QotW?

For those wondering what the QotW stands for, it's for "Quest of the Week", which is a brand new community event hosted by Autumn and me over on the COTR Discord server. In this event, the community tackles one quest per week as a group, during which we share our struggles and our victories. There are also two challenges each week, courtesy of my Field Guide to LOTR LCG (which is for sale or a PDF version is available for donations to the blog, contact me via Facebook or Discord about it). After each week, a survey is filled out by everyone who attended the event, and we gather some data. This data will then be shared by me on Vision of the Palantir for some community stats. We hope that this promotes more multiplayer games and more interactivity focused on a single quest. We will start with the Core Set + Dark of Mirkwood (which can be played in a campaign mode if you want to), and we will jump ahead to Ered Mithrin once the box is released in 5 weeks.

Enough of that, let's get to the deck. I wanted to do something special for the event and find a way to beat Passage through Mirkwood in a single round. There are too many variables to do this consistently, but this deck does have various ways to achieve that goal, with only a few cards that are necessary to mulligan for.

Heroes and strategy

The way we beat this 3-stage quest in a single turn boils down to our heroes. Círdan the Shipwright is not essential, but his 4 is! You could swap him for Galadriel, though you'd have to pay for Nenya (and find it), or you could go for Arwen Undómiel and use her resource generation for something like Silver Circlet to boost her willpower. Círdan the Shipwright is just more consistent and offers us an additional card to look at at the start of the game. We have to discard one of the cards, but with so many duplicates in this deck, you can hopefully pass up on one card in favor of a better one. Cirdan's access to the sphere will help in overcoming the initial hurdle of this deck, which is getting at least 11 to make 8 progress on stage 1. You also have to overcome the 3 in the staging area from Old Forest Road and Forest Spider, so you don't have a lot of room for error when it comes to the newly revealed card for the quest phase. To boost willpower, I have included Windfola, Courage Awakened, Strider, and Elrond's Counsel. You will need at least 2 of these cards in your opening hand. Miruvor is also an option, as it allows Legolas to quest and ready. You can then decide if you need the resource or the additional willpower based on the situation and your hand.

Legolas is the key to stage 2. This stage only requires 2 progress, so his ability can explore it, as long as you don't travel. You will need to kill an enemy to do so, but luckily, the quest has a Forest Spider sitting in the staging area which is perfect! You will need kill that spider with Hands Upon the Bow, as it is the only way to explore it before the engagement phase, and otherwise you run into issues later. That means that Hands Upon the Bow is REQUIRED in your opening hand. The event gives you +1 , though that's one short of the Spider's combined and . So you will need a weapon like Bow of Yew, Dagger of Westernesse, Black Arrow, Rivendell Blade, or Bow of the Galadhrim. If you didn't get cards for the later steps, you can use Foe-hammer to draw some more cards in the hopes of finding later combo pieces. Legolas' ability will get you past stage 2, after which, he is done for the rest of the game.

Which brings us to Éowyn, who is the key to killing Ungoliant's Spawn. Her +9 boost will leave her one short of killing it, so you will need a way to boost her attack. This can be done with Dagger of Westernesse, Unseen Strike, or Blade Mastery. You can also have Legolas help if he's ready from his attack by means of Miruvor. With the right timing, you could even travel to the Old Forest Road after Legolas has triggered his ability, so that you can ready a hero for free!

Luck

You will need some luck to make this challenge work with this deck. It may take some attempts to get it right. Here are the factors that need to go your way

Encounter deck

• You need to make 8 progress on stage 1, so you can only reveal a 0-threat treachery if you manage to quest for 11 . Any more willpower you can get on top of that, creates a buffer for the encounter card. There isn't anything in the card pool that allows you to scry the deck to ensure a 0-threat card is on top, so this will be based on shear luck.
• For stage 3B, you need to get to "Don't Leave the Path". Else, you will need 10 additional progress to win the game, and that's not possible on your own. This is a 50/50 chance that you cannot force in any way.

Required opening cards

As for your deck, you will need the following in your opening hand:

• Hands Upon the Bow to kill the Forest Spider with Legolas
• A way to boost your willpower by at least 3. More will be nice to have if you can afford it.
• Weapons or Blade Mastery for Legolas to get to 5

The rest is good to get in your opening hand, but you could luck into it if you had Foe-hammer instead. After Ungoliant's Spawn is in play, you will need:

• The Wizards's Voice / Quick Strike / Feint to cancel the attack by Ungoliant's Spawn.
• Weapons / Unseen Strike / Blade Mastery for Eowyn to get to 11.

Explaining the other cards

• Forth, The Three Hunters! is here to reduce the cost of weapons and Windfola. We also do not have enough resources to spend on allies, though I wish I could have included Galion or Silvan Refugee for cheap willpower to overcome the staging area. The cost reduction on the first restricted attachment gives you some spare resources to use on the events.
• Black Arrow and Unseen Strike can even make it so that Legolas can kill Ungoliant's Spawn without Éowyn's ability. It's a nice way to secure a victory if she dies to its attack.
• Justice Shall Be Done is kind of cheating for this challenge, but if you hit it in your opening hand, you don't have to worry about resources and get some additional card draw as well!
• A Good Harvest is here for flexibility if you need a resource icon. It's perhaps a bit of overkill, since there is enough for Círdan the Shipwright to play with his resource, but it's worth the inclusion. Miruvor can also transfer his resource to Legolas.

Ideal starting hand

• Hands Upon the Bow (Legolas' resource)

• Dagger of Westernesse (free on Eowyn)

• Bow of the Galadhrim (free on Legolas)

• Windfola (free on Cirdan)

• Courage Awakened (Cirdan's resource)

• Quick Strike (Eowyn's resource)

• (Justice Shall Be Done)

It took me 2 attempts to get a legit run, thanks to drawing Justice Shall Be Done. I think there is a lot of ways to approach this challenge within this deck, but I would love to see different approaches to this challenge. Perhaps remove the necessity for Hands Upon the Bow and engage twice in the combat phase? Hope to see many of you attempt this quest with either this or your own deck the coming week. Head to the COTR Discord to take part in the Quest of the Week!