Flight to the Ford - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

Finally we arrive at the last quest from The Black Riders - Flight to the Ford.

You can find the deck for the previous quest, A Knife in the Dark, here: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/19527.

So what does this quest bring to the table? Well, the Nazgul obviously. And also a ticking clock in the form of the Ring-bearer's Life.

For the first time as well, we will be seeing some of the Burdens from the Saga despite the fact that we aren't playing Campaign mode. They should have a minimal impact on us because they won't be carrying over to future quests, but we must still reveal and resolve at least one of them in order to win.

With a solo deck we have some room to choose our engagements with the Nazgul as long as we keep our threat low, so that is the direction we'll be taking (in multiplayer we would need to engage the Fell Riders sooner to stop the Ring-bearer's life being reduced quickly).

With that said, it seemed appropriate to send off this expansion with a Hobbit deck. We'll use the classic Black Riders lineup of Sam Gamgee, Merry and Pippin.

This gives us a lineup that starts in secrecy and can quest well from turn one. Additionally, between Pippin and our lineup of four hobbits, including Frodo Baggins, we have a large threat buffer before we have to start engaging enemies. I'm a big fan of an ally-heavy secrecy deck, so we'll leverage Timely Aid, A Very Good Tale and lots of expensive allies to power our way past the Nazgul.

The basis of the deck then is a large number of powerful unique allies. They tend to be the strongest options, but we want to minimise the possibility of hitting duplicates with our events so most are 1 or 2-of. The 2s are the ones we really want to see because of their powerful or unique effects.

The plan will be to engage Fell Riders as needed in order to keep the Ring-bearer's life up, but to largely ignore the other Nazgul unless the staging area threat gets out of hand. At the end we'll decide the best course of action based on the board state. We should have enough to just quest through if we need to.

In testing the deck won two out of two games. Having full control over when to engage the enemies is a huge help, even if we don't get the right cards for an explosive secrecy start. We should also have enough time to keep a couple of Fell Riders in the staging area for a short while without endangering the Ring-bearer too much. I ended both games with 4-5 life still.

Onto the deck:

Barliman Butterbur - A handy cheap ally that gives our wimpy heroes a bit of protection. It's also useful to have a few cheaper allies in the deck to make an early AVGT easier to pull off.

Beorn - Even with a full cardpool, Beorn is still an absolute powerhouse and exactly the sort of guy we want to find with Timely Aid. He can manage a few defences and with his boosted attack he needs very little help destroying the Nazgul.

Bill the Pony - Practically an auto-include in a hobbit deck with Sam. He makes an early defence with Sam a real possibility. Due to his free cost, he's also a part of the deck's most explosive start, by using Timely Aid (or possibly Sneak Attack) to play an expensive ally followed by A Very Good Tale.

Boromir - Another strong combat ally. We hope to stay below the enemies' engagement cost for the whole quest, so he should always have his defence boost. This makes him capable of taking several defences and attacking in the same turn.

Erestor - I'm a big fan of Erestor. He's a reasonable quester, but is mainly here for his ability, which is extremely valuable. Here the cost is hopefully not prohibitive.

Faramir - Strong as ever here. We can't waste any time in this quest, so we want as much as possible. Can also save a few allies from the nasty Power in Their Terror.

Firyal - Probably the best questing ally in the game, especially for a solo deck. There are a couple of encounter cards we'd like to avoid, like blanking textboxes or ending the quest phase. Firyal is a brilliant counter to these.

Gaffer Gamgee - An excellent answer to the Nazgul for a secrecy deck. With enough resources we can take out the Nazgul completely risk free.

Gandalf - Very welcome here, we could conceivably use any of his abilities in this quest. The threat reduction in particular will keep us below Nazgul engagement costs and hopefully even in secrecy.

Giant Bear - I mean, why wouldn't we include a Giant Bear given the chance? It has excellent combat stats and an emergency ready is a very useful ability.

Gildor Inglorion - Another ally with top stats. If we don't need him for questing or combat, we can use his ability to seed the top of our deck for a Timely Aid. Sadly doesn't work with AVGT since the deck gets shuffled.

Henamarth Riversong - His ability remains one of the strongest we can get for a solo deck. Even better here if anything since we want to quest as efficiently as possible given the time limit.

Marksman of Lórien - This card is included for being one of the most cost effective attackers in the game, even if the Ranged doesn't do anything for us here. Even worthwhile with Sneak Attack if it helps to kill a Nazgul. It is just an attacker though, so we could replace this quite easily.

Quickbeam - Ridiculous value for his cost, he can quest or attack very well and it's nice to have all this in one cheap ally.

Rosie Cotton - Such a useful ally. With readying she can effectively quest for 4 and the help in combat is great as well since she turns Sam and Merry into a top class defender and attacker respectively.

Treebeard - Such a strong ally for his cost. Not a bad way to use any resources we have lying around either. Coming into play exhausted is much easier to swallow if we manage to get him with Timely Aid. His readying effect is also very valuable in combination with A Very Good Tale.

Wellinghall Preserver - Very cost effective questers. The healing can even help if Treebeard is needed for defence. They can attack or defend in a pinch.

Fast Hitch - So strong for our hobbit deck. Rosie, Merry and Sam all want these, probably in that order.

Friend of Friends - A tremendous stat boost for the cost. With Fast Hitch for readying these can have an enormous impact. Sam and Merry are the likely recipients.

Resourceful - One of the reasons for playing secrecy. We won't be able to cheat in all of our expensive allies so these will help to pay for the rest. Extra useful with Pippin to help play Gaffer every round.

Sting - This quest let's us cheat a bit with Sting. There are no enemies who can have Non-Morgul attachments so we get it for free, making it a very strong play.

A Very Good Tale - A Very Strong Card(!) We want to play high cost allies, and this let's us do it without paying any resources. It's a bit of a gamble with the random discard, which is why we have a good variety of targets. Early on it's probably worth it to grab just one high cost ally with this. I would aim for 5 resources worth minimum, however, otherwise we miss on too many allies.

Daeron's Runes - Always good. A decent way to dig for secrecy cards early game and we can discard the expensive allies we have no hope of playing early.

Frodo's Intuition - 4 and 4 cards is ridiculously good value. Both halves of this card are so useful for this quest.

Sneak Attack - Excellent with Gandalf as ever, especially for keeping our threat low. We also have a large number of alternative targets that make this card worthwhile too.

The Shirefolk - Perfect for this deck. The quest is short enough that one of these basically guarantees our threat will remain low enough for the duration.

Timely Aid - One of the cornerstones of the secrecy deck. Getting a 4+ cost ally into play on the first turn is unbelievably strong and lets us quest for a huge value straight away.

For this quest I'll stick with my preference for Land of Shadow Frodo Baggins. We need explosive questing and this version does it the best. There are fewer penalties for exhausting the ring this time around, so any of the versions could be used. However, I'd steer clear of the Road Darkens version in this deck as we don't want to be raising our threat.