Organized Torture in the Woods 1.0

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• 1.0

An enemy-cooking deck

I call "enemy-cooking" a deck that has many ways of dealing direct damage slowly but surely : Argalad, Ranger Bow, Poisoned Stakes. The basic idea is to find some use for the trapped enemies that aimlessly hang around because of Ranger Spikes or Forest Snare for purposes of Interrogation and "damage reserve" that can be redistributed via Infighting.

How to play

For your starting hand, the most important card is arguably Master of the Forge.

Play out your traps to get your Damrod draw engine going. This deck rewards trap combos such as Poisoned Stakes + Ranger Spikes and Poisoned Stakes + Forest Snare on big enemies. At the end of the staging step, let your rangers either take care of questing (Guarded Ceaselessly), or "consolidate" damage (Ranger Bow). I usually put Wingfoot and one Ranger Bow on Damrod (I wish Argalad could equip Wingfoot, that would be dope). When Damrod quests, I name "Enemy" for Wingfoot, then use Ranger Bow on any enemy that pops up.

Every now and then, an enemy will leak through your traps. You then have 2 choices : (1) rely on some form of safety net, or (2) pray, because this deck is very weak in combat. I included several safety nets in the form of Defender of the West (/card/144005), White Tower Watchman and Ranger of Cardolan. Mablung gets Defender of the West, as killing him off is good value if you can put his effect to use with another copy of himself, e.g., by engaging an enemy and playing a Forest Snare on him. I wish there were other ways of doing that in the sphere.

Can the deck quest ?

Althrough the deck has a baseline questing power of only 6 (Damrod + Mirlonde + Mablung), it can quest. But it does it more by negating the staging area than by trying to outpace it, through a combination of Argalad, Ranger Spikes, Guarded Ceaselessly and Secret Paths. This is usually just enough to make it suitable for solo play.

Multiplayer

I would probably use Ithilien Archer in a multiplayer game. He seems very useful in getting enemies off of other players.

Testing results

I playtested the deck solo :

• Journey along the Anduin : 3 wins out of 5. The 2 times I lost was to the "Pursued by shadow" treachery that increases threat by the number of non-questing characters. Too bad, this deck has a lot of non-questing allies.
• Hunt for Gollum Nightmare : 2 wins out of 5. The additional encounter card reveals can make this one tough, and Interrogation isn't as useful because of the particular mechanics of this quest.
• Into the Pit Nightmare : 2 wins out of 3. In my loss, my threat kept escalating because of a bad string of doomed treacheries, and I was slowed down by the unique locations of the first quest stage. Drawing Asfaloth would have helped.
• Seventh Level Nightmare : 2 wins out of 2. My first win, I would describe as total control. 2 Cave Trolls got caught on Ranger Spikes, and with their high threat, it meant that Interrogation allowed me to plan out my turns, even taking into account the additional encounter reveal during the second quest stage. They're also great damage tanks for Infighting. In my second win, I had to pull off a kill-off-Mablung-then-play-him-again-to-engage-enemy in order to play Forest Snare on a second Cave Troll (otherwise, I would have been in a world of hurt). After that, I was able to sail to the win. With 3 Ranger Bow and Argalad ready, I could keep the staging area clear of weenies. How convenient being able to kill 2 Goblin Spearmen on reaction. To finish on a sweet note, I played Guardian of Ithilien to push the Overseer Maurul into Poisoned Stakes.

I wouldn't try to put this deck against quests with big enemies immune to traps.

What I took away from the playtesting : this deck is very weak at combat (defense and offense). It can also be painfully slow at eliminating engaged enemies. However, in most quests, it can compensate these weaknesses by neutralizing enemies and playing tricks on them. Same with questing.