Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from Khazad-Dum and Dwarrowdelf. The quests are:

1) Into the Pit (Khazad-Dum)
2) Road to Rivendell
3) Foundations of Stone

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 Bifur, Dwalin, Elladan, and Spirit Glorfindel.

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 Into the Pit 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 Foundations of Stone it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Road to Rivendell.

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

3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: Bifur, Dwalin, Elladan, SpGlorfindel. More is better.

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

5th) The number of cards outside Khazad-Dum, Road to Rivendell, and Foundations of Stone. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.

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

Into the Pit: August 14th
Road to Rivendell: August 21st
Foundations of Stone: August 28th

8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IXiIDKDRLJqKWem9b6AyTHTOLdH-xaw0YBEBvMx6rDw/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.

This month I will try out a combo deck that really impressed me when I read it:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/16274/hostsofgaladhrimasilvancombodeck-1.0

Into the Pit (Nightmare Mode because I just got the nightmare pack for this quest)

What I really like about this solo league is it gets me out of my comfort box and playing heroes and builds I haven’t or wouldn’t normally played with. When I first saw the Twins back during the Dwarrowdelf cycle I shelved them for being too expensive especially because my wife has a monopoly on Steward of Gondor when she plays. But with The Three Hunters success for me last month the twins seemed like a natural fit since I had to bring one anyways.

This contract + Deck was pretty fast and furious. Cave torch is also restricted which really helps and I drew enough 0 cost restricteds that I could flip the contract round one, I held off due to the rules of East Gate to give me time to get one more round of cost reduction. Very quickly Elrohir turned into a monster defender (Steed of the North, Elven Mail, Armoured Destrier and a Gondorian Shield) plus Steward of Gondor and a Magic Ring. He and Erestor quested while Elladan held back to destroy enemies that popped up using his Dagger and War Axe, when I added a Steed of The North to him then all three heroes were questing each round and still able to take on the nightmare enemies that showed up. The only thing I was really missing was threat reduction as I drew all four Signs of Conflict throughout the game. This eventually caught up to me and caused me to threat out early due to The One Ring.

Second attempt with one token went much better, I went for the second round contract flip and by then each hero had 4 restricted attachments on them. From that point forward it was a simple matter to power quest and then kill off any enemies that showed up.

Total tokens: 1

Road to Rivendell

This quest was a classic Elven blitzkrieg. The encounter deck didn’t know what hit it as I intentionally delayed getting my contract flipped until the second round again so I could get the cost reduction second round again. The enemies drawn were fairly weak and Elrohir always had an extra resource due to Arwen’s interventions which helped me to defend and then counter attack. All in I won in six rounds of elves sprinting and cutting down foes. It felt like the movie version of the hobbit river chase where my elves were just butchering enemies.

Tokens used: 0

Foundations of Stone

So I haven’t played this quest in awhile. And yeah... I totally forgot about the stage 3 surprise. Here I was fully kitted out and questing along with fully loaded heroes and then suddenly lost everything except for the mounts and a couple of skills (and thankfully The One Ring!). I was able to slowly build up again over the next couple of rounds throwing whatever random restricted weapons on the characters I could find just to give them a fighting chance at questing. Then I was hounded by Moria Bats x3, two copies of watchful eyes and the worst was drawing two copies of Lost and Alone due to the watchful eyes. So it was just Erestor trying to blaze through my deck and rescue his friends. But without anyone else to help distribute the Bat damage Erestor was eaten alive by Moria bats while the twins were lost in the foundations of stone. Rough game for the hunters.

Second try with one token was much better, being able to play Steward of Gondor on round 1 thanks to it. I focused on mounts and titles and things that would not disappear at the washing away. I also lucked out when I engaged an Elder Nameless Thing and it had two Golden Belts and a dagger of westernese on it for a total attack of 1. Elladan briefly was lost and alone but blazing through my deck meant I was able to retrieve him shortly and keep equipping weapons as I escaped from Moria.

Tokens used 1

Total Tokens for all three quests: 2

I've decided to give Dwalin a swing this time, seeing as most of the quests have Orcs in them.

Paired with Dain and Thalin, starting willpower is low, but if you get enough allies out within a turn or two it's manageable.

I had hoped Into The Pit would be a nice easy warm up - but 2 copies of Signs of Conflict into a Zigil Mineshaft suddenly turned it into a sprint to beat the threat!

Fortunately my copies of Ever My Heart appeared on stage 3, and I was able to keep threat in the mid-40s while I dragged myself over the line.

Into the Pit: 0 tokens.

I decided to use Bifur as my mandatory hero, who I always love playing. I recently took a Balin deck through Moria, and his ability to cancel shadow cards is really good in this cycle. I am looking at you, Sleeping Sentry and Sudden Pitfall. Last time I played Balin, I chose his buddy Dwalin, but I wanted to give another dwarf I seldom play a chance, so I picked Oin. His quest is OK, he can pick the Test of Will, I am looking at you again - Sleeping Sentry, and when he gets his tactic icon, I can use him for axes and Erebor Battlemasters, since my combat is a bit on the weaker side.

I could not resist packing a Gondorian shield. I love playing it on Balin with Steward of Gondor and Ever the Heart Rises. And finally, I opted for four of the unique Dwarf characters (Dwalin, Fili, Kili and Gloin) to bring me to a total of 5 cards outside this month's cycles.

Edit: A Leadership/Spirit deck without Sneak Attack, Gandalf AND Unexpected Courage. It feels somewhat forbidden, but it did do well during my practice runs.

Into the Pit was not effortless, but I stalled quite happily for some time at Stage 1 to build up a board state of 8 or 9 allies, and from that it was quite easy. I played two Axes on Fili and an Erebor Smith to use Oin for questing, and that is enough for the Goblin Swordsmen. The Patrol Leader was killed with two Khazad Khazad and I managed to make steady progress, apart from Balin questing the last two rounds with 3 damage and without A Test of Will. Luckily, it never got Dark and Dreadful, and I made it on the first attempt.

Ended on Threat 39, mainly due to a lot of threat-raising shadow effects that I did not want to cancel to draw into something worse. 0 Valar Tokens.

On to Rivendell (nasty place I have heard from my bearded friends). It surely is more dangerous than the lovely halls of Moria.

Road to Rivendell traversed. Now that went according to plans. Drew Erebor Record-keeper, Legacy of Durin and Ever the Heart Rises in opening hand, drew into a Iron Hill Miner to get to 5 dwarves in turn 2, netted Steward of Gondor which helped me play Erebor Battle-master, Gloin, Fili and Kili in successive turns. The steady card draw helped me find A Test of Will. The bears that kept popping up were harmless due to low threat (ended at 28). Final quest flip drew me Followed by Night, which I cancelled. Then I quested for 13 against 0, drew a Patrol Leader to which we answered with mighty song about Durin Deadless as we force marched into safety.

I knew I wanted card draw and this game gave me one card/turn due to Legacy as well as two Daeron's Runes to help me find Steward of Gondor, a second Erebor Record-keeper which made it possible for me to quest all-out without risk of getting caught flat-footed, Gondorian Shield and especially both copies of A Test of Will.

Next week, on to the final challenge, which I think might net me a valar token or two. A lot will depend on the quest draw. At least I have quite a few titles, which I will not drop automatically.

I finally got around to play the quest for this month League. The new Silvan combo deck I am playing took some getting used to (especially due to the huge planning phases, especially in the early game) but when it's put in motion is definitely something to behold.

Into The Pit was quite a breeze (it's indeed an easy quest all things considered) and I won it with 0 Tokens during Turn 6. Here is the usual playthrough (though a bit longer than usual)

Road to Rivendell was quite easy too (Sleeping Sentry never made an appareance) and the deck performed at top gears (even being able to play 2 Hosts of the Galadhrim in the same planning phase in the last turn), so I finished this one too with 0 tokens. But o boys are those some loooong Planning Phases (and quite complex to manage too). I really would not appreciate playing across the table from this deck.

Here is the usual playthrough

And also Foundations of Stone is a go at the first try without tokens. Having basically nothing to discard with Stage 3 nasty surprise was a boon, but Stage 4 random choice and Stage 5 questing allies limitation were a bit of a problem.

Here is the playthrough

Still 8 days until the end of the league, so not too late if you haven't played any quests yet, like me. Here's the standings after Into the Pit (outside cards in parens):

0 Fredmans74 (5)
0 Alonewolf87 (13)
0 Trumpet95 (15)
1 General_Grievous (36)

So I delved deeper this morning and came out by the grace of the Valar with 0 Valar Tokens.

I drew two Erebor Record-keepers and Legacy of During in the opening hand and first round to enable Óin's tactic sphere, which helped me see off a troublesome Goblin Swordsmen who was whittling away at my heroes, but a Khazad Khazad helped me get him off. By round three, I could afford a Longbeard Elder which helped me plan my quest phase and by now Bifur had gathered resources which made it possible to ready Balin and Oin as needed. Dwalin was my seventh dwarf and he managed to take two attacks, cancelling one shadow effect with Balin and I was slowly making progress on stage 1 (failing one quest by 1 to a 4 threat location). I managed to play Kili (and Fili) to get me to nine dwarves and striking gold by drawing me Steward of Gondor. I held back a Ring Mail and Narvi's Belt, instead playing a Longbeard Orc Slayer to kill off a Goblin Ambusher who had 1 hp left, and then an Erebor Battle Master and was now on threat 34, when clearing stage 1. Stage two was dealt with in two swift turns with a goblin scout drawing two consecutive torch treacheries.

Stage 3 saw me with a lot of allies and money and no items in play, but axes, ring mail and Narvi's belt in hand. I drew the 11 quest point quest with 2 cards in staging area. There was two Deep deep dark, followed by Durin's helm and a big Nameless fear. I then played all my assets as soon as I could, drawing more deep deep darks, but I was geared up at threat 39. Balin had Ring Mail and Durin's helm and Self-preservation and there were three Erebor Record-keepers in play and Bifur stacked with money. I drew a small Nameless Fear and engaged them both at threat 40. Balin defended them and the Orc Slayer and Battle master both had axes on them, so I kept killing one Nameless Fear a turn, dealing with Stage 4 in three turns (killing three Nameless Fears). Stage 5 saw me playing Celebrian's Stone (by now my deck was running really low) and Untroubled by Darkness to give me a 17 quest turn to win the game. The only Lost treachery was a shadow effect which Balin whiffed with a resource.

I felt I was lucky, drawing exstinguished torches with only a Goblin scout in the staging area two times, not having to deal with multiple goblins, and drawing a good stage 4 card. In a practice run I drew the 4 card-one. This deck is very dwarvish, trudging along, making small gains (there are no big quest turns, but small consistent gains), so location lock and Nameless lock is a very real danger for it. Bombur is good for the first, nothing for the later. I also had very gentle draws for the Nameless ones (the first one had 4 with 4 cards, the others drew 2 with 2 and 3 cards respectively). Anyway, the deck was very fun to play. I always feel good building a dwarf deck without Thorin or Dain. I tried To me my kinsfolk during the practice runs, but this deck does not want allies to go away, but to keep them in play, slowly building an unstoppable force through numbers.

Thanks for letting us halfway-throughers be a part of the challenge by choosing Khazad-dûm, and as always for arranging the monthly challenge.

@Alonewolf87

I had a look at your deck and felt the urge for Silvan sneakiness. I made a Galadriel deck to fool around with and even without the Host, there is a lot going on in a Silvan planning phase. It is great fun, though I do miss some of your key cards thus far. Galadrim Weaver (my most recent/noteworthy Silvan card) really gets things going in a fun way, recycling all those events. With the mirror and a harp, Master of the Forge and Galadriel's ability, you start to see some serious card draw.

I managed to just finish the scenarios in time this month - I got stuck on Mount Doom at the end of my campaign and wanted to beat it before moving on. I decided to go with a Dunhere deck, as I have already played these scenarios with Dunhere, Bifur and Glorfindel and had some success.

Here is my decklist: https://www.ringsdb.com/decklist/view/17350 The full quest logs of the scenarios should be visible on Ringsdb if anyone is interested.

I managed to win Into the Pit in one attempt, although I had some rotten luck with Crumbling Ruin. I revealed one towards the end of stage 1, and had drawn 2/3 copies of Gandalf (my only 5 cost card). I exhausted Glorfindel and felt safe, but discarded the last copy of Gandalf. I managed to survive with Dunhere, Bifur and my allies - having some great luck with no damage on the Patrol Leaders being cancelled. I quested all out and had some low threat reveals, so I was able to beat the last stage in 2 rounds.

Into the Pit: 0 Valar Tokens.

Road to Rivendell took 3 attempts, as both of my first 2 attempts I got Sleeping Sentry as the 2nd Shadow of the game and discarded Arwen. The first game I had also removed one Sleeping Sentry from the deck with Out of the Wild, and with any other shadow I might have been able to win. The 2nd attempt was not going very well, and I was struggling to make progress against 2 Archers in staging, and never got a Dagger for Dunhere to deal with them. In my successful attempt, I was able to draw exactly what I needed and reduced threat to 10. I never engaged any enemies, and never had any shadow cards. I used Dunhere to deal with all the enemies in staging, and was able to win very cleanly. Once Dunhere got 2 Daggers he could deal with almost every enemy in one attack and I had Asfaloth to deal with the locations. I used both Valar Tokens to draw, as with objective-ally Arwen and Resourceful I had plenty of resources.

Road to Rivendell: 2 Valar Tokens.

Foundations of the Stone started off amazingly, I got Light of Valinor and nice reveals - multiple no effect treacheries and enemies that Dunhere could deal with. I got to stage 3 in 3 rounds and revealed the Endless Caves, which was probably the best of the stage 4s as I had only one resource. I then made good progress against a Bat, having low enough threat to ignore it. I attached 2 Daggers to Dunhere but then revealed Lost and Alone, losing Dunhere. I was able to recover with Gandalf and had just enough allies to clear stage 4 and 5 in 2 rounds each. I never saw Dunhere again though

Foundations of Stone: 0 Valar Tokens.

In retrospect I wish I had put Hasty Stroke into the deck, just for Sleeping Sentry. The plan was to avoid combat as much as possible, but I needed a lot of luck to ensure threat was low enough to avoid the Spearmen. It's also much easier to get Dunhere working with a Tactics hero. When I played two-handed that was not a problem, but having to use Song of Battle is a bit of a pain.

Thanks for organising this, and congrats to everyone else who played!

I've just sneaked in before the deadline with my final two quests!

Road to Rivendell was relatively easy in the end, as I established control over the encounter deck quickly, and was able to build up my forces. It was still a nervy game after Arwen took a hit on turn one though! Fortunately I drew into my Tests of Will and Hasty Stroke in the nick of time to ward off a Sleeping Sentry, and a shadow which would have slain Arwen. Aside from the game-ending treacheries it's not so hard a quest, so I was able to quest to victory comfortably.

0 tokens used.

Foundations of Stone was a more exciting game. I took it slowly over the first two stages, getting plenty of dwarf allies out on the board, and hoarding a war chest of weapons and armour in my hand for after the flood. I even drew into Brok Ironfist, to mitigate Lost and Alone! But then disaster struck as I drew Shivering Bank as my stage 4, discarding my hand! Worse, Lost and Alone was then revealed by the quest effect!

I shuffled in Dwalin to my deck - though after several rounds of King Under The Mountain, Stage 2's discarding effect, and paying for a couple of Erebor Guards, my deck was sufficiently thin that I found him a few turns later.

Though all my attachments were lost, I had enough dwarves out on the table to scrape over the line even after (for the first time in my career) I had completely emptied my deck. This had the side effect of making the Nameless enemies much more predictable. I was also helped out by Thalin's direct damage taking out those bats before they could pester me.

0 tokens used , which leaves me on none for the whole month. Looking at the scoreboard it looks like there are a number of us needing no assistance from the Valar, so I hope Dale has their rulebook handy as we could be going deep into the tiebreakers!

The second quest was kind to most of the players, but Sleeping Sentry took Adaepholn down twice (outside cards in parens):

0 Fredmans74 (5)
0 Alonewolf87 (13)
0 Trumpet95 (15)
0 weaponx1017 (15)
0 Thanee (22)
0 General_Grievous (36)
2 Adaephlon (5)

Trumpet95's deck had 13 cards from the core set, while weaponx1017 had 19 cards, in this case 13 is the lucky number as it helps Trumpet95 win the fourth tiebreaker (which counts core cards as "outside").

Foundations of Stone only bedeviled General_Grievous:

0 Adaephlon (5)
0 Fredmans74 (5)
0 Alonewolf87 (13)
0 Trumpet95 (15)
0 weaponx1017 (15)
0 Thanee (22)
1 General_Grievous (36)

Adaephlon finishes first for this quest, as he used both Bifur and Spirit Glorfindel for the second tiebreaker, while Fredmans74 used two Hobbit saga heroes to go with Bifur.

Final standings:

0 Fredmans74 (5)
0 Alonewolf87 (13)
0 Trumpet95 (15)
0 weaponx1017 (15)
0 Thanee (22)
2 Adaephlon (5)
2 General_Grievous (36)

Fredmans74 wins the league and can choose a cycle for October's league. Alonewolf87 finishes second and can choose a quest to play from that cycle. Trumpet95 finishes third on a tiebreaker, and can choose a quest to exclude from that cycle. General_Grievous finishes last, and gets to choose a supplemental cycle for player cards.

Join us next month for another trip to Dreamchaser, as we play Raid on the Grey Havens, The Drowned Ruins, and Storm Over Cobas Haven. This may or may not be posted tomorrow, as I am moving this week and my availability (and internet access) is uncertain.

Thank you for playing!

First of all, thanks Dale for organizing this. You are doing a top notch job, and I am very glad to have found this league. It is a lot of fun to me, since I usually play two-handed, but also trying to adhere to some deck-limiting restrictions (both card pool and a set of scenarios). I must admit that I had some luck at critical moments, but it feels great to finally have a 0 token run. Hats off to everyone else who participated. I have been eyeing your decks and drawn inspiration from them.

I am not at all used to choosing cycles, and have not opened them all yet, but there are two cycles I have played or will have played come October that has not been a League Challenge the last couple of months, Voice of Isengard/Ringmaker and The Lost Realms/Angmar Awakened. I looked which one of them had not been played the most recently, so my choice for October's league will be The Lost Realms/Angmar Awakened. So far, it has been one of the most enjoyable/challenging cycle for me, so I am looking forward to it.

I would also like to thank Dale for organizing these leagues and to everyone participating, it's always intriguing to see what everyone else go with as deck and strategies.

Since we are going with The Lost Realm/Angmar Awakened I am really tempted to choose Carn Dum as quest, even though that may draw the annoyance of many. But since we have the Valar on our side I will risk the curses and so we should head toward our final showdown against Thaurdir!

I will pick the Haradrim cycle for supplemental player cards!

I'm not totally familiar with this cycle, but let's omit Deadman's Dike - one super difficult quest is plenty!

RNG picks Treachery of Rhuadar and Dread Realm to go with Carn Dum, so quests 7-9. Mandatory hero list is Erestor, Amarthiul, and Arwen. Note that for this league, the Amarthiul in Treachery of Rhuadar can assumed to be the hero's identically-named cousin.

Hey Dale are we starting the September league up now?

Yes, I'll be posting it later today. Sorry for the delay.

34 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Yes, I'll be posting it later today. Sorry for the delay.

All good brother! You just can’t stop now it’s way to enjoyable haha. Thanks for all you do