The Tower of Cirith Ungol Saga Fellowship

First, this quest, like Shelob's Lair, is beyond ridiculous. If they rank difficulty 1-10, this is a 15. I believe it's impossible one-handed, and near-impossible two-handed, played correctly on Normal. With the Wraith on Wings, and the highly likely chance of adding 2-3 enemies per round in stage 2, there is no way you can progress AND deal with that many enemies. I guess the Forced effect of stage 2b is supposed to help, but in my games it very rarely did. These are the best 2 decks I could come up with to give me any kind of chance. Deck 1 is just a modification of the suggested deck. Deck 2 was designed for: free questing, sniping in Staging, and some location control.

I eventually counted a win against this quest using these decks, but I mulliganed/resigned game until I got the critical cards I had to have to give me any chance of winning, and skipped adding resources to Wraith on Wings for one round. If I didn't do this, I don't think I could ever beat this quest.

For opening hands, deck 1 you need Hobbit Cloak and Fast Hitch for Sam. Most of the enemies are 4+ attack, so Sam Gamgee needs defense immediately. The Fast Hitch is to offset A Heavy Burden at first, later to defend multiple enemies. Deck 2, Asfaloth, and Bow of the Galadhrim for Haldir of Lórien. A Light of Valinor would be great too, but odds of all 3 are pretty low.

Slow play stage 1b, to build up your allies and attachments. I could never win traveling to The Two Watchers early. I could not keep up with enemies and make progress because of the Forced effect of 2b. Use Asfaloth to handle locations in Staging, Haldir of Lórien for sniping enemies, Merry and Legolas to handle engaged enemies. When you can, engage a Wraith and use Feint, then Merry + Haldir of Lórien + Legolas to destroy it.

Once you have hopefully a couple Fast Hitch on Sam, and lots of WP, go to stage 2b. Destroy what enemies you can each round, to keep threat down. Don't rely on the Forced effect to help you. For 3b, one you have enough progress on the quest, use all of your attackers to destroy The Two Watchers (again).

For the game I counted as a win, here are all of the attachments I had in play:

• Sam Gamgee: Hobbit Cloak, Staff of Lebethron, Fast Hitchx2, Sting, Tireless Ranger boon
• Merry: Dagger of Westernessex2, Fast Hitch, Valiant Warrior boon
• Haldir of Lórien: Bow of the Galadhrimx2, Unexpected Courage
• Legolas: Blade of Gondolin, Glamdring boon
• Glorfindel: Asfaloth, Light of Valinor

I had 5+ allies in play at the end per deck. Most of them for WP. Some for healing. Elladan and Elrohir worked well for this quest. Even with all of this, and the couple rule changes I made in the beginning, I still could barely win.