Frodo's Choice came up early, so to Stage 4 I went. Now revealing 2 cards per turn, I was quickly overwhelmed. To add insult to injury, I then realised that I had forgotten to use my Valar Token!

So to attempt 3. I made it to stage 2 within three turns, and just the 1 enemy to deal with. This time I chose Searching the Woods as Stage 3, to counter the locations. This time the deck was kind to me - I revealed lots of locations I could discard via the quest, and I discarded most of the enemies through questing successfully. I was able to keep the staging area clear, and worked my way to the bottom of the encounter deck to Frodo's Choice. Now with a more manageable board state, I was able to slap Fellowship of the Ring on Frodo again, and quest to victory!

Incidentally, in neither of my successful runs was I ever able to trigger the contract. I'm wondering whether I shouldn't have bothered, and opened the deck up to non-unique allies instead. This would also have let me make better use of some of the allies' enters play effects - certainly Tom Cotton prefers hobbit allies bouncing in and out rather than staying in to make up the numbers. Always room for improvement!

Flight to the Ford: 0 tokens

Breaking of the Fellowship: 2 tokens

With a few modifications, I am running the solo deck I ran through my latest saga campaign a couple months ago with. My run at Flight to the Ford was the most epic I’ve ever had on that With a few modifications, I am running the solo deck I ran through my latest saga campaign a couple months ago with. My run at flight to the Ford was probably the most epic I’ve ever had on that scenario. When Ford of Bruinen was explored, I had the Witch King, 2 Ringwraiths, and 2 Fell Riders engaged. Pulled out a win at 0 tokens.

Breaking of the Fellowship was a breeze at 0 tokens.

Just finished my first run at Mount Doom with a close loss.

Here is where I should be giving the epic story of how my deck did against Flight to the Ford (the quest I picked). But I didn't get it done in time to make this week's update. However, most players were able to knock it off (outside cards in parens):

0 Trumpet95 (15)
0 General_Grievous (17)
0 philipneri (20)
0 Alonewolf87 (22)
0 Fredmans74 (22)
0 Thanee (34)
2 MattK 22 (29)

The wording of the 2nd tiebreaker puts Alonewolf87 ahead of Fredmans74 in the standings. Both players used LoPippin, SpMerry, and Sam -- but Alonewolf87 used Bonds of Friendship contract to throw in Tom Cotton as well, giving him one more hero from LOTR/LR/Angmar, and more is better!

A majority of players are choosing MoF Frodo (5/9), but three picked Black Riders Frodo and one picked Land of Shadow Frodo. Poor Road Darkens Frodo has been left abandoned and unloved.

Bobbymcbobface is actually in first place with zero tokens and zero outside cards, but he hadn't updated the spreadsheet yet.

Mount doom ended in an extremely epic way, with Gollum engaging me at 98 threat which readied Sam, with Gandalf and Pippin dead. Trigger protector of Lorien on Frodo and Sam to clear Mount doom. Then came the devastating realization: Ghan-buri-Ghan, who I had held back for a fortitude test because he had nine will power, No longer had any will power since Mount doom was explored! 😐 So I sent Sam, who by then was boosted to nine willpower, Mablung, and Quickbeam. I passed the final test by one.