This deck was created for Solo League 44 on bgg. The goal was to create a 50-card deck capable of beating the Mirkwood campaign in as few tries as possible, with cards from the revised Core and the four starter decks.
Elrond's main purpose is to open the deck to allies of any sphere. This allows for a good balance of allies with questing, defending, attacking, and healing. Without Imladris Stargazer or Gildor Inglorion, Vilya isn't consistent enough to be the primary strategy here, except against Escape from Dol Guldur. Even then, it's risky to use Vilya unless you have Unexpected Courage on Elrond, since there's no guarantee you won't draw an event or duplicate copy of a unique card. I played around with Gandalf's Search as an assist for Vilya, but ultimately it's too expensive for what it does. Maybe it could work in a deck with more high-cost allies.
The deck takes advantage of the fact that nearly all the quests in the Mirkwood campaign allow for turtling. Most of the allies are 2-cost, which helps you to stabilize against the quest in the early rounds. Then stick around at the first stage (Henamarth helps) as long as you need. Once the engine gets going, it's quite satisfying. With Galadriel your threat will never go up (there's more than enough threat reduction to counter encounter card effects), and between her and Gleowine you'll be drawing three cards per turn. And of course Vilya doesn't hurt. The Defenders of Rammas are capable of handling most enemies. For the Hill Troll and other big baddies, sneak in Gandalf to defend--ideally only once you've built up enough attack power to one-shot the enemy. Silvan Refugee can also be used as a chump blocker once you've built up your questing power.
How did the deck fare in the Solo League challenge? See my write-up here. (Spoiler alert: the only quest it stumbled against, believe it or not, was Passage through Mirkwood. This game ... )