And how do you intend to have infinite ways to discard Emery?

Look at the text of the spoiled Leadership event behind Merry in the picture... it's possible that is says all allies who leave play go back to your hand instead of to the discard pile. So you can trigger Emery's action to put her back into play, discard the cards, have her go back into your hand, then do the action again until your deck is completely discarded.

So I'm hoping the hidden text on that event limits the effect in some way.

And how do you intend to have infinite ways to discard Emery?

Look at the text of the spoiled Leadership event behind Merry in the picture... it's possible that is says all allies who leave play go back to your hand instead of to the discard pile. So you can trigger Emery's action to put her back into play, discard the cards, have her go back into your hand, then do the action again until your deck is completely discarded.

So I'm hoping the hidden text on that event limits the effect in some way.

With Horn of Gondor, it will generate some ressources

And how do you intend to have infinite ways to discard Emery?

Look at the text of the spoiled Leadership event behind Merry in the picture... it's possible that is says all allies who leave play go back to your hand instead of to the discard pile. So you can trigger Emery's action to put her back into play, discard the cards, have her go back into your hand, then do the action again until your deck is completely discarded.

So I'm hoping the hidden text on that event limits the effect in some way.

Yes, but how do you get Emery to leave play (and go back to your hand) so you can continue doing it?

The only way I can think of is if you build your deck such that you'll consistently be discarding at least one Leadership/Tactics/Lore card, so it happens automatically by Emery's text. But then that makes it not work very well for Caldara, Dwarven Tomb wouldn't apply to all those non-Spirit cards, and the more Spirit you have the less likely this is to work, Stand and Fight would be OK, but it is another Spirit card in your deck increasing the chances the Emery remains in play.

Plus, even with recursion effects, I'm not sure it'd be that useful to just instantly discard your entire deck all in one go. Maybe Outlands with Men of the West, and Horn of Gondor could generate you the resources to recover all your discarded Outlands allies thanks the the number of times Emery left play, but it's not like Outlands really has issues getting everything together anyway.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be open to potential abuses, but I think they'll be a lot more limited than you seem to think.

And how do you intend to have infinite ways to discard Emery?

Look at the text of the spoiled Leadership event behind Merry in the picture... it's possible that is says all allies who leave play go back to your hand instead of to the discard pile. So you can trigger Emery's action to put her back into play, discard the cards, have her go back into your hand, then do the action again until your deck is completely discarded.

So I'm hoping the hidden text on that event limits the effect in some way.

You can't normally return her to your hand, so it has limits. And if you are running leadership you probably aren't running Caldara, so having cards in your discard pile is only the slightest advantage.

I still don't see this as a broken combo at all. Since the card is leadership that means you're playing multisphere, so Emery's ability is going to be a gamble. Yes, if you are in Valour range, if you got Emery safely into play, and if you played this card you could potentially use her to block all of your attacks and discard a whole bunch of cards from your deck. But that means you are losing her ability for the times that you don't have this card and you're not in Valour, which is probably 95% of the time.

Emery: Action: Discard the top 3 card of your deck to put Emery into play from your hand, under any player's control. Then, if any of the discarded cards have the Tactics, Lore or Leadership sphere, discard Emery.

No gamble involved. You guys are imagining doing this with a Spirit deck, since Emery is spirit? That would work against you. Emery's action is triggered from your hand. You don't need her to be in play. So you're running your leadership/tactics deck, you've got Horn of Gondor out and Emery in your hand. You don't need any Spirit resources to use Emery in this combo.

If you can play that new leadership event, you can now (guaranteed) discard Emery as many times as you want, at a cost of 3 cards from your deck per Emery's ability and a gain of 1 resource from Horn of Gondor So now you, as a player, have this ability: discard the top 3 cards of your deck to add 1 resource to a hero you control. It took 3 cards to set up the combo, but it's a pretty powerful combo.

That's without even messing with the discard pile. Just treating it as a cash engine.

Ah, I didn't catch the Horn of Gondor part of the combo. Still, you're talking about a 3 card combo from 3 different spheres and you have to be in the Valour range. Emery is going to be a dead card except for when the combo is in play.

Let's say you trigger it 10 times and discard 30 cards. Now your deck is pretty much empty and one hero has +10 resources. 10 resources is nice, but you won't have many cards left to spend the resources on. Plus, a leadership/tactics deck doesn't really benefit from having cards in the discard pile.

It's an amusing combo, but I don't think it needs limitations just for that. I suspect many of the valour actions will have equal or greater effects than this.

I relent! Anyway, that unreadable text has a good chance of limiting the card in some way.

Here's a fun Hobbit Secrecy deck that I built with Merry:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/deck-for-the-shire/

How could you not put Beorn in that deck? He should be in every deck you make, especially decks with Timely Aid and Elf Stone!

Beorn is in the other version of this deck, but I swapped him out for the new Tactics Legolas for thematic reasons (Beorn does not show up in The Lord of the Rings). Still, it would be easy to swap him in for one of the other allies.

Yeah, he'll probably replace Splorfindel in my legendary Palantir support deck.

I am very excited to finally replace Spirit Glorfindel in my Hobbit deck.

Last episode (23) of the Grey Company Podcast they talked about "killing" Spirit Glorfindel, possibly with a Tactics Glorfindel. I think with Merry, the designers are sort of "killing" him, at least in decks that included him solely because he was a low-threat Spirit hero. With a use or two of Merry's ability, Merry could end up having the equivalent of less threat cost than Splorfindel.

I relent! Anyway, that unreadable text has a good chance of limiting the card in some way.

First off, I don't think the card limits it in any way. Second, you just discarded most of your deck, so what are you gonna spend all those resources on? You're apparently not playing Spirit, and even if you were playing a few Spirit recursion cards, most of your recursion cards are now discarded. I just don't see the point.

First off, I don't think the card limits it in any way. Second, you just discarded most of your deck, so what are you gonna spend all those resources on? You're apparently not playing Spirit, and even if you were playing a few Spirit recursion cards, most of your recursion cards are now discarded. I just don't see the point.

It just takes some imagination. It's a 3-card combo, so by the time you have it set up let's kindly assume you have in your hand some cards that want to be played. Really, if you had 1 card that said "discard 3 cards from your deck to add a resource to a hero" would you think that a powerful effect?

(edited for clarity)

Dicarding 3 cards for a resource? I would think twice before doing that.

I've made a Palantir mono-Spirit deck, which uses the Eowyn / Eleanor / Galadriel line-up. Merry is definitely going to replace Eowyn. The deck is huge on questing anyway and every effect that reduces threat is always welcome. Especially a strong repeatable one such as this. Me happy.

Other than that, is it me or is Merry practically the first hero in the game to allow us to consider a 3-hero secrecy deck as a possibility? I'm thinking of a Merry / Glorfindel / Grima deck with a starting threat of a mere 20 and salivate at the prospect. Heck, with 3 heroes, I may even dismiss Grima (the best secrecy hero in the game i.m.o. - so far. Till the Wastes hit the shelves).

You've been missing out if you haven't been playing 3 hero secrecy yet. Pippin, Glorfindel, and Sam/Frodo/Mirlonde can all make some very strong and fun decks.

I'm also intrigued by the thought of Grima being a good secrecy hero. Usually you have enough resource generation with Resourceful, so I would take Pippin over Grima every day of the week for the lower threat, lack of doomed, and card draw.

I've made a Palantir mono-Spirit deck, which uses the Eowyn / Eleanor / Galadriel line-up. Merry is definitely going to replace Eowyn. The deck is huge on questing anyway and every effect that reduces threat is always welcome. Especially a strong repeatable one such as this. Me happy.

Other than that, is it me or is Merry practically the first hero in the game to allow us to consider a 3-hero secrecy deck as a possibility? I'm thinking of a Merry / Glorfindel / Grima deck with a starting threat of a mere 20 and salivate at the prospect. Heck, with 3 heroes, I may even dismiss Grima (the best secrecy hero in the game i.m.o. - so far. Till the Wastes hit the shelves).

3 hero secrecy has been doable and even solo viable in some quests ever since Black Riders came out. As said above, Pippin, Glorfindel and Sam makes for a great ally mustering secrecy deck, and Haldir, Glorfindel and Merry is really fun to play, sniping enemies in the staging area.

It just takes some imagination. It's a 3-card combo, so by the time you have it set up let's kindly assume you have in your hand some cards that want to be played. Really, if you had 1 card that said "discard 3 cards from your deck to add a resource to a hero" would you think that a powerful effect?

(edited for clarity)

If you're really in need of some resources, then discarding 3 cards wouldn't hurt too badly, assuming you're one of those people who has 3 copies of most cards in their deck, and doing it a few times would be pretty cool. Though, this gives me an idea of just throwing Emery into my Tactics decks so I can use her for a resource during any action window. Still, it's an expensive combo unless you have recursion, so you would want a decent amount of Spirit in the deck in order to use Will of the West to get those cards back.

Other than that, is it me or is Merry practically the first hero in the game to allow us to consider a 3-hero secrecy deck as a possibility? I'm thinking of a Merry / Glorfindel / Grima deck with a starting threat of a mere 20 and salivate at the prospect. Heck, with 3 heroes, I may even dismiss Grima (the best secrecy hero in the game i.m.o. - so far. Till the Wastes hit the shelves).

The lowest possible starting threat with three heroes has been 17 for a while. You can get quite a bit out of 4 rounds of secrecy, and that's assuming you don't draw any threat reduction. Merry is more like Galadriel in that he allows a deck to stay in secrecy for longer (without threat increases from the encounter deck or other players, forever).

And could you elaborate on why you think Grima is so good for secrecy? Pairing doomed with secrecy seems like a questionable idea to me unless you're playing Shadow and Flame.

I like My wandering tooks for added secrecy help in games with another player. They can at least drop your threat during your planning phase while you're buying (when most secrecy matters) then take your tooks back after buying.

Playing secrecy, I've found that my biggest problem has always been the economic one and, no, Resourceful is not enough, since there have been times where it came late. With Grima, I practically have 3 resources right from the start. Add the Keys to the mix and Resourceful of course and economy is never a problem. My Glorfindel / Grima deck has been the most succesful one so far. At 14 starting threat and heavy threat reduction, his doomed has never been a problem. Grima is the only hero in the game who allows me to play with two heroes, but having the economic equivalent of three.

Well, resourceful plus having a 3rd hero is usually enough for me. I agree that with only 2 heroes Grima would have more value.

The only 2 hero secrecy deck I've run is Sam and Hirluin. That deck was usually limited by card draw instead of resources because the allies were mostly free or cheap.

The biggest thing I've felt building around secrecy, is that by the time you get all your threat reduction and usual cards in the deck, you don't have much room for anything else. I think merry can change that and make it to where you don't need as many reduction cards.