Solo Bruteforce 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck is my coping mechanism for how hard is solo play. You are required to be able to quest, attack and defend at the same time right off the bat, so with this deck I aim to do exactly that.

How To Play:

Look for Gondorian Shield and Light of Valinor in your opening hand. Arwen is also nice to have, but not as crucial as those two. Your goal is to keep the board as clear as possible.

Low starting threat allows you to pick your initial battles (while you are searching for Gondorian Shield, perhaps), but in a nutshell you must engage and kill most enemies the same turn they come out. This is accomplished by Borormir being ready to defend anything that comes at you, and than standing by his ability and attacking it together with Glorfindel who was ready all along thanks to Light of Valinor.

Very big starting willpower (7-8), accompanied by host of high willpower allies allows you to effectively quest each round, clearing any active locations in one go to allow way for the next one and prevent the staging area clogging. Always consider the encounter deck though, don't overcommit if there is an encounter card that might punish you.

That's it, it's pretty simple. Quest for loads out of the gate, start killing turn 1, keep encounter card presence in the game to a bare minumum, win. Some quests will require some tinkering to beat them, depending on those quest's gimmicks. Regular quests should be beatable relatively consistently.

Deck Breakdown:

Arwen Undomiel - 2 willpower and +1 defense that always goes on Boromir. Super useful, third card by the improtance after Gondorian Shield and Light of Valinor.

Elfhelm - a decent body that helps with the threat management if you happen to draw him. Not crucial, therefore just 1 copy.

Ethir Swordsman - cheap and powerful willpower boost that grows with extra copies.

Gandalf - due to this deck's low resource curve, you'll often find yourself sitting on a pile of resources. Gandalf is a very good way to trade those resources. Most of the time it's going to be cards, but damage and threat reduction had their uses as well.

Guardian of Rivendell - this deck begins overflowing with cards mid-late game, and there isn't really any good way to spend them, Eowyn can only toss one per turn. This is a very decent body that anybody can pay for, and you can dump some of your duplicates that are clogging your hand to pay for it.

Knights of the Swan - same as Ethir Swordsmen, but attack. They also stack with each other, creating insane willpower and attack values, in case you'll ever need them.

Silvan Refugee - super cheap strong willpower boost. Be careful with your characters around them, though. Especially Gandalf, since playing him means saying bye-bye to your Refugees at the end of the round.

Treebeard - a very powerful body that makes you wait a turn for it to come online. Neutral, so is easy to pay for. Good thing this deck is very self-sufficient once you set up the basics, and waiting one turn it not an issue.

Ancient Mathom - location-based card draw, nothing much else to say.

Captain of Gondor - nice thing to have if you can draw it. Not important enough to include 3 copies, however. Since in solo you'll be optionally engaging most of your enemies anyway, this thing will be basically a permanent +1 attack +1 defense for Boromir, and thanks to his ability he is most likely to utilize both of the stat bonuses. With Gondorian Shield, Arwen and this, he can reach the sweet spot of 6 defense.

Gondorian Shield - most important card in the deck. Absolutely must have. Mulligan for it, dig for it. Allows you start fighting enemies from turn 1 without taking much (or any) damage.

Light of Valinor - secomd most important card. Allows Glorfindel to quest while standing, essentially giving you 3 free willpower for the questing phase and preserving his 3 attack for the combat phase.

Rivendell Blade - most enemies have their defense at 2 or highter, so this attachment is very often a net +2 attack. Very useful.

Warrior Sword - gives you at least +1 attack when you're fighting an enemy, gives you more if you got swarmed, which improves your chances of clearing the swarm (just mind the order, since every enemy you kill detracts from the blade's attack bonus).

A Test of Will - nothing much to say here, just the ultimate card of this game.

Elrond's Counsel - free threat reduction and willpower for a deck that generates a lot of threat by itself. Sold!

Elven-light - discard fodder for Eowyn's ability that turns into 1 to 1 resource for card exchange once you hit those times during the game when you piling up resources but have nothing good to spend them on.

Fair and Perilous - an extra kick for Glorfindel if you need to defeat an enemy in one swing.

Feint - for when you're not feeling like defending today.

Foe-hammer - there is plenty of killing happening via use of weapons, so why not get some cards out of it?

Open the Armory - all around great card. Helps you find Gondorian Shielf if you didn't manage to initially draw it, lets you draw some weapon if you already have Gondorian Shield.

Tides of Fate - unless scenario features some hardcore shadow effects, this is the to go card, and Hasty Stroke sits in the sideboard. Most of common shadow effects that you'll be afraid of are going to increase the enemy's attack that might allow them to get past the Gondorian Shield + Arwen setup. This card will help with those cases, plus on top of it provides a use for those piling up tactics resources on Boromir for an effective retaliation, especially if you are playing with errata.

Gather Information - this thing here as an absolute emergency case card that will help you find that Gondorian Shield or Light of Valinor.

Sideboard Breakdown:

Dunedain Hunter - this deck has a very easy time dealing with enemies, especially smaller ones. If the quest you're playing has a lot of smaller enemies, preferably surge ones, Dundedain Hunter becomes a very cheap source of very big attack boost. Remember that he puts the enemy into play engaged with you, which means no When Revealed effects, no Surge keywords, and no threat in the staging area. Obviously don't play him in scenarios with big heavy hitting enemies.

Galadriel's Handmaiden - for threat heavy scenarios, prolongs your life a bit under all that threat you're putting on yourself, and provides a very good-for-the-cost willpower boost.

Windfola - if a quest features stuff that might boot your most powerful quester out, this might be a good countermeasure to consider.

Gondorian Discipline - if you're really struggling with keeping Borormir alive, this is a very good way to increase his survival odds. If even this doesn't help, Close Call might be worth considering.

Hasty Stroke - when you're playing Road to Rivendell or something. Otherwise, use Tides of Fate. It is cheaper and has more utility.

Double Back - when the scenario is super threat heavy.