Against the Shadow #1: Passage Through Mirkwood

Passage Through Mirkwood offers up a different challenge depending upon where a player's skill set lies. It's hard for experienced players to remember, and maybe their experiences were different from mine, but as a player new to the game, it took me several tries to finally beat this scenario. That of course can be chalked up to deck building skills, choice of heroes used and cards available, and learning all the intricacies in the rules of the game. But even to a skilled player the scenario can get out of hand with some bad card draw. How about back-to-back The Necromancer's Reach and a Hummerhorns shadow effect before you can draw A Test of Will, Hasty Stroke, or any healing, killing off Eowyn early? Or getting location locked? Bad luck can wreck even the best decks.

I first tried this quest in 2017, when I had just started getting into the game. I do remember that at the time - as a new player - I was pretty desperate for a win after losing 4 straight games. Some of those losses were due to deckbuilding and others to rookie mistakes. This was my first big challenge in deck building and I finally figured out something that worked for me. I settled on Eowyn (questing), Theodred (questing/resources) and Aragorn (questing/attacking/defending). This was a pretty standard Hero base for the Core Set and I'd seen several other bloggers suggest this approach. In other words, it wasn't so much my deck building that created success as it was treading a path others had taken. Unfortunately this can be rather boring. I wouldn't call it fun per se...it was more like relief that I found something that worked, but my deck building skills were still lacking.

Now, 7 years and many adventures later, I've taken a different approach with my Cycle Progression to test my deck building skills with unconventional choices. And I have to say, this deck is so much fun to play! Watching your vision come together exactly the way you thought it would - well, not quite, but close - is very satisfying. Before I jump into the deck and my strategy behind it, I recommend visiting the scenario analysis in this article from the fantastic Vision of the Palantir site. There you will find a treasure trove of useful information regarding enemies, treacheries etc. A key point is that you should be very familiar with the encounter deck when you build your deck - that's how you solve the puzzle. Remember that I am using 2 Core Sets, plus access to every expansion in the Shadows of Mirkwood Cycle.

Deck: "To Catch a Spider"

Spheres: Leadership, Lore

Cards from: Core, The Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock, The Dead Marshes, Return to Mirkwood

Heroes (starting Threat: 30)

Aragorn

Gloin

Bilbo

Allies (21)

Daughter of the Nimrodel x2

Faramir x2

Gandalf x3

Gleowine x2

Henemarth Riversong x1

Miner of the Iron Hills x3

Mirkwood Runner x3

Rivendell Minstrel x3

Snowbourn Scout x2

Events (7)

Lore Of Imladris x2

Sneak Attack x3

Strider's Path x2

Attachments (22)

A Burning Brand x3

Celebrían's Stone x2

Dunedain Mark x2

Fast Hitch x3

Forest Snare x3

Protector of Lorien x3

Song of Wisdom x3

Steward of Gondor x3

Deck Strategy

First, let me tell you how refreshing it is not to have to use Eowyn and all the Spirit staples like A Test of Will, Northern Tracker etc. In a Progression Mode you are pretty much forced to use Eowyn for every quest, because she is the best quester in the game. This is what I mean when I say my deck is unconventional - I made a conscious effort not to use Eowyn, and that became the start of my approach. You'll see me include Bilbo in more than a few decks in this first Cycle, because in my opinion, he is the best hero in the Cycle. More on that later.

The Encounter Deck has some decent Enemies: Dol Guldur Beastmaster, Ungoliant's Spawn, Chieftan Ufthak, and Hummerhorns are the worst, although a poorly-timed King Spider, Forest Spider, or shadow card can wreck your day. There are some softball Locations such as Old Forest Road and Forest Gate, but Mountains of Mirkwood is an extra draw of the Encounter Deck, and exhausting to travel to Great Forest Web or discarding cards to travel to Necromancer's Pass is a pain, which is why Northern Tracker is a staple. The Treacheries aren't so bad...The Necromancer's Reach can be a killer, and having Eyes of the Forest discard half your hand can suck, while Caught in a Web can be a real annoyance. Still, these are not the worst you will see in this cycle (Sacked! and Roasted Slowly, anyone?).

So strategy questions begin with the following:

1. How do we quest without Eowyn?
2. How do we take down heavy hitters, including Ungoliant's Spawn which we must do to win the game?
3. How do we handle nasty shadow cards?
4. How do we minimize the bad travel effects?
5. How do we make Treacheries a non-factor?

The strategy in the early game is to quest with Aragorn and Gloin together, thanks to readying effects that the setup is giving us and Aragorn's ability. This is equivalent to Eowyn, minus her ability. Bilbo is our blocker, but until you can get A Burning Brand on him, it's best to take the first couple of attacks undefended. Even with bad shadow cards, this won't kill Aragorn and Gloin (depending on the attacker), and it will generate resources. Plus there's some good healing in this deck between Daughter of the Nimrodel and Lore of Imladris. One of the reasons that The Necromancer's Reach is such a pain in Progression is because Eowyn only has 3 Hit Points and a lot of decks aren't running Lore - I see a lot of Spirit/Leadership, or Spirit/Tactics, so they don't have any healing.

The sooner that Faramir is out, the better, for his ability and being able to absorb attacks. But the real stars of this deck are Mirkwood Runner and Rivendell Minstrel. In fact, you will see me run these two in most of my Lore decks. Mirkwood Runner is outstanding because you can get around the high defense of Chieftan Ufthak and Ungoliant's Spawn to inflict some decent pain with 2 attack strength. Rivendell Minstrel serves 2 purposes: get Song of Wisdom in play, and then quest for 2 each round (3 with Faramir). The Minstrel is going to get wiped by The Necromancer's Reach, though, so be prepared. I don't have to sing the virtues of Henamarth Riversong...everyone knows how good he is in solo, as is Forest Snare for trapping those heavy hitters and Gleowine for more card draw. And Miner of course helps with Caught in a Web.

In the background, Bilbo's ability is giving you serious card advantage each turn, and his ability is superior to Beravor's because he doesn't have to exhaust. And yes, with Unexpected Courage Beravor can do it too, but Bilbo has Fast Hitch that gives him even more of an advantage. Unlike Unexpected Courage which must be drawn from your deck, Bilbo's ability starts on Round 1 and is passive. so he can still defend when needed, and defend multiple attacks with Fast Hitch. Steward of Gondor is probably the only card I would mulligan to try to get, but even if it doesn't turn up right away, it's not the end of the world. If you can get a "taking wounds & healing them" cycle going on Gloin, especially with a Song of Wisdom attached, you may not even notice it is missing.

The last bit of trickery comes from Strider's Path. I love this card for this Scenario! You travel to Old Forest Road and get to ready a character, or to Forest Gate and draw 2 cards. Then, when Mountains of Mirkwood, Great Forest Web, or Necromancer's Pass is drawn, you can move them into the active location slot without triggering their effects, while Old Forest Road or Forest Gate move back to staging, and they keep any progress on them. As an additional bonus, when you clear one of these nasty Locations - by making enough progress during the quest - you can then travel back to Old Forest Road or Forest Gate and trigger their effects again. Awesome!

Scenario Rating

My solo Cycle Progression rating for Passage Through Mirkwood is a 60/100. It is a solid Scenario that is enjoyable, provides some challenges to overcome, and with resources being more limited in solo, requires some good strategizing each round. Ultimately, however, is a bit too easy with the deck I built, as I haven't lost a game to it yet and I don't feel the same tension as I do with the other Core scenarios.

In my next post I'll go through a game log so that you can see the "To Catch a Spider" deck in action...