Dol Guldur Solo Progression Single-Core 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0

Thanks for posting this deck and link above. I beat Dol Guldur Solo on easy mode today with it. Will try normal mode next.

As you suggested I immediately counted a defeat during setup if: 1) Denethor was not captured, or 2) Steward of Gondor was not in the starting or mulligan hand.

I succeeded after 31 defeats (on the third attempt actually playing beyond setup).

@Trachten I am glad to hear that the deck worked for you. I am not sure how many attempts it took me to secure a victory, since I gave up counting after a while! I feel like my win ratio did improve once I became familiar with the encounter deck. I have seen decks that claim respectable win ratios (sometimes suspiciously so!), but they tend to have less than 50 cards and/or use 3x core sets. Good luck against normal mode!

Normal mode was a lot more difficult. I succeeded after about 60 defeats (ninth attempt actually playing beyond setup).

In my winning game I almost gave up at the beginning after receiving Caught in a Web (placed on Aragorn) at the very start. Glad I decided to play it out. Had objective cards shuffled back into the encounter deck not once but twice by Dungeon Jailors.

That sounds like an epic victory! I never won a game once the objectives were reshuffled.

@jnicol There's nothing wrong with using less than 50 cards. A minimum 50 card deck is for tournament play. It's perfectly fine to use less than 50 when playing solo. In fact, you should check out the decks made by Beorn's Path. @Beorn Using his deck for the first core scenario, I crushed it with his 40-card deck.

@pd187540 There is certainly nothing wrong with using sub-50 card decks when playing with only a core set, and that's how I would recommend any new player starts out. I play progression single-handed, and Dol Goldur was the only scenario in the first cycle that eluded me. This deck was my attempt to add that notch to my axe.

@jnicol I'm relatively new to the game, and I've been seeing the term "progression" all over the place. What does that mean? You "progress" through all the scenarios in order they were released?

@pd187540Welcome to the game :) A progression style of playing means that you construct decks using only cards that were available a the time a scenario was released. So if you are playing a core set scenario you can only use cards from the core set, but once you move on to The Hunt for Gollum you can use cards from the core set and THfG adventure pack. I don't know if they invented the term, but Mitch Desgrosellier and Matthew Dempsey have an excellent video series called The Progression Series: www.youtube.com

@jnicolthanks for clarifying! This game is super addictive and fun for sure. And speaking of Mitch, he's TheHiveTyrant on here and on YouTube. He actually asked me out on a date before lol. I found that interesting.

This certainly is a very tough scenario. You literally have no chance of beating it on Normal mode. That's a hardcore fact. It's best to play on Easy mode, and I'm finding that Easy mode in this game is more like Normal, while Normal is more like Expert. I don't know what FFG was thinking when they included one of the toughest scenarios in the whole game series right away in the core set. This has turned off a lot of players, which I've seen reviews on Amazon attest to that. I'm sure that FFG was betting on people buying future adventure packs in order to have "better" cards to beat this scenario, which is a cash grab attempt. Overall, as much as I like playing this game and will continue to play it, I give it 2 out of 5 stars just for including such a difficult and frustrating scenario so early on like this.

@Trachtenyes, apparently the setup of the game is vital, especially what starting hand you come out with and what encounter cards are attached to the Objectives. What I do is draw 6 cards from my hand first. If I don't have Steward of Gondor, Gandalf, or another must-have card (i.e. Sneak Attack), I mulligan the whole hand. And if the second draw isn't good, I just keep shuffling and picking 6 cards until I like what I want, so I do unlimited mulligans. Then for the Guarded objectives, I want to see at least 1 Treachery come out. If it doesn't, I put the cards back in, shuffle the encounter deck, and draw 3 again. I keep doing this until I get the combination I desire. It's the ONLY way to successfully beat this scenario I think (and I haven't beaten it yet). Perfectly ok to do this because FFG totally screwed us by putting this cash-grab difficult scenario in the core set.

Just to managed to beat it finally, but imo it's a lot of luck, the odds are against you from the start. But good deck for progression series.

@D@nt3how many tries did it to take you to beat it? 60? 100? I sent Fantasy Flight Games a nasty email, berating and chastising them for putting in such an impossible scenario right away in the original core set. This turned off so many people.

@D@nt3 Congratulations! You are certainly right that a lot of luck is required to win.

@pd187540 At this late stage in the game's evolution I don't expect that FFG will consider modifying the core set. For new players such as yourself I suggest playing the scenario two handed solo (controlling two decks), or multiplayer. I believe that is how Nate French intended the scenario to be played, not having anticipated how popular the game would be with solo players. This imbalance was addressed as the game evolved.

The link at the top of this page is not safe to read more about the deck is not safe. It redirected my to a site that blared an audio alarm and tried to trick me into clicking on a dialog box. Probably to download malware.

The deck description has been moved to www.boardgamegeek.com