Shelob's Lair - Specialist Deck Series 1.0

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• 1.0

This time the Specialist Deck Series takes on the terrifying spider Shelob, in Shelob's Lair.

For an explanation of the series and to see the deck for the first quest, look here: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/18970

For the deck used to beat the previous quest, Journey to the Cross-roads, look here: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/21310

As you might expect, Shelob's Lair is all about taking on Shelob. Well mostly anyway. In solo, we'll potentially have to take an attack from her every round, and if we don't, she gets a threat increase and becomes more difficult to kill.

There are a couple of approaches we take to dealing with her. The first is to reliably defend against her attacks, keeping her threat low and allowing us to deal with her more easily in the end. This is a method I've used in the past to great success.

An alternative is to focus on questing past her threat and having ways to quickly remove her protective tokens with direct damage effects such as Ranger Bow.

I was thinking about how best to accomplish this second method, and the inspiration for the deck came to me when I realised there is a perfect hero for the task. I didn't expect it, but for the second time in the series we'll be taking Bilbo Baggins for one of our heroes. Bilbo accomplishes everything we want for our chosen strategy - his scales with Shelob's threat, so it doesn't matter how much we let it rise. Then once we reach stage 3, his direct damage will help bring down the spider in short order.

Core set Denethor comes next. Partly I was looking to use a hero that hasn't yet appeared in the series, but Denethor also has several very useful characteristics. He's very well positioned as a defender, having a good base value of 3 , being in sphere for A Burning Brand, and as a Gondor hero he holds a Gondorian Shield very well. A Burning Brand is important to us because there are some extremely nasty shadow effects in this quest, especially when Shelob is attacking. Honestly, the treacheries are not much better and we'll be using Denethor's ability often to try and avoid these. Shelob's Poison in particular will be devastating for us.

We're looking for a little more in our last hero as well as access to . Some help with resources wouldn't go amiss either, which brings us to a simple choice of Arwen Undómiel. It's safe to say that she is the glue holding our somewhat elaborate strategy together, especially alongside Elven-light.

Speaking of Elven-light, the other strong theme in the encounter deck is to make us discard random cards, often as an alternative to some other nasty effect. Elven-light is a strong counter to such effects, as is Silver Harp. We'll also be bringing a few other card draw effects to assemble all of the cards we will need.

What are those cards? Well we can't avoid Shelob forever, so the aforementioned defensive gear for Denethor, plus some Unexpected Courage so he can scry, perhaps several times in a turn, as well as defend. Then we have some tools for beating Shelob - Bow of Yew and Ranger Bow. With several of these, alongisde Bilbo, we can make short work of Shelob on Stage 3. They're not bad for killing the other enemies too.

Both of those attachments have restrictions on who can use them, so we need to bring the right allies too. North Realm Lookout will carry the Bow of Yew, and they even get a boost for doing so. A variety of Ranger allies are included for the purpose of shooting Ranger Bows.

The strategy is to build up our board state while ignoring Shelob. Denethor will be scrying to avoid unwanted encounter cards, especially Shelob's Poison. Don't let Shelob attack until A Burning Brand is in play. Then we want to build to a critical mass of Bows, so that we can remove tokens from Shelob far faster than they are put on, and engage and defeat her all in one turn.

This quest really highlights how a hero can be great if the conditions are right, and how much impact tailoring a deck to a quest can have. Usually I'd look at this and think it was a pretty mediocre deck, but it's just been so effective at what it's trying to do. It won 3 out of 3 games, and pretty handily at that. There was one extremely tense moment where I revealed Shelob's Poison and lost Arwen for the rest of the game, but it was late enough that it didn't matter. Once you have a strategy for handling Shelob, most of the other encounter cards are not that threatening, more of an annoyance. Even the Ringwraiths can be dealt with in a similar manner to Shelob, just try not to exhaust the Ring.

Speaking of the Ring, we'll be bringing along a Ringbearer. My personal choice as usual is Land of Shadow Frodo Baggins because his ability ends up being useful so often, but definitely don't count out the Black Riders version either. In a quest where we want to avoid very specific encounter cards that ability could be pivotal. As before, I caution against using the Mountain of Fire Frodo when the Nazgul are present.

Now for an explanation of the deck in detail:

Envoy of Pelargir - The Envoy is a useful card in a tri-sphere deck. We have a big skew in resource costs, so ideally we will use her to convert resources into or ones. We may need to chump block occasionally and she's perfect for that too.

Ethir Swordsman - An extra efficient quester. Even with Shelob's threat effectively dealt with, we still need to make sure that we can put progress on the quest. Having enough gives us some more flexibility in engaging enemies which is great.

Firyal - As in any quest, she's an excellent quester, particularly in solo. Here we have some specific encounter cards we want to avoid, which is the perfect situation for her ability. Between this card and Denethor we have amazing control over the encounter deck.

Ithilien Lookout - We need Ranger characters to hold our Ranger Bows. I was a little torn on which ones were best, so I took a variety. The first of these is Ithilien Lookout. His ability may or may not be useful depending on whether we can use Denethor or Firyal in the same turn. We're unlikely to want to discard an enemy since they are often preferable to the alternative. Unfortunately we won't be able to make use of the Secrecy cost. Still, 2 is very welcome.

Ithilien Tracker - This guy does work decently as a pseudo-quester, especially since we'll be scrying the deck often. He's also an inexpensive and suitable Ranger Bow carrier.

Mablung - A strong quester that's also a Ranger. We may not make use of his ability often, but it's handy to have on occasion.

North Realm Lookout - The Lookouts are here to carry our Bows of Yew, and they do this very well - questing for 2 without exhausting and then attacking for an effective 2 .

Northern Bowmaster - Northern Bowmaster is the cheapest of our Ranger allies and is to boot, meaning we'll have no trouble affording them. While enemies are not too much trouble in this quest, it's helpful to get a couple of attacking allies on the table so we can reliably defeat them. The play restriction should not be an issue.

Ranger of Cardolan - The Ranger gives us some strong stats which we're happy to have, with the benefit that he's neutral so we have no issue paying for him. If we need he can hold a Bow, but he wouldn't be the first choice.

Sam Gamgee - As usual, Sam comes along with Frodo whenever possible. With his discount he's incredibly good value.

Treebeard - Treebeard gives some real combat power, which we don't have a great deal of otherwise. Particularly useful if we have to make unexpected defenses and also handy for knocking out any Nazgul that show up.

Warden of Healing - As mentioned, we don't have a great deal of combat ability in the deck and the Wardens are here to make sure that our defenders remain healthy. This shouldn't be a big issue though, so only 2 copies.

A Burning Brand - This is the key to our defensive strategy - there are some shadow effects that are absolutely devastating when Shelob is attacking. Ideally, she'll only ever attack when Denethor can defend with one of these. Otherwise there is a decent chance we'll need to say goodbye to a hero.

Bow of Yew - One of two cards that let's us make short work of Shelob even if she has a large number of resources accumulated. As a side benefit, the North Realm Lookouts become strong and versatile allies when equipped with these.

Gondorian Shield - Another item to aid with our defenses. Between this and A Burning Brand, Denethor can safely defend against any of the enemies in the quest.

Ranger Bow - This is our primary method of taking down Shelob when we advance to Stage 3. With our strategy she is likely to accumulate a decent number of tokens, likelly 5 - 10. we can spend a few turns using the Bows to remove her 'shields' before engaging and defeating her.

Silver Harp - This is a protection against the encounter effects which cause us to discard random cards. With this in play, we can discard without worry. We might also find ourselves wanting to use Arwen's ability with no card we want to discard and this let's us do it for effectively no cost.

Unexpected Courage - We want to be able to exhaust Denethor multiple times per round, so if we draw them these will both go on him.

Daeron's Runes, Drinking Song, Elven-light, Frodo's Intuition - All of our events are here to draw us cards and find the allies and attachments we need to execute our plan.