Beauty and the Beast 1.0

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• 1.0

Hi! Are these two hero decks viable in nightmare quests?

That is a tough question. In my experience, quite a few of the Nightmare quests require specific deck-building. Perhaps some of the earlier Nightmare quests would be beatable with this list, or something derived from it. Did you have a particular Nightmare quest in mind?

I have little experience on that subject. When playing solo I have gone through nightmare quests with my elrond-gandalf-glorfindel eagle deck (in multiplayer I paired it with a Silvan deck and a spirit Beregorn deck). In total I may have built 6-7 decks, so I have not too much experience in deck bulding, but I was thinking in Heirs of Numenor nightmare.

Awesome deck concept. A few minor questions for you. Is The Eagles are Coming worth it with only 9 Eagle cards? Seems likely to whiff. I'm also curious about your weapon choices. Why Spear of the Mark over Blade of Westernesse? With the low threat, the +2 is pretty likely.

I would also think about adding Gandalf. Either the core version for card draw and threat reduction, or OhaUH for the much needed quest boost. The threat gain isn't a big issue since you don't really need to stay in secrecy.

All good questions. Originally, I had Blade of Westernesse, but I switched to the Spear so that I can attach an extra copy to Grimbold (or Westfold Outrider from the sideboard) rather than just have them be a dead card. This might seem weird, given that both of those allies can be discarded for effect, but I don't want to take up both of Eowyn's restricted slots when Golden Shield works so well with her (and Strider). Honestly, the first weapon is just there to make Foe-hammer work, and I don't much care whether she is getting +1 or +2. Having a big bear around makes killing low-engagement enemies much easier. Feel free to substitute the Dagger for the Spear if you find that the extra bonus makes a difference.

For the Eagles Are Coming, I would ordinarily not include that card with so few Eagles in the deck, but mono-Tactics limits my options. Even if it only hits half the time, it is a zero cost card which thins the deck. That is the extent of it. I'm already including Legolas and Foe-hammer, essentially the two most effective card-draw effects in Tactics. If I removed The Eagles Are Coming, my options are Core Gandalf (not a bad choice) or Hidden Cache (not worth it). I stayed away from Gandalf for non-strategic reasons (as I explain below), but he is a perfectly acceptable option.

As for Gandalf, Core Set definitely makes sense and I can see him being invaluable for some quests. With Strider and any pair of 2-willpower allies you are questing for 10 each round, so I don't think willpower is too much of a problem, but I must admit that I play more multi-player these days than solo, so that biases my thinking. If you want to run this deck solo, or pair it with decks that don't handle their share of questing, I could see Hobbit Gandalf as an option. Ultimately, I went with neither because I have found that the wizard shows up in most all of my lists; he is amazing, but I get fatigued with using the same cards over and over. In building this series of 2-hero Strider/Resourceful decks, I've been trying to push myself a bit to experiment with different cards, or at least different combinations of cards. Some of these choices are not optimal, but I have greatly enjoyed playing them all the same.

I'm confused by the title, that's a mighty fine looking bear!

So Who gets captured in the Escape from Dol Guldur Scenario from the core? I will assume a sideboard of 16 instead of 15 and you add a hero there?

None of these two hero decks are designed for quests like Escape from Dol Guldur. For quests like that your best bet is to stick with decks which were specifically designed to handle the challenges therein.