The Drúadan Forest - Solo Progression 1.0

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• 1.0

Glorfindel is present for questing and for Asfaloth. There are a lot of nasty locations that Asfaloth can help clear quickly.

Elrond is the primary defender in the party. His 3 goes a long way to ensuring he does not get hurt. And once he has a Burning Brand or Protector of Lórien equipped you can control just how much damage he takes.

Reducing threat by 3 does not seem like much, but Mirlonde's ability has resulted in wins as threat has climbed to 47+ a couple of times. She offers a little insurance until Gandalf can arrive to reduce the party's threat. When Silvan Tracker is in play, she is a good target for archery damage as she will heal 2 when she readies.

Feels odd to say, but Warden of Healing is the key card in this deck. Archery damage abounds and Warden, combined with Elrond's ability, can keep heroes and key allies alive as the arrows rain down on the party. Hard mulligan to start with a Warden in hand.

If you have one or more Wardens of Healing on the table, don't be afraid to take an undefended attack or two from 1 enemies. Both Elrond and Glorfindel have lots of hit points to soak up the damage. Elrond's ability means the Warden will heal 2. If Silvan Tracker is on the table, Mirlonde will heal 2 when she readies, so she's also a good target for undefended damage.

Gandalf is included to reduce threat. The deck has plenty of card draw, so don't worry about using him for that.

If you can, keep a Forest Snare in hand until Drû-buri-Drû hits the table. It seems he does not mind being entangled in a net as you negotiate a safe exit from the woods.

Once you get Vilya on Elrond and Imladris Stargazer on the table, a nice combo opens up for you. Exhaust Imladris to look at the top 5 of your deck and put the card you most want on the top. Then exhaust Vilya and Elrond to pull that card and get it into play. That might be the only way that Faramir hits the table as getting 4 resources to Elrond will be challenging.

Lastly, don't be afraid to discard cards from hand to power up Protector of Lórien. With Mithrandir's Advice, and few resources due to the woses, you should have plenty of cards in hand in the last quest phase to help convince Drû-buri-Drû to let you exit the woods.

Potential Changes

There are very few encounter cards with a high threat cost. That makes it harder to have Needful to Know pay off. You could replace them with additional healing, like Lórien's Wealth. Or, if you are confident about getting Vilya on Elrond, you could include some combination of Hasty Stroke and A Test of Will to deal with the nasty treacheries and shadow effects in the encounter deck.

Once there are a couple of Ithilien Trackers out, Ranger Spikes is not really needed. Any in your hand could be used to power up Protector of Lórien, but they could also be swapped out to get some of the 2 of cards to a 3 of.

In 3 play throughs, Faramir never hit the table as getting 4 resources on Elrond proved to be troublesome. One possible replacement would be Gildor Inglorion. He costs 1 more, but you can pay for him using resources from all the heroes. With Vilya on Elrond, you can use Gildor's ability to get a card in your hand onto the table without needing to pay the cost.

Kudos

Matthew Dempsey's Lore deck in the Tenth Nazgul's progression series video on The Drúadan Forest helped round out this deck.