Looking Back: The Dreamchaser Cycle

I am Southern Californian, born and raided. More specifically, San Diego county. While I am far from that part of the land now, love of the sea is still in my blood. And growing up in SolCal has the added benefit of Disneyland being a significant part of my childhood (and, heck, adulthood), with it almost hard wired into me to make Pirates of the Caribbean my first stop in the early morning. Something about the cool, crisp morning air makes it feel like you are on the dock waiting to board your ship (and that line gets crazy-long later in the day, so it's pretty practical as well).

The Dreamchaser Cycle had the promise of sea-fairing and swash-buckling, with a middle-earth twist, and I think it lived up to it. There were not many quests that I marked down as favorite, but I truly loved the cycle as a whole piece. A strong theme ran through this one that made the quests feel more connected than the previous cycles. And theme is where this one had me hook, line, and sinker.

Will I one-off quests from this cycle down the line? Maybe. Will I sit down for a series of sessions to tackle the whole thing back-to-back? Definitely.

Quest 53: A Storm on Corbas Haven

Victory on the First Attempt!

The Deck

Yes, this Spirit Pippin Deck Soloed Cobas Haven was too intriguing a name to pass up. The deck was renamed in its later form, but I still knew which quest I would be using this one on.

My previous experience with Spirit Pippin was that he is good for a sphere match, is eclipsed by Spirit Merry, and is otherwise forgettable. But A Storm on Corbas Haven is actually the perfect quest to see this much-maligned hero card shine. Corsair enemies are a pain and having a way to semi-nullify the boarding keyword is a great tool to have in your bag of tricks. Trust Seastan to take a card I thought was pretty much useless and make it a key piece of my strategy!

Spirit Pippin Goes Sailing
by Seastan

Heroes
Bilbo Baggins (The Hunt for Gollum)
Pippin (Encounter at Amon Din)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)

Allies 
Anfalas Herdsman x3
Gelowine x1
Henamarth Riversong x1
Quickbeam x1
Warden of Healing x3
Bofur (The Redhorn Gate) x1
Ethir Swordsman x3
Galadhrim Weaver x3
Galadriel's Handmaiden x3
Gandalf (Core) x3
Saruman x3
Treebeard (The Antlered Crown) x1

Attachments
Good Meal x3

Events
Daeron's Runes x3
A Test of Will x3
The Galadhrim's Greeting x3
Sneak Attack x3

Sets Used
Core
The Hunt for Gollum
The Redhorn Gate
The Long Dark
Foundations of Stone
Heirs of Numenor
The Steward's Fear
Encounter at Amon Din
The Black Riders
The Voice of Isengard
Celebrimbor's Secret
The Antlered Crown
The Treason of Saruman
The Treachery of Rhudar

Check out Seastan's notes on the deck at Rings DB!
RingsDB Link


The Journey

Set-Up
As Seastan recommended,  I chose Narlenya as my ship and Sea-ward Tower as my objective. It became guarded by the Coast of Anfalas.  Creative location that requires you to devote a ship objective to travel to or will punish you if you are not using your ships well and sail poorly.

Round 1
Daeron's Runes allow me to get another ally (Galadriel's Handmaden) in hand. I end up keeping her in hand for now but get Quickbeam and a Snowbourn Scout in play. Sailing for four succeeds! But questing for 9 fails by one point. With my threat slightly increase, I head for Cobas Haven (guarding The Beacon).

Round 2
The ally army grows with Errand-rider and Anfalas Herdsman. Sailing with 5 keeps in in fair weather and questing for 15 gets my heroes past Cobas Haven and onto...another Cobas Haven.

Round 3
More allies, more successful sailing, more successful questing. Now it's time to start getting tactical! I engage  a Scouting Ship and avoid the boarding (thanks, Cobas Haven!). Two damage goes on it right away (thanks, Stage 1B and fair weather!). No shadow effect and my team is able to put four more damage on it.

Round 4
I use The Beacon to get a Dol Amroth Warship on my side, then sail and quest almost past stage 1 (7/10 progress down). The Scouting Ship gets a little damage onto Narlenya before being destroyed.

Round 5
Ethir Swoardsman hits the table, I sail for five, and...fail! I am now one step off course. Questing on to stage 2, I am facing a Heavy Cruiser guarding The Beacon and I still have a Coast of Anflas guarding the Sea-ward Tower. It's time to free that guy up! Travel to the Coast then use two Sneak Attacks on Gandalf (Encounter and Combat phases) to get rid of the Heavy Cruiser.

Round 6
I drop my threat, preparing to let Spirit Pippin's abilities see some action. Questing all out for 8 and...FAIL! I did get one hit and am only at -1, but still not comfortable being in my second round of bad weather. Questing goes well and the Sea-ward Tower is now undefended, so hopefully future sailing tests will be smooth...sailing.

Round 7
I finally put Faramir down (I've had him for a bit). With the Dreamchaser and Sea-ward Tower on my side, I commit six characters/ships to the quest for a total of eight chances. Survey says...three hit! Back on course and ready to stomp face. The Raider's Assault comes out during staging, causing a Corsair Skirmisher to guard The Beacon. I engage the skirmisher. An Umbar Raider attempts to board me and is bounced back to the staging area. The skirmisher is defeated and commandeered by my team. Stage 2 is almost defeated (11/16 progress).

Round 8
I commit five to the sailing test, reaveal seven cards, and get the one hit that I need. My crew breaks through stage 2 and now has to Break Through the Fleet! The Umbar Raider attempts to come down to play and Spirit Pippin says "Nope." I take an undefended attack from the Raider Flagship, putting the damage on the Corsair Skirmsher, and advance to the next round.

Round 9
How should I break through the fleet: Quest or Battle? I have a sizable force amassed, but their strengths are definitely in the willpower area. First, let's make sure we stay in calm waters. I look at six encounter cards for the sailing test and...WIFF! One mark off course. Hopefully that won't bite me in the quest phase. I throw everything have at it and quest for 34. A wild Fog Bank appears (good thing I did not choose the tactical route), the threat in the staging area is raised to 8, and my forces break through to victory!

Final Scoring
8 Completed Rounds x10: 80
Ending Threat: 37
Total Damage on Heroes: 0
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -1 (Belfas Islet)
Total Score: 116


The Recap

I love that you can engage and (try to) defeat the raider flagship as early in the quest as you would like. I mean, good luck with that, but it is possible.

The difficulty definitely seemed to ramp up with this one, especially with the sailing tests. Seastan put in his notes that he always tried to commit at least seven to each quest. I didn't always get there and began regretting that in the second half. This was actually refreshing! Sailing is a fun mechanic which I pretty much had licked, only failing the occasional test in previous quests. Now committing eight and still failing? That adds a nice level of tenseness to each round (and frustration if you did not pack enough allies).The haven definitely felt stormy here.

Quest 54: The City of Corsairs

Victory on the Fifth Attempt!


The Deck 

I decided a few weeks ago that I would take on The City of Corsairs using a brand-spanking new netdeck destined to cause errata...

Solo combo deck +90% win rate, usually on turn one
by Rouxxor

Heroes
Bifur (Khazad-dum)
Bilbo Baggins (The Hunt for Gollum)
Denethor (Flight of the Stormcaller)

Allies
Erebor Hammersmith x3
Erebor Record Keeper x3
Ered Nimrais Prospector x3
Dwarven Sellsword x3
Gloin (On the Doorstep) x1
Gandalf (Core) x1*

Attachments
Legacy of Durin x1
Scroll of Isildur x1
Rod of the Steward x1
Tome of Atanatar x1
Good Meal x3

Events
Daeron's Runes x3
Deep Knowledge x3
Heed the Dream x2
Lorien's Wealth x3
Mithrandir's Advice x2
Ravens of the Mountain x1
Out of the Wild x1*
Gaining Strength x1
Legacy of Numenor x3
Lure of Moria x2
Second Breakfast x1
We Are Not Idle x3
Justice Shall Be Done x1
The Seeing Stone x3

Sideboard
Heed the Dream x1*
Mithrandir's Advice x1*
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
Legacy of Durin x2
Lore of Imladris x1
Needful to Know x1
Risk Some Light x1
The Evening Star x3
Durin's Song x1
Gaining Strength x1
Song of Battle x1
Song of Travel x1
Dunedain Pathfinder x1
Born Aloft x1

Sets Used
Core
The Hunt for Gollum
Conflict at the Carrock
Khazad-dum
The Redhorn Gate
Road to Rivendell
The Watcher in the Water
Foundations of Stone
Shadow and Flame
On the Doorstep
The Steward's Fear
The Blood of Gondor
The Morgul Vale
The Voice of Isengard
Flight of the Stormcaller
The Drowned Ruins
A Storm of Cobas Haven

Check out notes from Rouxxor and others at RingsDB
RingsDB Link

And read the detailed deck notes at Hall of Beorn
Hall of Beorn Link

Rouxxor has set up a masterpiece of a deck that can beat almost any quest. But here's the catch: This one falls in the "almost" category. To beat The City of Corsairs, you need to destroy Captain Sahir. On my first attempt I got up to that point with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. Then I counted how much attack strength I had on the board. Then I just looked a little sad.

As is, this deck can muster only 13 attack. The absolute best-cased scenario requires 14 to defeat The City of Corsairs. Fortunantly Rouxxor included a sideboard with two options for you: Dunadain Pathfiner and Gandalf. Gandalf is designed to be combined with Song of Battle and Born Aloft for an infinite damage loop, but we just need to play him once. This can get us up to 18 attack strength in a best-case scenario. My first attempt was not a best-case and I ended up with 9 resources on Captain Sahir, requiring 21 attack strength to destroy him. This is why I also added in the sideboard card of Out of the Wild: To eliminate all but one card from the encounter deck and skip dealing shadow cards. 

Another route would be to leave the deck as is, not play Justice Shall Be Done, and defeat Captain Sahir during round 2. A great theory that I personally was not able to pull off. Justice Shall Be Done provided cruicial resource acceleration for me. But that might just be a skill-level limitation.

The Journey

Rouxxor built his deck well and you tinker with it at your own risk. I had no problem establishing the initial combo settings (empty deck with Tomb of Atanatar in my hand, all dwarfs out, and the necessary cards in my discard pile) both times I ran the deck as-is. After my adjustments, it took me three attempts before I could successfully re-establish the combo setting. Maybe this could happen under other circumstances, but it certainly seemed like a correlation to me. 

Since you only truly care about stage 3 &4, I recommend seeing if you can get the combo set up before even bringing out the encounter deck.

Now, once your deck is empty and everything is in it's place, begin implementing the infinite resource combo. I went through the entire combo a single time, to make sure I understood it and to see it in action, and then acted as if I did it X times (where X = infinity).

Time to play Gandalf and get that threat down a bit (not that it should matter).

And now for the infinite progress combo. As above, I did this once then clicked through the quest stages and arranged the staging area & encounter decks as each stage directed. For stage 3A, pick a Corsair Infiltrator as your raider (they don't have an ability to gain extra resources). Add 1 resource. Pick Streets of Umbar as your location. For stage 4A, pick another Corsair Infiltrator as your raider. Add 1 resource to each raider and to Captain Sahir. 

Now, start looping Out of the Wild. Follow the same instructions given in looping Ravens of the Mountains (skip step 5&6 which is built around readying Bifur). As with both of the above, do this loop once and then add all but one encounter card in the deck to your victory display. I picked a second Streets of Umbar to remain.

Your staging area should have: Streets of Umbar, The Shattered Monument, Corsair Infiltrator (2 resources), Corsair Infiltrator (1 resource). The encounter deck should just have Streets of Umbar (or whatever card you picked).

Proceed to the quest phase. Quest with just enough power, then loop Tomb of Atanatar / Second Breakfast / Lure of Moria to ready everyone. 

The Infiltrator's engage you. No shadow cards dealt. Sacrifice the Prospector's to enemy attacks. Destroy both Infiltrator's, adding their resources to Captain Sahir (who should have four total), then loop Tomb/Breakfast/Lure to ready everyone and attack the captain for 17.

Proceed to victory dance.

Final Scoring
0 Completed Rounds x10: 0
Ending Threat: 39
Total Damage on Heroes: 0
Threat of Defeated Heroes: 0
Victory Display: -1 (Justice Shall Be Done)

Total Score: 38


The Recap

Let's be honest: This was more of a deck test than an play through that gave a real feel for the quest. But playing this deck is a game in and of itself. While the combo is there, just waiting to be unleashed, you do need to find the right order to play your cards in to get the initial conditions set up.


Still, I was able to appreciate what I saw of the quest while moving at super-speed. Mixing up sailing & sea warfare with a land battle keeps the player on their toes (and brings in interesting challenge to deckbuilding). Corsairs are nasty enemies and I can see that, with any deck that is not a turn-one victory, this would be a quest to bring your best well-rounded deck to.

(note: posted out of order, but it is taking me forever to sit down and finish the other write-up)