Dwarrowdelf 2-handed: Secrecy

This is my first attempt at beating the Dwarrodelf cycle with two paired secrecy decks. I've read opinions online that secrecy used to be underpowered in the game's early life, but I have been positively surprised by how well these decks stand up against some of the tougher quests in this cycle. The decks use cards from one Core and all cards from the Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf cycles.

I find these decks super fun to play, since you never get to completely dominate the game. Often, you just barely scrape by, which makes games tense until the last round. The main reason to play these decks are the secrecy cards. A lot of them make up for your lack of a third Hero by being extremely undercosted. Resourceful, Risk some Light, and Timely Aid in particular provide a fantastic deal for their cost.

Strategy: The overall idea here is to control the flow of the game. You are at a resource and action disadvantage early on, so you will often want to avoid combat. The goal isn't necessarily to build up a dominant board position, but to keep questing at full speed while avoiding threats as much as possible. To this effect, the Tactics/Leadership deck has plenty of direct damage effects that allow you to snipe smaller enemies during the quest phase. The Spirit/Lore deck has some cancellation effects and encounter deck manipulation in the form of Risk some Light to avoid the really nasty threats.

Mulligan Decisions: Sword that was Broken and Faramir are necessary to help the Spirit/Lore deck quest hard. As such, you probably want to see them in your starting hand. Steward of Gondor and Resourceful are also important mulligan targets. Since you have Théodred, you are however not completely screwed without them. Light of Valinor is great to have, but I rarely found it to be absolutely necessary. If your threat gets too high from questing with Glorfindel, you can always use Aragorn's ability to reset it.

Performance: I switched over to these decks in the middle of the cycle, so I haven't tried them against all the quests yet. I have, however, beaten the second half, which most would consider to be the harder part.

The Watcher in the Water wasn't much of a problem. The encounter deck manipulation helped with anticipating when it was safe to attack the tentacles. I won by launching a massive attack on the Watcher itself.

I was able to beat The Long Dark on my first blind try. Knowing the top card of the encounter deck really helped with locate tests (although I just barely managed to pass a critical test towards the end of the game).

Similarly, I also won against Foundations of Stone on my first blind play through. In both quests, Sword that was Broken was the MVP. The last stage in Foundations of Stone was a bit of a scramble, since by that time there were two Nameless Elder Things in the staging area that I was too afraid to engage.

I struggled against Shadow and Flame a bit at first, but then realized that I could add a third Hero to each deck without a threat penalty. I used Tactics Gimli and Spirit Éowyn, and proceded to stomp the quest on my next try.

None of these victories were easy, and they all required some tight play. I think that this makes secrecy a great mechanic for players who seek a bit of a challenge. Let me know if you have any ideas for improvements.