I think there was only 1 person who underestimated handmaiden. I, for one, think that she is a great, wonderful card.

She costs only 2, has 2 willpower, reduces threat and even allows you to choose which one's threat to reduce, which is huge.

With Celeborn, he'll often be 3 willpower, and with O, Lorien, she's just a resource. And yes, bouncy-bouncy. She's extremely useful in any spirit deck, regardnless of anything.

Too bad Galadrim Minstrel feels so insignificant compared to other "entering play and doing somthing" sivlans that entered play this cycle

She doesn't need to feel too bad... she's one of my favorite Silvan allies!

I love the random discard aspect of Galadriel's Mirror. if that part wasn't in there, not only would the card not be quite as thematic, but I fear it would be too good. The current designers are doing a great job at building in meaningful limitations to their cards to prevent Dain/Glorfindel madness.

And the Mirror quite rightly only attaches to Galadriel.

And the Mirror quite rightly only attaches to Galadriel.

Yeah, yeah, that *theme* bullsh1t.

Henneth Annun guard is pretty amazing. He'll go directly in my Gondor deck, since Boromir with Steward can play him really easily. Great to see another good Gondor ally. My only problem with it is, shouldn't he be a Ranger? Wasn't Henneth Annun custodied by Ithilien rangers?

Galadriel + Regular draw + Mirror = 3 cards per turn & 1 random discard.

That's some solid card draw for spirit.

And no threat gain at the end of each turn also.

Spirit has so much stuff, it's going to be hard to ignore the sphere for each deck I make.

Ok, Galadriel draws you a card per exhaustion. Mirror sorta draws you a card. But what Nenya has to do with drawing?

It was probably just a weird way of saying it. Nenya doesn't enter into that draw calculation, he was probably just including the regular draw from the resource phase.

Right. What grandspleen said.

Nenya is not needed, my bad.

In which case makes it even easier to set up.

And the Mirror quite rightly only attaches to Galadriel.

Yeah, yeah, that *theme* bullsh1t.

I'm not crazy for theme, but limitations like these actually leave plenty of future design space available for more variety.

I'm not crazy for theme, but limitations like these actually leave plenty of future design space available for more variety.

You know what else leaves plenty of future design space? Not releasing anything.

Whatever, creating a card that is applicible only to one of 60~ currently existing heroes is toxic for the games health. Ofcourse people who'll use Galadriel will be thrilled. But what of others? It's an entire slot of a spirit card, of which we getting only 2 per AP, completely wasted unless you play with Galadriel.

These are 2 entirely different issues here. Slow card pool progression vs exclusive cards, which have been staples since the game begun. I wouldn't call either toxic. Hell, there are completely dud cards like that useless neutral card (the end nears or something) that take up slots but I'm not too much bothered because it's normal to have some bad cards in a card game (not intentionally, it just happens). For similar reasons, exclusive cards are ok by me if they are not overdone, and imo they are not (Gandalf attachments are pushing it though I dont think we'll be seeing a similar release in the near future). And yes, I'd like more cards released per year but that's a different matter.

If anything I'd rather get rid of the boons.

We just got an advanture pack that has two. Cards. Attached. To. A. Single. Name. Lets speak of overdoing something?

I'm totally cool with it.

Good for you.

So what? They just add flavor and identity to a hero. They are good cards but not must-haves so its fine by me. Its not like Glorfindel, Aragorn, Eomer, Elrond, Idraen and Gandalf don't have their own unique or near-unique items. Besides, Ghaladriel feels incomplete gameplay wise without her ring. And the Mirror is entirely optional and risky.

I think, by now I've made it pretty clear "so what" is it. It's good it adds flavor and identity to a hero. It's bad it adds it at an expense of flavor and identity of the game. I never approved of such things, not just with Galadriel.

And the Mirror quite rightly only attaches to Galadriel.

Yeah, yeah, that *theme* bullsh1t.

You mean that theme bullsh1t that attracts and engages so many people to the game? Yup.

Look, I think we can all agree that more player cards would be better. At the same time, name attachments add flavor and distinctiveness to individual heroes beyond their game text.

No, I mean that theme bullsh1t that kills diversity of the game with the slowest player card pool progression of all FFG's titles.

Why yes, they add flavor, but at what cost?

Yeah, I get what you're saying, and maybe if the card pool grew a bit faster, we'd all be happier. It's an interesting question from the designer's perspective. Would people buy packs with just player cards? Or a deluxe expansion with just player cards? For all of us, the clear answer is yes, we'll buy pretty much anything they put out. For that silent majority of people out there who buy and play but don't voice their opinions on forums, I don't know. Hard to say, probably? Anyway, this discussion has come up over and over again, so back to the card discussion...

Tying a few things together, I'm very happy that this pack appears to be the first one in a while that does not have any player cards that are just coasters straight out of the pack. All the talk about slow player card growth is obviously a legitimate concern among all the players. I personally dont think anything inhibits the diversity or progression of the pool more than the cards that are absolute duds (looking at you Fall of Gil-Galad, Message from Elrond, Mirkwood pioneer).

As much fun as player cards are the quests are what are actually important. Myneighbortrololo your always so pessimistic and just mean spirited, if you don't have anything nice to say don't clog up the forums with sarcasm.

I wish we could get some proper images for those player cards, desperate to make proxies already

The character specific attachments are coasters for all the other heroes, but absolutely essential to any deck built with said hero, so they are not coasters at all since they will most likely be played whenever that hero is chosen.

I am completely supportive of this. I am much more in favor of these types of cards than cards that are coasters regardless of heroes played, and there are plenty of those.

And on another note this cycle has delivered a number of cards that only pertain to 2-4 player games. I play one handed solo, so cards like that for me are a complete bummer, but I just suck it up rather than complain because i realize those cards may be valuable to those other modes of play, and the developers can't please everyone all the time.

So, in that light character specific attachments provide more depth and theme to a character, and the last two attachments have done just that fantastically. I can't wait to give them a try.

Eh. I largely agree with MNT. My favorite type of card is something like Light of Valinor: It was obviously designed for a specific character (Spirit Glorfindel), but it's not limited to him. If Steward of Gondor isn't limited to just Denethor, then why can't we figure out some way for the Mirror to be more versatile? Frodo used it too. Other people used it... but it still needs to be limited in some way obviously. I don't know. I don't mind Galadriel having her ring, but how many cards that are specific to a single hero is too many?