A Shadow of the Past - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

Welcome to the first in what I hope will be a complete set of decks for beating the Lord of the Rings Saga quests: The Specialist Deck Series. The genesis of this was an idea to complete all the saga quests by tuning a deck, or fellowship of decks, to the specific features of each quest. This is in stark opposition to my previous Saga run where I took the same 6 heroes all the way from Bag End to Mount Doom.

The first point to get out of the way is that this will not be done in campaign mode. Restrictions on hero choices and the additional foibles of Burdens is not really in the spirit of this exercise. For the most part this will be to our benefit, which should make a greater number of decks viable.

I'll also be aiming to try and use a good mix of heroes and deck types across the 20 quests (including the PoDs), although I won't be setting any hard and fast rules as beating the quests will be the main goal. I've decided that I will take on the first expansion using solo decks as that seems thematically appropriate. I'll defer choices about the other expansions until later.

Finally, this is not about optimising the perfect deck to the quest, although I do want a good win rate. I have my pet cards and strategies which will inevitably find their way into the decks and I also want to avoid picking Arwen and Eowyn every time. The goal is to produce an interesting and strong deck which I enjoy playing and I hope others would too.

Onto A Shadow of the Past - as the first quest in the saga this is probably the one I am most familiar with and there are a couple of straightforward lines of attack we can take.

The first consideration for the deck is high , both for strong questing and to beat all the hide tests which are unavoidable.

Minimising reliance on allies is another way to get an edge as we can be punished quite hard by the hide tests in stage 2 otherwise. We can achieve this by adding readying effects and boosts. Additionally, we want the allies that are included to have a big impact.

Other things we can consider are keeping a low threat to avoid combat with Black Riders where possible and delaying progression past the first stage until we are ready.

Avoiding the Black Riders will allow our deck to focus mainly on questing, without having to dedicate deck space to combat and if we can linger on stage 1B we can try and minimise the number of Nazgul in play until we can deal with them.

My first choice for a hero was Thurindir. He does a lot of what we want in this deck. Sidequests are the simplest way to stall out a quest and we won't get punished for that here. By grabbing Gather Information in setup we can guarantee at least two full rounds before advancing to Stage 2A, most likely more if we don't complete them in a single turn or draw into other sidequests. This gives the deck plenty of time to get going. Thurindir is also a low threat hero and can have an enormous by the end of the quest - he ticks all the boxes.

Éowyn and Sam Gamgee round out my hero choices for their high and low threat. Sam in particular gives some great utility because we can boost him so easily thanks to Fast Hitch and Rosie.

In my test runs with the deck I won two out of two games. Neither one felt even remotely close and I think we would need a really disastrous start to derail this deck. In the second test game, I went for an extended period of time without seeing any card-draw and still managed no problem.

[I realised while I was writing this that the deck could use the Fellowship Contract without any alteration. It would require every ally in the deck to be in play to get any benefit, including Core Set Gandalf, but there's no downside so why not throw it in?]

Now for an explanation of the cards in the final deck:

Arwen Undómiel - Great value in a quester. Her ability allows Sam to survive an attack from a Black Rider if we get into a tight spot. Only a one-of because she is not fundamental to the deck's success.

Faramir - The best ally in the game for increasing . He does extra work here if we have characters questing and taking hide tests in the same phase.

Firyal - One of the best ways to control the quest phase, especially in solo. The primary use will be to avoid taking on extra Nazgul, although filtering through the surging cards is an added bonus.

Gandalf - Combined with Sneak Attack is still one of the best plays we can make. He offers a lot in this quest - a burst of when we need it, card draw and keeping our threat below the key threshold of 35. We can also use him to face down a Nazgul in relative safety.

Glorfindel - A high ally with his own readying effect to help with those Hide tests. Also helps to muster enough to take down a Black Rider. We're running Elven Light as well so he's an excellent discard outlet for that too.

Rosie Cotton - She offers great utility in this quest. We have two Hobbit heroes thanks to Frodo, so it's quite easy to hedge our between questing and the threat of hide tests. If she's not needed for either of those she can still help out in combat too. Also the primary recipient of Sword-thain.

Fast Hitch - We have three excellent targets in this deck so we'd be very happy to see all three copies. Rosie is the preferred target, but we have enough card draw that we can expect to see two or three every game. Extra helpful to keep willpower available for Hide tests.

Protector of Lórien - Really great value in this deck. We can get double the benefit if the same character quests and takes a Hide test. This also allows Sam to defend a Black Rider and take no damage. Finally, another discard outlet is great with Elven-light.

Put Off Pursuit - One of our methods for avoiding combat. We're guaranteed to run into at least three Black Riders during the quest and we're very happy to replace one with a location. The enemy does go back into the encounter deck, so try and avoid triggering this while the deck is thin! Also not so useful in Stage 3 when we are trying to clear all the locations.

Steward of Gondor - Put this on Eowyn to help fund Elven-light. Also handy if we need to replay Glorfindel for any reason.

Sword-thain - This one helps us keep our ally numbers down for Stage 2. Also extra value with Rosie as we have a few willpower boosts for heroes only.

Unexpected Courage - We need to keep available for Hide Tests and this is one of the best ways. We already have Fast Hitch for the Hobbits, so best played on Thurindir or Eowyn. When not needed for willpower, can provide an extra few points of for Nazgul slaying.

Daeron's Runes - We have a hero so we're playing Daeron's Runes. No better way to improve a deck's consistency.

Drinking Song - Almost like Daeron's Runes copies 4-6. Basically free card draw since we have hobbit heroes and a very efficient way to dig for key cards.

Elven-light - Very effective card draw in combination with Eowyn. Also great to combo with Glorfindel. This is one of the reasons I would choose Eowyn as the target for Steward.

Frodo's Intuition - We have a hero so why not take advantage of that. Plays perfectly into our game plan. Get's even stronger with Sword-thain on the table, especially if played on Rosie.

Sneak Attack - Mostly for use with Gandalf, although Faramir and Rosie are also good targets for emergency Hide test help.

The Hidden Way - I love this card in solo for managing the staging step. Plays perfectly into our plan to avoid combat. If we can play it before exploring Bag End we can stall pretty much forever on Stage 1. Unfortunately it's somewhat counterproductive in Stage 3 and for that reason I think I'd cut this card first if looking at replacements.

Side Quests - I'll sum them all up here, as they are mostly included for the stalling potential. All of them provide useful bonuses and we only really want to avoid them on Stage 2. The ones are mostly to make up numbers and we don't have to feel bad about discarding them later on. Key side quests are:

Gather Information, to stall by finding another side quest. If that's unnecessary we can grab whatever the best card is for the situation. Find this one with Thurindir at the start.

Rally the West really gives our willpower a jump start. A minimum boost of 5 , which can effectively be increased with readying or by Sword-thain (especially on Rosie).

Lastly, as a Saga quest we get a bonus hero. My conclusion for this deck is that the best fit is The Land of Shadow Frodo Baggins. Again, the boost is a great help and we can wait to use it until after staging to avoid being punished for using the Ring. Even the boost is welcome to help finish a Black Riders in combat. Note that his bonus lasts until the end of the round, so we can easily get multiple uses with readying effects.

I considered The Road Darkens Frodo for emergency defenses, but never ended up needing to use him for that in testing. The other two are perfectly fine choices if you prefer them, although beware effects that punish exhausting the ring.