And here is my report for my mono-spirit attempt.

I succeeded in 27 quests out of the 33. I have mixed feelings. I had to work much harder to achieve this result than the one of my best deck, probably because the deck does not have the same row power, and also because I did not know it well. But it made the experience even more enjoyable!

Here are my 6 defeats:

- A journey to Rhosgobel

Well, there is not much to say about it, my chances are quite small and there is a lot of randomness here. The deck can crazy quest if you happen to have a lucky Athelas draw in the first 5 encounter cards. You still have a chance later in the game with the good location and threat manipulation, but it is mainly up to the encounter deck. The game I played here did not leave any chance.

- Return to Mirkwood

I raced through Return to Mirkwood knowing a single big guy (Hill Troll or Attercop) could ruin me, but racing sounded as the best plan anyway. I revealed Hill Troll on the last stage of the quest when my threat was already high. My party was too small to handle him and my threat rocketed.

- Dungeons deep and caverns dim

This was a surpring defeat as I thought mono-sphere would have an easy time with riddles ... I still think this was a very unlucky defeat. Bilbo missing to answer 3 riddles was unlikely to happen.

- The lonely mountain

There is one critical turn in the lonely mountain : the first turn where Smaug the Magnificient shows up. In this game, he killed 5 of my characters on that turn and I could not come back.

- Into Ithilien

This is probably the toughest quest for mono-spirit (maybe with A Journey to Rhosgobel). The simple fact it starts with a tough battle makes it hard. I managed to empty the staging area and encounter cards in play at one time, O Gilbereth-ed the Mumak, but achieving that had cost my little party too much and they could not make it through the end of the quest.

- The siege of Cair Andros

I did not manage to have a large enough board when the battelgrounds got claimed/destroyed ... then I drew a few tough opponents I had difficulties to deal with, like Lieutenant of Mordor activating southron support, when a battering ram was already in play.

I'd say A journey to Rhosgobel and Into Ithilien were likely defeats,

Return to Mirkwood and Siege of Cair Andros were tough quests that could have gone either way,

and Dungeons deep and caverns dim and The lonely mountain were unlucky defeats, with several streaks of bad luck on what looked like easy riddles, and an awful chain of attacks from Smaug the Magnificient.

But I also had succesfull quests:

Escape from Dol Guldur

I kept a hand with Light of Valinor and Northern Tracker. Glorfindel was the prisonner, but I could still play Northern tracker on turn 2 ... who basically did all the work. Actually, the match up for my mono-spirit deck against EfDG is not too bad: the only very annoying encounter cards are the low engagement-threat allies, because the deck usually quests well even with just 2 heroes. The game was long and tough, but globally went the right way.

Shadow and Flame

The battle of Laketown

I had playtested against Smaug, and found that I needed to pack attack strength to win the Battle of Laketown, and slowly manage my threat until I had enough. The same was true for Shadow and flame. And it worked.

Massing at Osgiliath

I don't consider it a very tough quest to beat with this deck, but it went very smoothly: an ithilien ranger popped just before I had to cross the Anduin, and O Elbereth Githonial got rid of the Witch King.

The steward's fear

I think I had my closest victory ever on this one. I achieved the quest with only 2 cards in play, i.e. 2 heroes with one life remaining only, no attachment left, no ally left, 47 threats and a local trouble on both of my heroes, 3 cards left in deck with the plot aiming at empty my deck for the win, discarding my last card in hand for Eowyn to get the very last quest point.

I would have lost at the end of the turn to:

- the plot emptying my deck,

- the engaged minions slaugthering my two near-death exhausted heroes.

- the local troubles + threat increase in the refresh phase

I am buying a virtual drink to anyone who could share a more desperate lucky ending !

Conclusion:

I think mono-spirit can hope for a 30/33 with some luck, but it seems 27/33 is a an ok-result. I slightly improved my playing of the deck during this enjoyable run, but I don't think I did any obvious critical mistake that would have turned the tide. Losing the 2 hobbit quests was particularly unlucky.

RESULT FOR MONO-SPIRIT:

27 / 33 (98.67 average score)

I tried the first 9 quests (base 3 plus Mirkwood cycle) with a few different decks, and I'm not having nearly as much success as you guys. This is pretty much the first time I've tried playing single handed, and I'm beginning to appreciate how much more challenging some scenarios can be solo. Dol Goldur, Carrock, Rhosgobel, and Return to Mirkwood in particular are near impossible. My best deck so far is Spirfindel, Beregond, and Faramir, but that deck wasn't able to beat any of those 4 on the first try. I did beat Carrock and Mirkwood, but it pretty much requires light of valinor and Asfaloth in my starting hand. The highlight so far was being able to one-shot a hill troll in the staging area with Faramir.