That really only works if you're able to get most of your secrecy cards out early. I just played some games with a Galadriel deck and she works miracles. At the end of a 9 round game, I had 15 threat (20 starting threat). She's currently the only consistent means of keeping threat low.

That really only works if you're able to get most of your secrecy cards out early. I just played some games with a Galadriel deck and she works miracles. At the end of a 9 round game, I had 15 threat (20 starting threat). She's currently the only consistent means of keeping threat low.

Sounds interesting. What other heroes and cards and stuff did you use?

That really only works if you're able to get most of your secrecy cards out early. I just played some games with a Galadriel deck and she works miracles. At the end of a 9 round game, I had 15 threat (20 starting threat). She's currently the only consistent means of keeping threat low.

Elrond's Counsel and some Core Set Gandalfs sure do the trick. A deck where you are using Sneak Attack for Gandalf, playing Gandalf, and using Elrond's Counsel can get your threat hilariously low.

it is not that you can do it "x" times.. it is that you can literally just point at the table and say "I do this 20 times" or 5 or w/e. There is no cost, no downside. You basically just point at the table and adjust the threat between the players as you like.. That is not cool imo.

Blue mountain trader is being discussed in the french community for this reason and we are expecting an errata

Very good with Blood of Numenor / Lay of Nimrodel / Gondorian Fire or multisphere deck (especially Hirluin/Elrond).

A simple limit once per round will do.

I'm honestly not convinced of the value of Doomed cards once you have passed the Secrecy threshold. Having Resourceful (and optionally Steward of Gondor) means that you won't need more resources (Legacy of Númenor). Allies like Gléowine and Master of the Forge work with Pippin (amazing in a Secrecy deck) to ensure that you have plenty of card draw (Deep Knowledge). I don't run Tactics in my Secrecy decks, because Merry is the only viable hero option, so The Wizard's Voice and Close Call are not viable in any case. The Power of Orthanc is more of a sideboard card (which I definitely would use) for scenarios with a ton of Condition treachery/attachments but not something that I would just put into a deck for grins.

In my experience, Hobbit Gandalf is so much better of an option for a secrecy deck. He provides an insane amount of questing support. In fact, he and Glorfindel are often all that you need to send in the later rounds with a solo deck. Also, once you get Arwen out, he can block most of the enemies in the game (Warden of Healing can help heal those few attacks that actually damage him). When you are done with him and threat starts climbing too high, you just let him go away. I even include both version of Gandalf in my deck, so that I can still have the versatility (and potential threat reduction) of the core set version, once I've used Hobbit Gandalf to survive the early game.

The point is, a Secrecy deck doesn't need Secrecy the whole game to be very powerful. Sam and Pippin allow you to benefit from those early option engagements. All it takes is one powerful unique ally early (Gandalf, Gildor, Haldir, Beorn) and the deck should be up and running. With so many ally mustering options (Timely Aid, Elf-Stone, A Very Good Tale), it is not hard to make this happen, especially when you add some cheap card draw like Daeron's Runes. Basically, if you can find one of Resourceful or Timely Aid (sometimes you will get lucky and have both) in your opening hand, the deck works very well.

I don't agree with the consensus here that low-threat heroes are bad. Hobbits are fragile. In the case of Sam and Pippin, their abilities only work while your threat is low, and you are very vulnerable to low-engagement enemies. The problem to me is Spirit Glorfindel. This hero is way too powerful. Granted, Secrecy in it's current form is almost impossible to do without him, but he bends the game to the point of breaking it. As long as low threat heroes have similarly weaker stats and situational abilities (which the Hobbits do) then I see no problem with releasing more of them. On the other hand, any more low-threat heroes like Glorfindel would be very bad for the game, as I see it.

Dan, yesterday I built your Keep it secret, keep it safe deck as it is written in your blog. I still haven't tried it. What additions or modifications would you give it considering the new cards and the spoiled stuff we've seen in the Ring-maker, especially regarding secrecy?

I need to go back and rebuild that deck with the new cards since I designed it. I can tell you this, Ithilien Lookout will definitely be in the new version of this deck, either with 2 or 3 copies. One of the things Secrecy can struggle with is having enough attack strength to kill enemies with a low engagement cost that can cause problems in the early game. Glorfindel with Light of Valinor certainly helps, as does Hobbit Gandalf, but the Ithilien Lookout is a great way to smooth out a bad draw when there is no ally mustering available to find some help. Even late game, paying 3 for those stats and ability is not unreasonable, especially considering that Pippin should have Resourceful by that point. Be on the look out, I should have an updated version of Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe posted very soon.

Cool, I'll be waiting for it.

Sounds interesting. What other heroes and cards and stuff did you use?

I posted the deck up in the Strategy section: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/109552-the-new-secrecy/

I love Secrecy. I hate every Secrecy deck I've ever made. I want it to work, I am a Pippin player, but I hit three major road blocks every time I try to make a Secrecy deck:

1) There are ways to make decks that keep two heroes alive and in Secrecy, and contributing effectively to the quest, but they have little or nothing to do with Secrecy. So I'm just handycapping myself and not actually playing very many Secrecy cards.

2) I only have partial access to the full secrecy card pool in all 4 spheres

The Secrecy card pool is spread over all 4 spheres. Assuming you're starting with 2 heroes for a Secrecy deck, you only have immediate access to half the spheres at most. Meanwhile you've committed to a huge action and resource disadvantage right from the top.

What would help? To have low threat heroes who gain 1 or more extra resource icons when your threat is 20 or less, and/or heroes whose resources can be used to pay for cards with the Secrecy keyword regardless of the resource match.

Or perhaps a 0 cost attachment for a hero that gives you an off-sphere resource icon if your threat is 20 or less.

Or a low-threat Minstrel hero who reduces the cost to play songs by 1.

Without these kinds of effects, you're stuck using conventional methods to gain access to off-sphere cards, and these are not efficient enough when you only have 2 heroes and 2 resources at the top of the game. Let's say, best case scenario, you draw the song you need, and a Resourceful on turn one. You play both those, and that's your whole turn. And you're probably only going to be able to contribute 5-6 willpower to the quest. In the current quest cycles this is paltry, and all you've done for the first turn is get yourself *almost* to the same point you would have been at the start of game had you started with three heroes and all the spheres you need. So you're at least 1 turn behind the other players and the encounter deck.

Sure, it doesn't have to be a song: You've got Good Harvest for cost of 0. But you can only have three in your deck and are you going to draw it every time you need it?

3) Number of encounter cards revelaed each turn is tied to number of players, not number of heroes,

In a multiplayer game having one player starting in Secrecy (assuming 2 heroes) is a huge action/resource disadvantage to the party without reducing the number of cards coming off the encounter deck. A Secrecy player might spend the whole first turn just prepping to get to a standard turn 1 position. This makes a Secrecy player more of a liabilty than an asset in the early rounds of a multiplayer game because they're causing an encounter card to come out, adding threat to the staging area, triggering more treachery effects, bringing out more enemies, but they can't pull their own weight against these effects, and they've probably exhausted both heroes to commit to the quest and have no resources left to spend. Even with a good draw, the other players in the party are going to feel like they are carrying the Secrecy player, unless that player really starts to carry more than their share to offset the early disadvantages.

What would help? Gildor's Counsel. But too expensive generally, and no way to play it on turn 1. Good meal on Bilbo or Lore Pippin + Gildor's Counsel? Sure, that'll get it out turn 1, with 1 resource to spare, but if your deck cannot function without a specific 2-card combo in your first draw you've got problems.

Plus, neither Good Meal nor GIldor's Counseld are Secrecy, so you could do this same combo and run three heroes and save yourself a lot of heartache!

Now that the Leaf Broach lets you give any sphere-matching event card Secrecy 1, Gildor's Counsel might be more viable in later rounds, but it will still cost you three resources the first time counting the 1 for the broach. So that's turn 2 at the best, and you'll only have 1 other resource to spend, and you probably need 2 Lore heroes. The starting threat on most Lore Heroes is not secrecy-friendly, and as per above, you've cut off access to a lot of the Secrecy card pool by starting your only two heroes in the same sphere.

So we need a Gildor's Counsel-like effect that is viable from turn 1 for a Secrecy player. Maybe an event, maybe a hero. Maybe a once-in-a-game effect that lets you skip the staging step entirely.

Then the other players in the party will welcome you to their quest rather than groaning when they hear your deck plan.

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Also: I really like the "Mae" hero that MyNeighbourTrololo cooked up. This kind of setup bonus to offset the huge disadvantages of starting in Secrecy Mode would really give that strategy a shot in the arm.

Agent of Arnor (Ally) (Lore) Cost: 2

Dunedain.

Will: 1

Attack: 1

Defend: 0

HP: 2

Action: Remove Agent of Arnor from the game to gain secrecy until the end of the phase.

I really like an idea like this. I've been picturing a similar idea in my head for a while on an event card, but I really love it as an ally.

Yeah, I guess we'll see what they give us this cycle. I have really high hopes for Galadriel helping big time with this but seems like it still needs something else to get the deck more consistent.

The thing is, the point of secrecy is that you can keep your threat 20 or lower. Actaully keeping it. So a card that just grants secrecy, even though it's temporary, still misses the point. I can see decks that use that ally to just play secrecy stuff without the deck actually being about secrecy. So I think a condition is required, something like "If the combined threat total of all your heroes is 20 or less, reduce your threat/gain secrecy/etc". That way only secrecy decks will take advantage of cards like this and such an ally as the Agent of Arnor could work.

The sad thing is, having seen the spoiled cards that were leaked, we're getting NONE of this we're talking about, so I think that yet again, two cycles later, secrecy will remain unplayable... That is unless some DRASTIC changes are made to the unreleased player cards, but I wouldn't keep my hopes up. From what I've seen, future secrecy cards look pretty mediocre.

One of the cards that I saw as being extremely useful when I first saw it was Leaf Brooch. Then I realized that most events cost 0 or 1. There are definitely some good events that are expensive, but I tend to stick to some of the mostly "standard" events, which tend to be cheaper.

I think the way they're handling Swift and Silent and Noiseless Movement by allowing cards to come back if you're in secrecy is a great idea. Makes them still useful and cheap if you've left secrecy (or never had it), but gives you a great advantage of reuse if you're playing secrecy well. They also cost 1 resource, so they can benefit from Leaf Brooch.

I think Leaf Brooch, Resourceful, and the secrecy keyword itself all try to make you think that you can use just 2 characters and still have the resources to do what you need to, but you still end up with an action disadvantage. If you use 3 heroes, you tend to end up with gimped heroes in order to keep their threat low enough to be below 20 with the three of them. This way is still better because you end up with a resource advantage (or at least there is an opportunity to) and are able to play more cards to make up for the weak heroes. The only problem with this is the amount of time it takes to get that advantage set up. You need to have mostly cards with the secrecy keyword, but often I prefer to leave those out for other cards, or you need to get Resourceful and/or Leaf Brooch set up, which means - in the case of Resourceful - that you lost your advantage this round in order to have the advantage next round.

The only saving grace is the fact that your threat is low, so you'll likely avoid combat so your action advantage isn't as noticeable. But if you're avoiding combat, then you're also leaving more threat in the staging area to worry about next turn. If you're playing multiplayer with other decks that aren't secrecy, then Chris CD is quite right, you end up just making things worse for the other players, unless your heroes have great questing ability and the other decks are good at dealing with combat.

So here's how secrecy really works:

Single Player: try to lay low as long as possible (keep threat low to avoid enemy engagement) until you've built up an ally army. Use allies and encounter deck manipulation to devastate the quest. It's tricky because some enemies are still able to engage and the staging area can fill with threat. To prevent the enemies from filling up too much, there are traps and rangers. To prevent the staging area from filling with too many locations, you can use cards like Asfaloth and Northern Tracker. Sadly, there are very few secrecy cards that fall into those two categories. The best things we have are Ithilien Lookout, and sever Lore events for encounter deck manipulation, which don't do enough "manipulation" to really help much.

Multiplayer with Other Secrecy Decks: It should be essentially the same as single player, except each deck should be tuned more for each thing. One deck can be more about the combat, traps, and encounter manipulation while the other is more focused on questing and location control.

Multiplayer with Non-Secrecy Decks: You have to be a support deck. You need to contribute some willpower to make up for the fact that you're causing an extra card to be staged, but you also need to help the other decks build up. They are going to be taking on a lot more enemies than you thanks to your threat, but luckily you don't need to pack as much willpower into your deck (since enemies will be engaging) so you can focus more on the support cards. Encounter deck manipulation can be a good support, though with 3-4 players the effect is more limited. Once again traps can be useful, though Ithilien Pit and Poisoned Stakes may lose their appeal compared to Forest Snare and Ranger Spikes now. If you load up on attachments and events that can help the other players out, that'll probably be one of the best ways you can contribute. Even allies like Imladris Stargazer and Gleowine can be extremely helpful to the other players.

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Most secrecy cards are aimed at either encounter manipulation or just avoiding combat, both of which make sense for secrecy, even in multiplayer. Right now, I think the biggest weakness is the lack of secrecy allies and attachments. You're not always going to have the events you need to keep enemies at bay, so strong and/or cheap allies are the only consistent way to deal with the the low-engagement enemies and to keep the willpower high enough. I guess the pool already has a decent supply of those allies, and Timely Aid, A Very Good Tale, Elf-Stone, and more can be used to help with the bigger allies.

Overall, secrecy is tough in the early game, but if you can hold out and use the right cards to your advantage, they can become powerful late game. This is technically true of most deck types though, but secrecy tends to be worse off in the beginning and not really have the ability to get much (if any better) than other decks late game. The way I see it, secrecy is viable and playable, but certainly isn't one of the best archetypes. It's only real advantages are the ability to avoid most enemy engagements and some decent cards are far more affordable. These don't quite make up the difference though.

I even include both version of Gandalf in my deck, so that I can still have the versatility (and potential threat reduction) of the core set version, once I've used Hobbit Gandalf to survive the early game.

whammy..... illegal. You can only have 1 version of a named card.

Page 9 Core Rules

I'm not sure why you assumed that I am using 3 copies of each version of Gandalf, because I never said that. In fact, if you look at the deck list you will see that I used 1 copy of Core Set Gandalf and 2 copies of Hobbit Gandalf:

http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2013/09/28/deck-keep-it-secret-keep-it-safe/

The rules that you just sited say that you can only have 3 copies of a title, which I do in the above deck list. They say absolutely nothing about the 3 copies having to be the same version of the card with that title.

Whammy!

Interesting... that is technically legal, I have never thought of doing this. Though I am sure that is not the intent of the rule.

I live my life by the single question: "is this technically legal?"

If the answer is yes, I'm all in!

heh. your a easy man to like Dan.

I like 2 OHaUH Gandalf, 1 core Gandalf in any low threat single-player deck. (Secrecy or not.)

Though I tend to only play OHaUH Gandalf once the quest transitions from build-up mode into a push for the finish. He's probably worth three heroes worth of stats and actions, so the extra 2 threat per round is well worth it unless you're really concerned about score.

I think my favorite part about secrecy decks in multiplayer is the fact that they can so easily use Resourceful, so turf other players can use Steward of Gondor without fighting you for it.

I think my favorite part about secrecy decks in multiplayer is the fact that they can so easily use Resourceful, so turf other players can use Steward of Gondor without fighting you for it.

Deciding who is going to play what can be a process for a 4-player play session. When my group plays 4-player, we have to immediately talk about who gets to use Spirit Glorfindel and who gets to use Steward of Gondor.

I still think more low threat heroes is a good thing, as long as they are not Glorfindels, but have the right stats and modest abilities for their threat cost. This is not overpowered, but simply gives more deck building options, not just for Secrecy, but in general.

I still think more low threat heroes is a good thing, as long as they are not Glorfindels, but have the right stats and modest abilities for their threat cost. This is not overpowered, but simply gives more deck building options, not just for Secrecy, but in general.

Yes I also think Glorifindel is really bad design hero.To much powerful and very stupid way. But for solo and for secrecy he is good. Wny he didn have a text : Setup: if you control 2 more heroes other then Him remove Glorifindel from play.

So as a pure Secrecy hero he can be ok.

Yes, Spirit Glorfindel is a bit overpowered. With Gandalf and Elrond's Counsel, his "drawback" of raising threat to exhaust doesn't affect anything. I have never once played a game (and I have played hundreds and hundreds with him) and worried about the 1-3 threat I accrued before I drew LoV.