Gandalf seemed pleased. ‘I chose the right way,’ he said (...). He raised his staff, and for a brief instant there was blaze like a flash of lightning.

                         -The Fellowship of the Ring

Knowledge is powerful. That’s true. But control over the encounter deck is even more powerful! This deck counts on the repeatable Risk Some Light or Gildor's Counsel - depending on you playing solo or multiplayer. I provide you with some details below.

Hero line-up

It’s almost self-explanatory. Rossiel is a great lore hero, although she doesn’t see much play. Perhaps there are better choices for mono-lore deck. But I love victory display shenanigans! With proper starting hand you can pretty much dominate the quest. Most of the scenarios include only one or two traits of enemies. With this in mind you can focus on Out of the Wild the proper enemy to the victory display and defend everything with Rossiel (eventually with help of Protector of Lórien). Watcher in the Water hitting for 7 ? No problem!

Pippin and Folco Boffin aren’t so essential, nevertheless their participation is crucial. They are both hobbits which allows me to play in secrecy. After 4-5 turns I can discard Folco Boffin to come back to secrecy - it gives even more control over encounter deck as we can decide which enemies are to be engaged. Moreover, Good Meal is a great card once we get out of secrecy for good!

Game plan

Try to start with as many secrecy cards in your hand as possible. Resourceful is a key component here but if you don’t see it entire game - don’t worry. Out of the Wild and Risk Some Light are worthy of those 3 resources! This deck can struggle in combat. The prescription is quite trivial - avoid combat ;) Our game-controlling combo comes to rescue (details below). Were you to engage something, your Ents are here to help you along with Ithilien Lookout.

The combo

The most funny part of the game is ahead of us. In solo you can recycle Risk Some Light for loads of information. In multiplayer better choice is Gildor's Counsel. The only difficulty is to draw the first copy. With mono-lore deck and that amount of card draw effects it shouldn’t be a problem. With three copies of a card it can be played 3 times. Then the time comes for the Scroll of Isildur. It means that Gildor's Counsel can be played another 3 times and then yet another 3 times when you draw it from the bottom of your deck. Overall it gives 9 rounds in multiplayer with one less card revealed. Should one think it’s not enough, you can play Erebor Hammersmith to replay Scroll of Isildur twice - it gives 4 more Gildor's Counsel. 13 round with one less card! In solo game you can try the same trick with Risk Some Light and control encounter deck throughout whole scenario.

I tried this deck successfully against some quests, both solo and multiplayer. In solo it’s scrying capability allowed me to defeat Nightmare Watcher in the Water, in multiplayer it can turn the nastiest quests into effortless walk ;)

Let me know how you like it!