I have attempted the Shadow and Flame AP nearly two dozen times. Not ONCE have I been able to pull out a win. Has anyone else been able to defeat this quest while playing solo (not double fist, but pure solo), and if you have been able to beat it, how did you go about doing it? What cards did you use?

The most effective strategy is Eagle deck with Hama, Elrond and Bilbo. Try to play feint every turn to stop Balrog, cycle feint with Hama, Bilbo help you to draw card for feint-discard and same time build up army of eagles to kill the Balrog. This strategy work very well, you will win almost every time.

I've played it 3 times now solo, with two different decks, and won once with my primary deck (on its second go). That deck runs Aragorn, Beravor, and Frodo, so I have Frodo's ability to save my bacon on the turns that I can't play one of the decks many allies. Typically, you need to spit out an ally every turn against this quest, so that will almost certainly mandate that you get ahead of the card draw (more than 1 per turn), unless your **entire** deck is allies. Of course, if your entire deck is allies, you won't get ahead of the questing and monster killing (since you'll lose an ally every turn), so draw is rather critical.

A Test of Will is vital in this quest (as in most), and try to always, always, always cancel Counterspell.

Good luck!

I've only played it once, I don't like to "spoil" a quest so I didn't know what was coming ….. I played my Gloin deck and got a win.

Heroes - Gloin, Bilbo and Glorfindel (S)

I quested successfully every turn finishing on 11 threat (I drew no threat reduction apart from Gandalf on the last turn which I used for direct damage).

The key was Bilbo allowing me to outdraw the encounter deck, playing a chump blocker on turns 2, 3, 4 and 5. After that I managed to get a Citadel Plate on Gloin (using Narvi's belt) and then was able to block with him, using Healing herbs and a Daughter of nimrodel to keep Gloin alive.

I was using Henemrath and Rumors to control the encounter deck, always questing with just enough to break even or make progress. I didn't see a test of will but got lucky that the only attachment that ended up on the Balrog was Counterspell.

On the last turn I played Gandalf and Imladris Startgazer allowing me to stack the deck ready for the push down the pit.

I got a bit lucky in places but not excessively so. It was an epic fight.

I made a video playing against SaF. And while I made plenty mistakes, I think that a legal win would have been possible. You can find the video here:

a friend of mine beat this solo the other day… the general thought was that vilya and elrond really kick in this quest…im getting it next week so shall try it with my glorfindel frodo aragorn, and then with elrond instead of frodo

rich

In my opinion this quest is really big disappointed. Specially after amazing FOS!!! this is first quest difficult 8 + we meet Balrog himself but…… really boring and annoying quest in my opinion. In my opinion second cycle have only 3 really cool quest RHG, FOS and TLD. all others is really low quality.

Hope Hobbit and Smaug will be cool!

hama, feint and bilbo for card draw…./thread

Yes, Háma and Feint is good. But only until you come across Counter-spell.

lleimmoen said:

Counter spell is quite easy to manage. Only dangerous in early beginning. But this is really bad luck.

Actually if DB have 2 counter spell on him they work together and he will lose both in the case of trigger. Anyway i dont scare counter spell.

Glaurung said:

Like I already said: Using two core sets and complaining that the game is boring at the same time is ridiculous!

Also, I think your strategy works only in less than half of the games which makes a rather poor record. I think the only disappointing scenario was TLD. The rest was good too awesome.

My best strategy so far was Boromir/Elrond/Dáin with tons of attachments (Chain Mail, Dunedain Warning, Burning Brand, Narvi's Belt) and healers. I had mostly dwarfs in that deck so Erebor Battle Master could take care of the Balrog. My win ratio was over 60 percent.

My recent deck is Boromir/Elrond/Théodred and uses "Support of the Eagles" and "Eagles of the Misty Mountains to defend against the Balrog. Have to say that Elrond finally makes tactics decks working.

Glaurung said:

No, he actually won't. Each copy of Counter-spell creates a separate forced effect, and those effects are resolved individually (in the order of the first player's choosing, although that doesn't really matter since both effects are identical). You can't reveal one card to satisfy both forced triggers.

So, say there are two copies attached to DB when you play an event. You resolve the first, discarding the top encounter card. If it is a treachery, the nasty stuff happens (cancel, hand discard), and then THAT copy of Counter-spell is discarded. If a non-treachery is discarded, nothing happens, but you repeat the process for the second copy. DB won't lose both if a single treachery is discarded.

starhawk77 said:

no wonder the game is so "easy" for some…rules are a pesky thing!

Glaurung said:

Glaurung !!! Sometimes I don't get your thought process.

Just because you designed a specific deck that works well against a quest doesn't make the quest itself a disappointment. Nor are you forced to use that deck in the future. Try another deck!

As an example I have never designed a specific deck against an adventure, that seems cheesy to me. I design stuff to be either thematic or to support a certain card synergy (like the Elrond deck I am currently using which is kick ass)

Troymk1 said:

Yeah. Why not make a more thematic and less specific deck, Háma Elrond Bilbo sounds a bit pushy in terms of the theme, and I guess it doesn't work that well against some more willpower-demanding quests.

Also, I don't see how Counter-Spell is not a problem. There is little chance to prevent it - no Denethor, Risk Some Light too costly without secrecy, Out of the Wild also… or cancel it--the chance is it will come before you have both Vilya and A Test. Once Counter-spell is there, the whole Feint strategy goes up the chimney, together with your hand probably. Further, if you don't draw Feint (over 40 percent chance) you have to face Balrog round 1 almost guaranteed (with this low questing deck). Of course you can feed him allies--for some time.

About counter spell. I think sStarhawk is right and if DB have 2 of them you discard only one. He have very good logic about and this make game more difficult what i always welcome. But is doesn change much anyway. Cose you can look on the top card by Denethor and anyway get feint back with Hama later in the case of losing your hands.

Problem of this quest not easy or hard. This quest is annoying!!! Suppose to be epic battle with Balrog but on the practice is very boring. MAO much more interesting for example. If you compare Balrog from Decipher game or MECCG and even from Flight from Moria this one is worse idea in my opinion. Anayway is my though and i just tell what i feel about it.

About 2 core set or 2 core set . I use the rules : no more then 3 copies of the same card in the deck and minimum 50 cards. So nothing wrong with that right?

P.S> just make a proxy of Lake-town and will play tonight with my friend couple of 2 players sessions. Let you know after.

By the way there is all cards of this quest on Cardgame DB.

Playing it solo, Shadow and Flame is probaly just a random scenario.

It starts getting interesting when you play it multiplayer and have to figure out a way to block every attack the Balrog is dealing.

If you have a hard time defeating this quest, think about Secrecy cards. Since you go to 0 threat at the beginning of the quest, every deck is elligible to play them.

Emrad said:

My point is this. I think it is certainly not that hard to create a deck that will deal with the quest. Especially for the above given reasons: all secrecy cards will be available for most of the game on most of the games; however, if you don't build a deck specificaly for this quest, it will be challenging.

Boring or fun is another aspect. I too have found quite a few other quests more entertaining.

This scenario brutally killed me in something like turn two yesterday, my dwarfy deck that has braved the depths of Moria for most of the cycle was finally defeated. I think this definitely needs a deck built specifically to combat it, and probably will require sacrificing a lot of theme (something I dislike intensely). But so be it!

On a somewhat-related note, does the spirit event O Elbereth! Gilthonial! work on Durin's Bane? I can't think if I've seen this mentioned here, but the card text on the balrog, about it not leaving the staging area, has me concerned that perhaps it won't.

I lived quite the opposite situation yesterday: the encounter could have surrended turn 2

On turn 2, we had an Elrhohir with Steward of Gondor, a +1 Dunedain Def bonus, and Arwen. So the player controling Elrhohir could block for both player, taking only 2 damage per turn. A healer took care of those wounds soon enough.

The whole point of Durin's Bane is to remain in the staging area for the whole quest, so indeed, it cannot be moved to the bottom of the encounter deck by O Elbereth! Gilthonial!

spalanzani said:

Yes, this scenario needs a special line up. One of the things I like about this quest is that it allows you to play secrecy cards and that the starting threat of your heroes doesn't matter, which allows you to create combos you otherwise would never use.

As to your question, there has been some discussion (I think it should be in the rule question section), but no definite solution yet. My approach is to ignore OEG in this scenario, because you don't only remove Durin' Bane with it, but all the fun too.

You don't need an approach, it can't leave the staging area.

RTFC, if I daresay

Emrad said:

And therein lies the problem. If it can't leave the staging area, it can't be discarded by Dark Pit…and there's no way to win the scenario. It almost certainly SHOULD be vulnerable to Dark Pit, but a strict reading of card text would disallow that interaction.

There's nothing else for it - I've had to send them an email! Hopefully the reply will be quick in coming…

Glaurung said:

Although I sometimes react strongly to the way you present your ideas on the forum here (as seems to be the case with at least a few other people… lol), I have to agree with this sentiment 100%.

Additionally, I've never understood the whole "number of core sets" debate. I do play within the 3-of-each-card-limit (have 2 core sets myself, so only 2 copies of Henamarth, etc…), although since this game has no competitive format, I find the whole "tournament-legal" deck idea humorous… If someone wants to make the game harder by limiting themselves, so be it. But it comes off as ******-baggery to imply others are lesser players for not doing the same…

/rant