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askelad 628
The New One Deck
Lord Elrond and his daughter, the fair Arwen, take great interest in the history of middle earth. While the missions they bestow upon their heralds are often perilous, great glory awaits those brave enough to come forth, for to do their bidding is to become legend, and the noldor's summon reaches all corners of middle-earth, as far as the austral lands of Harad.
This deck is an attempt at upgrading -and hopefully improving- Seastan's The One Deck. The challenge is to beat every single quest, nightmare included, without swapping in or out a single card, in as little attempts as possible.
Contents
- Motivation
- Overview
- Detailed strategy
- The cards
- On rulings
- Changes
- testing logs
1. Motivation
Seastan's original deck succesfuly completed the challenge with stellar results. But while his design was probably close to perfection, over the last two years several game-changing cards have seen print, such as The contracts, as well as The One Ring, and a few useful new cards, opening up new perspectives for deckbuilding. This deck is an attempt to apply those new tools to an already incredibely powerful deck and try to build The New One Deck. As far as deckbuilding challenges go, this a timeless classic.
I have neither the arrogance nor the expertise to attempt such a feat on my own. I have not played this deck against every quest. I have not even played against every quest yet, with any deck. This version is not meant to be definitive, but is merely the current state of a work in progress. So far i have beaten every quest i tested against with ease.
This post in an invitation to deck builders and players, to work together and try to build the best possible version of this deck, and eventually accomplish the One Deck Challenge.
2. Overview
It's still a Vilya deck.
No surprise to anyone, Vilya is still arguably the strongest card in the game. The massive resource and card advantage it provides is simply too strong. As any vilya deck, we play a large collection of high value cards (preferably allies to synergies with Elrond), as well as Imladris Stargazer, which lets us manipulate the top of our deck to set up vilya. The strategy is pretty simple and well-known, therefore i will not expand upon it further in the overview.
It's also a Messenger of the King deck.
And by that i do not mean a deck that uses Messenger of the King to play a specific ally as a hero. I mean that Messenger of the King is the second most important tool of the deck.
Because Messenger of the King requires you to choose a unique ally from your deck, having multiple unique allies in the deck means we get to customize the choice of your third hero without using any sideboard. This is insanely powerful.
Seastan's version was essentially a and deck, with out of sphere cards played by Vilya or Elrond's ability. He chose Éowyn as his third hero, not for access to the sphere but simply for her stats and powerful ability. Éowyn works as a plug-in hero that helps stabilize the deck.
Messenger of the King can now serve that role, replacing Éowyn's raw power with an enormous amount of flexibility. With many high-value unique allies already in the deck because of Vilya, we have a full set of 10 different options for our third hero, each adapted to certain quests.
And it utilizes The One Ring.
The third core tool of this deck is The One Ring. At the cost of threat increase and a restricted slot, The One Ring lets us start the game with a master card of our choosing. While most deck use the tech for a single master card, this deck runs two of those, giving another degree of flexibility to our initial setup. The first one is Inner Strength, which gives a bit of and an anti-shadow tech, and the second is well-preserved (which was spoiled and is proxied here by Strength and Courage. reads as: 1 attachment, grants +1 hit point. Action: at the start of the round, exhaust the one ring to heal all damage on attached hero.).
this helps with defending which is one of the weaknesses of the deck early on, and lets us tech selectively against each quest.
With both Messenger of the King and The One Ring, we have 40 different starting configurations at our disposal to adapt to the current quest, in addition to our mulliganing decision.
3. Detailed strategy
Setup
There are a lot of decisions to make during setup: Which ally to promote with MOTK? Who gets The One Ring? Which Master attachment to keep?
One of my goals with this deck is to construct a complete guide on what setup to go for against any quest. And while some might be evident, many of the most difficult quests will probably require intensive playtesting to figure out the best strategy. In the meantime, here is a quick rundown of the options:
-(MotK) Gildor Inglorion: An excellent "default" candidate, his ability garanties a certain consistency on our vilya reveals.
-(MotK) Firyal: Another excellent "default": his ability is just so good. Particularly appreciated against quests that have a couple cards that you absolutely need to dodge under threat of instant loss. Also very good against quests that are heavy on surge.
-(MotK) Gimli: A decent choice against encounter decks that are swarming with ennemies, the extra action allows us to safely quest a minimum while keeping action advantage for the combat phase/vilya activation.
-(MotK) Jubayr: a formidable defender, especially against quests that pack a lot of nasty shadows.
-(MotK) Elfhelm: Starting the game with Elfhelm's ability gives us natural protection against quests that increase your threat a lot through doom or other effects.
-(MotK) Beorn: Combine with well-preserved to defend massive attacks right from the start. His ability can also be used as a high priced Éowyn, if that enemy REALLY needs to die.
-(MotK) Boromir: Works similarly to Beorn but with less threat, more adapted to specific enemies that he can defend taking only 1 damage. Combined with well-preserved Boromir can block a 5 (or 7 if the enemy has higher engagment cost than your threat) once a turn while also attacking. However keep in mind that Messenger of the King only allows one ready per phase so he can only get two actins per combat phase.
-(MotK) Glorfindel: some quests just require too many actions on turn 1. Glorfindel can help with that.
-(MotK) Gléowine: against some quests the best strategy might just be to start as low on threat as possible.
-(MotK) Faramir: This is not exactly a swarm deck, but if all you need is as much as possible, faramir might be the right pick.
For the Master card:
both attachments essentially serve similar purposes: a little boost to defense that can turn into a big boost at the cost of 1 threat.
use Inner Strength against shadow-heavy quests (duh) and ennemies which can be blocked without damage using the attachment.
use well-preserved against single ennemies with very strong attack like a hill-troll, healing the damage next turn. Also useful against quests heavy on direct damage like archery.
The One Ring goes on Elrond most of the time since this deck also utilizes him as a defender, but it can also go on our MOTK hero if more appropriate.
Early game
shameless ctrl-C+ctrl-V/
"Mulligan for Vilya or Master of the Forge. You might consider keeping a hand with Gather Information if it looks like you'll be able to clear it in a turn or two. If you start with the Master, you will get to see Arwen Undómiel really pull her weight, because you can discard a card to give Elrond a resource, then play the Master, exhaust him, hopefully find Vilya, and still have 2 resources leftover to play it. Since the deck has such a high concentration of strong allies, you can start using Vilya on turn 1.
The next priority is to find the Imladris Stargazer. This is often done through Heed the Dream, Gather Information, or simply drawing her.
Occasionally (more often that you might expect), you will start with both Vilya and Stargazer in your opening hand. Again Arwen justifies her inclusion here by allowing you to play both cards and start setting up your Vilya plays from the start.
Another fantastic start is Vilya+Unexpected Courage, because right from turn 1 Vilya will feel like i doesn't even cost anything."
/shameless ctrl-C+ctrl-V
Your choices for questing will depend on your third hero and the specific situation you are in. Note that in the cases where you chose (MotK) Gildor Inglorion as your third hero using Vilya on turn 1 is even easier.
you should be able to safely use vilya first turn most of the times, since almost all of our third heroes provide some sort of safety: firyal helps avoiding combat, gildor garanties pulling a defending ally, gléowine lets us skip engagement, and most of the other choices can defend in place of elrond.
Mid-game
Once Stargazer and Vilya are in place, the hardest part is behind us. try to find a Light of Valinor or an Unexpected Courage for elrond in order not to lose his action by using vilya. You should also look for Ancestral Armor, to make elrond into a beefy defender. You should be able to play two big allies a turn. Unless the quests requires you to rush, taking your time is a good idea as your board will build up far quicker than the encounter deck.
Late-game
Because you have so many big allies, you should have assembled a practically unbeatable army. With Ancestral Armor and both master attachments, Elrond can block with 6 and 7 hit points and heal to full when needed to defend the biggest attacks while Jubayr and the like take care of the smaller fry. And since most of you allies have decent attack, it should not be too hard to clean up the board. Firyal and Faramir should secure questing
4. The cards
Elrond is obviously the star of the deck. Not only using Vilya, With Light of Valinor and Unexpected Courage and defensive attachments he is also a fine quester and a good defender. As mentionned by Seastan, his 4 hit points let us take undefended attacks for action advantage, especially when Jubayr can discard the shadow card. It is even more true in our deck since we use well-preserved.
his ability to pay for allies of any sphere also means that we have a much wider range of allies to pick from. The only cards in the deck that can only be played using Vilya are the attachments: Ancestral Armor and Steward of Gondor (unless we are running (MotK) Gimli as a hero).
finally, his healing ability is also a powerful combo with Warden of Healing.
While her 3 is very appreciated, The main reason for Arwen's presence is her ability: resource acceleration is very powerful, especially in this deck. Since we run a lot of singletons, choosing which card to discard for her ability will require careful planning. When combined with Elven-light, she becomes a balancing machine, letting us adjust our card draw and resource generation to run smoothly. Having 4 resources available on turn 1 will often result in vilya being used a turn earlier, which is a tremendous advantage.
as previously mentioned, this card lets us pick our third hero according to the needs of the quest. The extra versatility is really what pushes this deck over the edge. This combined with The One Ring's setup ability also mean we take 3 card out of the deck during setup, making the deck effectively 47 cards. The use of Messenger of the King also lets us play single copies of our unique allies, as any of them being urgently needed can be chosen as hero. I might make an exception for Firyal and Jubayr because they are always awesome.
Beorn is a prime combat expert both as a hero or as an ally, and while we will probably not use his ability as a hero, as an ally it is a valuable tool to quickly dispatch a cumbersone enemy.
His availability as a hero is what lets us play The One Ring, which would otherwise be too dangerous against certain threat-intensive quests. Elfhelm is also excellent as an ally, being relatively easy to play even witohut vilya. His ability doesn't require exhaustion, which means when you are low on and might fail questing, he can be considered as both questing for 1 and ready for combat. One of many flexible 2 2 allies.
Not our best ally early on and rarely our best hero for MOTK, Faramir however serves a very important purpose in the deck: late-game questing. His ability turns our host of allies into a questing machine, capable of matching very high or rushing down a quest stage in a single swoop.
Arguably the most powerful ally in the game in solo play, Firyal provides us with a safety net. Many quests feature several cards which result in instant loss unless canceled, and Firyal does just that. Excellent choice as a starting hero, excellent ally to play of vilya.
Even without Sneak Attack, Gandalf is extremely powerful and versatile, ideal for a deck that needs to be ready for anything. He can reduce our threat, he can snipe ennemies in the staging area, he can finish off a big enemy, or he can draw us card when in need. Plus, his high neutral cost serves as a siphon for the unused resources of our third hero, if he happens to be off-sphere.
also note that during the imladris+vilya combo, we can let gandalf on top of the deck, in order to adapt the use of his ability to the revealed cards. Most of the time his ability is used for threat reduction.
a flexible combat unit with action advantage, helps both with securing defense early on and also start "punching back" earlier. The ability also has utility with Elven-light and Glorfindel, plus combined with Imladris Stargazer can get us rid of cards we don't want
Absolutely essential to this deck. Not only are his stats excellent, he can also serve as a complementary stargazer to set up vilya plays. Unlike Imladris Stargazer, Gildor can set up cards from our hand, which is our only way to play Steward of Gondor or Ancestral Armor from hand without hero (MotK) Gimli. He is also unique which means he can be picked as our third hero, ensuring vilya consistency from setup.
Another 4-cost ally with even stats, his built-in action advantage lets us add some willpower to questing while still having him ready to defend against a new enemy. This is good enough to consider him for a MOTK spot, especially against quests that are swarming with enemies.
Gléowine replaces the third Elven-light, essentially serving the same purpose. However, having him in the deck means he can be chosen as our MOTK hero. While that does not provide any relevant stats to the line-up, he lets us start the game at a low 25 threat, which against some quests might be the best way to procede. He also synergies well with arwen, and might also make the ideal prisoner for escape from dol guldur.
Another very powerful ally. His 3 and as well as readying ability make him both a powerful quester and attacker(twice!). synergies very well with Arwen Undómiel and Elven-light. He can also be sacrificed when necessary and replayed from the discard pile. As a hero, Glorfindel and his readying ability can help us deal with a quest that demands an ungodly amount of actions first turn (at the price of part of our hand).
shameless ctrl-C+ctrl-V/
The second most important card in the deck. Once you get Vilya you should try to get out a Stargazer ASAP, because until then all your Vilya plays will be done blind.
I normally exhaust the Stargazer as soon as I play her, unless the encounter deck has cards like Necromancer's Reach, in which case I'll wait until after staging. Since she looks at 5 cards, you can normally set up the next 2 rounds of Vilya, which means that even if you used her in the planning phase in the round you played her, you shouldn't have to use her again until the the end of the combat phase in the round after.
My strategy for ordering the top 5 cards is somewhat dependent on the quest and the immediate situation, but generally I arrange for high cost cards to be played with Vilya, and low cost cards like Heed the Dream, Unexpected Courage, or Master of the Forge to be drawn into hand.
/shameless ctrl-C+ctrl-V
crunchy chump-blocker.
our top defender. Combined with Inner Strength, jubayr essentially removes the threat of shadow cards. If you are facing a quest heavy on shadow cards, you should seriously consider him as your MOTK hero.
A good attacker that can also block for free against certain enemies.
mandatory ranged character for certain quests (such as journey to rhosgobel). pretty good attacker and relatively easy to play for elrond, and the ability lets it effectively attack for 5 on the turn she comes down, which is very impactful. Considering replacing her with legolas to make a new MOTK target. One trick for this guys in a Vilya deck: If there are no great targets for the defense reduction, you can wait until after an enemy is revealed in staging to bring them into play with Vilya.
Mainly here to fetch Vilya, but they also help us fetch our other relevant attachments, and combined with Imladris Stargazer, provide a free shuffle of the deck.
crunchy chump blocker.
location lock doesn't usually happen in solo, but his ability can help us clear locations without needing to travel. Only one copy because it is rarely vital. Otherwise serves as another 4-cost ally with even stats.
excellent attacker and potential quester, but he only costs 2 resources, and can be played via Treebeard! don't use him as MOTK however, as he brings nothing to the table.
A very powerful ally, playable any turn thanks to arwen's ability. Also another dump for of-sphere resources from (MotK) Beorn or (MotK) Gimli.
this deck obviously needed healing, and combined with Elrond's ability those should keep our team healthy. i've cut them to 2 since we have well-preserved available against quests that require immediate healing, and the deck rarelly needs more than one of those.
turns into a 2- quester when combined with Faramir.
Lets us turn Elrond into a beefy defender which the deck would lack otherwise. combined with Inner Strength and well-preserved, this bad boy lets Elrond defend against 12 every turn regardless of shadows! if Elrond does not have any Unexpected Courage yet, can also be placed on Gimli, Faramir, Glorfindel or Knight of the White Tower. Unless you are playing with (MotK) Faramir or (MotK) Gimli as third hero this can only be played via vilya.
our main tech against shadow, the bonus is also appreciated.
essentially works as a 1 3 ally, which is too good to pass up.
Since this deck plays lots of high cost allies, many of which only elrond can pay for, this overpowered attachment is most welcome, although unless you are using (MotK) Faramir or (MotK) Gimli as heroes this can only be played via vilya.
well-preserved
serves as an alternative to Inner Strength, against enemy with very big attack and quests that inflict a lot of direct damage. Of course there is no rule preventing us from using both attachments once the second has been drawn, but be careful on the turn you choose to heal, as it requires exhausting The One Ring, making you vulnerable to shadows for a turn.
usually goes on our favorite defender (usually Elrond). Already explained in other cards.
since Elrond has such a good stat-line, it would be a shame to use it only on vilya activation (and on a bad reveal we might lose a relevant action!). Unexpected courage works as a 2-cost 3/2/3 which is a bargain! the three copies are not too much since Elrond turns into a big defender late-game.
core of the deck, everything has already been said.
a staple in any deck, and probably in any deck that would aim for versatility. So many deck have back-breaking treacheries, but this card turns those instant loss into a net positive turn. Combined with firyal, this also lets us plan some extremely greedy turns.
it is just good enough to play 3 copies despite the non-bo with vilya.
synergies incredibely well with Arwen Undómiel, turning her ability from a one way transformation of value into a two-way equalizer.
helps us find Vilya+Imladris Stargazer in the early game, and any specific 1-of in the late game. just like master of the forge, also serves as a deck shuffler combined with Imladris Stargazer. If you are using a hero, the second effect can also be used for direct tutoring.
threat reduction, much needed in a deck with high threat, The One Ring and aimed at beating every quest, including some that are extremely punishing on threat.
as long as we can manage to quest correctly for a turn or two, this is a 0-cost tutor for vilya, stargazer, or any one-of, virtually working as an extra copy of any card you want. Also works as a tech against quests that you want to stall or battle/siege quests.
5. On rulings
setup timing
the rules on when to accomplish which setup actions are a mess since the contracts came out. According to the original rules, the setup actions from Messenger of the King and The One Ring should during the placing of heroes and setting of initial threat (step 2), which makes sense. The downside would be that if you chose to mulligan, your master card would be shuffled back in your deck along with the rest.
However, the rules have been changed with the introduction of contracts, moving those actions to the end of setup (step 7), after mulligans (which makes little sense to me, but is the official ruling). While that solves the master card issue for players, it also creates another problem with Messenger of the King, which instructs the player to search his deck only for a unique ally, which make the wanted ally impossible to choose if the player has his only copy in hand.
On top of that, there exist a general consensus that the text of Messenger of the King should just allow players to pick from their hand, correcting that mistake as a "house rule".
So far during my testing i have stuck strictly to the rules (master card added after mulligan, hero chosen from deck only). I think that ruling is not that bad for the deck, as usually there is always at least 2 allies you would take as starting heroes (Firyal and Gildor) in any situation, and the chances of having both in hand after mulligan are very low (and even then, there surely is an ally left in the deck that is good enough).
Which rules do you prefer? Which ones do you feel the deck should follow to make the challenge "valid"?
Encounter Ally Arwen
during certain quests like the redhorn gate, the quest gives us arwen undomiel as an ally to escort. While Seastan ignored the uniqueness conflict during his run (the rules at the time did not forbid playing hero arwen in those quests), i wonder if this deck would be capable of beating those quests with the handicap of running without arwen.
should the challenge just ignore the uniqueness rule for encounter cards, or include beating those quests witohut Arwen?
The one ring saga
Same as with Arwen, a "clean" win would require us to keep The One Ring in the deck (although the master cards can still be played on the ring-bearer i believe?). While losing that tech element is not as bad a handicap as losing a starting hero, some of the saga quests will probably prove very difficult for that reason (mount doom in particular)
6. Changes
05/05/2020: -1 Knight of the White Tower +1 Boromir replacing a 4-cost combat unit for another, gaining a relevant Messenger of the King target.
15/05/2020: -1 Giant Bear -1 Heed the Dream +2 Soldier of Erebor i feel like the deck has enough tutoring as it is to cut a Heed the Dream and Soldier of Erebor is a very useful unit to get past the threshold of starting to kill enemies quickly, the repeatability of the ability is more valuable than Giant Bear's extra attack most of the time
7. Testing log
| 43 comments |
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May 02, 2020 |
May 02, 2020
i havn't tried the saga quests yet, and it completely slipped my mind! i guess we would have to do without the ring against those quests, which is bad but not catastrophic. I am not looking forward to playing mount doom with 3 dead cards in my deck! |
May 03, 2020The Master cards should still be usable in the saga, they just play on the hero with The One Ring. So not dead cards, exactly, though you won't be able to start with one in your hand and you'll be limited to playing them on the Ringbearer. |
May 03, 2020The rules sheet that came with A Shadow in the East say you are unable to use the master cards in Saga. Creative use of MOTK! Most build around a single unique character to elevate to hero status. Like the tool belt concept |
May 03, 2020i would add the brand (or 2 gildor is also a good defender), elvencloak a shield and a warning of the dunedain to make elrond a defender (with inner strength there is a high probability to get at least one of them early in the game). yubiar is not enough for e.g. carn dum, and you do not know, when you will get him. furthermore i would replace galadrims greeting with elronds council (cheaper), or, with keen as lances (more flexibility). for the defendboosting attachements i would discard, the marksman, the armor (you have enough you want to play with vilya), the bear and one master of the forge. |
May 03, 2020the mention of inner stregth means, with at least one of the defending attachements he is a very good defender and can handle the hilltroll or thaudir very early (defends for 5 with shadowcancelling) and with a 3. taktik or leadershiphero there is no need of vilya to play one of them. |
May 03, 2020in games with motk beorn, i would consider, to give him the ring, because his attack can raise to 7 with strength and courage, and he is tougher than elrond. 7 is in many cases enough for the first enemy, and he can often do, what taktic-eowyn have done. sadly he cannot use the at 7 for questing. but 4 is also not bad. |
May 03, 2020
i am testing the deck against return to mirkwood nightmare right now, and the 5 lower threat elimination really shows itself in that quest (raise your threat by 3 at the end of each round is harsh). This might motivate taking out the The One Ring tech, replacing it with A Burning Brand or more Jubayr to compensate the lack of shadow tech. But i want to make sure it is really necessary first, since Inner Strength is such an excellent tech. I will probably move the threat-intensive quests to the top of the list to figure that out as soon as possible. |
May 03, 2020
-Beorn, giant bear, gildor (as you mentionned), treebeard and knight of the white tower all make solid defenders despite not being as good as jubayr. Also elrond defends well in this deck so i would also count unexpected courage as a defender. on your suggestion for swaps on the defensive attachments: if i get you right, you are suggesting -1 Giant Bear +1 Gondorian Shield (i presume) first of all, on the individual cards: marksman is a good card but not vital so why not. Ancestral armor is important, but if we slot in other forms of defense it can be cut. Giant bear is definitely one of our best combat units, i would not cut it unless for another combat unit of the same caliber (which i have not found yet except perhaps for Soldier of Erebor) master of the forge is critical to the operating of the deck, i would not advise playing less than 3. A burning brand is certainly a good idea to include in the deck, if we happen to cut out Inner Strength. But while Inner Strength is there, the brand is not necessary. since Gondorian Shield and Dúnedain Warning are off-sphere, they can only be played with vlya and are therefore strict downgrades from Ancestral Armor. cloak of lorien can actually be played from hand. you missed the part of the description in which i explained that Strength and Courage is not actually in the deck, i use it as a proxy for the spoiled well-preserved, which you can check out here: images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com however, Beorn does indeed make a good ring-bearer in the games we do choose him. on the use of Elrond's Counsel and Cloak of Lórien: this deck has less high-cost cards than seastan's version. We still have plenty enough, but room is limited and i would rather play two copies of The Galadhrim's Greeting than 3 copies of Elrond's Counsel and a Keen as Lances, for the simple reason that it provides the same amount of threat reduction for less deck space. Since we have both Steward of Gondor and Vilya as resource enablers, the extra cost is not as much of an inconvenience. |
May 03, 2020in my mind i think mainly about the first 3 rounds. and there are planty of cards you want to play with vilya, mostly allies or the steward. either warning or shield could easyly be in sphere exept you use firial or gildor both of them are not the best choice, if you need much defense early.. elven cloak is in sphere, so you have 3 cheap defense-attachements instead of the expensive vilya-need-armour then why not take inner strength, wellpreserved and inner stregth? start with whatever seems the best for the actual adventure. against e.g. carn dum, motk beorn with shield, inner strength and strenghth and courage would totally be in sphere and you have vilya for other allies or galadrims greeting/keen as. in my opinion only the first master is important, the 2, and 3. are more or less dead cards. i think 2 are enough specially if you have 3 head the dream. both of them at 3 cards is overkill at my opinion. |
May 03, 2020
and if i really need the defense early on and i am afraid elrond won't cut it, in many situations i would prefer jubayr to beorn. if you want to cut some master/heed the dream, i would rather cut heed the dream. 90% of the time the card we specifically need to fish is an attachment (vilya). while costing 1 more resource, master is repeatable and chump blocks after it's run out of use. It's really both a heed the dream and a feint in one card. |
May 03, 2020
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May 03, 2020House rules rule!! :] Yeah I’m scratching my head at some of the recent “set-up” rulings coming out with these contracts. But, this deck is a great example of how playing within the rules can still produce interesting and creative decks. Most people looked at MOTK as a card to build around a single powerful unique card - but according to the ruling, you’d really need to consider including two copies incase you draw that card on your second mulligan. This deck doesn’t need to worry about any of that which is pretty cool! |
May 03, 2020
nightmare return to mirkwood: this quest is a bitch. Of five games i only succeded in one thanks to several harmless locations flipping early on (Thank you Firyal!)of those 4 losses 2 where due to threating out; the one ring while helpful with defense is really punishing in threat based quests. winning setup: firyal as motk, well-preserved on elrond (as a tech against gollum's bite) ironically on my succesful run i hit every gandalf and greeting and managed to fully deploy while finishing at 35 threat. i faced 2 attercops at the final stage (which elrond defended superbly) and dispatched them both in a single turn thanks to the cumulative actions of glorfindel, treebeard and giant bear. nightmare Journey to rhosgobel: winning setup: firyal as motk, well-preserved on elrond (since many of the creatures can't be defended against) dispatched the hunter by round two with gandalf damage and attack. used gather information to grab northern tracker in the nick of time to heal the eagle with warden of healing (boosted by elrond's ability) and keep it alive. marksmen of lorien were key in dispatching the pesky flying creatures. Elfhelm and firyal let me stagnate on phase 1 for a very long time without threating out and grab 4 athelas while using resource to heal the eagle (the second warden was dead) then proceed to rush down the next stages. nightmare into ithilien: first attempt i find beorn in my hand, try gildor instead (probably a mistake). i fail to find a decent attack ally to quest and reveal a second southron company, failing the quest and getting engaged by two 5 ennemies. I probably missplayed this one. winning setup: beorn as motk, well-preserved on beorn this one went much better. A gandalf flipped on the first turn made questing easier. unexpected courage on beorn and the luxury of taking undefended attacks on beorn on top of archery only to heal him up at the start of round gave me such an advantage that i ended up taking the secret passage and rushing down the final stage while staying below 37 threat. |
May 03, 2020i understand the master-argument and would cut head the dream. |
May 04, 2020One comment on the original (sensible) timing for Contracts and One Ring. As the Rules Reference states, taking a mulligan shuffles back only the six cards you drew for your opening hand. If you have additional cards due to other setup effects (e.g. Thurindir), they were not affected by the choice to mulligan and would remain in their hand. So Caleb's ruling did not fix a problem with Master cards, though it obviously has created a lot of other problems. |
May 04, 2020
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May 04, 2020
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May 04, 2020
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May 04, 2020
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May 04, 2020Awesome to see some activity like this! However, I've stopped at (including) Haradrim... bummer it uses a lot of newer stuff. I'm kinda looking for something LIKE the One Deck but not Vilya to use in a full campaign of the Saga boxes. Vilya always feels a little bit cheaty. I do like a deck that mostly will get through the quests so I can experience the story more, but Vilya... |
May 05, 2020Regarding the set up timing. The rules have not been officially changed until the faqs are released, right? I am pretty sure Caleb did not think his answer properly, answer that contradicts previous official rules. |
May 05, 2020update: have swapped Knight of the White Tower for Boromir and added a quest log. |
May 11, 2020update: the combo faramir as MOTK with an unexpected courage lets this deck beat mount doom rather easily (3 attempts needed)! So far the only quests i struggle with are return to mirkwood (which i havn't touched again since the first test runs, things may be different now) and blood of gondor (because it is so easy to be overwhelmed with enemies right from turn 1) |
May 11, 2020Nice job on Mount Doom! For Return to Mirkwood, have you tried starting with (MotK) Glorfindel? He would allow you to mitigate the forced effect on the nightmare card. |
May 12, 2020
I'm trying a bunch of different options depending on starting hand, so far i have succeded with (MotK) Gildor Inglorion (because i had courage+light of valinor+vilya in starting hand), (MotK) Gléowine (lower starting threat, i just use him for the forced effect) and (MotK) Elfhelm (same as gléowine, but since he is ready at the end of the round Gollum's effect only increases threat by 2), but those two require developing willpower fast in order not to stall. |
May 15, 2020update: have swapped Giant Bear and 1 Heed the Dream for 2xSoldier of Erebor |
May 17, 2020
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May 24, 2020Escape from Dol guldur succesfully beaten in 12 attempts! |
May 24, 2020and who was yout motk? perhaps its a good tactik to use the lowest thread motk and let him captured. did u make it nightmare? |
May 24, 2020could be easy done with replacing 1 warden with ioreth |
May 24, 2020yep, gléowine was the MOTK and was captured. i prefer Gléowine because she easily replaces a Elven-light, while Ioreth is greatly inferior to Warden of Healing in an Elrond deck. All the details are in the quest log. I think i got lucky on the actual run, during testing before that i was stagnating around 1 in 10 win even while choosing the captured hero. |
Feb 12, 2021
I love the deck build, and the description is really interesting. Seastan advised I read through this after I published by own deck with similar aims: It would be great to hear your thoughts on it. With regard to the questions you pose to readers in your description:
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Apr 17, 2021Is this deck usable for quest that involves multi-player |
Apr 17, 2021
i'd recommend adding 1 more Northern Tracker for 2 players and 2 for 3 or 4 players as those are much more relevant in multiplayer situations because more locations will be revealed. Just make sure you are not using any uniques necessary to the other players; but apart from the heroes themselves, most uniques here can be replaced as necessary |
Apr 17, 2021
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Apr 17, 2021
this deck should be fine for a newer player, it is pretty strong so even if your play is not optimal you should be fine. The strategy is not that complicated, find Vilya and abuse it. Choosing your Messenger of the King can be a bit tricky, just go with whatever looks good for the situation. When in doubt, choose Firyal: his ability is always helpful and as a new player it gives you a safety net for times when you get surprised by what is revealed |
Apr 17, 2021
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Apr 18, 2021
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May 04, 2021
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Aug 16, 2022
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Brilliant idea to use MotK as a flexible choice to deal with different quests! I did find tactics Éowyn to be extremely useful against a few quests, so those would be the first ones to try to see if it's still working as a One Deck:
Also, how are you handling the saga quests, which prevent you from using your copy of The One Ring?