The Steward’s Fear (solo progression) 1.0

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• 1.0

A deck that is purpose built to beat The Steward’s Fear solo, using only cards released until the Against the Shadow cycle, no saga cards and one Core set.

This deck has met my goal of winning the scenario three times in a row. Man, that was hard! I’ve played through the three scenarios from Heirs of Numenor before this, and while they are hard, they were nowhere near as hard as this one solo. The difficulty lies in the swinginess of the plots and some other cards, making it a hard scenario to beat consistently. Sometimes Unholy Alliance makes it impossible no matter your deck. Sometimes Lost in the City shadow wipes out your hand. Sometimes you suffer surge location lock. Sometimes enemies appear faster than you can deal with them. Sometimes you don’t find any clues. You need answers to a wide variety of threats, making deck space very tight. Even with this custom deck, you are going to lose a lot. I played a variety of decks in different spheres before settling on this one.

Stage 1 and 2 play out mostly the same way. You want to quest for x+5, where x is the progress you need to clear the active location. You want to beat it by 5 because of the many surge encounter cards, making 5 threat added not uncommon. At the same time, you want to keep defenders ready to deal with two new enemies appearing, because of cards like Sewers and Unwelcome Discovery, and because you often get an enemy both from the encounter deck and from an underworld card. You will generally face one or more enemies every turn because of the underworld mechanism. Knowing the encounter deck well is a big help, as that lets you optimize and sometimes cheat on these general rules of thumb.

Stage 3 is easier, as the underworld deck is gone. Just quest as hard as you can.

The general flow of play means you need good WP for questing, extra actions for a stable primary defender and combat boosts to kill off enemies. The spirit allies will mostly quest together with Eowyn and Glorfindel. Beregond is your defender, and gets extra actions from UC, Miruvor and Behind Strong Walls. Those extra actions are often essential, if not for defending then for picking up clues. Spear of the Citadel for Beregond, Rivendell Blade for Glorfindel and Swift Strike are your combat boosts. One or the other is enough to take down the most common enemies with one swing from Glorfindel. It’s not uncommon for an enemy to end the turn engaged with you and with 1HP left after being speared by Beregond while Glorfindel killed another enemy. That 1HP enemy will die to the spear next turn without resolving its shadow effect.

To make matters worse, Zealous Traitor will appear regularly to deal damage to all your allies. That’s why there are no 1HP allies in the deck. The Traitor makes you want to play sturdier, more expensive allies. But wait! That would make A Knife in the Back hit harder. The scenario punishes both ends of the ally spectrum and you have to assume that your allies will be short lived. Gandalf is out of the deck because of A Knife in the Back, and also because the scenario has a good deal of resource stealing cards, often making cost 5 to steep. He gives up his deck space to the more often playable 2WP from Rider of the Mark.

Many of my earlier attempts to build a deck for this scenario tried to prevent the Brigand enemies from engaging, using cards like Hands Upon the Bow, Hail of Stones or Ranger Spikes. Ultimately I took out these cards, I found them not efficient or reliable enough.

Of the plot cards, Unholy Alliance is the worst. You can power through it if you get lucky, but probably not. There are no good silver bullets available for it either, so just keep your fingers crossed. Poisoned Counsels is pretty easy thanks to Elfhelm and Elrond’s Counsel. The three Elhelms are in the deck to combat this plot and the otherwise disastrous Local Trouble. You can fish Elfhelm out with Mustering the Rohorrim if you don’t draw him. Up in Flames is the easiest, I’ve never been decked out before winning or losing to something else first. Always save any clues for stage 2, obviously.

I’ve seen a lot of advice for this scenario to include Will of the West to combat Up in Flames. I tried it and am confident it should not be in. It will be relevant in one out of three games. Of those, you will draw it in roughly two out of three games (if you have two copies). Of those, one game can be assumed to be over before the deck runs out anyway. That means it is a dead card in eight out of nine games, at best.

Some encounter cards besides the ones already mentioned deserve attention. Lost in the City shadow is the worst if you get it early, often meaning game over. Hasty Stroke must be ready for it at all times if you have it. Umbar Assassin is evil and must be killed as quickly as possible. Two Citadel Plate are in the deck because his engagement effect and archery otherwise often leaves you unable to take even a single weak attack undefended, and you might have to in spite of all the extra actions.

The Villains are often not so bad, as they show up late when you have built up. Feint is in anyway, mostly to avoid their attack effects.

Minas Tirith Lampwright is in because all the surge cards create a real risk of forming a lock. He is a priority play, as a surge lock often means game over. Almost always target locations with him. Sewer, City Street and Houses of the Dead can be devastating as part of a surge. The Riddermark’s Finest can possibly help you get out of a lock, and can also be used to explore a location just traveled to, shaving a turn (and thus one encounter card) off the scenario.

A Test of Will is best used on A Knife in the Back (definitely if Elhelm is in play) or Unwelcome Discovery, but sometimes using it on Sewers or False Lead is the right play.

Have you made another progression deck that can reliably beat this scenario? If so, I’m impressed! Please tell us about it in the comments!