QOTW: Temple of the Deceived

But Sauron caused to be built upon the hill in the midst of the city of the Númenóreans, Armenelos the Golden, a mighty temple…. And the first fire upon the altar Sauron kindled with the hewn wood of Nimloth, and it crackled and was consumed; but men marvelled at the reek that went up from it, so that the land lay under a cloud for seven days, until slowly it passed into the west.

Thereafter the fire and smoke went up without ceasing; for the power of Sauron daily increased, and in that temple, with spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from Death.
–Akallabêth

Temple of the Deceived Stats

Groups registered: 9
Total attempts: 10
Most attempts: 2
Average attempts per entry: 1.1

Total number of wins: 9
Win-rate: 90%

Average opinion on the quest: 3.7

A lot of spread on the views on this quest! I’m just surprised there wasn’t anyone who gave it a 1/5.

Campaign Mode

Achievements

Here are the two achievements we had for this quest:

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Sword

Forced: When preparing the Island Map, place a Cursed Temple as the top-left location. Choose Cursed Temple as the starting active location.

Welcome to the Jungle

All locations adjacent (orthogonally and diagonally) to the active location are considered to be in the staging area.

Dori the Explorer [Dream-Chaser Campaign Guide Achievement]

Win The Temple of the Deceived after exploring all locations (flip them all over).

Encounter card Opinions

The only serious contender for the favorite encounter card this week was Winding Caverns, taking nearly half the votes. Many people’s chief complaint with this scenario is that it can get pretty tedious as you have to take turn after turn to make your way across the map. This location can help with that by letting you travel up to 3 locations away instead of just to an adjacent location. It also gives you some extra control over the engagement of enemies in a pinch.

For the second week in a row, there were no cards to be nominated for both lists.

In contrast to the favorite card this week, the least-favorite card is much more contentious. There were 6 different nominations, and no card got more than 2 votes. The three-way winners are Curse of the Downfallen, Dwindling Supplies, and Furious Rainstorm. We’ve discussed Curse of the Downfallen before–this card is a hallmark of the Undead quests in this cycle. They punish you for having low-cost cards in your deck, particularly low-cost allies. Dwindling Supplies is a strange treachery. If you’re running a big hand kind of deck, this can hit you really hard. Otherwise it might do next to nothing. Either way, nobody ever likes losing cards from their hand. Furious Rainstorm is the other half of the combo, alongside Curse of the Downfallen, that makes this quest very unfriendly to swarm decks. You are much more protected from these two treacheries if you run fewer, higher-cost allies.

Things worth sharing from the games

I really love this quest for its uniqueness, even if it’s on the easy side. Game 1 I did lose. I was playing a valour deck and jumped to 40 threat fast intentionally. I had Gandalf and Pillars of the Kings in hand to ensure I stayed in the right threat range, but Dwindling Supplies made me discard both. It was then a race as I couldn’t find my other threat reduction cards, and two Deeper into the Ruins wrecked me, getting me over 50 threat. Game 2 was a much smoother experience. I slow rolled getting to valour valour until I had the threat reduction cards in hand, and used them a little early to be safe in case another Dwindling Supplies came up.

I slogged through in 15 rounds due to a combination of large staging area (via “Welcome to the Jungle” achievement) and the desire to explore all but 4 uncharted locations and find Starla. Other than some early archery damage from Temple Guardian and early questing trouble, this quest did not pose too much of a threat to my board state and so it was not the most entertaining.

Furious Rainstorm kept raising my threat on my questing deck so IT had to face Temple Guardian at the end. Still managed to get in and get out. Thurindir fueled 3 side quests because this quest is very side quest viable.

Dwindling Supplies hit me hard at the beginning, discarding one Will of the West and two Dwarven Tombs, when I’d already mined away two Will of the West. I was really careful with my mining from then on, and eventually got my last Dwarven Tomb and recurred Will of the West. Later, I got lucky when moving from a Winding Cavern to a random location, happening to travel to the cursed temple. I then made it to the location with Starla, which happened to be The Grotto’s Entrance, so not much experience earned, but it was a long enough game already.

Island disposition has been benevolent with me this time… the path to The Grotto’s Entrance was almost a straight line from my starting point, the Winding Caverns. Then, Theoden with his Silver Circlet and Golden Shield was a pretty good defender against the Guardian. Finally, Eomer along with Firefoot and a boosted Eowyn proved too much for Guardian’s health.

Decklists used

Mono Leadership Gondor (Denethor, Boromir, Faramir)

Storm-Chasers (https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/43973/stormchasersrco-1.0) – an #RCO Noldor deck featuring Cirdan, Erestor, and Arwen & “(Skyward) Volley!!!” (https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/597751) – a direct damage deck designed to take advantage of Skyward Volley and some other lesser-used direct damage effects.

Last Alliance of Rohan and Dunedain for Side Quests: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/59014/weregoingonasidequest-1.0 Riddle-Game Dunedain: https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/59013/riddlehowmanyattackscanyoutakewithoutexhausting-1.0

Glorfindel/Círdan/Galadriel & Legolas/Argalad/Haldir (https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/22593)

Caldara on a bit of a journey

Mining Deck https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/57834/thespirityearnsfortheminesrcofriendly-1.0

Arwen, Purple Dain and Galdor – Last Alliance ally swarm https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/524262

Ticket to Ride (Théoden, Éowyn, Éomer, and their horses): https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/46596/tickettoride-4.0

Noldor Dreams of Discard https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/600283

Fun fact about me: my biggest fear is drowning. I’m also kind of claustrophobic. The biggest nightmare for me is the thought of drowning in a cave. So let’s all go on an adventure where drowning in a cave is a very real possibility! Once you have completed The Drowned Ruins, please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/t4n7UJkrZQFbP6JX8

And for achievements for this quest, this is what we have: