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Some Sort 3651
Sometimes my deck descriptions devolve into 5,000+ word ruminations on deckbuilding theory and my history with the game. Some people don't like that. If you're one of those people, maybe skip this one. (If you'd like an executive summary: two hero deck smash Escape from Dol Guldur.)
Over the first half of the game's life, the broad community consensus was that two-hero decks were a gimmick-- per the rules, you could choose to skip the third hero, but the third hero was so useful that doing so made your deck significantly worse. It was like strict thematic deckbuilding-- do it if it seemed fun, but know that you're making your deck worse in the process.
(Perhaps the most vocal proponent of this position was AtaruSlash, who talks about a lot of his misgivings in his lone published two-hero build. Beorn also took a shot at two-hero deckbuilding back in 2013, writing up his thoughts on the limits and limitations here and ultimately concluding "Secrecy, with the current card pool, is not very viable as a top-tier concept for a solo deck... When you are starting with less than 3 heroes and at least one of them needs to be questing, this can be a deal-breaker in the critical early turns of a scenario. With this in mind, I have looked at making a secrecy deck that will act as a support deck to be paired with at least one other deck.")
This was largely correct! For the best illustration, look at how Bond of Friendship has become the preferred card for building "One Decks" these days-- even with the deckbuilding restrictions and extra starting threat, heroes are so good that getting an extra one is one of the most powerful effects in the game. If heroes are so good, why would anyone voluntarily give one of them up?
But two-hero decks had one (and basically only one) thing going for them: threat low enough to start in Secrecy. And Secrecy decks had one (and basically only one) thing going for them: Timely Aid.
(The second-best secrecy card is arguably Resourceful, but it's not nearly as good because it involves a tempo hit-- it takes two rounds before you have more resources than you would have if you hadn't played Resourceful-- and the first copy only replaces the resource generation that a third hero would have gotten you for free. Because tempo is so important to two-hero decks-- they're starting with a much weaker board state thanks to their low-threat heroes so they need to ramp faster to catch up-- I generally consider the second-best secrecy card to be Celduin Traveler.)
Nowadays Timely Aid is rightly recognized as one of the strongest cards in the game, but early on its reputation was much worse, and not for no reason. The knock on it was that it was great when it worked, but...
Running Timely Aid required both starting in secrecy (20 threat or less) and getting leadership access. The lowest threat you could get on a Leadership hero for the first eight years of the game's life was was 8-- first from Théodred (released April 2011), then Hirluin the Fair and Sam Gamgee (May and September 2013), then a long wait until Denethor (May 2016), and that was it until the last cycle finally brought us the 7-threat Frodo Baggins (August 2019) and then opened the floodgates for good with The Grey Wanderer (February 2020) and Messenger of the King (August 2020).
If you're starting with an 8-threat hero and want to keep your starting threat under 20, you only have 12 threat to spend on your other heroes, which means a pair of 6-threat heroes (most commonly Merry and Pippin-- September 2013-- but also Merry-- July 2015-- and very rarely Pippin-- July 2013), or one of the 7-threat heroes-- Eleanor (April 2011), Frodo Baggins (August 2011), Bifur (January 2012), or Fatty Bolger (September 2013)-- paired with Glorfindel (June 2012).
Remember that Timely Aid was released in March 2012, which means at the time of its release, there wasn't a single three-hero lineup capable of playing it at its secrecy discount. Even a year later, the only three viable lineups would be Theodred, Glorfindel, and your choice of Bifur, Frodo, or Eleanor. It was a good card, but there really wasn't a way to play it until the Black Riders box finally released and brought with it the classic Hobbit trio (and also Fatty).
(Note that the other secrecy cards were a bit easier to play since you could run e.g. Mirlonde, Bifur, and Glorfindel for 18 starting threat. But the other secrecy cards generally weren't compelling enough to justify building a deck that started in secrecy-- at least not until the rest of the Victory Display mechanic was fleshed out and Out of the Wild finally had a home.)
Even once 20-threat lineups with leadership access were possible, Timely Aid still had its issues-- notably, that a secrecy deck that starts at 20 threat is not really a secrecy deck at all. If you start at 20 threat, you only have a single round to play your secrecy cards at their discount, and if you see a single doomed card during setup, you won't even have that.
If you're going to run a 20-threat secrecy deck, you need to see as many cards as possible in your opening planning phase to take advantage of that discount, but the cheap draw options were very limited early on-- mostly just Daeron's Runes. (We got Deep Knowledge in February 2014, but again, at 20 starting threat any doomed cards are a no-go.)
If you didn't find a Timely Aid immediately, you handicapped your deck for no payoff. And even if you did find it, your upside was capped-- you couldn't run more than one leadership hero and still start under 20 threat, so the best case scenario was typically one single play of Timely Aid to help start you out. (With Theodred you could get a second play, though the resulting ally wouldn't be able to quest that round, and Theodred had his own issues-- you're locked into questing with him and his measly 1 WP is a fairly paltry contribution, so he's barely more impactful than not having a hero action at all.)
You could try to dip back into secrecy, but threat reduction at the time was fairly inconsistent. The Galadhrim's Greeting was too expensive (note the bit about the importance of tempo). So was Gandalf, and relying on the threat reduction locked you out of the useful damage and draw options. You could pair him with Sneak Attack, but that's a two-card combo in a deck that's not specifically digging for it and, as a Leadership card, it competes for resources with Timely Aid.
Nori and Galadriel could potentially maintain a secrecy discount once you had one, but at 9 starting threat you'd need some initial reduction to get there in the first place. Since you were probably running Glorfindel, you could naturally play Elrond's Counsel, but Glorfindel had his own issues-- your desire to search for Asfaloth and especially Light of Valinor was at odds with your desire to search for Timely Aid.
(Merry is a terrific option here, though. Low enough threat to start in secrecy, a powerful enough effect to maintain the discount. He's fairly inconsistent in true solo-- most rounds won't reveal an enemy-- but pretty much the ideal secrecy hero in multiplayer.)
(Also worth noting that the earlier card pool had plenty of the best allies in the game-- Faramir, Beorn, Gildor Inglorion, Elfhelm, and Northern Tracker were all released in the first cycle and remain some of the strongest allies available. The criminally-underrated Erestor and widely-feted Arwen Undómiel came in the second cycle. But-- especially since the best allies are usually unique-- the more great options you have, the stronger Timely Aid becomes. Treason of Saruman-- with Legolas, Gimli, and Quickbeam-- and The Mumakil-- with Firyal, Jubayr, and Yazan-- were two of the biggest boosts for the archetype despite containing no secrecy cards of note.)
These limitations with three-hero Secrecy is why two-hero builds were so tempting. Rather than devoting 5-7 threat each to two separate heroes, you could burn 10 threat on one. Someone like Erestor (September 2015) or Beravor (April 2011) gave you very potent card draw to increase your chances of finding one or more Timely Aid, and starting at 17 or 18 threat meant even if you found your Timely Aid on Round 2 or 3, you could still play it at a discount (provided you could ramp your willpower quickly enough to avoid failing the first quest phase). You could even afford a Deep Knowledge or two without blowing your discount.
(Alternately, dropping Merry from the classic Hobbit Trio resulted in a two-hero lineup that started at 14 threat, letting you play all three copies of Deep Knowledge in the opening planning phase without blowing secrecy, and they were both strong questers to help preserve your discount for a couple rounds. Just be wary of enemies with sub-20 engagement costs.)
Those Deep Knowledges are a bigger deal than you might think. The more cheap draw effects you have, the more potent they become. Without any draw (and ignoring all mulligan decisions), players will see 7 cards in their opening hand. Adding three copies of Daeron's Runes will increase this to 7.9, which is one extra chance for your Aid to arrive when it's still Timely.
If three Daeron's Runes increase the number of cards you see on average by 0.9, you might think adding three Deep Knowledges would increase by another 0.9 to 8.8 total. But it doesn't-- it increases the number of cards you see by 1.2, up to 9.1 total. If we could create another 0-cost event that let you see two more cards, it wouldn't increase the number of cards you see by 0.9 or by 1.2-- it would increase it by 1.6, all the way to an average of 10.7 cards. And a fourth such event would boost our average to 12.9, an increase of 2.2 cards per opening hand!
(What the heck is going on here? Draw can combo-- each piece of draw isn't just getting you more cards, it's getting you more chances to get another piece of draw. The more draw there is, the more likely you're going to reach critical mass.)
And if you were truly desperate for draw, two-hero starts also made Taking Initiative a semi-viable option. (Yes, I was really that desperate at the time). Taking Initiative can never quite be a third "0 resources to see two more cards" event because it will always whiff if it flips over one of your other "0 resources for two cards" events from the top of your deck. But if you build your deck specifically around it, it can achieve an 84% success rate... until you get your first ally into play. And the two points of damage can be incredibly useful for dealing with early-game enemies revealed during setup.
(The Taking Initiative route increased consistency at the cost of explosiveness, because it requires dropping the 0-cost A Very Good Tale, which is often the jelly to Timely Aid's peanut butter.)
I'm not saying any two-hero deck was a power deck. I'm saying two-hero decks were the best way to experience Timely Aid, and Timely Aid was good enough to help offset the loss of the hero. No one would call it top-tier, but (despite the popular opinion of the day) you could definitely join a pickup multiplayer game and not be dead weight. (In fact, the ability to run Resourceful instead of Steward of Gondor for resource generation would probably be welcomed.) Not great, but viable.
And then in 2016 the devs responded to the community complaints about secrecy and two-hero deckbuilding by releasing the card that finally made 2-hero decks good. Not viable-- again, they were already viable-- but outright strong, consistent, and able to achieve respectable win-rates against some of the toughest quests in the game.
Many people would think the card that pushed 2-hero decks over the line was Strider, released in September but spoiled much earlier and hotly anticipated. (The earliest deck on RingsDB I can find that mentions it is from April 24th, about five months before the pack's release-- and even that description made reference to earlier discussion that was happening on BGG, Discord, Facebook, the FFG forums, and wherever fine LotR LCG conversations were hosted.)
But it wasn't.
Strider's a strong card, but it's much like Resourceful-- it rewards you for building with two heroes by giving you back the thing you sacrificed to build two heroes (the extra hero action per round). That's welcome, but you know an even easier way to get an extra hero action? Don't give up the third hero.
Worse, Strider (like Resourceful) inflicted a tempo hit (burning up one of your first-round resources), and unlike Resourceful, the fact that it was unique meant it didn't have any upside. If a 2-hero deck gets enough Resourcefuls on the table, it can eventually generate more resources than a comparable 3-hero deck. But a 2-hero deck can't ever get enough Striders to wind up with more hero actions than a comparable 3-hero deck.
After a lot of activity and people talking about how this "fixed" two-hero decks (it didn't) and finally made them playable (they already were), Strider made its way into people's hands and decks and the general response was disappointment. The buzz died down a bit and 2-hero decks went back to being considered a novelty. (Strider would itself see a dramatic new lease on life with the release of The Grey Wanderer.)
No, the card that turbocharged two-hero builds came much earlier that year, in Flight of the Stormcaller (May 2016). And I'm not talking about Vanish from Sight (which is mostly a gimmick, even if you're already building with two heroes).
In fact, in hindsight Vanish wasn't even the second-best card in that pack for two-hero decks-- that title belongs to Glorfindel, one of the best allies in the game. Because remember, the upside, the payoff, the reason to build two-hero decks was Timely Aid, a card that boosts your tempo rather than slowing it, a card with some genuine upside. And the better the allies are, the better Timely Aid becomes.
No, the card that really put them over the top was the 8-threat leadership hero who could play up to three Timely Aids in the opening planning phase. The survival of a two-hero deck hinges on its ability to quickly build up a board state to offset what they gave up. And Denethor is fast. Very, very fast.
Not only did Denethor have a very efficient statline as an early-game defensive solution to protect your nascent board from all those low-engagement enemies (something the usual Hobbit decks sorely lacked), but starting with three resources on a single leadership hero opened so many doors.
We could finally run Steward of Gondor-- with only one Leadership resource per round, the opportunity cost of a first-turn Timely Aid was huge. It meant no Steward until Round 3 at the earliest.
(Alternately, we could wait for a Round 2 Steward, but that meant surviving the first round almost entirely with just two actions. Or we could use Theodred, but a two-hero deck is starved for early actions and stats and all Theodred really contributes there is 1 WP and a place to park a bit of archery damage or a single undefended attack.)
With Denethor, we could also use Sneak Attack + Gandalf, which serves two purposes-- drawing cards while we're searching for our secrecy pieces, or dropping threat to regain our discount in the midgame while still affording our Timely Aids. (We could have used these before, but as mentioned, they were competing with Timely Aid and there weren't a lot of Leadership resources to go around.)
(He wasn't quite as crucial, but Galdor of the Havens-- released three months earlier in February 2016-- was also quite good. His modified mulligan is especially good at finding cards you absolutely had to have on Turn 1, starting at 9 threat instead of 10 like Beravor and Erestor meant one extra round with your secrecy discount, and unlike Beravor-- but like Erestor-- you didn't have to sacrifice a hero action to use him, since two-hero decks are especially starved for actions in the first couple rounds.)
I'm not sure when two-hero decks passed the threshold from "gimmick" to "viable", but I was having a lot of fun (and notching a lot of wins) with them in 2015 and I feel like late 2014 through early 2015 was when the useful cards started to reach a critical mass. (Ringmaker added Deep Knowledge, three more secrecy allies, and Treebeard, then Treason of Saruman added three more high-value Timely Aid targets in Gimli, Legolas, and Quickbeam.)
I do know the precise point where they became strong decks capable of not just carrying their own weight but also pulling a bit extra in case another deck at the table was struggling. May 5th, 2016 (possibly the busiest day in RingsDB's history, the day everyone rushed to all post their new Denethor decks at once.)
I also know the point they went back to being gimmicks again: with the release of Folco Boffin. It turns out "there's nothing a 2-hero deck can do that it couldn't do better if it added another hero" is true, but only if the other hero is Folco Boffin (who gives you all the benefits of two-hero deckbuilding plus a 1-threat discount, an extra starting resource, and first-turn lore access for your crucial draw pieces). Here lie Non-Gimmick Two-Hero Decks: born May 2016, died December 2017.
But for 20 months they were real and they were glorious.
During those 20 glorious months, their reputation dramatically lagged behind their performance. One day, AtaruSlash said something to the effect of "I'm sure they can notch some wins against most quests, but they'll never achieve multiple wins against something like Escape from Dol Guldur."
And, much like Michael Jordan, I took that personally.
Even in 2016, Escape was still considered one of the most punishing challenges available (the nightmare version might well be the hardest quest ever released). It was especially punishing in True Solo (playing with just a single deck) since it robbed you of 33% of your hero economy from the outset. Perhaps the only tougher challenges at the time were Carn Dum and a couple of the Nightmares. (There might have been five tougher quests released since.)
It wasn't necessarily the benchmark of a good deck-- its gimmicks means it counters some decks better than others. Not every strong deck can beat it regularly. But every deck that can beat it somewhat regularly is strong.
It's an especially bad matchup for a two-hero deck, which loses 50% of its heroes rather than just 33%. But working in my favor: Timely Aid was one of the best counters to the quest's restriction of only playing one ally per round. (As a lesser benefit, the captured hero made Taking Initiative more consistent, and for longer).
(Galdor also is uniquely suited to be prisoner in this quest, since his biggest selling point-- the modified mulligan-- happens during setup before he gets captured. Even from prison he can help ensure I find my key pieces when I need them.)
I knew I would need to dictate the setup to some extent: I would have to select which hero was captured (not Denethor!) rather than choosing randomly, and certain setups would result in an automatic scoop. (Dungeon Jailor + a treachery virtually guaranteed I'd be shuffling an objective into the encounter deck, which meant I'd be in for a rough afternoon with only one reveal per round to find it again. Three locations to start almost always resulted in location lock and a slow death.)
But this wasn't unusual-- even the stronger decks typically had automatic scoop conditions against solo Dol Guldur, and I judged my "scoop threshold" wasn't especially high or low relative to the average.
So I took my best two-hero deck at the time, tuned it up a bit, and ran it against Dol Guldur again, and again, and again. Even counting scoops, my win rate was likely 20-30%. It wasn't Vilya- or Boromir-good, but it would still make most three-hero decks of the day jealous.
Nowadays, when I think of Escape, I usually think first of that crusade to take it down fairly consistently with a "gimmick" deck. As we revisit it, I wanted to revisit that mission, but I didn't remember the exact decklist I used, so I just loaded my standard (untuned) 2-hero decklist circa 2016. And I got stomped pretty hard. Repeatedly.
Then I wondered how hard it would be with a full cardpool, so I quickly rebuilt a "spiritual successor" to my old list, but with all the great allies released in the intervening eight years and actually tuned to the specifics of the challenge. (Fewer cards and resource requirements from the prisoner's sphere, for starters!) And, not expecting much, I loaded it up and gave it a run.
To my surprise, it won with ease. Even heading into the final rounds I was so expecting defeat that I wasn't even bothering to keep a session report. After it won I chalked it up as a fluke, reshuffled, and tried again (this time with a report). And when that second attempt was an easy escape, I tried a third time (with another report) and got away yet again.
I don't think this is necessarily representative-- on both of the wins I logged I had Steward of Gondor, Resourceful, Faramir, and Erestor in the opening planning phase to generate four resources per round and largely solve Willpower and draw for the rest of the game, and I didn't see Ungoliant's Spawn until late. The "true" win rate of this deck over millions of plays is probably less than 100%. (Probably).
But all the more reason to pack it in now while I'm ahead. Time permitting, I plan on trying other 2-hero challenges this week to recapture the thrill of that original chase, but for now I just wanted to talk about the (long) history of 2-hero deckbuilding and close with what might be the only 2-hero deck with a 100% win rate against Escape from Dol Guldur over multiple attempts.
Even if it could be improved by adding Folco Boffin.
If you're interested in the two play reports, I'll leave them below.
Draw: Sneak Attack, 2x Gandalf, Steward, Taking Initiative, Anborn. Discard 1x Gandalf and Anborn to Galdor's mulligan. Draw Taking Initiative and Resourceful.
Setup: Three "guards" are Under the Shadow, Necromancer's Pass, Great Forest Web. Galdor gets captured.
Round 1: Draw Eothain. I play Steward, then my Taking Initiatives. Copy #1 flips Henemarth, then draws Angbor + Timely Aid. Copy #2 flips Faramir, then draws Rivendell Scout + AVGT. (Unfortunately, the four free damage goes to waste.)
Timely Aid sees Quickbeam, Knight of the White Tower, and Erestor; I keep Erestor. I discard Eothain to Erestor to draw one, getting Firyal. I play the free Rivendell Scout (my one ally for the round) and Resourceful on Denethor, then decide to press my luck; I use Sneak Attack + Gandalf to drop my threat by 5, then exhaust Gandalf and Erestor to A Very Good Tale, discarding Faramir, Knight of Dale x2, Resourceful, and another AVGT. I keep Faramir + Knight of Dale. (Had this not gotten me any good allies I would sorely regret wasting that 6 willpower I just exhausted.)
I quest with Rivendell Scout + Knight of Dale, reveal Driven by Shadow, trigger Faramir, fail the quest by 2 (threat to 14). Exhaust Denethor to travel to Great Forest Web. Refresh, threat to 15.
Round 2: Draw Gleowine, discard Firyal to Erestor to draw a Knight of the White Tower, play it. Quest with Erestor, Rivendell Scout, Knight of Dale, and Knight of the White Tower. Reveal Necromancer's Reach, deal 1 damage to each. Exhaust Faramir, beat quest by 8, blow up Great Forest Web, place 6 progress on the main quest. Refresh, threat to 16.
Round 3: Draw Quickbeam, discard Quickbeam to Erestor, draw Henamarth. Play Angbor. Quest with Erestor, Knight of Dale, and Angbor. Reveal Necromancer's Pass, trigger Faramir, place 3 progress. Refresh, raise threat to 17.
Round 4: Draw Sneak Attack, play Sneak Attack + Gandalf immediately during the resource phase to draw three (Quickbeam, Knight of Dale, Erestor), play Gandalf straight up during the planning phase to draw three more (Timely Aid, AVGT, Knight of the White Tower).
Quest with Gandalf, Angbor, and Erestor. Reveal Necromancer's Reach, deal one damage to each. Raise threat by 2 to claim Gandalf's Map on Denethor (who can no longer attack or defend), immediately advancing to Stage 2 before resolution. Trigger Faramir, place 5 progress on stage 2B, trigger the response to free Galdor, add the Nazgul to the staging area.
Refresh, raise threat to 20, then during the resource phase play AVGT with (the soon-to-be discarded) Gandalf and Knight of Dale, discard Ghan-Buri-Ghan, Resourceful, Sneak Attack, Warden of Healing, and Knight of the White Tower, keeping the Warden and the Knight.
Round 5: Draw Steward, play Timely Aid (which sees Gimli, Gleowine, and Firyal, keeping Firyal). Discard Steward to Erestor, draw Angbor. Play Henamarth.
Quest with Denethor, Galdor, Erestor, Rivendell Scout, the damaged Knight of the White Tower, Angbor, and Firyal. Firyal sees Hummerhorns and keeps it. Place 8 progress, travel to the copy of Necromancer's Reach that is guarding an objective, discard Angbor and Gleowine at random from my hand. Exhaust Warden to heal Erestor and Angbor, exhaust Henamarth to peek at the encounter deck, see Iron Shackles. Refresh, threat to 21.
Round 6: Draw Gleowine, play Knight of Dale. Quest with Denethor, Erestor, Rivendell Scout, Angbor, and Firyal (who sees the Iron Shackles). Reveal the Shackles, discard Gleowine to Erestor, which clears the Iron Shackles back off my deck. Trigger Faramir, blow up the Necromancer's Pass (freeing the last objective), place 3 progress on the main quest (bringing me to 16). Use Henamarth to peek at the deck, see a Dol Guldur Beastmaster.
Travel to the Necromancer's Path, discard Erestor and Knight of the White Tower as a travel cost. Engage the Nazgul, defend with the undamaged Knight of the White Tower, reveal the shadow (the Beastmaster Henamarth saw), deal 1 damage to the Knight. Trigger Warden of Healing to heal the Rivendell Scout and one of the Knights of the White Tower, counterattack with Galdor, 2x Knights of Dale, and the other Knight of the White Tower, deal 5 damage. Refresh, raise threat to 22.
Round 7: Draw Taking Initiative, discard it to Erestor to draw Gimli. Play Quickbeam, damage him to ready. Quest with Firyal and Denethor, see an Endless Caverns, discard it with Firyal. Reveal a King Spider, exhaust a Knight of Dale, trigger Faramir, clear the Necromancer's Pass and put one more progress on the main quest.
Use Henamarth to peek at the first shadow card (Endless Caverns). Engage King Spider, deal shadows. Defend the Nazgul with the undamaged Knight of the White Tower, reveal Endless Caverns, take one damage. Defend the Spider with the damaged Knight of the White Tower, shadow is Under the Shadow, raise my threat by 2 (to 24). Attack the Nazgul with Quickbeam, Knight of Dale, and Galdor, killing it. Pay one resource to ready a Knight of Dale, attack the Spider with Rivendell Scout, Angbor, and Knight of Dale, killing it. In the last action window, trigger Warden of Healing to heal the two Knights of the White Tower. Refresh, raise threat to 25.
Round 8: Draw Gandalf. Use Henamarth to peek at the encounter deck, see Enchanted Stream. Raise threat by four to attach Shadow Key to Denethor and Dungeon Torch to Galdor. Play Gandalf, blowing up the Hummerhorns. Play Gimli. (It feels good to play two allies in one round.)
Beginning of the quest phase, place the top card of my deck in front of me as an Orc Guard. Quest with everyone except Faramir. Reveal Enchanted Stream. Trigger Faramir. Place 41 points of progress. Escape the shit out of Dol Guldur.
Draw Timely Aid, Resourceful, 2x Rivendell Scouts, Knight of the White Tower, Sneak Attack. Ditch the last four, draw Angbor, Treebeard, Gimli, Timely Aid. Encounter deck gets Under the Shadow, Necromancer's Pass, and Dungeon Guardian-- my threat is 18. Galdor gets hisself caught.
Round 1: Draw and play Taking Initiative, it hits Firyal, doing two damage to the Dungeon Guardian (killing it) and netting me Quickbeam and Steward. Play Steward, first Timely Aid sees Faramir, Rivendell Scout, Knight of Dale, Resourceful, and Angbor, keeps Faramir. Second Timely Aid sees Knight of the White Tower, Erestor, Quickbeam, and 2x AVGT, keeps Erestor. Discard Quickbeam to Erestor, draw another Resourceful, play one of them on Denethor.
Quest with Erestor and Faramir, reveal Endless Caverns (threat to 19) and Endless Stream, fail by 2, threat to 21. Refresh, threat to 22.
Round 2: Draw Taking Initiative. Consider pressing my luck, but opt instead to pitch it to Erestor, replace it with a Timely Aid (and me without my secrecy discount). A bit risky, but play Treebeard (over Gimli) to let him start stacking tokens. Quest with Erestor + Faramir, reveal Great Forest Web, fail by 3, threat to 25. Refresh, threat to 26.
Round 3: Draw Gleowine, play Gimli, quest with Erestor, Treebeard, Gimli, and Denethor, reveal Caught in a Web, trigger Faramir to place four progress, blowing up the Endless Cavern with one progress on the main quest. Travel to Necromancer's Pass, randomly discard Resourceful and Angbor. Refresh, threat to 27.
Round 4: Draw Sneak Attack, play full-cost Timely Aid, see Eothain, Knight of Dale, Henamarth, Steward, and AVGT. I'm verrrrrrry tempted by Henamarth but take the Knight because I still want more stats on the table. Quest with Erestor, Treebeard, Gimli, and the Knight, reveal Dungeon Jailor, trigger Faramir to place 7 progress (blowing up the Pass and putting 5 on the quest). Before I travel I discard Gleowine to Erestor and draw another Knight of Dale. Travel to Enchanted Stream. Refresh, threat to 28.
Round 5: No draw (Enchanted Stream). Play another Knight of Dale. Quest with Erestor, Gimli, Treebeard, 1x Knight of Dale. Reveal Mountains of Mirkwood, trigger Faramir, place 7 progress, clearing the Enchanted Stream and bringing the main quest to 11. Travel to Mountains of Mirkwood, reveal Necromancer's Reach, am glad I've been running chonky boys so far. Refresh, threat to 29.
Round 6: Draw Resourceful, play nothing. Quest with Erestor, Gimli, 2x Knight of Dale. Reveal Tower Gate, then raise my threat to 31 to claim Gandalf's Map, immediately advancing to Stage 2. Trigger Faramir and resolve quest, place 7 progress, blow up Mountains of Mirkwood to look at the Top 5 cards of my deck-- Angbor, Faramir, Ghan-buri-Ghan, Rivendell Scout, AVGT. Take the Good Tale. 5 extra progress on the main quest, trigger the response, Galdor got hisself uncaught.
Travel to the Great Forest Web, exhausting Galdor (he's helping!). Refresh, threat to 32.
Round 7: Draw Henamarth. During the resource phase, Sneak Attack Henamarth (there's a reason for this, I promise) and peek at the encounter deck -- Dol Guldur Beastmaster. Stick a Resourceful on Galdor, play Henamarth normally during planning, then play AVGT, exhausting both Knights of Dale. Discard Firyal, Quickbeam, Rivendell Scout, Gandalf, and AVGT; I save Firyal and Quickbeam, but I don't damage him to ready him since I won't need him this round. Now my hand is empty (thanks to that Sneak Attack + Henemarth in the resource phase!), so I trigger Galdor to draw six-- Angbor, Henamarth, Anborn, Knight of the White Tower, Gandalf, and Faramir.
Discard Faramir to Erestor to draw, get another AVGT. Pay two to ready the Knights of Dale and let them tell another story-- Eothain, Steward, Taking Initiative, Gandalf, and Warden of Healing. Save the Warden and Gandalf, drop my threat by 5 (to 27).
Quest with Firyal, Erestor, Gimli, and Galdor, reveal the Beastmaster, ready Gimli, trigger Faramir, clear the Forest Web, place one progress on the main quest. Engage the Beastmaster, defend with Gandalf, shadows are Driven by Shadow and Great Forest Web. Attack back with Treebeard and Gimli, destroy him. Trigger the Warden to heal both my heroes, trigger Henamarth to peek at the encounter deck (Mountains of Mirkwood). Refresh, threat to 28.
Round 8: Draw another Warden, play Knight of the White Tower. Quest with Firyal, Erestor, and Gimli. Reveal Mountains of Mirkwood, trigger Faramir, tie the quest. Travel to Mountains of Mirkwood, reveal Cavern Guardian, threat to 29, ready Gimli. Henamarth peeks at the encounter deck and sees a Necromancer's Pass. Optionally engage the Nazgul, automatically engage the Guardian.
Defend the Nazgul with Knight of the White Tower, shadow is Necromancer's Pass, deal 1 damage. Defend the Guardian with Treebeard, shadow is King Spider, exhaust Knight of Dale. Pay two from Treebeard to ready Treebeard, pay one from Denethor to ready Knight of Dale, attack the Nazgul with Treebeard, Gimli, 2x Knight of Dale, and Galdor, destroying it. Attack Dungeon Guardian with Quickbeam, destroying it, exhaust Warden of Healing to heal Faramir + Gimli. Refresh, threat to 30.
Round 9: Draw Ghan-buri-ghan, play him. Use Henamarth to peek at the deck-- Dol Guldur Orcs. Quest with Firyal, Erestor, GBG, Gimli, Henamarth, 2x Knight of Dale. Reveal the Orcs, two damage on the uninjured Knight of Dale, ready Gimli, trigger Faramir-- succeed by 13, clear Mountains of Mirkwood (look at the last five cards in my deck and pull a Sneak Attack), 10 progress on the main quest bringing it to 16.
Travel to Tower Gate, putting my top card (Knight of Dale) as an "Orc Guard". Optionally engage Dungeon Jailor, automatically engage Dol Guldur Orc-- staging is now free of encounter cards. Defend the Jailor with Knight of the White Tower, shadow is Endless Caverns, no damage. Defend the Orc with Gimli, shadow is Dungeon Jailor, no damage. Defend the "orc guard" with Galdor, shadow is Necromancer's Reach, no damage. Quickbeam attacks and kills the orc, Denethor spends two to ready the Knights of Dale who attack with Treebeard to kill the Jailor, spend two from Treebeard to ready Quickbeam to kill the "Orc Guard", exhaust Warden of Healing to heal my two Knights of Dale. Refresh, threat to 26, and finally (finally!) spend two resources to ready Denethor. (He's spent the whole quest caught in that damn web.)
Round 10: Draw Gleowine, Henamarth peeks at the encounter and sees Ungoliant's Spawn, this is fine. Raise threat to 30 to put the Dungeon Torch and Shadow Key on Galdor, immediately advancing to Stage 3. Play Warden of Healing, Gleowine, and Angbor. At the beginning of the quest phase, put a Knight of the White Tower face down in front of me as an "Orc Guard". Sneak attack in Gandalf, dropping my threat to 25.
Quest with Galdor, Denethor, Firyal, Erestor, Gimli, both Wardens, Ghan-buri-Ghan, Quickbeam, Treebeard, Knights of Dale (x2) and the White Tower (x1), Gleowine, Angbor, and Gandalf-- sending 31 WP. Reveal Ungoliant's Spawn, that falls to 15 (but I do ready Gimli). Trigger Faramir, that rises back to 31. Clear the Tower Gate, place 27 progress on the quest, and let that silly spider eat our dust because we'reouttahere.
Final boardstates.
- First game: Round 8, 41 progress on Stage 3, 29 threat, 47 resources worth of allies on the table, 1 card in hand, 4 cards in deck.
- Second game: Round 10, 27 progress on Stage 3, 25 threat, 51 resources worth of allies on the table, 2 cards in hand, 1 card in deck.
Edit: an objection has been raised that by selecting my prisoner rather than assigning it randomly, I have violated the setup text of the quest and therefore my wins are invalid: at best, I can claim to have a 50% win rate (the odds that I would have gotten Galdor as my chosen prisoner in each attempt).
In response, I flipped a coin three times (well, I went to a randomizer website and simulated three coin flips) to see which of my wins were valid. And wouldn't you know it, I wound up with Galdor captured each time.
(This is 100% true! There is, of course, no reason for you to necessarily believe me-- but then, there's no reason for you to believe that I only played the quest three times or that I won all three of them, either.)
This was fun! Just played it against EfDG & won (although I took an extra mulligan, i.e. took a mulligan °then° used Galdor's power, so call it the second attempt if you like, or the 3rd, if you want to add a phantom "Denethor Prisoner" game (which I think I ought to)). But still: fun!