Quest 39: Deadmen's Dike

Victory on the Second Attempt!


The Deck


Anytime a strong, high-costed Spirit ally is released I automatically think about throwing that in a Caldara deck some day. Fortunately, Beorn has done that work for me and has been tweaking and adjusting his Agro Caldara deck throughout the years. A big ramp in the deck's performance came with the new Prince Imrahil ally, but even some of the most recent packs have had contributions to make.

Agro Caldara v3

Heroes
Arwen Undomiel (The Dread Realm)
Caldara
Cirdan the Shipwright

Allies
Elfhelm (The Dead Marshes) x1
Emery x3
Escort from Edoras x1
Gamling x1
Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone) x1
Hama (The Treason of Saruman) x1
Imladris Stargazer x3
Jubayr x1
Lindir x1
Northern Tracker x3
Pelargir Shipwright x3
Prince Imrahil (The Flame of the West) x3
Rhovanion Outrider x1
Sulien x1
Westfold Horse-Breaker x1
Zigil Miner x3


Attachments
Light of Valinor x2
Map of Earnil x2
Narya x2
Sword-thain x3


Events
A Test of Will x3
Dwarven Tomb x2
Elven-light x3
Fortune or Fate x3
Hidden Cache x2


RingsDB Link


I am definitely not a skilled pro at piloting this deck, but it only takes a cursory knowledge of the basic strategy to succeed: Get strong allies into your discard pile, retrieve them with Caldara, then find a way to get her back so you can repeat.


The Journey

Even a strong deck played poorly can loose spectacularly. I found that out during my first attempt when I advanced to stage 2 before properly establishing my board state. The result was a massacre.

Opening hand for attempt #2: Fortune or Fate, Prince Imrahil, Gamling, Hama, Elfhelm, Imladrist Stargazer. Definitely worth keeping! Fornost Square in the staging area, Baleful Shade engaged with me, and we are ready to rock and roll.

Round 1

A Map of Ernil is added to my hand, increasing my anticipation of future Caldara shenanigans. I add another location to the staging area (Haunted Keep) nick away at the Baleful Shade with Prince Imrahil (who found his way to the table).


Round 2

I'm intentionally conservative in my questing this round, hoping to build up a sizable army before making my way to stage 2. Caldara heads over to the discard pile and the Rohan trio of Gamling, Elfhelm, and Hama are now in play.

Round 3

Fortune, or possibly Fate, brings Caldara back to the team with the plan of having her help out with some light questing and then fetch more allies to join the crowd. The encounter deck had the same idea, revealing a Cursed Dead and fetching two more from the discard pile. At least I was able to get this out of the way early, instead of right at the end like my first attempt.

Round 4

Hey, it's Caldara again! And there she goes again, fetching more allies. The remaining members of the amy dispatch the Cursed Dead. 

Round 5

My board is pretty well established now and the staging area is in good enough shape to move onto stage 2. Flipping Cursed Dead at this point, with an inadequate ally pool, is what did me in during attempt 1. This time I get a Haunted Keep and sacrifice an Imladris Stargazer to Thaurdir. 

Round 6

 Thaurdir makes an attack on Hama after a Heavy Curse is revealed, but I still make progress on stage 2 and feel well prepared for a final push.

Round 7

Needed to do one round of power questing, then one round keeping everyone ready to dispatch Thaurdir.  The finish line is in sight! And the reveal during the quest phase is...Cursed Dead! Shoot. How many are in the discard pile already? Four. That gives me five of them + Thaurdir to take on this round. I end up making it through the combat phase only in better shape than I thought I would be. 

Round 8

Now came the time to 1) quest small and take a significant threat increase, 2) get decimated by Cursed Dead, 3) wreak Thaurdir's undead face. I am glad to say that everything went as planned (except for the threat increase, which ended up being minor). Nothing was guaranteed here and a bad reveal off the encounter deck or as a shadow would be the end of me. As it was, Arwen remained the only hero who lived to tale the tale of Deadman's Dike.

Final Scoring
7 Completed Rounds x10: 70
Ending Threat: 39
Total Damage on Heroes: 0
Threat of Defeated Heroes: -20 (Cirdan the Shipwright, Caldara)
Victory Display: 0
Total Score: 119



The Recap

Did I mention I only had a few cards in my deck by the end of the quest? Well, I did. The discard mechanic functions as a soft Time X mechanic. Soft in the sense that you can make the choice to add cards into your deck (Will of the West being the prime example) to mitigate this source of attack. Also worth pointing out here that when I came back to the game after a long break I was under the impression you would loose the game if your player deck was emptied. Found out quickly I was wrong, but now it turns out I was  narrowly right.

This was a challenging quest, as is to be expected from the final quest in a deluxe box. My second attempt felt a bit demoralizing, with the initial batch of Cursed Dead, and I was about to chalk this up as one of the ridiculously hard quests that are out there. It ended up being a fun play through. Although, to be fair, that could have been mainly due to the deck.