I'm Caught in a Trap 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I'm Caught in a Trap or "DAMbushed!"

This is a markedly unthematic attempt at solo trap deck, which might actually be possible with the release of Crossing of Poros. However the fact that there are close to 200 enemy cards in the card pool that cannot be trapped by attachments or are flat out immune to player card effects, this isn't likely to be a top-tier deck any time soon.

However against quests like Treachery of Rhudaur, Escape from Umbar and The Múmakil it's performed very well indeed, even despite 1 or 2 enemies in those quests being untrappable.

Opening Hand:

Your traps are for the most part your draw engine and now with the release of Crossing of Poros provide a means to "quest" for much more than simply the willpower of your characters by modifying the threat of the staging area more significantly than before. As such you're going to want at least one trap in your opening hand, and if you're playing solo the likely best bet is Followed

This card is hopefully (and we have a couple of ways to all most guarantee it will) going to give you at least 2 willpower's worth of questing potential every turn. With Éowyn and Damrod we're not too bad at questing on the opening turn but we want to ensure we can keep ahead of the encounter deck early as it's going to take us a few turns to get setup, both for combat and questing.

Forest Snare is going to be a big help ensuring we're not overrun with enemies and that we can maintain our questing bonus from Followed without having to worry about defending an enemy.

Those two cards are enough to get us into a great spot by the second turn IF we see a good 2+ threat enemy in those first two turns.

If we also get a Dúnedain Hunter in our hand early,we can set up our questing bonus in the planning phase of the second turn, with the added benefit of being able to select the perfect high threat enemy from a choice of 5 encounter cards!

Other good cards for our opening hand are Master of the Forge and/or a Gondorian Shield so we can set Denethor up as our defender and the forgemasters can provide us with a stready stream of Traps.

At the Table:

Our threat starts low enough (23 with Éowyn's setup ability) that we have a turn or two before things get very hectic. It's not a deck of great haste, but one of careful planning and risky gambles.

If we don't have to engage any enemies, or if the enemies we have engaged are unable to attack we can use Denethor's scrying ability to give us a peek at what next turn's encounter card will be, which will help us decide which trap, if any, we need to play as well as being able to bury a particularly nasty encounter card if we're currently unable to deal with it. As long as we use Denethor before the refresh phase he'll be ready to defend for us next turn.

Emyn Arnen Ranger is a new card from Crossing of Poros that's going to give us extra mileage from our traps to help with questing, though he's useful to have in an early hand you don't want to play him until you have at least one enemy trapped as it's possible he could only gain a small bonus from his ability if you happen to trap an enemy with low threat. However if you find him in your opening hand with a Dúnedain Hunter and a Followed you can play him first turn if your hunter finds you a nice enemy to follow and get a decent bonus to questing.

One thing to note about Damrod's card draw ability is that it doesn't have a phase or round limit. That means if you manage to pull of our Followed, Dúnedain Hunter, Forest Snare combo you can draw 2 cards .

Our Dúnedain Hunter are a great target for Ranger Spear giving them a hefty boost to attack for our trapped enemies, potentially providing 5 attack for only 1 resource and 2 cards, which is great value.

As mentioned Denethor is going to try and scry out our next turns encounter cards for us, but his primary role is as defender. Behind Strong Walls is a great card to help keep Denethor ready after combat to use his ability as well as respond to a particular nasty attack boost from a shadow card or a beefier enemy.

Some quests have enemies that jump straight into being engaged with you, bypassing the staging area, so these enemies aren't going to make it in to our traps. If we do find ourselves with an ideal enemy that should be in a trap in the staging area, we can use Guardian of Ithilien or Mablung to throw the enemy back into the staging area during the planning phase, hopefully in to just the right trap that you don't have to deal with them again.#

Earlier versions of this deck had an even lower Tactics cost curve than what's presented here, and every game Éowyn would be stacked up with resources you're unable to use. So we put in a couple of higher cost Tactics cards in Boromir and Honour Guard to spend some of those resources, though if you prefer you could sub in some Song of Wisdom from the sideboard to counter this stockpiling of resources.

Overall the deck works pretty well, and relatively consistently, there are a few cards that could be considered 'missing' from the deck such as A Burning Brand or some more card draw with Deep Knowledge or Daeron's Runes but after messing around with a few iterations of the deck I find I value the consistency more than some of the extra 'staple' cards.

Sideboard:

The sideboard here is primarily going to tweak the numbers of certain cards to your own preference, though arguments can be made for some more direct substitutions such as Song of Wisdom mentioned above for some of the 1x event cards or The Red Arrow