The Old Forest - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

This is the second deck in my Specialist Deck Series, where I build a series of decks to take on the LotR Saga quests.

The first deck for A Shadow of the Past can be found here: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/18970. It also includes more of an explanation of the series and what I'm trying to achieve with the project.

Even though I'm not designing for Campaign mode, I am including the PoD quests and so this time we arrive at The Old Forest.

The Old Forest, as you might expect expect, is a quest all about locations. The encounter deck is full of them, the quest keeps adding them to the staging area and you're even required to explore them in order to progress to the final quest stage.

A reminder that because we are not playing campaign mode, we won't be bringing along a hero to this quest. On the bright side, we don't have to worry about damaging Old Man Willow as there is no Boon at stake.

So how do we best deal with the features of this quest? One way is to run with location control cards. Location lock isn't too great a threat in solo, so we'll keep the number of location control cards to a reasonable level, but the quest can still make things awkward for exploring, so we'll be happy to draw them. Asfaloth is still one of the strongest tools available to us, so we'll take him and his buddy Glorfindel.

Given the location heavy nature of the quest, this also seems like a great opportunity to bust out Haldan. I have previously found him lackluster in solo, but in a quest that keeps feeding you locations he seems like a great fit. With enough attachments he will be questing without exhausting and also drawing a steady stream of cards.

Finally we have Théodred to round out our heroes. Full disclosure, he's my favourite hero in the game, so I almost need a reason not to take him. Here, he is mostly helping to pay for our expensive allies. Ideally, all three heroes will quest every round so we have a lot of flexibility with his bonus resource. He's also one of the few low threat heroes available, giving us a nice low starting threat of 23, and I didn't want to take Sam Gamgee two quests in a row. Low threat is helpful in this quest because it is constantly putting back your progress so you need to prepare for a game that might drag on.

As a general game plan, we'll be looking to quest through at a comfortable pace, building up our board state while enhancing our abilities by completing side quests - No progress is required on the various Stage 2 quest cards, so this is an ideal time to use them.

We have a lot of unique allies which are to some extent replaceable, which is why they are in 1s and 2s. Our key attachments are more numerous, and they should give us a steady stream of card draw so we also see the allies that we need.

We really don't want to start off with the Stage 2 that reveals an extra card as that could overwhelm us before we have built up, but in any other situation we should manage fine. Then, once on stage 3 we'll try to quest through as quickly as possible.

Our combat abilities aren't great, particularly out of the gate. Glorfindel can take an early undefended attack if necessary, but we'll need to get an ally with some out at some point. The enemies are also pretty durable. Glorfindel and Haldan will need some help take them out in one go. If we're lucky, Entangling Nets should keep the enemies manageable until we are ready.

In testing I won 2 out of 3, with the loss coming from multiple enemies being revealed early and I was overwhelmed. Long Trailer's ability means you can't just ignore it in the staging area and the game is basically over if you can't find a way to defend against it.

The deck in detail:

Arwen Undómiel - A cheap efficient quester and her ability can really help us survive the combat phase in this quest.

Erebor Hammersmith - A core set card that is still pretty cost efficient. He has good synergy here for recycling Haldan's attachments or possibly Entangling Nets.

Faramir - Really boosts our questing ability. Not too important early on, but we really want to push our questing in Stage 3 and this is the card to do it.

Firyal - An excellent way to minimise our exposure to combat. I feel like this encounter deck can be pretty swingy in solo, so we really improve our prospects immensely by controlling the staging step.

Halfast Gamgee - We can run side quests basically for free here, so Halfast is a cheap quester with a possible small resource bonus.

Henamarth Riversong - One of the strongest solo cards. Near full knowledge of the staging step allows us to maximise our efficiency.

Ioreth - We don't want too much combat, but when we do defend we want to heal up as quickly as possible. There are also a couple of direct damage effects in the encounter deck which she will help us to manage.

Jubayr - A great defender and there are a couple of very inconvenient shadows in this quest. He's also one of only a few allies we have who can defend against Old Man Willow and live.

Northern Tracker - One of our location control cards. Hopefully we won't have locations hanging out in the staging area and hampering us with their effects, but this guy will help us if we do. In combination with other location control we should only need one round to clear out an annoying location. He's also good in combat and might end up defending for us.

Quickbeam - An extremely efficient ally. We will be happy to have his 3 if forced to take on enemies.

Rhovanion Outrider - More location control. He can't defend for us like the Northern Tracker, but in solo he is likely to be a more efficient quester.

Súlien - We most likely won't use her ability, but she offers high for her cost.

Thalion - Once we have a side quest completed he's a great value ally and we might even get some extra resources if we complete enough side quests.

Treebeard - What better way to tackle evil trees than a tree-herder! We should be able to manage the turn it takes for him to mobilize. He can almost solve all of our combat issues by himself.

Wellinghall Preserver - A very cost effective ally, especially for questing. The healing can even come in handy if Treebeard is needed for defending, or if the encounter decks starts dishing out damage.

Ancient Mathom - The first of our location attachments. Really important to get the most out of Haldan. This one effectively draws four cards which is insane. We really want to see one of these.

Asfaloth - Very flexible and effective location control. Can clear almost all the locations in the encounter deck in one turn (by exhausting a second time in the refresh phase). Can also effectively boost our questing by placing progress on the active location. As an added bonus he totally negates the reveal of Misleading Path, and extremely annoying location.

Elf-stone - We have quite a few expensive allies so this can be really powerful. The fact that it combos with Haldan is a great bonus.

Entangling Nets - A nice cheap way minimise the impact of an early enemy. Apparently just as effective against trees as it is against orcs.

Light of Valinor - Pretty much an auto include with Glorfindel, both for negating his threat raise and so you can use his awesome stats twice in a turn. Along with Haldan's ability, we aim to have two heroes questing without exhausting, which is hugely beneficial.

Ranger Provisions - Another location attachment. This one will keep us stocked with resources, which along with Theodred's ability should be enough for our needs.

Woodmen's Clearing - The final location attachment. There are a few threat raising abilities in this quest, including Old Man Willow's, so it's nice to have a little threat control.

Daeron's Runes - A little extra card draw to help us keep Haldan's engine going. I expect this will be making an appearance in a lot of our decks in the future too.

Side quests - These are not key to our strategy for this quest, but since they do not hinder our progress in Stage 2 they offer excellent value for their effects.

The Storm Comes and Gather Information are probably the best to see. Conversely Scout Ahead loses some value in this quest because the encounter deck is shuffled so often.