EoWIN 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

My submission for the best "One Deck" in the game - I contend that it has a Power Deck Score (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/12498/daleforcewins-1.0) of 1. Even better, I am pretty confident that EoWIN has a 50%+ winrate against every quest in the game (except possibly Dol Guldur).

This deck was inspired by some of the ideas in the Bester Deck (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/22463/thebesterdeck-1.0), but instead of playing a hard lockdown game it plays a more tempo based strategy leveraging a higher event count. Éowyn is IMO the best hero in the game in terms of standalone power, and she really shines in a tempo deck like this. Powered by Éowyn and Glorfindel, this quest blasts through the questing phase and being able +9 Eowyn to deal with any problematic enemy (or battle quest) along the way is simply incredible.

The cost curve of the deck is significantly lower than Bester's, further leaning into the "get on the board fast and win" strategy. The expensive cards in the deck are all colourless, making it very easily to consistently spend all your resources.

Quest Testing: I've beaten everything in Seaston's reduced quest gauntlet (https://expectingmischief.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/seastans-reduced-quest-gauntlet/), as well as running through the full Against the Shadow and Shadow in the East cycles. After playing all of these, I picked out the 6 most challenging quests for some proper testing. Most of the other quests from the Gauntlet weren't too problematic (NM Mirkwood for example is a joke, beat it twice in 5 turns) but I could easily be wrong and they warrant further attempts!

6 challenging quests, played 5 games against each. 5 games is still a small sample, have put in brackets how kind I felt the encounter deck was:

-> NM Shadow and Flame - 5/5 wins (lucky)

-> NM Mount Gram - 5/5 wins (lucky)

-> Mount Doom - 4/5 wins (about right), plus a recorded game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YV01B9eoO4

-> NM Five Armies - 3/5 wins (unlucky)

-> Fortress of Nurn - 4/5 wins (lucky)

-> NM Dol Guldur - 2/5 wins (unlucky)

Testing results with rough notes about the games: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17lZSzIu0hVURar4mMKh_c_VUBBqyG_AA/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107420229063104895919&rtpof=true&sd=true

I will work on playing additional games against some of the other quests that felt like things could go wrong (Ash Mountains, Blood of Gondor, Nin-In-Eilph) but will be very surprised if EoWIN can't manage at least 50% winrate in all of them. Plus, testing takes forever (the 4 wins in Fortress of Nurn especially took about 3 hours each) and wanted to get this deck out there.

Other Quests and Videos:

-> Hunt for the Dreadnought (#1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7xRxYWxAS8, #2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agw_i-B9BJAs, #3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5hCDqplUI4)

-> Long Arm of Mordor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8aIY6DWqFI)

Thoughts on the Quests:

-> Shadow and Flame is all about getting about either Treebeard, Denethor+Round Shield or Denethor + 2 of (Arwen Undómiel, Warden of Healing, Honour Guard, though double Warden won't work) out as fast as possible, since any of them will give you blocker against the Balrog that can survive the uncancellable "discard attachments, take 1" shadow card. Use any dirty trick to stall for time - Feint, Elrond's Counsel, Gandalf and make sure to quest successfully t1 (without exhausting Glorfindel!). Use shadow cancellation effects on the shadow card that summons 3 more shadow cards from the deck, since Balrog getting +3 is generally bad, and discarding all attachments isn't great either. The other 3 cards won't do anything relevant if you aren't chumping. As soon as things are somewhat stable, you've basically won, but don't stick around too long - quickly quest through to 3A and kill him with Eowyn +9. A Test of Will the Balrog's Shadow cards (Counterspell, the Sword and the Whip) - the Sword is the worst.

Mount Doom - Much easier than the Bester Deck. Hold off on too many allies until around stage 3, then drop them all and The Free Peoples your way to victory. Use tutors to find Faramir, he makes it much easier. Use Eowyn+Glorfindel to murder a Nazgul if one shows up.

NM Mount Gram - Use Eowyn, she won't get much help from your starting deck (except Strider) but she generally doesn't need it, 4 willpower is a lot. You can (relatively) safely take 1 unblocked attack from the piddly 2 attack enemies (there's very few shadow effects) and use her untap to murder them. Things can ofc go wrong, but with 2 heroes/Treebeard to find it isn't too rough.

NM Dol Guldur - Bond of Friendship decks naturally do pretty well in this quest, though it is still the worst matchup. I haven't devoted dedicated time to improving this, so someone looking to improve the deck could start here.

Fortress of Nurn - Ideally, Armies of Mordor will be the first Power of Mordor card, followed by Khamul. This quest gets much, much easier if you can find Nori since setting up dirty Sneak Attack loops is very easy when you have no deck. There's no hurry in this quest, the encounter deck isn't very dangerous once you get set up and there are no doomed cards (except Power of Mordor, which you can plan around) The basic plan is to assemble as much threat reduction as possible - if you don't find Nori this will be limited, but there's a lot in the deck to find (Valar, 2x Sneak Attack, 2x Gandalf, 1 White Council, 1 Elrond's Council) so it is possible (but difficult) to win without him. You also need enough damage to kill Thane (ideally in one turn) and enough questing power (Faramir/The Free Peoples) to clear stage 2B and still have combat potential. The worst bit about the quest is how looooooooooong it takes to play - one winning attempt took 39 turns, and the others I stopped counting after I was looping Nori with Unwelcome Travellers to keep enemies flowing, waiting around to Sneak Attack Gandalf enough times to get the threat low enough for the Power of Mordor cards not to matter.

NM Five Armies - Like Carm Dum, it is worth burning Eowyn to complete battle questing, the scenario essentially comes down to whether you can get progress on the siege quest. You'll need to use Denethor or have access to Gandalf/Arwen Undómiel/Treebeard, well worth burning events to push progress through. Once you have progress on all three stages, quest becomes pretty easy.

Interesting Cards:

Nori - steaming pile of overcosted rubbish most of the time , but he makes Fortness of Nurn a lot easier (as well as being useful in the Ash Mountains and Lonely Mountain). Nurn is one of the rougher quests, and makes a large difference if you can find him, so I reluctantly think including him is correct. This deck wins too quickly to exhaust the deck in scenarios that don't explicitly remove it. If there's a better Fortress of Nurn tech card that isn't blank in other quests, I am all ears!

Strider - not a huge fan of, but it's so good in Mount Gram. And it helps strengthen the early game, which is a good thing since once the deck is "online" it steamrolls basically everything, like all One Decks. So minimising the chance of things going wrong on turns 1/2 is nice, even it is a dead card very quickly.

Elrond's Counsel - Low impact, but it is free threat reduction that is still useful on Mount Doom for fortitude tests and any time you fail to explore a location by 1. There's some nice spirit 2 drops I could replace it with, but that would push the curve up by more than I would like.

Greenwood Archer - Journey to Rhosgobel is pretty easy, but it is nice to have a ranged character in the deck for the birds. Standard play is to ready Beravor for a Marksman of Lorien impersonation, but can also ready a Thorongiled up Denethor. This could be a weapon attachment if I really needed to lower the curve further, but its a lot of extra power for 1 extra resource.

Daeron's Runes - This card is utterly broken. There's almost always something you don't need, and it allows the deck to go slightly heavier on duplicates. Bester deck, figure out a way to play this or move aside for EoWIN ;)

The Free Peoples - The heroes give 8 traits, so this is very easy to get online. Not necessary for most quests, but for "go big" quests like Mount Doom it makes sure the deck can get over the finish line. Disgusting with Faramir.

The White Council - Filler, but it always does something. Excellent in Fortress of Nurn (reshuffle), most of the time acts as an emergency ready on Denethor to block. Sometimes I use it to play a 2 drop on turn 1 by moving resources around and it can always cycle.

Not in the deck:

Helm of Secrecy - I tried it for a while, and far too often it rotted in my hand. This deck already plays the best heroes ;)

1 cost attachments that attack (Rivendell Blade, Warrior Sword, Valiant Sword) - These are nice to haves, but not essential since Eowyn's ability to murder 1/2 enemies on sight gives time get allies like Greenwood Archer and Quickbeam into play, which are better cards than the attachments imo. I would theoretically like to cut Nori for Rivendell Blade, but Fortress of Nurn exists shrug

Shining Shield - I tried it, but there's a limit on how many restricted cards Denethor can hold and in most quests, I think Destrier is better.

Ioreth - Who has the resources to pay 1 every turn? Gross. Warden can at least block in a pinch and being able to quest is very relevant.

Conclusion: I certainly haven't mathematically proven this deck is the best, but I am very excited by the initial numbers it is putting up. I play physically, but have been looking into learning Dragoncards to put some videos out, if there is interest in seeing me play some of the quests - especially anything people think could be a sub-50% winrate quest.

I claim the spot of best deck, and invite challengers! Though I will note that whilst I believe EoWIN is the best deck at having the highest winrate possible against the toughest quests, I agree with Seaston and Mormegil that MotK is better against the easier quests as Vilya is a more broken engine than anything EoWIN is doing - but EoWIN is a lot more resilient to quests that break that engine apart like Mount Gram and Dol Guldur.