Can we all please agree that November never happened? 😉

Because.... We're BACK!

The severely delayed Episode 14 of Late of the Rings is now available to download or stream from your favourite pod places.

Join us as our quest to capture Gollum continues into The Dead Marshes.

We hope you enjoy it.
 
https://lateoftherings.buzzsprout.com/1042546/6862177-episode-14-the-beginning-of-the-end-phase

Yup. Mine arrived today. It’s finally the end of the road. Nothing official to further to add to my collection. Bitter sweet. 

Welcome to the LOTR Solo League. This month we'll be playing three quests from The Voice of Isengard and The Ringmaker. The quests are:
1) To Catch an Orc
2) The Dunland Trap
3) Celebrimbor's Secret
Here are the rules:
1) Each player will construct a 50+ card deck, then use that exact deck against all three quests. You may use that deck freely against any quests (include the three quests in the league) prior to the run for testing purposes, but you may not use any trial runs for your official results.
2) At least one of the heroes must be from a box with those quests. This means that you must have at least one of Tactics Eomer, Grima, Celeborn and Galadriel
3) Your score against each quest will be how much help you need to defeat it, based on the Grace of the Valar variant invented by Seastan. It works like this:
For each token you have, you can choose to draw a card or give a hero a resource. This happens one at a time, so if I use my first token to draw a card, I see the card before I decide whether to use my second token for a card or a resource. This can be done *anytime* during setup.
The original variant starts at zero tokens and gains two tokens if you lose quickly (first five turns) and one if you do not -- however, for the purposes of this league I will allow you to start a quest at any number of tokens, and adjust by as many as you want. The only rules for adding/reducing tokens are these:
Rule 1) If you lose a quest with X tokens, you cannot play that quest again with X or less tokens.
Rule 2) If you defeat a quest with Y tokens, you cannot play that quest again with Y or more tokens.
So for example, if I start with six tokens against Into the Pit and defeat it, I can play it again with 0-5 tokens. If I then try with three tokens and lose, I can play it again with 4 or 5 tokens. If I try with four and lose, I can play it again with 5 tokens. If I win, my final score for that quest is 5, and if I lose my final score for the quest is 6. (Alternatively, I could've decided that 6 was a good enough score the first time I played it, and just have my final score be 6 without playing again.)
Remember that tokens do not carry over between quests. When playing Foundations of Stone it does not matter how many tokens I needed to defeat Road to Rivendell.
4) You are not required to publish your deck, but providing a ringsdb link is encouraged (otherwise I may need to ask you for your decklist at the end of the month if required for a tiebreaker). You are required to reveal which Heroes you used, and how many cards in your deck came from outside The Lost Realm/Angmar Awakened, SoH/Haradrim and a single core. Do not include outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck itself.
Note: Contracts (from the most recent cycle) are not part of the deck and should not be counted. A Loot Deck (from the Burglar's turn contract) is also not part of the deck and should not be counted. The One Ring or the Messenger of the King ally/hero should also not be counted *unless* your deck uses those cards to reach 50 -- the Master card fetched by the One Ring should be counted. You may follow contract/One Ring setup instructions at the same as hero setup, ignoring Caleb's ruling.
5) Tiebreakers have frequently mattered in this league. Here are the tiebreakers, in order:
---
1st) The number of outside cards (i.e. not from The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker, HoN/Against the Shadow or a single core) used in the deck. Do not count outside heroes in this count, only cards in the deck. Less cards is better.
2nd) The number of heroes specifically from The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker and HoN/Against the Shadow. More is better.
3rd) The number of heroes used from this list: Tactics Eomer, Grima, Celeborn and Galadriel. More is better.
4th) The number of cards in the deck outside The Voice of Isengard/The Ring-Maker and HoN/Against the Shadow. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.
5th) The number of cards outside The Voice of Isengard, The Dunland Trap and Celebrimbor's Secret. Less is better, and core cards are considered "outside" for this tiebreaker.
6th) Performance in November's Solo League (if you didn't play or finish Novemberr's League, a median performance will be assumed). Whoever did worst wins this tiebreaker.
---
6) 1st place gets to choose the cycle for February's league, 2nd place gets to choose a quest from that cycle, and 3rd place gets to choose a quest *not* to be used from that cycle. In an effort to expand the diversity of decks used, the last place player will choose an additional cycle that may be used for deckbuilding in February's league.
7) Weekly deadlines will at 11:59pm Eastern on the 14th, 21st, and 28th. Only the final deadline really matters for scoring and cannot be extended -- the first two deadlines are only to be included in intermediate standings.
To Catch an Orc: December 14th
The Dunland Trap: December 21st
Celebrimbor's Secret: December 28th
8 ) I've created a google spreadsheet for results here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zCBGP_y9pGYW6YHsfSoQM749xb1CFFdvlO3cNn_NcdM/edit#gid=0
To join the league, merely add your name and information about your deck to the spreadsheet, then enter your results as you have them. Please give a link to your deck if you built or published it on ringsdb, but it is not required.
If you wish you may run additional decks against the quests and record your results, but only the first entry will be considered for the competition itself.

I wanted to share what I really like about this game. Its its community ,with these forums, the help you get from others when you ask something it makes me feel that I don't just play out alone. Keep up.

Thank you. I will reverse history and let Gondor come for aid, Heirs of Numenor / Against the Shadow is my choice.

Thank you. I will reverse history and let Gondor come for aid, Heirs of Numenor / Against the Shadow is my choice.

Thank you. I will reverse history and let Gondor come for aid, Heirs of Numenor / Against the Shadow is my choice.

Well it ended up being the hardest of the three with a prolonged phased 2 from Daechanar staying alive due to treachery sorcery cards and some witches continually adding more, but in the end the strength of the Noldor (AKA the Guardians of Rivendell) held and I was able to finish at 43 threat the first time through. Though my deck had been empty for some time and other than recycling Elven Light for healing and Glorfindel for battling I was just using the forces I had in play, which were sizable. 0 tokens used.
 
It may not have been the trickery of the Dunedain I wanted but I got to witness the power of the Noldor against some pretty strong quests. Definitely a fan of these Elves.
 
Here is my wife’s deck there I ran:
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/165600
Total outside cards 32 (surprising number of them were from these two cycles, I guess Noldor had a strong showing in Angmar Awakened)
 
See you guys next month in Ered Mithrin

There is a key concept in Magic the Gathering that translates extremely well to Lord of the Rings. In Mike Flores' seminal article 'Who's the Beatdown?' he talks about the importance of role assessment. The gist is that you must play differently when you are ahead in a game vs. when you are behind. A huge part of this is risk management:
When you are ahead (in terms of resources, board state, etc.) you really want to cement your favored position. You should therefore try to play conservatively, taking fewer risks, and preparing for cards that could potentially wreck you (i.e, 'playing around' them). In other words, play with the worst case scenario in mind.
If you are behind on the other hand, you need to take more (calculated) risks. This can mean taking attacks undefended, or opening yourself up to devastating treachery effects, as long as this lets you make more efficient use of your cards and potentially sets you up to be in a better position in future turns.
To give an example: Recently, I had a 2-handed game of Into Ithilien where I had already developed my board and got attacked by a 5 Strength enemy. I could have chump blocked with an Envoy of Pelargir, or blocked with my Gildor Inglorion ally. I thought that blocking with the Envoy would be the better option, since Gildor was a more valuable ally and could die if the enemy flipped a Shadow card that increased its Strength. I quickly realized what a horrible mistake I had made when the Shadow card turned out to be Blocking Wargs. It killed my 1-toughness ally before damage was dealt, thus causing the attack to go undefended. Coupled with a 5-Strength attacker, this meant a dead Hero. My board was well developed at this point, and I could have afforded to lose Gildor, but not a Hero. Playing around Blocking Wargs would have 100% been the correct decision here, but I missed it because I was not mentally prepared for the worst case.
That said, blocking with the Envoy could have been the correct decision if my position in the game had looked differently. For example, if I had very few allies and/or really needed Gildor alive in order to set up future Vilya turns. In that case, I should have just played as if Blocking Wargs didn't exist and blocked with the Envoy.
I think that a lot of strategic decisions in this game boil down to identifying what encounter cards you can afford to play around. Over time, you will develop a feeling for when it is correct to take more risks, and when to play conservatively. Learning the encounter decks also definitely helps with that.

It's time to lay down the LORE!

Episode 13 of Late of the Rings is now available to download or stream from all your favourite pod places.

Join us as we take a look at the Lore sphere Player Cards from the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle.
We hope you enjoy!

https://lateoftherings.buzzsprout.com/1042546/6132127-episode-13-the-cheese-of-brie

Sorry for late reports, just trying to squeeze these in before the deadline. I had a grand scheme to build a clever Dunedain deck but was super busy this month and instead ran with my wife’s Noldor deck using Arwen/Erestor/Cirdan hero lineup. I’ll post up the exact deck once I count through it for outside cards. 
Treachery of Rhudaur went pretty smooth with my Noldor engine taking off quickly and managing to clear 2/3 side quests before phase 2. Erestor was awesome wielding the lore attachments to protect against the hordes of the undead. Actually felt very thematic Elves against ghosts. 0 tokens used.
 
I was definitely worried about Carn Dum this month since I hadn’t built for it at all, but thankfully the Noldor deck my wife plays is a pretty well-tuned one so I was more optimistic after my first quest. I have never had such good luck on this quest before, I didn’t draw a single treachery card until the second phase of the quest. I instead plodded through locations and battled Orcs using powered up Guardians of Rivendell and Erestor wielding a burning brand again. What really helped too was getting Reforged + Steward of Gondor + Light of Valinor round one with both quests. Thanks to this strong start I was able to cruise into phase two with only two sorcery cards in play. 
Phase two was a lot harder with Thaurdir hacking up my Elven Jewelers like they were firewood. Once my scrubs were all killed I kept playing Glorfindel each round from my discard and he was able to absorb the champion sides powerful attacks. This bought me time to quest big and then finish off my wraith enemy for a new personal best on Carn Dum for me: winning the first time I attempt it with a new deck. The encounter card draw luck was my biggest boon as treachery cards make this one insanely hard. Into the final quest.
0 tokens used 

Made it just in time. I stand by my original assessment that The Dread Realms is almost just as tough as Battle of Carn Dûm, albeit in a more sly and cunning manner. I found Power of Orthancs eventually, but Vilya was sorely missing for the first three runs. The third run I was killed by two Dimmerlaiks who swept into combat by the Doomed 2 treachery. In the fourth run, I drew into the side quest that churns out enemies every turn with no means to shift it because of the active location. And then there was the small matter of four sorceries to whittle off and then the reanimated dead soon flooded my threat area. Being engaged by 7 reanimated dead, the villain and two Dimmerlaiks was the last thing my heroes saw. In the fifth run, I felt like cheating. I had Imladris Stargazer, Elven-light, Treebeard and Vilya from start, played Vilya to attach Steward of Gondor and then built a forest to go into the ruins of Angmar. There were no treacheries in play when I completed Stage 1, and stage 3 was swiftly dealt with, questing for 26.
So, 5 tokens for The Dread Realms, 10 in total. A few more than I expected, but my respect for The Dread Realms increased exponentially. It has so many ways to get to you. Oh, you have a strong army? I hope you do not have any of those ents in the discard pile... Oh, Treebeard is an expensive ally, I mean zombie...

I added this part too

Deck:  http://ringsdb.com/deck/view/242144
Cards outside AA/Core/Haradrim = a whopping 47!!  When I built this deck originally I did not have AA and I still have not opened Haradrim so I was in trouble lol!
Thanks for running it this month!

So, I started this month’s league resorting to an Elrond deck. I will fill out details later when I get the chance, but Treachery of Rhudaur was completed with 0 valar tokens. There was some tension before the Vilya wall of allies was set into motion. Glorfindel and Elrond had 4 and 3 damage respectively and I had six enemies in my threat arra, but a round of almost no questing set me up to start decimating the undead army. MVP was my last addition to the deck, Gather Information, which I played when stage 2 kicked in to get to Vilya.
Now I am about to enter a world of pain.

I seem to have problems accessing the spread sheet. So, this is my deck:
https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/242178
Elrond, Arwen Undómiel, Spirit Glorfindel.
33 cards outside Single Core/The Lost Realms/Angmar Awakens/Sands of Harad/Haradrim
Treachery of Rhudaur: 0 Tokens
 

I still cannot enter anything into the spread sheet, so I will continue using this thread.
So, the Battle is fought and was won at 5 Valar tokens.
I felt I was making progress at 3, but the 4 token run was botched by me only drawing events with Vilya and werewolves and whatnot. Slogged through the side quest that stopped Elven Light for 4 turns while never drawing Light of Valinor to threat myself to death. The 5 token run was epic. I was at threat 46 when flipping to stage 2 with only one threat added. Refreshed into threat 48. Cleared the quest stage 2 in two quest phases. Thaurdir, the 30-threat orc and a grunt stood in the way of victory. I had Fair and Perilous on Glorfindel with Unexpected Courage, Treebeard readied for 2 resources and a Booming Ent with 1 added strength for the needed 13 strength attack at threat 49. I have saved a Northern Tracker for Thaurdir who draws the shadow card for another attack. I take it undefended. Down goes Arwen. The 3 strength orc attacks Glorfindel who will use Unexpected Courage to attack to inflict two damage. Grunt attacks undefended, gets the shadow effect for another attack. Damage goes to Glorfindel who now is at 4 damage. Elrond at 3 damage from a sorcery attack from Thaurdir during the quest phase. Grunt attacks undefended, kills Elrond. Fair and Perilous Glorfindel, Treebeard and Booming ent kills Thaurdir. 49 threat, 2 heroes dead, Glorfindel at 1/5 left. Whew!
Now, those Power of Orthanc cards which I kept drawing into during Battle of Carn Dum to clog up my hand will of course turn invisible throughout The Dread Realms.

Every time the encounter deck tells me to search for a Hill Troll I will choose not to find it then

I just managed to finish this as well.  Having recently completed the Angmar Awakened cycle for the first time, I also had to go with a Vilya deck as that was the only deck I was able to get a win against Carn Dum with!  I built the deck a while ago before I had a larger card pool so I probably should have optimized it a bit, but time got away from me this month.  I was able to get through the quests with 6 total tokens which I was pretty happy with.  I posted over on BGG, but I am the only one over there so I will post here as well.  Also, I am not able to get access to the spreadsheet aside from "View Only".
The Dread Realm - I started in reverse order since I know this deck beat Carn Dum at least once but lost to Dread Realm in its one attempt in my cycle playthrough. My first game was awful. I drew Heavy Curse in setup which surged into another Heavy Curse so I had two sorceries attached to the quest before I even started!! I just decided to scoop and take a token on that one. Then, on my first token game, I completely forgot to take it. Probably because I lost the first game so quickly lol This run did not go much better anyway as I could not draw into any allies. It was not long until I had a host of enemies engaged with me and nothing I could do. Finally on my two token run I had a breakthrough. I got Treebeard and Beorn out quickly and got very lucky with the encounter draws being locations I could travel to and clear so I had some time to get set up. It still took me a few rounds but thankfully no treacheries came out and when I finally got to Daechanar I was able to take him out quickly with Beorn's action and a few other heroes/allies. Then I drew into Faramir at the perfect time to make one last huge quest push for the win.
The Battle of Carn Dum - Well this went about as good as I could have hoped with me getting out of it with 4 tokens. The first couple of games I could not draw into Vilya or any allies. The encounter deck was throwing loads of enemies out at me too so it did not give me any time either. In my 4 token game I was able to get Quickbeam out to start helping with questing as well as Light of Valinor and a Shadowfax so I was able to quest and ready with both Glorfindel and Gandalf. A combination of Lembas and Miruvor on Elrond allowed me to defend multiple times with him as well once a lot of enemies started coming out. Treebeard and some 2 willpower allies sealed the deal and I was able to quest through Stage 2 quickly and then take care of Thaurdir.
The Treachery of Rhudaur - I did not think this one would give me trouble, but it was actually a bit of a challenge. I did not get Vilya right away and had to tread water for a little bit. I did not get any clue cards which made the next stage last another round longer than I would have liked since it required the full 30 quest points. Thankfully allies became plentiful and I got enough questing. I had some enemies engaged with me I had to defend before I could get to Thaurdir though and one of the shadows was an undefended attack which took out Glorfindel but I still had enough to kill him in the end and get through with 0 tokens for a grand total of 6. Definitely a tough trio of quests!

Strange, this time I am quite sure that anyone who has the link should be able to make changes to the spreadsheet. Just in case I wrote down the info you provided

So, I started this month’s league resorting to an Elrond deck. I will fill out details later when I get the chance, but Treachery of Rhudaur was completed with 0 valar tokens. There was some tension before the Vilya wall of allies was set into motion. Glorfindel and Elrond had 4 and 3 damage respectively and I had six enemies in my threat arra, but a round of almost no questing set me up to start decimating the undead army. MVP was my last addition to the deck, Gather Information, which I played when stage 2 kicked in to get to Vilya.
Now I am about to enter a world of pain.

Thanks for getting this going, I've been away longer than anticipated with a house move and new job.

I hope everything is going well, and thanks to you for getting all this started.

As predictable The Battle of Carn-Dum was a much harder challenge and I needed 5 Valar Tokens to finally overcome it. An early Thalion was key in the winning game, as well as a bit of luck in the second stage with Sorcery cards.
Here is the usual playthrough

By the way I am the only one participating in this month's League?