The cost at the end of the round.

What about Azain Silverbeard?

No and no.

Elronds resources can be used to pay for allies from any sphere.

In both of those cases you are paying for that characters response not for the ally itself.

Just to clarify Elrond's resources can be used to pay for and play Azain but not for Azain's ability.

Are you sure that "pay" means only "pay to put into play" and not "pay for the effect of"? I dont want to game the system, but its still paying for allies, just not to play them from hand. All 3 cards require/allow to "spend" resources of specific sphere.

Grimbeorn is in the same boat with those dwarves, if i am not mistaken.

I'm with PsychoRocka here, since the cards specify that you need to spend resources of a certain sphere, and Elrond's resources are Lore, unless you attach songs.

I wouldn't say that Elrond's resources would count as the correct sphere, since his card does not say that he gains the correct sphere while paying for allies, merely that he can use his resources to pay for allies of other spheres.

Since each ally mentioned above needs a specific sphere match for the resource, and it is being used to pay for a card effect and not an ally itself, I would say that Elrond cannot be used in this way.

Of course, I may be wrong, and rulings can sometimes be counter-intuitive, but usually the game specifies when a card gains a resource icon while paying for a card (Gandalf) rather than just being able to use a certain colour of resource for a different colour. (sphere, sorry)

You are not "paying for an ally" you are paying to activate or use a response effect that is featured on that ally. Feel free to send in a rules question but I am certain on this one.

PsychoRocka and monkeyrama are correct. You also cannot use Elrond as a resource match for a 0-cost ally like the Dunedain Hunter.

Are you sure that "pay" means only "pay to put into play" and not "pay for the effect of"? I dont want to game the system, but its still paying for allies, just not to play them from hand. All 3 cards require/allow to "spend" resources of specific sphere.

Grimbeorn is in the same boat with those dwarves, if i am not mistaken.

Elrond can't pay for Grimbeorn either.

Well, thats a bummer. Thanks for replies, tho

I guess i gonna send question to Caleb just in case, tho you are probably right.

Yeap, official answer you can only use the resources to pay the initial cost.

I love to help people with rules questions, really I do, but if you're just going to ask the developers even when the community is sure....

I love to help people with rules questions, really I do, but if you're just going to ask the developers even when the community is sure....

To my mind, the issue here is that he is clearly trying to game the system while claiming to not want to game the system. Just be honest.

Hey, I'm not even honest when I play the game.

Oh I used Caldara to put allies into play, then used Gandalf to draw cards and drew into a Northern Tracker which I can discard via Arwen.

Yeah, I would have discarded that Tracker before I used Caladara if I had done that first.

So that's what happened.

--- I would like to leave the developers out of questions that the community can satisfactorily answer, though. Let 'em work undisturbed.

To my mind, the issue here is that he is clearly trying to game the system while claiming to not want to game the system. Just be honest.

I thought finding clever combinations of cards is one of the aspects of this game...

Well, thats a bummer. Thanks for replies, tho

I guess i gonna send question to Caleb just in case, tho you are probably right.

i came to post the same thing as GrandSpleen, so i won't pile on too much, but i will point out that the answers you got in this thread were based on previous official answers