With this deck i have won* all the quests (even Morgul Vale!!!) alone:

Heroes:

Bifur

Mirlonde

Pippin lore

Allies (x20):

Gandalf (CORE) x3

Hammersmith x2

Master of Forge x2

Gildor x2

Haldir x2

Silvan Tracker x2

Dori x2

Ithilien Tracker x3

Ithilien Archer x2

Attachments (x8):

Elf-stone x2

Ranger Bow x3

Resourceful x3

Events (x22):

Needful to Know x2

Risk some Light x3

Mithrandil's Advice x3

Lorien's Wealth x3

Strider's Path x2

Gildor's Counsel x3

Daeron's Runes x3

Peace, and Thought x3

* not include in the list: Laketown (of course), Shadow and Flame (secrecy here is useless), Heirs of Numenor (cause of hard battle or siege)

** i haven't tested still: Blood of Gondor, Hobbit Saga

...all the other quests: i have won, even making higscore in someone (Anduin, Watcher, Morgul Vale...)!!!

Strategy:

1st phase: try to get all the possible resourcefull, and risk some light (to gain time/rounds), drawing if you need (by Mithrandril Advice, Peace and Thorght, Master of the Forge, etc).

2nd phase: try to play all the trackers and bows you could (and other hard allies by Elf Stone)

3rd phase: try to play all the other allies (you must get lots of resources each round)

***** easy *****

PD: when i play alone i change Counsel Gildor by Hernamanth, for example.

PD2: other good cards --> Isildur Scroll (to return Risk Some Light or Mithrandril Advice), maybe changed by Striders Path. / Also: get only 1 copy of Gildor and Haldir, and get 1 copy of Anborn and other ally.

very much like mine.. but I use pipen and denathor some traps and less "2 copies" for 3 copies of cards...

I tried something like this a while ago, and if Resourceful did not show up early I was sunk.

One problem was staying in secrecy for long without access to spirit.

Do you pretty much use Gandalf for threat reduction? Is Needful to Know working for threat reduction?

Another problem was dealing with a low Engagement Cost enemy early on. I'd quest with Mirlonde, Pippin, and Leave Bifur for defense, but then had a tough time getting rid of the enemy. Surprised not to see Ranger Spikes.

Are Silvan Tracker and Dori enough to keep your heroes from dying? With just 3, 3, 2 hp they are pretty fragile. Why not Warden of healing over Silvan Tracker?

Looks pretty cool though. Did you just use Ranger Bows to take care of Nazgul for MV?

There are some problems with this deck.. but it is on the right track.

Ithilliin Archer is the key to much of these types of decks.. as you can engage monsters, then bounce them back into the staging area to trigger traps. This also means you can reduce deck slots required for encounter deck control as you can play traps to monsters already revealed.

Another key card is the Elf-Stone that is not used correctly in this deck. Teamed with 3x Hammer Smith you have 3 free ally drops. I usually use it to place 3xN.Tracker and maybe Dramrod for threat drop or Beorn if the quest has some strong enemies needing to be delt with or Farimir to super quest. The point is you can play non faction colors and this opens the mono lore to a lot of nice options.

Not running White Tower Watchmen in a mono deck is just wrong.

Master of Lore (as it is not unique) can drop any lore card by 3 meaning you can play cards pretty much for free, this can be a viable alternative to resourcefulness and secrecy.

The real problem though is threat reduction, but a minstrels for quest power and a single spirit song can handle this easy.

Dear Tracker1,

You need a 'secrecy' hand first round, true. One copy of resourceful and one copy of 'Risk some Light', true. If not, you are in a problem. But there are lots of cards to draw, early you will get the secrecy cards. But true, all the game depends of the first hand.

Needful to Know is after you know the 3 top encounter cards, you use it when you know the next cards is coming has 2 or more threat points. Needful to Know is a little way to delay your secrecy time.

Gandalf is when you have lost the secrecy mode. You are between 21-25 threat and you have got any copy of Resourceful. If you have Risk Some Light and you arent in secrecy, this is so good card as to play it even paying!

If you control the encounter deck by Risk Some Light, low threat enemies not are problem, you can avoid them. Or you can prepare it so you can defend with another ally (there are some chump blockers like hammersmith or master of forge if you need block a hard attack) and kill the enemy with another ally (normally, low threat enemies have low attack and low defense). Gandalf also is never late

I have played this deck a lot of times and low threat enemies are not a big problem. Sure.

Even, it can seem that is imposible to play Peace and Thought, but if you know which cards are coming from encounter deck you can know the next total willpower you need to not loss the quest and use peace and thought without problems. Only with 2 wp from 1 hero and other from allies (Gildor is good, Gandalf if you need also, etc.)

Normally, if you play Peace and Thought the 2nd round, and 1 Mithrandil Advice, you have enough secrecy cards to continue playing goodly.

Traps are useless, trackers with bows are better. When you have played 2 copies, for example, of resourceful, you are ready to play trackers and bows. 3 copies of trackers and 2 copies of archers are enough to see in your hand any bow to can play on any eligible ally. 2 trackers with bows are very good, and 3: you are indestructible. You kill all enemy revealed, in 2 or 3 rounds, even before counting the quest.

Silvan Tracker is a defender, or a quester (you need willpower, of course, lol). And he is a very good passive healer. You dont need pay any cost to heal Mirlonde, Haldir or himselve. It is better than Warden because enemies dont damage you. Only the archery is the problem. When you have Silvan Tracker, you deal the damage archery in silvan characters and the problem is fixed. If you have 2 silvan trackers in play you can deal 6 archery per round! without counting haldir... It is a good idea, sure.

Dori is always if a hard enemy reach engage me and i haven't enough army to defend and attack. Dori gives me time (and peace) during one round to resolve the problem. Or is good when a treachery damage exhausted characters. Mirlonde is healed by the silvan ally, and Dori can heal the poor Pippin.

If you dont need decrease the threat (for example, you reached to play 2 copies of resourceful when you were in secrecy threat) Gandalf is a good damager of enemies. But, really, when you have in play the 3 trackers with bows, you dont need nothing more.

And yes: Nazgul dies by the 3 bower-trackers. Sure. Gandalf the fourth damage. And the 5th damage by attacking (you can add attacks: 2 mirlonde; 2 dori; 2 haldir; 2 gildor; 2 archers... and send him to staging to the trackers, lol). If you dont deal the 5th damage to the nazgul on the same round (for example, you used the trackers to kill alcaron) sure next round you will reach.

PD: the bigger problem is the resources, you need lots of resources to run the machine, if you dont have enough resourceful in play, you also can ask for resource to any friend thanks to Bifur (ah, playing with friends the combo RiskSomeLight+GildorCounsil is powerfull)

There are some problems with this deck.. but it is on the right track.

Ithilliin Archer is the key to much of these types of decks.. as you can engage monsters, then bounce them back into the staging area to trigger traps. This also means you can reduce deck slots required for encounter deck control as you can play traps to monsters already revealed.

Another key card is the Elf-Stone that is not used correctly in this deck. Teamed with 3x Hammer Smith you have 3 free ally drops. I usually use it to place 3xN.Tracker and maybe Dramrod for threat drop or Beorn if the quest has some strong enemies needing to be delt with or Farimir to super quest. The point is you can play non faction colors and this opens the mono lore to a lot of nice options.

Not running White Tower Watchmen in a mono deck is just wrong.

Master of Lore (as it is not unique) can drop any lore card by 3 meaning you can play cards pretty much for free, this can be a viable alternative to resourcefulness and secrecy.

The real problem though is threat reduction, but a minstrels for quest power and a single spirit song can handle this easy.

The first function of Archer Ithilien is to attach him a ranger-bow when i havent in hand the other tracker. And, of course, he is very good to send to staging enemies engaged with you. For example, one time, i had to kill the troll, and i had gandalf and lot of allies iddle (1b of Anduin had more than 15 progess), so to make it more easy to the trackers i engaged troll, gandalf defended and Gildor, Haldir, Mirlonde and archery dealed 5 damage and they returned troll to staging ready to be damage by the trackers with bows for the next rounds. It was more fast to kill the troll finally than waiting rounds damaging by trackers with bows.

I dont want to depend of any card specially. This deck depends of resourceful (and risk some light) in the first rounds, so please, no more cards. This is the reason because i didnt add other powerfull ally waiting for elf-stone. The idea of elf-stone is can play fastly Gildor, Haldir or Gandalf (or Dori, or Archer...). If you dont have elf-stone, no problem, you wait to get the enough resources to play the hard allies then.

White Tower Watcher is a really good ally, but i return to say, we dont need too much defense. Dori is the solution for a nasty surprises, but these are only the 5% of the game. Really. Your low threat avoid the hard nasty surprisses, the few enemies with low threat that reaches engage you, normally no has hard attack.

I won 7th level using 'Risk Some Light', if i saw any low threat goblin i put to bottom or like a shadow of another low goblin.

Maybe i would add Scroll Isildur to can play Risk Some Light or Mithrandil Advice more times.

Master of Lore is a very good alternative to resourceful. But it is too expensive. I havent never payed a resourceful with 4 resources, only in secrecy. So Master of Lore is too expensive. When you are ready, you have lots of enemies waiting for you.

I dont need Minstrel, if all is ok, you dont need too much willpower. Even, i use Peace and Thought some rounds, you can wonder it.

How does this deck do against "Journey to Rhosgobel"? I think it would struggle.

Toss in some Healing Herbs and I bet it would do great at Rhosgobel. With Isildur's Scroll and Risk Some Light you'll be farming the encounter deck for those Athelas, but like any solo game of Rhosgobel you are still going to have to pray that they are near the top of that sizeable encounter deck.

Yes, Rhosgobel is a very dificult quest with this deck. Maybe, better change, mmmmh, Strider's Path by Lore of Imladris. This deck is easy for doing this change (monolore, and lots of draws, sure you can use Lore of Imladris without problems).

Anyway, i remember to win without Lore of Imladris, but as GrandSpleen says, you need play very good the Risk Some Light, have got goodluck and go very very fast.

PD: i have just won Blood of Gondor. Uf! I suffered, 13 rounds. Hernamanth was very important to see if hidden cards weren't enemies and can discard directly without Faramir. The problem is that i haven't got enough warriors to engage too much enemies like the nasty orcs of Blood of Gondor. Very dificult, ... but ... possible.

****** So only Laketown (like almost all decks), Shadow and Flame (i'd need lots of attack), Heirs of Numenor (maybe with lots of tries could win?) and Hobbit Saga (i havent tried) are without winning with this deck. I think it is a very powerful deck....!!

Lore player here, and I tried similar decks many times, but always with traps.

And because of that usually had denethor in there too.

Anyway, no traps opens up a lot of card slots & possibilities.

I will try this deck adjusted to my liking, giving feedback if you want it.

Denethor is very good. But i got Bifur instead him for 4 reasons:

1. Threat: -1 threat is important. Starting with 18 (with Bifur) is better than with 19 (Denethor). It is very important, you have one more round to reach the secrecy cards (it is the most important in your game when you play with this deck).

2. Willpower: with so few willpower (6 wp with all your heroes), it is important the diference. With Bifur you have 2 wp, with Denethor only 1wp.

3. Resources: with Bifur you can ask for resources to your friends. All lore deck needs lots of resources. And it is important also in the first rounds, to get and play the secrecy cards.

4. You dont need the scry hability of Denethor. You have Risk Some Light that is more better, free, and without exhausting any hero.

Wow, those new heroes look amazing. I like the idea of skipping blue altogether because of Bifur and focussing on one color.

Seems like a solid deck, though it seems very expensive. Haven't played the game much but my decks were a lot cheaper. I realise this IS a secrecy deck, but even then the average mana cost is pretty stellar.

Yes, it is an expensive deck. I finally added strong allies because with resourceful you could pay them. And you need strong allies, in fact, if you have Bifur and Pippin.

But remember: the first idea is play 3 trackers with bows, and after, the allies you can.

PD: all quests of 1st Hobbit saga passed. Trolls easy, at first try i won (maybe lucky? I used the 3 gandalfs to damage trolls. The first 2 gandalfs to kill the nasty troll that avoid join attackers), Giants dificult (and after, Great Goblin not soo), and riddles a little bit crazy, but easy.

PD2: the spiders of 2nd Hobbit saga... ¬.¬. Could i win? Few decks can do it... Lets see

Flies and Spiders: Lol, what easy! Evident victory. Lol. There are useless threaheries, good. And the first hero that Bilbo get free (in 3b) is the hero that has the 3 resourceful, so easy. No spiders attack me, rangers + bows attack first always during all the game.

Next game: Smaug ... O.O My worst nightmare!!!

Final results:

- Lonely Mountain: impossible, you need more wp.

- Battle of 5 armies: dificult, but with Some Risk Light you can (i won the treasures of trolls, so i played the first 3 treasures, the ring -i won Flies and Spiders-, but no treasures of Lonely Mountain, without absolutely 0 treasures i think it could be impossible).

Final test: you can win all the quest with this deck playing alone (except: Laketown, Lonely Mountain and Shadow and Flame -the big monsters quests-), neither Heirs of Numenor expansion (cause of intense siege and battle).

PD: so it is a very good deck. How many decks do you have -without counting outlanders or powered-dwarfs- that can win almost all the quests at the moment?

Nice work. My Frodo, Glorfindel sp, and Aragorn Lore deck, was able to beat all quests, including lake town, shadow and flame, and Lonely mountain, but I have not played it on the last few quests of ATS.

But getting close with Mono-lore is excellent.