QotW: Passage through Mirkwood - One Shot 1.0

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• 1.0

Inspired by the deck built by @Durin's Father to beat Passage through Mirkwood in one round, I came up with an alternate and possibly more reliable approach.

The key difference is, oddly, dropping Círdan the Shipwright for Bilbo Baggins and switching from Forth, The Three Hunters! to The Riddle-game.

Why, you might ask?

Simply because, for the price of 1 compared to Cirdan, Bilbo Baggins can guarantee Legolas kills the Forest Spider with Hands Upon the Bow. This means I need to worry less about spending resources to play weapons, and so can choose a different contract. Since one of the biggest hurdles is getting the resources to clear the first stage, I chose The Arkenstone -- guaranteeing me 9 with just Bilbo and Eowyn. If I can draw into any of Wilyador, Strider, or Halfling Determination, then I'm at 10 . If I get The White Council I can also quest with Legolas for 2 or at least I hope to grab an extra 1 with Dúnedain Hunter or Envoy of Pelargir. So hopefully that gives as good a chance as possible at clearing the first stage.

Next is killing off that annoying Forest Spider. Bilbo will do 1 damage to it, so all I need, as in the original deck, is Hands Upon the Bow to finish it and Stage 2 off with Legolas. But it occurred to me that we can build in a backup combo of Quick Strike and Tireless Hunters -- unlikely to get both of these, but the whole thing is built on unlikely! You engage the Forest Spider, Quick Strike with Legolas before it can attack and then, in the same action window, play Tireless Hunters to hopefully engage Ungoliant's Spawn.

After that, killing the Spawn with Eowyn is pretty easy. Any of the weapons will do it, sure, but the easy way is with Reckless Attack which you can also fetch with The Seeing-stone (you can also get The Wizards's Voice this way). Et voila -- quest complete!