Scenario 2 - How to beat it? (Solo Play)

By faith_star83, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Posted at

Zambo said:

I'm really confused by this post. You can't "play for hours without engaging troll" because you keep staging one card from the deck and you'll have to send Heroes and Allies out to quest every turn to prevent your threat from increasing. Meanwhile, stuff like Misty Mountain Goblins, Dul Guldur Orcs and Wolf Riders come attack you, so you have to handle them, too. All the while your threat automatically increases at the end of every turn. And there's no reshuffling your deck; once it's gone, it's gone.

I suggest you revisit the rules; sounds like you're getting a lot of them wrong.

You can, he just didn't mention the cards that let you do so, so I'll add to this a bit:

Basically spirit decks start with incredibly low threat, and you can continue to keep it low by playing The Galadrim's Greeting (SSS, Lower your threat by 6) and Dwarven Tomb (S, Pick up a Spirit card in your discard pile). Yes, you do still have to keep engaging monsters and questing, but if there is one thing Spirit does well it's quest, and only dealing with 1 card a turn isn't hard, especially when you can keep higher threat monsters in the staging area where they can get picked off by Dunhere(Spirit Hero, may attack monsters in the staging area and gets +1 attack when doing so). Finally, Will of the West (S, Shuffle your discard pile back into your deck.) effectively lets you continue to lower your threat 'forever', or at least until you want to finally engage the higher threat monsters. It does involve the right cards, but as the poster mentioned, with a smaller deck this isn't too tricky.

I suggest revisiting the spirit deck.

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I tried it last night with a Tactics/Law deck using Legolas, Thalin and Glorfindel. Got to the second quest without any problems but then got bogged down by locations. If I'd been drawing bad guys I'd have been fine. Thalin wounds them as they're revealed and then Legolas gets success tokens on the quest for killing them. I got two locations adding 5 threat each and several other smaller locations and no bad guys to nut so was simply overwhelmed by threat.

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CAlexander gave a nice explanation of what I meant. Anyway, this is very effective strategy vs scenario2, but very boring.

I tried the same vs scenario 3 and it does not go that well. You can't really have Eowyn or Dunhern imprisoned and even if you lose Eleonora, you will be overwhelmed. However, as far as four 30 cards deck go, Spirit can handle its own.

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Zambo said:

Gandalf is worded "After Gandalf enters play...", so those combos with Sneak Attack, Stand and Fight, etc., still work.

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CAlexander said:

You can, he just didn't mention the cards that let you do so, so I'll add to this a bit:

Basically spirit decks start with incredibly low threat, and you can continue to keep it low by playing The Galadrim's Greeting (SSS, Lower your threat by 6) and Dwarven Tomb (S, Pick up a Spirit card in your discard pile). Yes, you do still have to keep engaging monsters and questing, but if there is one thing Spirit does well it's quest, and only dealing with 1 card a turn isn't hard, especially when you can keep higher threat monsters in the staging area where they can get picked off by Dunhere(Spirit Hero, may attack monsters in the staging area and gets +1 attack when doing so). Finally, Will of the West (S, Shuffle your discard pile back into your deck.) effectively lets you continue to lower your threat 'forever', or at least until you want to finally engage the higher threat monsters. It does involve the right cards, but as the poster mentioned, with a smaller deck this isn't too tricky.

I suggest revisiting the spirit deck.

The other thing about this scenario is that once you are on step 3, nothing else is coming out. If you can keep the enemies in the staging area and just quest, you don't even have to kill them and you can just sit there and lower your threat by playing these card combos. This is extremely helpful if you are playing nightmare mode and want to set yourself up for the next quest. It is also going to be, IMO, a big problem for tournament play. All the high scoring decks will have to be built around creating a board lock-down and just slowly lowering your threat to 0 while farming all the Victory Point cards out of the deck.

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Entropy42 said:

CAlexander said:

You can, he just didn't mention the cards that let you do so, so I'll add to this a bit:

Basically spirit decks start with incredibly low threat, and you can continue to keep it low by playing The Galadrim's Greeting (SSS, Lower your threat by 6) and Dwarven Tomb (S, Pick up a Spirit card in your discard pile). Yes, you do still have to keep engaging monsters and questing, but if there is one thing Spirit does well it's quest, and only dealing with 1 card a turn isn't hard, especially when you can keep higher threat monsters in the staging area where they can get picked off by Dunhere(Spirit Hero, may attack monsters in the staging area and gets +1 attack when doing so). Finally, Will of the West (S, Shuffle your discard pile back into your deck.) effectively lets you continue to lower your threat 'forever', or at least until you want to finally engage the higher threat monsters. It does involve the right cards, but as the poster mentioned, with a smaller deck this isn't too tricky.

I suggest revisiting the spirit deck.

The other thing about this scenario is that once you are on step 3, nothing else is coming out. If you can keep the enemies in the staging area and just quest, you don't even have to kill them and you can just sit there and lower your threat by playing these card combos. This is extremely helpful if you are playing nightmare mode and want to set yourself up for the next quest. It is also going to be, IMO, a big problem for tournament play. All the high scoring decks will have to be built around creating a board lock-down and just slowly lowering your threat to 0 while farming all the Victory Point cards out of the deck.

I was under the impression that tournament play would be based around new quests that had not been seen before to prevent this kind of thing?

Posted at

Entropy42 said:

The other thing about this scenario is that once you are on step 3, nothing else is coming out. If you can keep the enemies in the staging area and just quest, you don't even have to kill them and you can just sit there and lower your threat by playing these card combos. This is extremely helpful if you are playing nightmare mode and want to set yourself up for the next quest. It is also going to be, IMO, a big problem for tournament play. All the high scoring decks will have to be built around creating a board lock-down and just slowly lowering your threat to 0 while farming all the Victory Point cards out of the deck.

I was wondering though: Having a low threat and not being engaged by enemies is a fine thing, but when I have to many encounter cards in my staging area, the threat level gets to high for succesful questing...making progress impossible. Especially once you flip the second quest card enemies don't engage you anyway (even if you play leadership), but adding two encounter cards every turn really did the trick in my runs and I was finished by an overwhelming threat level and treacheries and enemies, making it literally impossible to put progress tokens on the quest or defeat the sheer number of enemies.

I agree though, that spirit is one of the strongest spheres (and one of my favourite) since they are great questers, and Will of the West, The Galadhrim's Greeting and Stand and Fight are very powerful cards. But I am not fully convinced that it is very easy to play through the second quest with this deck, will give it a couple of tries though this afternoon.

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conykchameleon said:

I was under the impression that tournament play would be based around new quests that had not been seen before to prevent this kind of thing?

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I was bored yesterday so I decided to have another go at this one...and I won. It was actually quite a breeze even!

I played Leadership / Tactics....arguably the best combiation of spheres for this scenario.

I had to beat two Hill Trolls, but other than that I had no problems at all...I had an army of allies which made questing and combat very simple!

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faith_star83 said:

I played Leadership / Tactics....arguably the best combiation of spheres for this scenario.

Imho Spirit/Lore or Leadership/Lore works best. After Forest Snaring the Hill Troll you can take your time and enter the second quest stage as soon as it's convenient.

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i have relatively consistent wins on the second scenario with a spirit/lore combination - starting under 30 threat, thus having more time building up and defeating the troll - either playing gandi, galadhrim (threat -6) or forest snare - then you should have enough time... ofc, if the deck's against you, you will lose :D there are so many nasty cards... ;)

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f.y.i.: 2nd scenario

yesterday I played a solo game with a spirit deck made out of 2 core sets (and only 2 gandis :), so 43 cards (because you just can't add any more cards without breaking the 3-card rule...)... I started with a threat count of 24, ended with 24 (!!!) and 17 Victory Points - so FINAL SCORE: SEVEN POINTS !!!

I emptied the encounter deck once, emptied my deck, too (though I refilled it with Will of the West...) :)

I used Gandi several times (threat lowering, troll killing :)) with stand and fight... kept my threat low with galadhrim's greeting and again with dwarven tomb... out of the discard pile and used it again... :)

unexpected courage on dunhere (killing all the bad guys in the staging area, esp. goblin sniper) and eleanor - cancelling treachery effects...

I amassed all 9 allies - took, northern and guide - 3x favor of the lady on eowyn... you can imagine the rest - why it took so long, because I got TWO trolls on the first stage... took quite some time... then I got through stage 2 and 3 in 3 turns :D QUEST MASTER :DDD

very long, but entertaining game... try the pure spirit with 2 core sets out, if you haven't already

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Vyron said:

I emptied the encounter deck once, emptied my deck, too (though I refilled it with Will of the West...) :)

[...]

very long, but entertaining game... try the pure spirit with 2 core sets out, if you haven't already

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Have only played solo a few times, as I prefer 2 player games. Tried JdtA twice with a spirit/Lore deck, Eowyn/Dunhere/Beravor and nailed it with socres of 1 and -11!!!!!

Had help with good draws from the encounter deck to start with, reduced threat with Gandalf/Galadhrims greeting and then just built up my had with Beravor's and Gleowines drawing abilities - had my entire deck in my hand!!! (>30 cards) at this point, it gets a bit silly, cos instead of finishing the senario quickly (you have got an urgent message after all!) you just hang around waiting for resources to build up.

The Hill troll only has 1 threat, so you can generally just quest with Eowyn and you should be alright. Dunhere and beravor can take care of the one other card if needed, if not draw cards. Soon you get more gandalfs/stand and fights, reducing threat more (never damage the hill troll), engage the hill troll with gandalf one time and then forest snare it. Then you can happily whittle away at it, drawing your deck and building up resources (at theis point you've got plenty of allies to deal with the other card being drawn).

One huge 'loophole' in the encounter deck is Banks of the Anduin. Get two northern trackers (3 if you've got them, I don't - only 1 core set needed!) and you can put it on top of the encounter deck at the beginning of every other quest phase, then you know exactly whats coming!

Only problem is that after a couple of goes, you get bored cos it takes so long to build up resources, and then its just a case of waiting. Will probably try with a more difficult deck now.

PS posted a similar comment on another thread, then thought it fits better here!

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I use a leadership/spirit/lore deck most of the times. In order to pass the second quest in the Anduin scenario, the best tactic I have seen is to have a number of allies in play and use Faramir liberally. I have passed this scenario as quickly as two turns. And the moment I discovered Faramir's extra usefulness here, I vowed never to leave him out of this scenario again.

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I use 3 core sets so i think i have a big bonus.Spirit/leadership with Celebrian's stone on Aragorn, the favor of the lady on Eowyn and nothern trucker can make things more than easy.Except those cards you have Faramir and having Gandalf 11 times with this deck sometimes i feel like i cheatlengua.gif.

Spiri/lore also work well but it takes more time and sometimes you slow down things because you have the cards but not the resources.

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I played it 4 times, and win only 1 with a Leadership / Spirit (Eowin, Theodred, Aragorn). The most difficult part is the Troll, after him the things goes easier, as my quest is high enough. But the other 3 times I died for the Troll, if the allies does not show up early.

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Marael said:

I played it 4 times, and win only 1 with a Leadership / Spirit (Eowin, Theodred, Aragorn). The most difficult part is the Troll, after him the things goes easier, as my quest is high enough. But the other 3 times I died for the Troll, if the allies does not show up early.

I Played today using the same heoroes as you (i didnt looked at this topic before) and i think this is a strong combination against this quest!I won the second time i Played, but with a lot of sheer luck...but the first time I played it wasn't the Troll the real threat (I have six ways to reduce threat:Gandalf ,the greeting's card...+ Stand and fight+ sneak attack), but Necromancer reach and dor guldur's orc where my doom!

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Hallo to every one. 1 week is past since i got the game in my hand. First days i lose all the time both quests.I mean first and second. Now i get bored. I build up the deck and i cannot lose second quest. First one is to easy and boring to play. Third quest you dont need to try solo. Is not possible for solo at all. This is multy player quest!!! But i like to play alone so much. My deck is 3 color. Eowin,Gimly, Theodred. L/T/SP. This deck cannot lose second quest!!! SO if you win second first is just easy walking. And i scare if they will give me only 1 quest per exp. pack i will get bored quickly!!!

So i hope there will be more than 1 quest in exp pack and they will be really difficult and different.

If someone need deck list i can print it.

I was proff. player of decipher lotr trading card game use to play many events and even world cup.Was the best player in my small country(Estonia). I really like this game but i hope exp pack quest will be more exiting than core set. We need more cards, more quests and more challenge!!!

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Glaurung said:

I build up the deck and i cannot lose second quest. First one is to easy and boring to play. Third quest you dont need to try solo. Is not possible for solo at all.

[...]

If someone need deck list i can print it.

I was proff. player of decipher lotr trading card game use to play many events and even world cup.Was the best player in my small country(Estonia).

Please illuminate us lowly, inferior players by posting your deck that cannot lose!

P.S.: I've actually beaten the third scenario using a single deck, but I guess I must have imagined it since you so convincingly made the case it cannot be beaten. I bow to your superior wisdom!

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hey man you get me wrong. I mean im not super puper powerfull brain, cool deck builder. With my deck i win 4 times form 5 games. And you lose only if you really have bad luck or you make mistakes. And i do so. But this deck is already quite powerfull!!! So if you play really carefully as you play on the tournaments you will win 85%. That what i mean. And yesterday for example i play 5 games and no lose any. And today i play 1 and lose(very bad luck draw). So i mean is not so difficult. And there is difficult 4. So if in adventures pack will be quest difficult 2 or 3 is boring. That what i mean!!! So i hope future quiests will be more harder. My deck i can post::

Theodred Skill

Hero (3)
Eowyn (Core) x1
Gimli (Core) x1
Theodred (Core) x1


Ally (14)
Faramir (Core) x1
Gandalf (Core) x3
Gondorian Spearman (Core) x2
Northern Tracker (Core) x3
Veteran Axehand (Core) x2
Lorien Guide (Core) x3


Attachment (15)
Celebrian's Stone (Core) x2
Citadel Plate (Core) x3
Dwarven Axe (Core) x3
Steward of Gondor (Core) x3
The Favor of the Lady (Core) x2
Unexpected Courage (Core) x3


Event (21)
A Test of Will (Core) x3
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x2
Feint (Core) x3
Quick Strike (Core) x3
Sneak Attack (Core) x3
Stand and Fight (Core) x2
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3
Valiant Sacrifice (Core) x2

The deck work very easy. Gimly for kill everything!!!! with axe and armor. Eowyn for quest.Theodren for quest and add resources whom you need at the moment. Maybe you need second Faramir. I should to test more. But you will win 80-90% of the game against second quest.

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jhaelen said:

Glaurung said:

I build up the deck and i cannot lose second quest. First one is to easy and boring to play. Third quest you dont need to try solo. Is not possible for solo at all.

[...]

If someone need deck list i can print it.

I was proff. player of decipher lotr trading card game use to play many events and even world cup.Was the best player in my small country(Estonia).

Consider me utterly impressed by your superior, nay, godly, skills!

Please illuminate us lowly, inferior players by posting your deck that cannot lose!

P.S.: I've actually beaten the third scenario using a single deck, but I guess I must have imagined it since you so convincingly made the case it cannot be beaten. I bow to your superior wisdom!

You say you can beat 3 scenario alone???? Very interesting!!! How you do that??? What kind of deck???

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Glaurung said:

You say you can beat 3 scenario alone???? Very interesting!!! How you do that??? What kind of deck???

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jhaelen said:

Glaurung said:

You say you can beat 3 scenario alone???? Very interesting!!! How you do that??? What kind of deck???

I used a 50-card Leadership/Spirit deck with Eowyn, Aragorn, and Theodred created from a single core set. Since that means I almost included every card from those spheres (and naturally three copies of Gandalf) it should be relatively easy to figure out the deck.

Sounds like a sh*tty deck to beat the tough scenario, all the better then for the player. Did it take many attempts? Congrats.

I find the game very challenging solo although I feel I quite mastered it (so far) in coop. It seems a bit less fun solo, too, but that will perhaps change once I get better in it.

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lleimmoen said:

jhaelen said:

Glaurung said:

You say you can beat 3 scenario alone???? Very interesting!!! How you do that??? What kind of deck???

I used a 50-card Leadership/Spirit deck with Eowyn, Aragorn, and Theodred created from a single core set. Since that means I almost included every card from those spheres (and naturally three copies of Gandalf) it should be relatively easy to figure out the deck.

Sounds like a sh*tty deck to beat the tough scenario, all the better then for the player. Did it take many attempts? Congrats.

I find the game very challenging solo although I feel I quite mastered it (so far) in coop. It seems a bit less fun solo, too, but that will perhaps change once I get better in it.

With that deck you shouldn't have any problem...if you try 10 times!