Achievement unlocked: Double Dare (Fate of Numenor) 1.0

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• 1.0

Second deck for a second Dream-Chaser challenge (previous one can be found here). This is the deck meant to deal with very location-crowded staging area and explore a LOT of locations.

The challenge

Fate of Numenor isn't considered to be a very difficult scenario, although I'm always suprised why is it ranked so low in terms of difficulty by the community since it is very heavily location focused and most decks will sometimes struggle with location lock. Basically, in the first stage of the game we always have at least 4 threat from locations (which can be raised to even 8) that is self-replacing each time we travel to new location. What is more, travelling is most often a gamble since there are some quite painful effects hidden on the other side of the locations - not game-warping by their own, but potentially increasing the location lock even more. The second thing is the fact, that exploring locations in staging is impossible and classic location control tools such us Asfaloth or Northern Tracker can only give us more information, but not do much with the blockade. The third problem is that the encounter deck heavily punishes all decks full of low-costed cards, so all swarms and multisphere decks can have tough time. Last thing is that this is quite a long scenario - we HAVE to explore around 4-6 locations during first stage and most often twice as more during the second stage and there is almost no possibility to make it faster. Combined with some encounter cards that discard cards from our deck, in Fate of Numenor there is quite a high possibility to get decked and/or lose to high threat (as game always lasts for many turns).

For standard approach, though, it is a challenge, but not THAT hard. There are some tricks to navigate and explore only the easiest locations, the enemies aren't very brutal (although they are not trivial as well) and some treacheries may even whiff in certain situations. It becomes more interesting, though, when we try to fulfill the "Double Dare" challenge, which forces us to explore at least 7 locations during stage 2 (as they need to enter Victory Pile and during stage 1 they are always shuffled back to Lost Islands deck). This means that:

• we NEED to see Ruins of Ages Past treachery at least 2x during the game - otherwise we won't be able to put 7 Lost Island locations into Victory Pile
• we HAVE TO avoid Shrine of Morgoth (main goal of the quest) on stage 2 until we clear all other locations. Once we travel to the Shrine, we won't be able to explore anything else
• we need some threat management since the quest is going to be VERY long

The deck

My main principles while I was constructing the deck for this scenario and challenge were:

• 2 spheres at most and one of them has to be Leadership. Faramir or other willpower boosts are very important, but resource generation is even more vital
• ...and that's because I wanted to have quite a lot of high-costed cards to avoid negative effects from shadow cards that are very popular in this quest. And playing high-costed cards without Leadership is quite hard
• I needed some "unusual" location control to be able to peek on Lost Islands during stage 2 to avoid entering Shrine of Morgoth too soon
• having some sort of threat management

It naturally pushed me towards either Leadership-Spirit deck. However, as I've recently beaten the whole campaign with such a deck, I wanted to try something different. The one hero that fit absolutely perfectly was Aragorn, who both can singlehandedly buy me a lot of time with his threat reduction, but also is a perfect target for Sword that was Broken; great alternative (or support) for Faramir. The second pick was Haldan, whom I've never used that much, but he can shine in such location-heavy quests. Also, his package brings all other stuff I needed: resources from Ranger Provisions and Elf-stone, threat reduction from Woodmen's Clearing, location control from Woodmen's Path on top of his own draw + action advantage. Lastly, I needed some hero. I didn't want to use Denethor since I already played him a lot recently, so searching for some resource generation I turned back to Core Set. I was debating either to choose Glóin or Théodred and opted for Glóin eventually, because I'm in bigger need of Leadership resources early in the game and Theodred wouldn't provide them. Once Sword that was Broken is in play maybe Theodred would be even better (also - 1 threat less!), but beginning is crucial as always in this game.

A lot of cards come directly to support Haldan, since he is very "buildaround" hero. I've added some cool and fitting strong allies like Galadriel (a lot of great targets and big willpower), Gimli (beefy, self-readying in danger, and also fitting thematically with Glóin) and Ingold (who I really love in such quests and most often is "fully loaded" with Willpower here). As for attachments, there a lot of 1-ofs that can be potentially swapped, but because the rest of the deck is almost exclusively card draw, I feel pretty safe with finding everything I need (Heed the Dream helps a lot). Silent heroes of the deck are, though, Mirkwood Explorers. While they are often considered to be a little bit overpriced, with all "cheap allies" hate here their 3 cost is actually a benefit; 2 willpower is also great as well. But their real power is accumulating progress to be able to scout Lost Islands in stage 2; this is actually our only method to do this barring some cards (Steep Plateau, Aimless Wandering) from the encounter deck. Special shoutout for Shadow of the Past, which I always liked, but also considered to be overpriced. Here it can be very useful is we discard Ruins of Ages Past as a shadow card and would be forced to play through the whole encounter deck once more to find it again. Rarely we NEED certain encounted card to appear in the game, but here it is crucial to fulfil the challenge.

Cards that didn't make the cut

Most notable card that I've ultimately cut off is of course Steward of Gondor. Not much to say here - yes, it probably would make the deck better (at least 1 copy), but with other resource generation it isn't that much needed; also, it is bit awkward since neither hero would be a great target - Aragorn would be obviously the best, but to play both Steward and Sword that was Broken on him we would first need 5 resources on Glóin. At this point of the game Steward would be redundant. As for Glóin, he can generate resources in other way and it was refreshing to skip the Steward this time. I was considering some other good high-costed 1-ofs: Halbarad, [Gildor Inglorion] end especially Eldahir(/card/02079), but had to cut something. All these choices are viable, but Eldahir would me first card to swap in since while the scenario isn't combat-oriented, there are some 4 (and even temporarily 5) attack enemies who - with untimely shadow effects - can destroy our board. This means that while getting some damage on Glóin can be beneficial, it isn't always wise to defend with him since he can be knocked out in a single attack. Two cards that I also like and would be great here - and, tbh, I would probably play them if I remembered about them - are side-quests: Scout Ahead and Send for Aid. Both their abilities would be wonderful in this scenario and playing side-quests isn't hurting us at all since no progress can be placed normally on the main quest anyway. I'm putting them in the sideboard, then. Also, using them would probably make Thurindir a hero to be considered instead of Haldan, but I don't have him, don't know his real power output and it would be a shame cutting Haldan and his tricks out. Last but not least - Idk how double-sided locations would work with Leave No Trace, but I assumed, that it wouldn't work at all. Otherwise it would be a perfect tech card and should be in the deck 3x.

Gameplay

At the beginning of the scenario, we need to quickly build up some willpower and resource base. Ranger Provisions, Legacy of Númenor and some other draw/location attachments are ideal for starting hand. In the 3rd-4th turn, though, it would be great to have either Sword that was Broken or Faramir on board already. Elf-stone also gives a great boost early in the game as most often we will play at least 3-costed ally with it. Don't worry about early threat; you will be anyway forced to engage most enemies (although early Soulless Cadaver can be really problematic) and when you'll stabilise the board, you can manage your threat easily getting back to 31. Favor of the Valar is an additional safe button.

Conclusion

I wouldn't definitely say that it is 100%-safe win for the given challenge, but it works really well. The biggest problem is managing too many enemies from the very beginning in case of unfortunate draw, but it is still something that can be done. Threat is never a real danger because of all "safety buttons" and once our location control tools enter the board, even 18-threat staging area can be easily overcome. Be prepared, though, for a lots of math - it is always important not to underquest here, but overquesting on the other hand also doesn't give us much.