Achievement unlocked: Ship Fires (Raid on the Grey Havens) 1.0

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• 1.0

Decklist meant to deal repeatedly with Raid on the Grey Havens without burning a single ship. Previous decks from the series are here:

• Voyage across Belegaer without trying to sail
• Fate of Numenor with 7+ double-sided locations in victory pile

The challenge

Third challenge from the Dream-Chaser cycle actually isn't something that forces to play in a different way than usual. The basic principle is to not let any single location burn, which is anyway the best way to deal with this scenario since each burned location not only triggers negative effects, but also effectively surges into another card.

That being said, it's probably the toughest (or, at best, on par with the toughest) quest in the whole cycle and needs a REALLY fast setup. We always start with beefy enemy that absolutely needs to be dealt with within 1-2 turns, a lot of threat causing potential lock and looming danger of 2 boss enemies at some point. Also, one of them heavily punishes keeping events in hand. So, to be brief: we need a LOT of early willpower, some tricks to defeat 3/4/3/5 enemy ideally t1, and deck not event-dependent.

The deck

Actually, I've (unintentionally) already passed the challenge with my minimum purchase deck, but I wanted to have something even more consistent. I've tried several different lineups and combos, but while each of them sometimes worked, they weren't repeatable enough. Rohan with Lothiriel and Eomer had both a lot of early willpower and attack, but got stuck in the midgame; / deck had some cool tricks with e.g. Mariner's Compass and Gandalf bomb + Gondorian Spearman/Spear of the Citadel to deal with Sahir's Ravager, but lacked willpower too much.

In the end, I've kept only my initial idea to have Éowyn, as she:

• has the best early willpower possible
• can singlehandedly take care of Sahir's Ravager t1
• gives access to Feint (also needed for Ravager, but also great against Sahir... assuming we can draw it after Na'asiyah engagement, of course)

For second hero I've went for Arwen Undómiel, because resource boost is very much needed to get a quick setup + she has great willpower as well + she can discard unwanted event before Na'asiyah appears. But also - not only she, but the whole Noldor archetype is one of the best to quickly set up the board, assuming we have cards to discard. Because of that, Erestor joined the team - as much as I don't think is the most crucial sphere in this quest, he is really great for rush strategy.

The whole deck is built around Noldor synergies and doesn't care much about threat, as this is very rarely a real danger in this scenario. Guardians of Rivendell and Glorfindel are crucial allies, as they can survive and deal with corsairs for many rounds, especially when equipped with Raiment of War. Actually, this is probably my first non-Dale deck, which puts combat attachments (also Rivendell Blade sometimes) on allies. Smaller chuds are mainly used for questing and chump-blocking, but Glorfindel, Guardians and Veteran Sword-elf are my main combat force. The latter is maybe not a great card overall, but in this deck and this scenario I'm anyway seeing my full deck long before the game is finished, so I count her as a very solid 1/3/3/3 character which can be discounted with To the Sea, to the Sea! and boosted with Lords of the Eldar. Steed of Imladris, Asfaloth and The Evening Star are my options to additionally boost the location control, however anyway I always aim to clear active location with pure willpower each turn.

Cards that didn't make the cut

It's quite hard to tell which cards should be added for such a deck - I'm not an expert with Erestor decks - but one comes to my mind as a potentially obvious addition. This card is Forest Snare, as both Sahir and Na'asiyah are vulnerable targets. Problem is, that if I manage to survive until after both of them attack for the first time and can be snared, I already has established board and Snare would be just "win more" card. And with Erestor, I can't guarantee having it at the right moment; on stage 1, on the other hand, snaring opponents is out of question since they still can burn the locations. I was also considering some other tricks like Grimbold (who can effectively Feint Na'asiyah as he is not an event), but all of them were too expensive. Also, I don't use Will of the West, because I actually want to have cards in my discard.

Gameplay

First 2-3 turns are crucial to set up the game. Erestor deck always gives a lot of meaningful choices, so I'll emphasize only several (in my opinion) clutch things that you should do:

• ALWAYS KILL Sahir's Ravager t1 with Éowyn. If you draw second one early... well, you will have a tough time, but you anyway won't engage both t1 and from t2 onwards you will already have some board. To survive his hit, play either Feint or keep ready Guardian of Rivendell.
• if you don't have any chump blocker/Guardian of Rivendell/Feint t1, you are screwed. But, tbh, it shouldn't be happening often, since you already see 1/5 of the deck anyway. Playing Guardian t1 is not always necessary even if you see him in opening hand, but if you see more copies, do not let them to go into your discard pile.
• play Light of Valinor and at least 1 Rivendell Blade on Erestor. You need a lot of firepower and while he isn't an ideal target, Arwen is worse.
• there is no "golden rule" to which cards should be discarded first and for which effects, but in most cases Arwen Undómiel needs the most resources. Try to not pay for Guardians with resources and use them cautiously; they will be needed on stage 2 to play Lords of the Eldar (or, in rare and strange case, replay dead Glorfindel).
• almost never defend with your heroes. Eowyn and Arwen should always quest, Erestor as well during t1 and later on as soon as he gets Light of Valinor. If you have to, chump block without hesitation.
• you can sometimes let some undefended attacks by smaller enemies. There are only 2 shadow cards increasing the attack in encounter deck and both depend on damage on active location - in general, shadow effects in this scenario aren't that much of a problem most of the time.
• you will almost surely dig through your whole deck eventually. Don't worry about that - if you haven't discarded too many characters, you'll be fine. Ideally you should have at least 2 Guardians and 1 Veteran Sword-elf in the game; no other cards are crucial, however discarding all weapons doesn't seem to be wise as well (but you have to spend resources anyway, so you probably will play them).

Conclusion

I've played with this version of deck 5 games and won all 5, so I think it's good enough. This scenario is brutal and sometimes it can still screw you up at the very beginning, but it's a part of the game. There are a lot of microdecisions though to be made, so don't worry if you lose - I think that Erestor decks are always difficult to navigate, but also very rewarding.