She seems pretty tame compared to Elrond in the coolness factor (maybe not power level), so why is she so popular? Her ring just allows her to quest (wow exicting. A hero that can quest. Amazing.), and her exhaust ability can't be used if she quested, because unlike Elrond Light of Valinor doesn't work. The only thing interesting about her is that she can always lower threat and that she has that ally ability, and the Mirror. Is the Mirror really that exciting? I haven't played with her yet, so I want to know.

Her passive ability is bonkers. A freshly played ally can quest and then defend or attack giving action advantage. Secondly drawing cards is one of the most important parts of winning. More cards more options! Also.. threat reduction allows you to stay away from a nasty enemy to engage with ya. But i think the real game changer is her mirror. It is a tutor ability every turn and if you pair that with silver harp, you don't even need to worry about losing it.

And allies quest for free on the turn they come in. Don't forget that one in a sylvan deck.

The mirror's downside is now mitigated by the harp. With unexpected Courage and a trio of Handmaiden's your threat is basically stagnant and you draw cards like crazy.

Not as broken as Elrond and Vilya, but still pretty darn good. She's not really questing btw, and sometimes that matters.

And allies quest for free on the turn they come in. Don't forget that one in a sylvan deck.

The mirror's downside is now mitigated by the harp. With unexpected Courage and a trio of Handmaiden's your threat is basically stagnant and you draw cards like crazy.

Not as broken as Elrond and Vilya, but still pretty darn good. She's not really questing btw, and sometimes that matters.

Yeah, what he said!

She seems pretty tame compared to Elrond in the coolness factor (maybe not power level), so why is she so popular? Her ring just allows her to quest (wow exicting. A hero that can quest. Amazing.), and her exhaust ability can't be used if she quested, because unlike Elrond Light of Valinor doesn't work. The only thing interesting about her is that she can always lower threat and that she has that ally ability, and the Mirror. Is the Mirror really that exciting? I haven't played with her yet, so I want to know.

As said before the no exhaust passiv is very awesome. Yes the mirror is an other big Advantage she offers as he more or less garantees you your Combo pieces (silver harp even takes away the downside).

Beeing able to add Galadriels willpower as an Action lets you Play around many nasty when exhausted/while questing treacheries.

Being relativly low threat herself and the constant (!) threat reduction AND carddraw enables you most of the times to be ready for all enemies to face.

Nothing that galadriel offers would be too great Standing alone, but you get everything for just using 1 Spirit hero (*cough* a test of will *cough*) with moderat threat. She works great with most other heroes too!

I agree that her ring is lame. Overall, however, she is a great hero. She is an outstanding "combo deck" style hero because if you use her correctly you basically always get the cards you want. Also, the quality of a hero is not merely based on power, but cost, as in threat. Galadriel is very low threat with built in threat reduction. She thus enables secrecy or she reduces the impact of of high threat heroes like Boromir. The mix of Combo power with low threat makes her very unique and fun.

Going by the replies here, the correct question should really be: "What's NOT exciting about Galadriel?"

I don't use the mirror and only use her ring for the Lore icon (and questing emergencies).

Drawing an extra card a turn, cancelling out the natural per turn threat gain, opening up Spirit and Lore, and letting allies quest for free is all amazing in my book.

I find it frustrating that she can't quest herself. Often my first turns are very rough when I play her. Maybe I should check out some online deck builds to see what is working so well with her.

Also, she is Noldor, so she allows you to play Elrond's counsel and other cards like Tinuviel's tale.

I honestly think Galadriel is one of the best heros in the game. There's a couple of important things here.

1. She's in the right sphere. Spirit does not have a lot of card draw, and Galadriel gives it to you in spades. Not only is her ability card draw, but once you have Silver Harp on, then Mirror is card draw as well.

2. Mirror. Yes, it really is all that. Silver Harp makes it crazy, and once you have your Mirror up you can mirror for silver harp, and just start smashing it. Search the top 10 cards of your deck for any card you want and take it. That's just insane. I now use 3x Galadrim Weaver so I can mirror for A Test of Will, play it, shuffle it back into my deck with Weaver, and then Mirror for it again. It's not uncommon for me to cancel 3-4 treacheries off of 2 Test of Will cards in my deck.

3. Questing/Nenya. Actually it's pretty good. Her willpower is 4, which is really high, and if you don't need it, then don't use it and draw/reduce threat instead. When compared to the crazy town that is Vilya, then yes, it's not all that. But really Nenya is just icing on the cake, Mirror is what is closer to Vilya on the power scale. The Lore icon is nice to have too. Very nice to have.

Haha I just put together a deck for Conflict at the Carrock quest. The idea in this quest is that you start out with an easy, deceptively easy first quest card. After an easy 7 quest points you get to stage 2 where you are immediately jumped by 4 over powered ogres at the same time. They are all 6 attack, 4 defense, 10 health. They stack on threat, and they sack you.

For my first attempt I went with a more standard deck, but couldn't handle all of the ogres at the same time. I switched to Galadrial, and with her extra card draw and mirror was able to get Treebeard with Ent Draught and Elf Friend, with Path of Need on a location and threat low enough to dodge the trolls while I cleared out The Carrock. I then traveled and bombed questing to jump my threat so all 4 trolls came at me at once. I had Treebeard take 5 damage for his ability and played Fair and Perilous so Treebeard could 1 shot every troll with his 15 attack haha.

Good times.

So many people already saying so many good things about Galadriel, so I'll just chime in with a few more from my deck collection:

http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/150/deck-tech-sam-gamgee-elf-friend-1.0- Galadriel in a secrecy deck guarantees your threat stays low, and having allies that can quest and fight the round they come out is incredibly useful when you must fight.

http://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/1425/deck-tech-snake-attack-1.0- Galadriel here is used for the Mirror. With the resource phase draw, her draw ability, and the Mirror's 10 card look, you have 12 chances to see whatever you want off the top of your deck. And it's a shuffle, so it works incredibly well with the Record attachments. Even I was surprised that I was able to get Gandalf on the board for 15 out of 20 rounds against Murder at the Prancing Pony. (Took forever to eliminate the last hideout possibility.)

I almost never use Galadriel for Nenya. It's in the decks as an option, but draw and threat reduction is way better.

I badly want not to like her, but especially in Noldor decks I end up with her in

She has a low threat and threat reduction, card drawing, her ring gives her lore and Questing power ... with an UC, the Mirror and the Harp you can do threat reduction, draw a card, pisk a card from the first ten of your deck and add +4 to your questing ... also you may assign her damage that is controlable since she will never defend.

I mean , why not like her?

She really should have higher starting threat.

She really should have higher starting threat.

The inability to quest, attack or defend is sort the balance.

That was the intention I'm sure, but in practice she performs so many actions you come out ahead. Drawing a card, preventing threat-rise AND every ally quests for free their first turn, you get your 'quest or defend or attack' action back easily.

Plus it's Galadriel. If she steps out onto the field that's a big deal, way more than 9 threat (Glorfindel the same, he's the last character that should be super-low threat. Shows up in the books and suddenly there's all 9 ringwraiths on Frodo's tail).