Welcome & Introduction:

Welcome to my first (of what could become a regular thing) LOTR LCG Tournament of the Week. The idea behind this is that for one week (Sunday – Saturday), everyone is invited to participate in playing a particular quest with particular deck building requirements and a particular number of players. You are then invited to record and post your final score, the heroes you used, and any additional narrative that you’d like to add.

Note: this is not a place to post results from the past. The tournament has a one-week lifespan, and only games played and recorded throughout this week are valid. As the week unfolds, I will keep this first post updated with the Top Ten results. (Each participant can occupy a maximum of one Top Ten spot at a time, so you’re welcome to try and best your own result throughout the week).

Will you place in the Top Ten for the week? I hope you’ll participate and find out!

After the end of this week’s tournament, you are welcome to continue to post results to this thread if you continue to play this particular quest under these particular parameters. However, the Top Ten on this first post will not continue to be updated after the week is over, thus preserving (like a time capsule) the results from this week’s tournament. Further, please refrain from using this thread for extensive theorizing and/or conversation that is not directly related to this particular tournament. Nothing against other conversations – it’s just, that’s what other threads are for. Specifically, if you have ideas for a future tournament of the week, feel free to suggest them in the Ideas Thread.

And now… on to this week’s Tournament of the Week!

Tournament of the Week #1:

Quest: Journey Down the Anduin
Deck Parameters: 1 Core Set Only – No Adventure Packs
Number of Players: Solo Play – 1 Player/1 Deck

This week’s tournament is inspired by Marlow’s recent desire to absolutely conquer the Anduin. While playing Solo, using only one deck made from one core set, may not be everyone’s cup of tea, defined parameters are what will make each Tournament of the Week a unique and specific challenge. I hope you enjoy it!

Top Ten:

1. wraith428 ~ 84 (Glóin, Beravor, Éowyn)
2. plueschi ~ 93 (Glorfindel, Beravor, Glóin)
3. leptokurt ~ 95 (Eleanor, Glóin, Beravor)
4. Chac ~ 97 (Éowyn, Beravor, Théodred)
5. OnkelZorni ~ 98 (Beravor, Glóin, Éowyn)
5. Bungo_Underhill ~ 98 (Éowyn, Théodred, Beravor)
7. Avalanche ~ 109 (Aragorn, Beravor, Denethor)
7. Mighty Jim ~ 109 (Éowyn, Théodred, Gimli)
9. juicebox ~ 119 (Éowyn, Denethor, Legolas)
10. Scoob ~ 120 (Beravor, Théodred, Éowyn)

Last Updated:

November 27, 2011 (1:01am) [FFG TIme]

I think I'll just step ahead:

Finished with a score of 109.

Win on turn 9 (80)

33 threat (starting threat of 25 + 8 full rounds, nothing special here)

4 VP (Hill Troll)

The heroes I used have been: Eowyn, Theodred and Denethor.

I think I'll post my deck list, should I stay in the Top 10 'til the end.

One question though: Are we allowed to submit multiple scores should we be able to improve ourselves? I only played one game right now, but maybe I am in the mood to try again later.

plueschi said:

Just read your post. First of all: congrats for being the first player to fpost his results. Hopefully more will follow.

One thing that is of interest for everyone participating:

I checked your result and was a bit irritated that you played 9 rounds but got only 80 points. That's why I reread the FAQ and it indeed says

"In addition to all elements currently used to score a
game, players also add an additional 10 points to their
"final group score" for each round of play that is taken
to defeat a scenario. Players tally each round for their
score at the end of the refresh phase."

I completely missed the last part and counted each round, even the last one that I completed before the refresh phase. Am I the only one who is that dumb? Or do I still have to add 10 points for the last round, even when I didn't reach the refresh phase?

leptokurt said:

Sorry for OT highjack, but thanks a ton for pointing that one out. I was doing it wrong the whole time >_<

plueschi said:

Congratulations plueschi! Right now you sit atop this week's Top Ten!

Also... YES! Please feel free to post multiple successes. Theoretically, at the end of the week someone could occupy all ten spots! (Plus, I'm developing a point system to create a living Top Ten Hall of Fame to track multiple successes over the course of the weekly tournaments. I'll post an update about that in the Ideas Thread.)

And leptokurt - important catch! It's true - you don't count 10 points for your last round if you did not need to Refresh.

Well, I'm not sure I could be a self-respecting host if I didn't at least try to place in the first week of my own weekly tournament. I mean, at this point, I don't even know if I'll have the opportunity to compete in every single one that I host, depending on the variables for the particular week. So, I have to take my chances while I have them... right?

And here's a result. Don't know if this will hold for a placement in the Top Ten, but it was a fun game that involved a lot of riding the Banks of the Anduine. Hard.

Heroes: Éowyn, Denethor, Legolas

Final Threat: 20

Hero Wounds: 3

Victory Points: 4

Round Marker: 15

Total Score: 169

juicebox said:

Based on valuable feedback, I'm redacting this model. My aim in clarifying this here on this thread, instead of just on the Ideas Thread, is to help mitigate confusion. The revised Top Ten standard will read as follows:

Each participant can occupy a maximum of one Top Ten spot at a time, so you’re welcome to try and best your own result throughout the week.

There will still be a living Top Ten Hall of Fame hosted in a separate thread, but participants will not be able to occupy more than one spot on any given Top Ten listing at a time. So, feel free to post multiple successful quests to each weekly tournament, and if you are in the Top Ten already, I will update your score and rank accordingly as you best your own performance. Thanks to plueschi and Avalanche for your valuable feedback on this matter.

I'll have time to give this a go on Wednesday before all the relatives arrive for Thanksgiving...Can anyone point me to a resource that lists the quantities of cards in the core set?

Scoob said:

What do you mean? Do you want to know how many cards were in the core set or which cards were in the core set? You can know which cards are the core set ones by the little white ring that's at the bottom right of the corner. The ones from the the adventure packs will have a spider web. But you can just go to www.lotrlcg.com and where it says "all expansions" select core, then hit search and it will bring up all the cards from the core set. Hope I answered your question.

Thanks Avalanche for the response, but I was looking to know how many of each card there were...for example, I believe there's only one unexpected courage, yes?

I ask because when I bought a second core set I gave one copy of the cards that came in a "2 of" to one friend so we both had as many "3 of" as possible from 3 total cores...then another friend quit and gave me his core. So I COULD figure out the correct number of each card, but if someone already had done this, that would be quicker, and much appreciated.

Scoob said:

lotrlcg.com has all that info it says how many of each card is included it will be on the right side kind looks like this

Son of Arnor 3 0 2 0 2
[Ally]
Dunedain.
Response: After Son of Arnor enters play, choose an enemy card in the staging area or currently engaged with another player. Engage that enemy.

15

Core

x2 - right here is where it says how many copies are in the set.

Let me know if that helps at all

Perfect, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks again. Should have checked the site out before thinking it didn't have what I needed.

After many failed attempts with a Gloin, Beravor, Denethor deck I decided to change tactics and try a three sphere Gloin, Beravor, Eowyn deck. With a lot of luck I came out with a pretty good score.

Heroes: Gloin, Beravor, Éowyn

Final Threat: 29

Hero Wounds: 2

Victory Points: 7 (Troll and Gladden)

Round Marker: 6 (played but did not finish round 7)

Total Score: 84

Early draw of a Celebrian's stone and a Steward of Gondor set up Eowyn as a questing monster with enough resources to get me a Northern Tracker, two Lorien Guides and two The Galadhrim's Greeting over the course of the game. Additionally round 2 Eowyn was able to put Unexpected Courage on Beravor and get some serious card draw. Sneak Attack Gandalf on on the Troll during the Combat Phase of turn turn 3 for four damage, sacrificed a Erebor Hammersmith to the Troll (and took some threat) then attacked with Gandalf, Gloin and Northern Tracker for the kill. The next 3 rounds quested like crazy and never hit an Enemy although I did hit The Eastern Blight which did slow me down a little. Got a lot of treachery during my travels down the river that had little or no effect (2 Evil Storms when my threat was below 35 thanks to The Galadhrim's Greeting as an example.) Got to 3B after quest phase of turn 7 and revealed a Dol Gulder Beastmaster and a location. Sacrificed a Guard of the Citadel to the Beastmaster and still had Gloin and Beravor in reserve plus an Ever Vigilant to ready the Northern Tracker and together they were able to take down the Beastmaster.

Journey down the river was a lucky break... not a single Enemy card in 8 cards. Also lucky drawing both the Celbrian's Stone and Unexpected Courage (both single cards in the deck) in the early draw.

Liked the deck as it had good resources. Steward of Gondor on Eowyn gave her what she needed to play spirit cards and Gloin could take damage to gain leadership resources. Beravor had to be careful about were she spent resources as there was no way to boost her income and she needed to be sure to heal Gloin before he became too damaged.

Fun challenge... not sure I can better it.

Wraith428

Congrats wraith, apparently your heroes had a serious flatuence problem, as no enemy dared to approach them We will always remember their journey as the 'Winds of Anduin'. But your result shall be blown away by my last game where I got double as much points as you. Eat this:

188 (Theodred, Gloin, Thalin)

Congrats to you both!

wraith428 and leptokurt, I'm "blown away" by both of you.

Granted, it's for different reasons, but still... good show!

Updating the Top Ten right now.

I did play another six games - I lost half of them, but the results I got were quite good (for me, at least): 144, 121 and 114.

Heroes: still Theodred, Gloin and Thalin

Result: 114

In my opening hand I got 2 x Ever Vigilant and the Sneak Attack / Gandalf combo. Very important for me was to see Faramir's sword, too.

The setup was kind and ealt me Despair!. I sent everyone questing for the first two or three rounds ANd made some questing progress. I got Necromancer's Pass and Treacherous Fog. I didn't dare to travel to the pass, since I feared to loose Gandalf. In round 4 I engaged the Hill Troll. I sneaked Gandalf in, hurt the troll with four dmage, chose Gandalf as Defender, readied him via Ever Vigilant and then he killed the monster together with Thalin, the Spearman and a Citadel Guard. Yeah Gondor!

I finally visited the Pass during stage 2. The encounters weren't too bad: Necromancer's Reach, Banks of Anduin 2x and Brown Lands. The latter one stalled my questing progress a lot, but OTOH I could defat the Beastmaster while no new enemy appeared (except of those Eastern crows who tried to pick my heroes from time to time, befor the were picked by Thalin's Axe). Of course right before the end of my tracle more enemies tried to pursue my fellowship: Misty Mountain Goblins and Goblin Sniper. So i could only engage the Misty Mountain goblins in stage 3B, the Sniper had to be handled in the next round.

I finished the game in round 9 with a threat of 35 and a damage of 6 minus 7 VP (Hill Troll and Gladden Fields).

leptokurt said:

Nice job! You're moving up the table... both your own and the Top Ten.

Finally had the chance to try it.

Heroes: Aragorn, Beravor, Denathor

Final Threat: 42

1 damage on hero

Victory points: 4

Turns 7

Final Score: 109

I got pretty lucky and had forest snare in my opening hand, and got steward of Gondor in like the first or second round. Its rough not having all my adventure pack cards. It makes you appreciate them trying to go back and quest without the newer cards!

Oooooooh... interesting!! That means we've currently got a tie for 2nd place!

Wonder if that will hold?

Also, I had a chance to play a bit tonight, and while I didn't move up in the ranks, I sure did improve my score:

Heroes: Éowyn, Denethor, Legolas

Final Threat: 40

Hero Wounds: 6

Victory Points: 7

Round Marker: 8

Total Score: 119

Heroes: Éowyn, Thalin, Dunhere

Final Threat: 41

Hero Wounds: 2

Victory Points: 13

Round Marker: 14

Total Score: 170

Nothing special but got me on the board!

Nice Narsil0420... because being on the board is special.

Thanks for the fun idea, Juicebox! I got this game when it first came out, and had played a handful of times. Enough to see it was fun, but a lot of two handed solo because I felt solo was a bit hard. Friends too far away and all that. So I hadn't had much experience deckbuilding, and then playing those decks, so this was well worth my time.

My eventual winning deck was Beravor, Theodred, Eowyn. Final score was:

Refresh counter at 10 =100 points

Wound total at 3 = 3 points

Final threat at 24 = 24 points

Victory points = 7

Total = 120

For those interested,I started with Aragorn, Theodred, and Eleanor, thinking the threat starting cost and the sphere synergies with Celebrian's stone made for a good deck. Not to mention Aragorn can defend against one hit from the big bad troll. After three failures (one pretty close one) all on the second stage I realized that I was letting most treacheries go through because either my threat level made them ineffective, or it seemed more appealing to not add threat to the staging area. I realized I needed Eowyn to quest better, and needed to drop Eleanor since I wasn't using her ability.

Adding Eowyn meant fewer turns before the troll, unless I swapped Aragorn. So I added Gloin to the lineup as well. In this 4th game I realized that lack of card drawing was also hurting me, and that some of the exhaust a hero spirit cards, as well as Common Cause, I had in there for Eleanor to use if no treacheries came up could be traded for lore cards. I only went the 4th game before swapping in Beravor

In game 5 Beravor helped me so much. I got to see 2 Gandalfs (one Snuck in, so essentially 3), both Galadhrim's Greetings, and Faramir...all of which helped either set up before taking on the troll or burning through stage 2.

Dishonorable mention goes to Eastern Crows, whose Surge ability directly lead to too many enemies on three of my four losses.

Scoob said:

You're welcome Scoob! This has all been great fun so far.

I'm glad you're joining in. Welcome to the Top Ten.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! Relax eat some turkey, play some games and see what score you can get for this weeks tournament!

Heroes: Eleanor, Glóin, Beravor

Result: 111

I tried to play a three sphere deck. In this game I had some great early card draws (thanks Beravor!) that brought Steward of Gondor, Faramir and a Northern Tracker in my hand.I already had Celebrían's Stone, a Northern Tracker and Daughter of the Nimrodel. The latter was key to victory, as she could heal Glóin's damage over and over. Eleanor became Steward, so both leadership and spirit resources flew richly. The deck challenged my group with some less dangerous enemies (Misty Hill Goblin's, Eastern Crows and a Goblin Sniper) and one location (East Bight). It took me some time to get to stage 2B, but thanks to Galadrim's Greeting I hadn't to worry about my threat.

In round 8 I entered the second stage and a result below 100 was still in reach. It took me two rounds to make it to stage 3B, but then my luck left me when I drew another Hill Troll and some Dol Guldur Orcs. This cost me another turn and some additional threat delivered by your friendly neighborhood troll.