Red Means Dead (Solo Mono Tactics Deck)

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spanishinquisition 261

This is a tremendously fun solo mono tactics deck. With the exception of treachery cancelation, you should have all bases covered.

Questing primarily comes from your heroes, with Mablung acting as a backup defender with a Gondorian Shield. Once you get some allies out, such as Bofur and Grimbold, you should be cruising at 12 willpower each turn (which can be raised to 15 once you free up Mablung).

Defence comes from Defender of Rammas and Déorwine, and they should be equipped with a Raiment of War as soon as you can. The very useful Behind Strong Walls can be used to get you out of a tight space when faced with multiple enemies, or enable your defenders to fight back with their increased attack due to Raiment of War. Sterner than Steel gives you some protection from the nastiest shadow effects. The Honour Guards will deal with archery damage or any damage that does get through.

Attack is a lot of fun in this deck, and will vary based on the cards drawn. Loading Azain Silverbeard up with a pair of Dwarrowdelf Axes is great, and turns him into a killing machine. Or you could load up Legolas with a pair of Rivendell Blades and his mount Arod. Otherwise, you have the excellent Knight of Minas Tirith and Beorn. There are also a few events, such as Khazâd! Khazâd! and Hands Upon the Bow to help out.

Card draw comes from Legolas, and this is the only card you really should focus on getting in your opening hand. While the deck did operate just fine without him early on, you can run into a lack of options. So, in short, mulligan for Legolas! Threat reduction is limited to Secret Vigil, but this deck is aimed to be played fast, so long games are never ideal and therefore threat shouldn't be an issue.

Well that's it. It's great that all four spheres are now viable as mono builds, and this one performed better than I expected. The truth is, without treachery cancellation you can get into trouble, but you certainly get benefits on the combat side of things to make up for it. Enjoy!

5 comments

Jan 24, 2017 DazeMan 710

Always enjoy a solo deck! I have found that Soldier of Dol Amroth is a useful ally, providing its own type of resource "acceleration."

Nice work.

Jan 24, 2017 D4rkWolf10 493

@DazeMan You see what you did. All this solo tactics shenanigans. It's ridiculous. xD lol kidding.

@spanishinquisition I like this deck too nice job. Another easy to understand Tactics deck someone like me could build.

Jan 24, 2017 blueluke 173

Great and fun deck! I tried it vs Into Ithilien and Siege of Cair Andross and it was working quite well.

Probably the first time I was really happy to see Master's Malice... Haha.

My final turn of SoCA was glorious:
After Theoden died in the previous turn (due to a really nasty combination of shadow effects and some unexpected enemies) I got to use Éowyn's ability for a huge final quest push that won me the game.

Anyways: Raiment of War (+ Defender of Rammas) is the real MVP of the deck. It's also hilarious on Beorn, but that's probably the definition of a "win more" combo at that point. ;)

You do really need Legolas card draw due to the many duplicate uniques or otherwise unplayable cards (like Axe or Blade without allies to play it on).

I might reduce the number of copies to add some more universally useful cards instead, but I'm not sure what to add yet.

Jan 25, 2017 spanishinquisition 261

@DazeMan Cheers mate. Yes, I actually meant to add Soldier of Dol Amroth as a sideboard card. I found that sometimes I wanted more allies out than weapons and he would definitely fit the bill.

@D4rkWolf10Much appreciated good sir.

@bluelukeCheers for the feedback - I'm very pleased to hear that you had some success with the deck. I agree with you about how essential Legolas is for the deck, which in some ways is a negative (never a good thing to be too reliant on one card). That's being said, you could certainly drop out some attachments for some more allies (such as the Soldier of Dol Amroth as mentioned above). Raiment of War on Beorn is definitely excessive, and I can't say I ever managed it, but that would make him beastly (pardon the pun). Raiment of War and Defender of Rammas is such a wonderful combo, it makes you feel so safe! Thanks for sharing you experiences with the deck.

Feb 02, 2017 estyles 21

This is similar to a deck I've been messing around with but haven't published - same heroes. I think I definitely need to find room for Behind Strong Walls. I would suggest you might want to consider 2x Hour of Wrath. It's not always useful, but when it is, it's amazing to have Eowyn quest for 5, defend for 6, and attack for 10 multiple times. Although the defending part requires Golden Shield which I see you're not using. But the Valor level of Hour of Wrath could let Mablung do even more defending.