Core Set & the Shadows of Mirkwood Cycle

Following The Hobbit Saga run, we embarked on a thematic journey through the 9 quests of the Core Set and the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle using Silvan decks, this time. We concluded that run with the playing of Attack on Dol Guldur.

Contents

For our complete run-through, see:

1. The Hobbit Saga
2. Core Set & Shadow of Mirkwood Cycle
3. Khazad-Dûm & Dwarrowdelf Cycle
4. Heirs of Númenor & Against the Shadow Cycle
5. The Voice of Isengard & Ring-Maker Cycle
6. The Lost Realm & Angmar Awakened Cycle
7. The Grey Havens & Dream-chaser Cycle
8. The Sands of Harad & Haradrim Cycle
9. The Wilds of Rhovanion & Ered Mithrin Cycle
10. A Shadow in the East & Vengeance of Mordor Cycle
11. Thematic Campaign ~ From Bag-End to Rivendell
12. Thematic Campaign ~ Fly you Fools!
13. Thematic Campaign ~ A Red Sun Rises
14. Thematic Campaign ~ To Mordor
15. Thematic Campaign ~ The Battle of the Pelennor Fields
16. Thematic Campaign ~ The Hour of Doom Hangs Still
17. Thematic Campaign ~ We Wants It, We Needs It

Galadriel's Bodyguards

You have the supporting role of questing, healing, reducing threat, cancelling treachery and providing card draw. Piloting this deck is really straightforward. Just quest a lot, and hold back Galadriel and Argalad until you need them (after staging if more progress is required, or during the combat phase to support the Silvan Kings).

Look in your starting hand for Nenya, Light of Valinor, some cheap allies and The Tree People. That should be enough to get the engine started. Note that the Mirror of Galadriel is in the side board because I felt the deck did not need it. Way enough card draw. It's still sideboarded because I used it in A Journey to Rhosgobel to find those Lore of Imladris events.

Silvan Kings

Look in your starting hand for O Lórien!, some weapons, cheap allies, defensive attachments for Thranduil. He is the primary defender of the Fellowship, so just load him up with all that you can. The weapons should first go to Haldir of Lórien, because he then becomes insane. Refrain to put them on Legolas for now. You have more than enough allies to help you.

Runthrough

Most quests were a breeze:

• Passage through Mirkwood: 1/1, nothing to notice
• Journey down the Anduin: 1/1, Haldir of Lórien just killed the Troll in the staging area...
• Escape from Dol Guldur: 1/1, although we were lucky that the random captured hero was Legolas. Was not the more impactful, was we could still hard quest with Galadriel.
• The Hunt for Gollum: 1/4 needed 4 tries! Despite sideboarding on the second attempt the Northern Trackers alongside some payment facility in the form of Elf-stone.
• Conflict at the Carrock: 1/1 is now a quite easy quest with all those side-boarded sidequests we had, just stalling on quest stage 1B
• A Journey to Rhosgobel: 1/1 but barely, we found one Athelas and one Lore of Imladris at the last moment, and finally healed the eagle Wilyador. Although with Silvan Kings running so many Ranged characters it helped a lot
• The Hills of Emyn Muil: 1/1, nothing to say about it. Then again, the Northern Tracker made a guest appearance...
• The Dead Marshes: 1/1, we tried to go for the "non-gamey" tactics of keeping Gollum in the staging area as long as possible, but he finally escaped. Luckily, he went back as a standard reinforcement stage card, and not as a shadow card, so the quest did not drag to long after that.
• Return to Mirkwood: 1/1, just side-board those The Galadhrim's Greeting and let the Silvan King deck handle Gollum. With Galadriel and her Galadriel's Handmaiden, there should be enough threat reduction. I had also packed Elrond's Counsel, just in case.
• Attack on Dol Guldur: 1/4 !!!! That was hard but we did super well on the first attempt (which was actually a blind attempt, so we made some mistakes both running our decks and running the encounter deck). Attempt #2 and #3 were just scooping after no Nenya in hand, so they're merely here for statistics. Attempt #4 was it! We needed a final suicide mission (4 heroes dead over 6) to take all defense and undefended attacks (after having quest with EVERYONE), save for a few attackers that were bound to kill the Bane of Amon-Lhanc and... we won this one out!