King of Carrion - Challenge Mode Perfect Score 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

I've been able to consistently get a perfect score against King of Carrion in Challenge Mode with this deck. Spoilers below, obviously.

Here's a summary of distinct features of the encounter, and how this deck counters them:

• Hazards that take 4 willpower to clear: countered by Arwen+Favor of the Lady
• Lots of direct damage: countered by many cards with block and healing cards
• Enemies with up to 6 hit points: can be 1-shot by Gimli, Gandalf, and Beorn who can all get to 6 or higher relatively easily with some combination of attachments and the Radagast fate event.
• Punishment for letting allies die: countered by having a more static board state with allies that are harder to kill (Beorn and Gandalf).
• A boss with block and a lot of hit points: killed by having three really big hitters.

Here's the detailed gameplay strategy:

Location 1

Mulligan for Favor of the Lady to put on Arwen so she can 1-shot the hazards. But for turn 1, you should use her for fate to get the Northern Survivor, who can also clear hazards. Also mulligan for Erebor Record keeper to help with card draw.

Avoid the threat events (especially the one that forces cards to be discarded) by using the many threat reduction cards in the deck, as well as the fate event.

Once you build up a solid board state, advance to location 2.

Location 2

Once you have both Beorn and Gandalf+Narya in play, trigger the Radagast event. Load Gandalf up with other attachments as well. You should now have a really solid board state:

• Eowyn with Ranger Spear, Shield of Rohan, Unexpected Courage
• Arwen with Shield of Rohan and Favor of the Lady
• Gimli with Dwarven Axe, Raiment of War, and Unexpected Courage
• Beorn
• Gandalf with Ranger Spear, the shield from the fate event, and Narya
• Some other ally, probably an Erebor Record Keeper
• Radagast, who will soon disappear.

Grab all the fate events and max out the fate meter, then advance to the next location.

Location 3

Kill the enemies quickly to establish a pattern where you can kill any enemy as soon as it appears. Then burn through the objective. With all your characters having block (except Beorn), the 1 damage per turn for each character is no big deal. Grab all the fate events, max out the fate meter, and advance to the final location.

Location 4

You should be able to finish this off in one turn. For your first action, play Spear Wall or the fate card that exhausts each warg enemy. Hopefully you played an event like Careful Planning right at the end of location 3, just to make sure Sauron doesn't have his "cancel the next event" treachery active.

Then trigger the fate event to defeat Mordraur. When he comes back, immediately strike back with Gandalf then Gimli to kill him a second time. Before killing him a third time, make sure to take steps to maximize your score, like healing up with the fire brands, reducing your threat, and grabbing the last fate event.