Welcome & Introduction:

Welcome to my third Solo Player LOTR LCG Tournament. This week’s tournament marks the beginning of a series of tournaments that will focus on the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. The idea behind this tournament is that for one week (Sunday – Saturday), everyone is invited to participate in playing a particular quest with particular deck building requirements in a Solo Player Tournament. 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.) See also, The juicebox LOTR LCG Top Ten Hall of Fame.

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 Solo Player Tournament!

Solo Player Tournament #3:

Quest: The Hunt for Gollum
Deck Parameters: 1-3 Core Sets + HfG Adventure Pack
Number of Players: Solo Play – 1 Player/1 Deck

Top Ten:

1. muemakan ~ 51 (Éowyn, Aragon, Théodred)
2. leptokurt ~ 53 (Éowyn, Théodred, Bilbo)
3. Mighty Jim ~ 56 (Éowyn, Aragon, Théodred)
4. Vase ~ 57 (Éowyn, Bilbo, Glóin)
5. juicebox ~ 63 (Éowyn, Bilbo, Glóin)
6. wraith428 ~ 64 (Aragorn, Glóin, Éowyn)
7. Zjb12 ~ 65 (Éowyn, Dúnhere, Théodred)
8. Bungo_Underhill ~ 66 (Éowyn, Théodred, Aragorn)
9. Chac ~ 71 (Aragorn, Theodred, Éowyn)
10. plueschi ~ 72 (Théodred, Bilbo, Éowyn)

Last Updated:

December 25, 2011 (12:05am) [FFG Time]

[This week’s tournament will run from December 18 – December 24, 2011 and will officially close at the end of the week (midnight) as time-stamped by the FFG forum time clock.]

I don't expect this to hold, but just to get the ball rolling...

Éowyn, Beravor, Glorfindel

Threat: 43

Hero Wounds: 3

Victory Points: 3

Round Tracker: 70

Total: 113

I forgot about the forced rule on 1B twice. In my third attempt I got a 101:

Heroes: Théodred, Bilbo, Éowyn

Threat: 24

Hero Wounds: 3

Victory Points: 6

Round Tracker: 80

Total: 101

Looks like the round tracker is not always the deciding factor. I'm just wondering what Juicy did to get his threat to 43?!?

leptokurt said:

Since Quest Card 2B requires revealing 2 cards off the encounter deck and adding 1 to the staging area at the beginning of the quest phase, when presented with the option of adding Hunters from Mordor (I had 2 Clue cards in play) or Pursued by Shadows, I chose PbS. It's a devastating card at that point because it's the beginning of the quest phase and no one has committed yet to the quest. But at the time, it felt like the less brutal of my options.

I believe I also had another Pursued by Shadows come off the encounter deck naturally at a time when I had left a few characters standing ready for battle.

Further, I'm pretty sure I encountered some Flooding along the way.

These Treachery cards really can be treacherous!

In any case, it made for a pretty thrilling (read as "threat was skyrocketing") ride.

Thanks for your curiosity. Éowyn, Beravor, and Glorfindel sure appreciate your care and concern about their wellbeing.

PS: As a cool "thematic" moment, I can actually remember getting so annoyed by PbS, and thinking, "Geez, why is this card so brutal?" Then I studied it further and realized that in that moment there was actually a Nazgul searching the skies for me, and I had an actual feeling of relief wash over me as I thought, "Okay, this makes perfect sense now. I guess I'm actually just quite lucky to be out of his reach!" I could even hear (in my mind) the croaking screams of the Nazgul (from the movie) braying in the skies above. It was a pretty fun moment, and one more reason I continue to enjoy this game so much.

Cool, I had such a "ride" myself - 3 Hunters, 2 cluecards - but my fellowship made it.

Ok, back to the results that count:

Heroes: Théodred, Bilbo, Èowyn

Threat: 16

Hero Wounds: 0

Victory Points: 3

Round Tracker: 80

Total: 93

My deck had it all - Steward of Gonor, 2x Sneak Attack /Gandalf, Northern Tracker and Daughter of the Nimrodel played in round 2, Faramir in round 4, 2 x Galadrim's Greeting. Unfortunatly I had to fight 3 Hunters (1 Gollum card out there all the time) and had to use Gandalf's ability to kill the first one - otherwise I could have finished the game 2 rounds earlier.

Took a while today, but the second deck finally worked! Heros, eowyn, dunhere, Eleanor. Not a pure mono sphere deck as I used song of kings for around a dozen leadership cards in addition to 3x gandalf of course. Ended up with a final threat of 21, 3 victory points, 9 rounds, for a total of 108.

leptokurt said:

Incredible, a 73 would seem impossible!!! You must have been blowing through on your questing phase! Wow!

Well, another high threat adventure for me, but with a slightly sweeter result...

Heroes: Éowyn, Bilbo, Aragorn

Final Threat: 44

Hero Wounds: 4

Victory Points: 3

Round Tracker: 60

Total Score: 105

At the very beginning of this game I had the crazy experience of immediate delight when I pulled off a Clue card during game setup and then immediate frustration when Old Wives Tales showed up to guard the Clue. Because it was during game set up, none of my heroes had resources yet, so I had to exhaust them all and had no one to quest with during round one. Ah, just the beginning of the threat climbing (thematically delightful though, when you think about it). Oh, and later on in Quest Card 2B, I lost my Clue card because of Evil Storm. I had one Spirit resource and A Test of Will in my hand, but The West Bank was my active location, making Event Cards cost an extra resource. Rage and Agony! I like this deck though, and I plan to try it out some more later in the week.

Heroes: Eowyn, Aragon, Theodred

Threat: 27

Wounds: 1

Rounds : 3

Final Score 58

Got an unbelievable score. It was actually my first attempt. I got an ealy Clue with Evil Storm attached. One of the best treacheries early in the game.

First Round Sneak Gandalf helped too.

One False Lead was Will of the Wested.......

Again I believe it´s soooo luck dependent. If you can´t get a quick clue there is no way to get a good score.

My second and third attempt were´t so good. One game I lost a hero and in the other one it took me 7 rounds to get a clue.......finishing with 112.

I meant A Test of Will and not Will of the West.........of course.

muemakan said:

A quick clue an also prevent a good score if you have some Hunters in the staging area. But yep, you need some good encounters to make a fantastic result - in my last game I got through 1B in two turns, had almost finished 2B in my third turn and was on my way to get a ~60pts result. But then I got Goblin Raider combined with Gamdalf and a Hunter. And just when i made enough progress to make it to 3B I got False Lead and had nothing to deflect it. In the end it took me 15 turns to end the game (lost another clue), but it still was awesome.

Done here with a Spirit/Leader deck. Unluckly I cannot low my theath, nor with Gandalf, nor with Greetings. Up to this, in 7 turns I have done it, not my best (it is 96), but yet still a solid score

Heroes: Eowyn, Dunhere, Theodred

Final Threath: 37

No heroes dead, no wounds

6 Victory Points (2x Gladden Fields)

7 Turns to Complete

TOTAL: 101 pts

Here you have my deck. It is used 1x Core + 1 x Hunt for Gollum. I really wish to have at least 3 Unexpect Courage and one more Northern Tracker, but I cannot afford it (FFG is always having so many good games... last bought is Gears of War !!!!)

2 Northern Tracker
2 The Favor of the Lady
1 Unexpected Courage
2 Hasty Stroke
2 Stand and Fight
2 The Galadhrim's Greeting
2 A Test of Will
1 Dwarven Tomb
3 Gandalf
3 Lorien Guide
2 Faramir
2 Daughter of the Nimrodel
3 Guard of the Citadel
3 Snowbourn Scout
2 Silverlode Archer
2 Sneak Attack
2 Steward of Gondor
1 Celebrian's Stone
3 Dunedain Mark
3 Song of Kings
3 Westfold Horse Breaker
1 Brok Ironfist
2 Valiant Sacrifice
1 Grim Resolve

leptokurt said:

My hero choice exactly!

I just finished with a score of 72.

Win on turn 6 (50)

Threat of 25

3 VP (Gladden Fields)

0 damage.

I certainly agree that luck plays an important role as I got a Steward of Gondor and 2 Northern Trackers in my starting hand. With Theodred you can play the 2nd Tracker on the beginning of turn 3 already. Some unlucky moments also: My first clue card immediately went away, it was "guarded" by a False Lead, small bummer there. Son of Arnor + Forest Snare took care of one hunter and Henamarth was huge as always.

P.S.: In order to improve everybodies understanding of the rules and to minimize the mistakes people make (me included), I would like to somehow log my games via Lackey CCG. Does anybody know, if such a feature exists? Or a different, but convenient, method of logging games?

Wow! I am amazed and humbled by these scores! I thought 108 was good! You guys are incredible!

Zjb12 said:

It is not that incredible. With two early Northern Trackers and many locations coming off the Encounter deck it was almost an auto play. The whole game I only saw one Hunters from Mordor (and one Eastern Crwos on the last but meaningless turn), that got snared. So between perfect information from Henamarth Riversong and not having to attack or defend once, I could push through the quest pretty easily.

plueschi said:

The timing of your questing is a deicisve factor in this scenario, especially in 1B. if you make progres,, make lot of progress to avoid extra cards in the staging area. Try to limit combats to a minimum, as the shadow effects (Hunter) can ruin a good result. That means of course good threat management. Don't let your threat get at 30 or higher. Northern Tracker is a must, especially when you combine him with some Snowborn Scouts.

In my win I had 2 northern trackers, a Lorien guide, and faramir. But I didn't get them in as early as you guys did. Once in though, they and the others definitely sped things up!!!

Two wins today, but the first was only a 130. The second though I almost broke 100! Got a 103---final threat 25; 1 damage; 3victory points; 7 rounds. Heroes: theodred; Eleanor; eowyn. Slightly different deck than yesterday.

Ok---so now the flu running rampant through our house is affecting my mind---I just did break a 100!!! I got a 93!!! (juice box---how do I delete my last comment where I now look like a fool!!!).

Zjb12 said:

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I don't have the power to delete comments.

Congrats on the new score though! It's a great feeling, treading where you've never tread before, isn't it?

Pretty sweet run tonight...

Heroes: Éowyn, Bilbo, Glóin

Final Threat: 19

Hero Wounds: 0

Victory Points: 6

Round Tracker: 50

Final Score: 63

Some pretty lovely draws off the encounter deck and some sneak questing with Gandalf made for my best score yet!

Wow - had some really bad luck with this run!

Three hunters in the first couple of turns and a Goblintown Scavengers that hit a Gandalf

Heroes: Éowyn, Theodred, Beravor

Final Threat: 33

Hero Wounds: 4

Victory Points: 3

Round Tracker: 90

Final Score: 124 - ouch

I've got much lower in the past so hopefully I'll have time for another run and a lower score...

I reaction to the ongoing discussion about Éowyn I bult a deck without her. First try was a solid 113, second try was better:

Heroes: Glorfindel, Bilbo, Legolas

Final Threat: 32

Hero Damage: 1

Victory Points: 6

Round Tracker: 60

Result: 87

I added 3x Song of Kings and the "best of" Leadership: Faramir, Celebrion's Stone, Sneak Attack and Steward of Gondor. I was only to able Sneak Attack om this game, but was lucky with the encounters (some enemies for Legolas, many treacheries, no Hunters!!!). I was very close to make it even one round earlier, but missed it by 2 WP.

The only game I could squeeze in this week, and fortunately a good one.

Flying the flag for the four-sphere deck, although no Song of Kings showed up on time.

Heroes: Eowyn, Beravor, Legolas

Result: won on the 6th round (50 points)

Threat: 33

Wounds: 1

VPs: 3 (Gladden Fields)

Total score: 81

A few enemies for Legolas to kill (Misty Mountain Goblins, Scavengers) and a few locations and treacheries but none of the really nasty ones. I took a chance by picking an Eastern Crows as my additional encounter card on stage 2 and was rewarded when it surged into the first Clue, guarded by some Goblins. With the Goblins dispatched that turn and the Clue claimed on turn 4, I could race through stages 2 and 3 in 3 turns total for a good overall score.

EDIT: The deck uses a few HfG cards, of which the Westfold Horse-breaker was used to good effect, readying Beravor to let her help out Legolas in killing an enemy. Song of Kings, Winged Guardian and Rivendell Minstrel didn't feature this time.

Okay had a much better run this time I dropped the lore stuff as I think it slows the deck down early game - which is bad with the 2 encounters per turn in HFG.

Heroes: Éowyn, Theodred, Aragorn

Final Threat: 35

Hero Wounds: 2

Victory Points: 0

Round Tracker: 50

Final Score: 87

A much better run this time I had all three stewards of gondor in my hand by turn 2 but luckily Eowyn found the +1will they could provide useful too. I even managed to use a grim resolve to take out a Mordor hunter this game too