Hello everyone on the forums!

It's been a while since I've dropped an announcement here, but I figured I wanted to cast as wide a net as possible for community comment. The White Tower blog has started up another new project, in collaboration with the Card Talk podcast.

By way of introduction, the project started with me meditating on some of the underpowered cards in the game from the Core Set and early cycles (sparked by a segment or three from Cardboard of the Rings), and wondering what it would take to make them a competitive choice when compared to the full modern card pool. From there, it has grown entirely out of control into a full-blown project to examine every card from the early life of the game, evaluate whether or not the card needs to be boosted in order to put it on even ground in the modern meta, and then offer adjusted versions of those cards. Along the way, if we meet any particularly egregiously overpowered or meta-warping cards, we'll be toning them down just a little bit as well.

We'll be doing a series of blog posts with accompanying YouTube videos going through each of these cards, in bite size chunks of around 8-12 cards per post/video.

The first one is already up: Core Set Leadership Cards

While the Tactics cards are already finalized, and the video has already been recorded (to be posted Friday), we are still inviting community comment on the Spirit cards from the Core Set.

For these cards, we ended up workshopping multiple versions that could work out well. Which one do you think is a better update to the original card?

This version of Light in the Dark gives extra help to Dunhere (who may or may not need it) and other staging area shenanigans. The hope is that the -2 defense will justify the 2 cost.

On the other hand, this version of Light in the Dark thinks that the card was fine the way it was, but it was just a little too expensive for what it did. I don't normally like adjusting the costs of the cards, but feedback from beta reviewers indicated that this was a preferred way to bring the card into conversation with the modern pool

This version of Lorien Guide aims to interact with Rossiel - opening up another variation on the Victory Display deck. With the new Favor of the Lady card included in this preview, she even has tools to boost her in the Core Set itself .

This version of the Lorien Guide aims to interact with the standard Silvan mechanic. +1 willpower to each hero for a player is a powerful effect, and in the right circumstances could easily be worth 3 cost, when combined with the ally itself . There is an error in the image - it should read "until the end of the round," not the end of the phase

This version of Power in the Earth just boosts the threat reduction effect. It might open up a different style of Haldan deck, where instead of clumping location attachments on a single location to use with South Away and Mirkwood Hunters, you spread the attachments around and leave them there (like Guarded Ceaselessly), to benefit from cards like Familiar Lands.

This version of Power in the Earth takes inspiration from Secret Vigil - global threat reduction, which Spirit could use a little more of in the core set. The 2 effects are kind of at odds with each other, though.

This card was difficult to figure out, but eventually Grant and I hit on giving the players something to combat surge with. Adding the attachment to the victory display protects against recursion (and also boosts Keen as Lances), while the cost of 2 and the static willpower boost make the choice to use the response a little more interesting.

As a 0-cost card, you don't expect too much. But by the same sign, it's hard to put a card like this in your deck (with the exception of some Idraen decks). The conditional card draw should make it more attractive, and the extra progress point recognizes that locations have only gotten harder to clear as the game has gotten older

The errata on Will of the West just bothered me - mostly because "remove this card from the game" seemed like a clumsy way to deal with the problem. Adding victory points felt like it was a more organic part of the game system, instead of feeling like it was tacked on afterwards to resolve a problem. I fully own that this choice was just me being annoyed though. The errata'ed card is fine as it is (although this way would also boost one of the versions of the Lorien Guide, which is another reason to send it to the victory display)

These three are the Spirit cards we've identified as possibly needing a nerf. Northern Tracker and Unexpected Courage are definitely powerful - but unlike Steward of Gondor, we're not convinced that they are powerful enough to need a nerf (Steward most definitely was). Test of Will almost certainly needs it, but we'd love to hear thoughts on that. Comment on our ideas and - if you don't like them - feel free to offer alternative options! These are nowhere near finalized yet.

Hi. Since you are doing what I've essentially done once, I think you mite be interested in looking at my interpretations from the past: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1684833/lotr-lcg-rework-project-v10-release

3 hours ago, John Constantine said:

Hi. Since you are doing what I've essentially done once, I think you mite be interested in looking at my interpretations from the past: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1684833/lotr-lcg-rework-project-v10-release

Thanks for the link! There's a lot of interesting cards there. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about the versions we have put out, I'd live to hear them.

I think it is very clever you made use of the victory display mechanic.

My thoughts:

Light in the Dark -- I prefer the 1-cost version. Even without the defense discount, the card synergizes with Dunhere -- but 1 cost makes it more palatable for Dunhere and more importantly useful without him.

Lorien Guide -- again I prefer the more widely useful version; adding an enters play ability gives it synergy with Silvan events. Powering up Rossiel isn't a bad idea, but I think way Rossiel needs most is getting cards into the victory display, not more cards that benefit from things being there -- Rossiel benefits from VD, but the reverse isn't true.

Power in the Earth -- I like the -2 threat version better. Woodman's clearing already has the threat reduction thing going on, and giving more support to the scattered location attachments is a good thing.

Favor of the Lady -- it's interesting, sacrificing for blind cancellation when surge triggered. If you added it *and* the cancelled card to the display, it'd power up both Rossiel and VD decks in general.

Strength of Will -- I like it.

Will of the West -- I have no quarrel with adding cards to the victory display instead of removing from the game, though without your variant of Lorien Guide that cares about player cards, there's no practical difference. If you left the victory points off it would at least power up Keen As Lances.

I'm much less a fan of player card nerfs than enhancements, especially with core set (new players need all the help they can get IMO). I don't think any card in the core *needs* to be nerfed. However, if you grant the premise:

Northern Tracker -- Limiting Northern Tracker to 2-5 locations (depending on player count) means that he's only limited when you really, really need Northern Tracker. Nerf preserves the common case.

Unexpected Courage -- nerf has the benefit of being completely harmless to a new player with a single core set. If readying really is a problem that needs "fixed", Limit 1 would be my preferred nerf for this card.

A Test of Will -- The effect is so valuable when it is needed that it would still be worth the cost -- the hit here is to spirit's low resource economy, needing to keep two resources around to play this card hurts the sphere.

For Northern Tracker, if it needs to be nerfed (which I'm not sure it does), then simply adding a cost to the ability might help. For example, change to "After Northern Tracker commits to the quest, any player may pay 1 <spirit> resource to ..."

Another option would be to change the trigger slightly : "After Northern Trackers quests successfully commits to the quest ,..."

Facetious way of nerfing Northern Tracker: put a "–" in front of its 1 WP.

8 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

My thoughts:

Light in the Dark -- I prefer the 1-cost version. Even without the defense discount, the card synergizes with Dunhere -- but 1 cost makes it more palatable for Dunhere and more importantly useful without him.

Lorien Guide -- again I prefer the more widely useful version; adding an enters play ability gives it synergy with Silvan events. Powering up Rossiel isn't a bad idea, but I think way Rossiel needs most is getting cards into the victory display, not more cards that benefit from things being there -- Rossiel benefits from VD, but the reverse isn't true.

Power in the Earth -- I like the -2 threat version better. Woodman's clearing already has the threat reduction thing going on, and giving more support to the scattered location attachments is a good thing.

Favor of the Lady -- it's interesting, sacrificing for blind cancellation when surge triggered. If you added it *and* the cancelled card to the display, it'd power up both Rossiel and VD decks in general.

Strength of Will -- I like it.

Will of the West -- I have no quarrel with adding cards to the victory display instead of removing from the game, though without your variant of Lorien Guide that cares about player cards, there's no practical difference. If you left the victory points off it would at least power up Keen As Lances.

I'm much less a fan of player card nerfs than enhancements, especially with core set (new players need all the help they can get IMO). I don't think any card in the core *needs* to be nerfed. However, if you grant the premise:

Northern Tracker -- Limiting Northern Tracker to 2-5 locations (depending on player count) means that he's only limited when you really, really need Northern Tracker. Nerf preserves the common case.

Unexpected Courage -- nerf has the benefit of being completely harmless to a new player with a single core set. If readying really is a problem that needs "fixed", Limit 1 would be my preferred nerf for this card.

A Test of Will -- The effect is so valuable when it is needed that it would still be worth the cost -- the hit here is to spirit's low resource economy, needing to keep two resources around to play this card hurts the sphere.

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback!

First, I'll comment on the nerfs. I think that I've come around on both unexpected courage and northern tracker being fine as they are. Both were on my 'maybe' list, and the discussion in the community has been good to settle my thoughts. Earlier in the life of the game, they were more powerful and meta- warping than they are now. But they have become less prevalent - in part because quests have built around them.

Test of will is probably the single most OP card in the game, but I think that it is so powerful that it has shaped the game around it - to such an extent that nerfing it would be incredibly harmful. Unlike steward of Gondor, or some of the other op cards, there aren't alternatives waiting to see time in the sun. Test of will is so powerful that to this day, it is almost the only card capable of canceling treacheries.

So, there's that. I still have cards in my list that I feel need to be toned down, and I recognize and respect your difference of opinion in that, and I appreciate your willingness to engage even though you are skeptical of the basic premise.

Now, onto your thoughts on specific cards.

I agree completely on light in the dark, and - barring a convincing wave of community comment that offers good reasons to go the other way - that is where I plan to take it.

On Lorien Guide, I prefer the more general case as well, although I really like the idea of opening up additional space in the victory display deck. I am still torn on this one - as written, she can also be an interesting boost for side quest decks, Gandalf (flame of Anor), secrecy (out of the wild), and others. But at the end of the day, i think that the Lorien guide ought to be a good card in a celeborn/Galadriel deck, and that points towards the standard silvan version.

For power in the earth, I also share your preference, just to open up new deckbuilding space. However, I have heard rather significant concerns about it - there are many locations in the game with only 2 threat, and to be able to lock them down with only 1 resource and 1 card is a powerful effect.

I like your proposal for favor of the lady - I'll bring it up with Grant.

My original Will of the West had no victory points, but i added then after someone offered worries about being able to boost up keen as lances too quickly. I'm not sure how I feel on that subject atm.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

I'll grant there's a lot of 2 threat locations, but since you (ordinarily) have to both deal with the 2-threat after its reveal and not travel to it in the travel phase, I don't think locking it down completely is a terrible thing; certainly less powerful than Ranger Spikes with Damrod. The whole point of Power in the Earth is to keep a location in staging indefinitely, and obviously -1 threat hasn't been enough of an effect to justify doing that. Making Power in the Earth worth playing is the point, surely? Even then, with a -2 threat PitE in hand (and not a woodman deck) I'm not sure you'd use it on an ordinary 2-threat location if the encounter deck has other locations, even with higher threat, that have obnoxious travel/active requirements.

I think the way to think about revising Power in the Earth is as an indirect form of increasing willpower (since there needs to be a location in the staging area for it to work). Generally speaking, 2 resources for 2 willpower is a good deal in a sphere like Leadership (which is why Celebrian's Stone is popular), but might not be as enticing in a sphere like Spirit where there's such easy access to cheap direct willpower through allies.

Is this a sort of divertimento? or are you planning to print the cards and play with them (or use them in octgn)?

1 hour ago, Yepesnopes said:

Is this a sort of divertimento? or are you planning to print the cards and play with them (or use them in octgn)?

The Leadership cards are already available for download for OCTGN from my blog. I think you could get them printed too, if you wanted to - I don't have any experience with that though.

What I was trying to ask is if you are going to use your new set of cards, and if so, do you find yourself including now cards like power in the earth in your decks?

I myself play RAW. I would not mind though seeing an oficial review of cards which are bad (Brok Ironfist...), or poorly done (Horn of Gondor), but definitively I am not going to use for sure extra nerfed cards, for this I have enough with the official stupid erratas.

On 7/9/2019 at 4:28 AM, Yepesnopes said:

What I was trying to ask is if you are going to use your new set of cards, and if so, do you find yourself including now cards like power in the earth in your decks?

I myself play RAW. I would not mind though seeing an oficial review of cards which are bad (Brok Ironfist...), or poorly done (Horn of Gondor), but definitively I am not going to use for sure extra nerfed cards, for this I have enough with the official stupid erratas.

I am certainly going to record some playthroughs using these cards - probably a few with Grant, maybe a few more on my own. I don't anticipate this project being the primary way for me to play the game from now on. But I expect to play around with these, just to see how the game feels with these changes in it.

And it's another Friday, so the blog post and the video for the Tactics cards are up!

I'll post the lore cards for community comment later today. Hope y'all enjoy the write-up!

And here are the Lore cards!

This sphere had a lot less cards that felt like they needed help, so if we've missed one that you think is really underpwered, let us know. Also, if we've altered one which you think didn't need it, tell us that, too!

There are 2 versions of Self-Preservation - one following our preferred method of adding new abilities instead of changing costs, the other just reducing the cost to be in line with the 2 Daughters of the Nimrodel.

My thoughts:

Glorfindel: I like this enhancement, the mild stat boost distinguishes him from other pay-to-heal options like Ioreth/Warden/Remedy. Since it's a phase boost it's ordinarily just a +1, but Herugrim or Golden Shield can take advantage of the multi-boost and I'm fine with that.

Daughter of Nimrodel: Thinking about Daughter vs Warden, I'm struck a little by the claim that Warden's healing ability is better. Certainly his extra ability sets him apart, and being able to heal a character instead of a hero is huge, but (absent Elrond effects) I'm not convinced that healing a single point in two different characters is better than healing two points in one character. For archery they're equivalent because you can put damage wherever you want. For treacheries that ding everybody spreading it out is better. But for damage from defending, two points is often better. So which of the two is better is situational. Most of all, while Warden is the king of two-cost healers, I'm not convinced that he's *overpowered* at two unless his repeat healing ability is being abused. So maybe instead of making Warden's current healing more expensive to make weaker healers look attractive at two, could we make weaker healers comparable at two or better at three?

It's also a shame that Nimrodel has no enters play ability, what with her being a Silvan at all. If she had one, what would it take for Nimrodel to be better at three? How about something like this: change Nimrodel to heal 2 damage on any *character*, this makes her different than Warden's base ability, but not inferior -- depending on how you expect damage, you may prefer one or the other, but the base ability is at par. What about an enters play? She could do her ability when coming in, but that's essentially like a one-shot Warden repeat, leaving her more expensive (not to mention Galadhrim healer has this thing going already). Here's an ability that I think would make her worth 3 -- when she enters play, move up to two damage from a character to a non-unique enemy in play.

What about at an enter play at 2 cost? Giving her a free heal for enter play would make her essentially par with a (limit 1 per turn) 2-cost warden -- he can do it more often, but he doesn't get an extra heal for free. Of course, she's now a much better value than Galadhrim Healer, who probably needs some help in any case. One option might be to give her an enters-play that doesn't relate to healing at all. Healer isn't in her name, and while Waters of Nimrodel is a healing card, Lay of Nimrodel gives +willpower to a spirit hero based on resources -- maybe Daughter could ape that event for a lore hero instead (for round instead of phase, since +willpower in planning phase is not very useful).

Self Preservation -- I like the 3 cost version better. +2 hp adds the twist that makes this a good value at 3.

Gandalf's Search -- The scrying makes it superior to Heed the Dream *if* you don't have 3 leadership resources, which I usually do in decks where I use Heed the Dream. But it's a different card and is useful at all X costs, I like it.

Lore of Imladris -- while it's close to Lembas, allowing it to be played on a character instead of a hero makes this a more general purpose option.

Lorien's Wealth -- Turning a card from the core set into Campfire Tales on steroids makes it terrific value for 4-players, which core players probably rarely do, and exactly as useful as the current card for one player, which core players probably commonly do. How about leaving at choose-a-player-for-3-cards but lowering the cost to 2? Or maybe increase the cards drawn to 4 or 5?

Beorn's Hospitality -- agree that a major plus needs to be added to the across the board healing to make this event worth 5. It needs to be a game-changer, and the effects of other 5-cost events (that don't have discounts) reflect that. The effects you've identified are powerful, I think I prefer the first because it's a powerful effect for a specific player while the second is most beneficial for multi-player and the extra value is contingent on questing heroes. I'd prefer a grand effect that synergizes with healing damage, but what does healing damage let you do -- take more damage. But that's something you don't generally want to do, and I'm at a loss what "extra effect" actually could be set up by a global heal. I do have some thoughts, though:

1) Change it to heal all *characters* controlled by a player (up to 5 damage, so Rhosgobel doesn't break). This is a big expensive healing event, doctor up the allies too.

2) Maybe address the weakness of lore? Traditionally it's card rich and resource poor. Beorn's hospitality gets you banged up *and* gives you supplies -- maybe heal up *and* put an attachment into play for no cost?

3) Maybe throw in another stereotypical lore effect, like some scrying (Beorn wasn't just hospitable, he also applied extreme intelligence gathering)? Add look at the top 5 cards of the encounter deck, place a non-unique card from them in the victory display and put the other four back in any order?

40 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Daughter of Nimrodel: Thinking about Daughter vs Warden, I'm struck a little by the claim that Warden's healing ability is better. Certainly his extra ability sets him apart, and being able to heal a character instead of a hero is huge, but (absent Elrond effects) I'm not convinced that healing a single point in two different characters is better than healing two points in one character. For archery they're equivalent because you can put damage wherever you want. For treacheries that ding everybody spreading it out is better. But for damage from defending, two points is often better. So which of the two is better is situational. Most of all, while Warden is the king of two-cost healers, I'm not convinced that he's *overpowered* at two unless his repeat healing ability is being abused. So maybe instead of making Warden's current healing more expensive to make weaker healers look attractive at two, could we make weaker healers comparable at two or better at three?

It's also a shame that Nimrodel has no enters play ability, what with her being a Silvan at all. If she had one, what would it take for Nimrodel to be better at three? How about something like this: change Nimrodel to heal 2 damage on any *character*, this makes her different than Warden's base ability, but not inferior -- depending on how you expect damage, you may prefer one or the other, but the base ability is at par. What about an enters play? She could do her ability when coming in, but that's essentially like a one-shot Warden repeat, leaving her more expensive (not to mention Galadhrim healer has this thing going already). Here's an ability that I think would make her worth 3 -- when she enters play, move up to two damage from a character to a non-unique enemy in play.

What about at an enter play at 2 cost? Giving her a free heal for enter play would make her essentially par with a (limit 1 per turn) 2-cost warden -- he can do it more often, but he doesn't get an extra heal for free. Of course, she's now a much better value than Galadhrim Healer, who probably needs some help in any case. One option might be to give her an enters-play that doesn't relate to healing at all. Healer isn't in her name, and while Waters of Nimrodel is a healing card, Lay of Nimrodel gives +willpower to a spirit hero based on resources -- maybe Daughter could ape that event for a lore hero instead (for round instead of phase, since +willpower in planning phase is not very useful).

I would definitely agree that the Warden isn't overpowered, just significantly more efficient. Maybe boosting the Warden's cost might be overkill, and just reducing Nimrodel to 2 would be fine to even out the comparison.

But this is a tricky one - you're not the only one that would rather add something to the existing card than just reduce its cost to compete with the Warden. I've had the suggestion to boost both willpower and hit points to 2 - I'm not wholly convinced by it, but it would make it more of a multipurpose ally.

I'm also unconvinced that every Silvan ally needs an enters-play effect. Several silvan allies exist that do not have one, and I'm not sure that I'm going to give each one of them an enters-play. Especially when the Daughter has a repeatable ability every round. I wonder, however, if it would be worth giving her an enters-play-adjacent ability, combining several ideas. What would you think about boosting her willpower to 2 and also giving her the ability "After a Silvan ally enters play, ready Daughter (limit once per round)"? That would make her more multipurpose, and also make it possible to use her ability while still questing with her. That would have the drawback of being near-useless in a Core Set limited environment, though..

If you're looking for something along the lines of Lay of Nimrodel as an enter's play effect, here's something: "After Daughter of the Nimrodel enter's play, choose a location in the staging area. Until the end of the round, Daughter of the Nimrodel gets +X willpower, where X is that location's threat." Thematically, it associates her with locations - appropriate for someone associated with the Nimrodel river. Mechanically, it's a powerful single-turn boost in a sphere that (especially in the Core Set) can lack for willpower.

41 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Lorien's Wealth -- Turning a card from the core set into Campfire Tales on steroids makes it terrific value for 4-players, which core players probably rarely do, and exactly as useful as the current card for one player, which core players probably commonly do. How about leaving at choose-a-player-for-3-cards but lowering the cost to 2? Or maybe increase the cards drawn to 4 or 5?

You are also not the only one with concerns about Lorien's Wealth. Right now, I'm thinking leaving it at cost 3 but making it choose-up-to-2-players for 3 cards. That version would still not really useful for solo, though (although I rather suspect that there are use cases with Good Meal that haven't been explored). Just lowering the cost to 2 might be a better idea - I'll explore through that one. I am hesitant to increase the card draw because Good Meal exists, and I most certainly do not want to have a card that draws 4 or 5 for 1 cost.

42 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Beorn's Hospitality -- agree that a major plus needs to be added to the across the board healing to make this event worth 5. It needs to be a game-changer, and the effects of other 5-cost events (that don't have discounts) reflect that. The effects you've identified are powerful, I think I prefer the first because it's a powerful effect for a specific player while the second is most beneficial for multi-player and the extra value is contingent on questing heroes. I'd prefer a grand effect that synergizes with healing damage, but what does healing damage let you do -- take more damage. But that's something you don't generally want to do, and I'm at a loss what "extra effect" actually could be set up by a global heal. I do have some thoughts, though:

1) Change it to heal all *characters* controlled by a player (up to 5 damage, so Rhosgobel doesn't break). This is a big expensive healing event, doctor up the allies too.

2) Maybe address the weakness of lore? Traditionally it's card rich and resource poor. Beorn's hospitality gets you banged up *and* gives you supplies -- maybe heal up *and* put an attachment into play for no cost?

3) Maybe throw in another stereotypical lore effect, like some scrying (Beorn wasn't just hospitable, he also applied extreme intelligence gathering)? Add look at the top 5 cards of the encounter deck, place a non-unique card from them in the victory display and put the other four back in any order?

1 - absolutely; that was something that I was considering very strongly. I worry about crowding out Waters of Nimrodel (or about Waters crowding out Hospitality), but restricting it to characters of 1 player while also doing something like cancelling attacks would leave the space open.

2 - Ooh, now that is an interesting idea. Much like the change we settled on with Brok Ironfist, where the too-high cost doesn't go away, but if you are using it to bring in an attachment at no cost, that could very easily change the calculus a great deal. A free 4-cost attachment means that you are wiping the board of damage at effectively 1-cost. I think that I might like it even better than the attack cancellation idea. And it could also be a way to get off-sphere attachments into a Lore deck. 5-cost for Sword that was Broken on Loragorn (plus a free heal)? Probably worth it. I'm going to look into that idea quite extensively.

3 - Hmm...that's another option, but I don't think I like that one as much. The theme feels a little bit stretched there, and the effect is more easily replicated by the side quest Scout Ahead, or the secrecy event Risk Some Light.

4 hours ago, Onidsen said:

I would definitely agree that the Warden isn't overpowered, just significantly more efficient. Maybe boosting the Warden's cost might be overkill, and just reducing Nimrodel to 2 would be fine to even out the comparison.

But this is a tricky one - you're not the only one that would rather add something to the existing card than just reduce its cost to compete with the Warden. I've had the suggestion to boost both willpower and hit points to 2 - I'm not wholly convinced by it, but it would make it more of a multipurpose ally.

I'm also unconvinced that every Silvan ally needs an enters-play effect. Several silvan allies exist that do not have one, and I'm not sure that I'm going to give each one of them an enters-play. Especially when the Daughter has a repeatable ability every round. I wonder, however, if it would be worth giving her an enters-play-adjacent ability, combining several ideas. What would you think about boosting her willpower to 2 and also giving her the ability "After a Silvan ally enters play, ready Daughter (limit once per round)"? That would make her more multipurpose, and also make it possible to use her ability while still questing with her. That would have the drawback of being near-useless in a Core Set limited environment, though..

If you're looking for something along the lines of Lay of Nimrodel as an enter's play effect, here's something: "After Daughter of the Nimrodel enter's play, choose a location in the staging area. Until the end of the round, Daughter of the Nimrodel gets +X willpower, where X is that location's threat." Thematically, it associates her with locations - appropriate for someone associated with the Nimrodel river. Mechanically, it's a powerful single-turn boost in a sphere that (especially in the Core Set) can lack for willpower.

I think a cost reduction essentially puts Daughter at par with Warden *if* it can heal characters, not just heroes. But then there's also not much to differentiate them -- if it's restricted to heroes than Warden's character healing and repeatability make it still more compelling, a mild enters play boost would level them out.

Increasing wp to 2 and increasing it to 2 hp makes a clean distinction between Warden and Daughter, but it also has the advantage of making a less narrow card for the time for core starters, which is important. It gives Lore a decent generic quester (which they lack), it gives you a less fragile healer, and it gives a choice on usage which could be interesting. But to stand at par with Warden as healer it'd need either to be broadened by character or have a useful response. (Of course, it's not as vital that it be good as Warden at healing if it is more valuable than Warden when no one needs healing)

It's true that not all Silvans have an enter plays response -- before Ringmaker invented the Silvan archetype, *none* of the Silvans have enter play responses, or abilities that synergize with it (the most useful for the deck, the Silvan Tracker, is undercut by how fragile the Silvans are). Silvan Refugee has anti-synergy, at least if there's more than one in the deck. But from Dunland Trap on, *every* Silvan has an enters play response except Legolas. It's a shame that the older Silvans don't really fit in a Silvan deck, but I think the older Silvans should at least have a reason to be considered for a Silvan deck. That could be an enters play, but for the 3+ cost something that synergizes with *other* Silvans flitting in and out of play might be better.

Readying from another Silvan entering play fits that description, though it is fairly useless until the cheap Silvans come on line. A response to characters leaving play wouldn't be useless in the chump-blocking core environment, yet would synergize with Silvan events. Something as simple as healing one point of damage would be useful as a response and could be limited to once per round -- though it's no help for the chump blocker, of course.

But a non-healing response is fine, too. The location related enters play is thematic. A location relation makes me wonder how popular she would be if she were a Healer/Scout, and her ability could be used to remove 2 damage from a hero *or* place one progress on a location.

I like the first Beorn's Hospitality. No orcs are going to come near his house!

If you plan to change the Warden in the future, my initial thought would be just make him unique, because he should be, and then you don't need to do much to the rest of him.

@dalestephenson Based on feedback from you and others, we've redesigned Lorien's Wealth.

Frankly, we're still struggling to find a non-enters-play ability for the Daughter that still interacts well with the Silvan deck. The problem is that it takes such a long time into the card pool for the Silvan trait as we now know it to get fleshed out that something that is Silvan-adjacent (like triggering off of Silvan characters leaving play) is far too niche in the limited pool environment.

We're also trying to find something similar for Haldir of Lorien. Nothing we've come up with yet quite works the way I want it to.

Some thoughts I have on this topic:

Ressources are scarce in Lore, so I do not like to pay for Glorfindel's weak healing ability. Granted, it is available from the start, but there is no synergy at all. Given that Lore excels in card draw and Glorfindel is a Noldor hero, I would suggest the following ability: Action: Discard a card from your hand to heal 2 damage on any characer. (Limit once per round)

This way it is usually cheaper in Lore to pay for the action and he will later form a pair with the Imladris Caregiver, just as Beravor and Gléowine do in the core set.

As the waters of the Nimrodel are said to be "healing to the weary", she could be used to also ready another character, probably without healing in the process, something like: Action: Exhaust Daughter of the Nimrodel to either heal up to 2 damage on any 1 character or ready any 1 character. On second thought, this would turn her into an Unexpected Courage in ally form and easier to pull off than Spare Hood and Cloak plus Long Lake Trader. Still, being able to target allies would help this card. I try to figure something out tomorrow.

While Self-preservation more implies damage avoidance for me, there hardly is a difference between cancelling damage and healing it, as long as there are enough hitpoints to spare. At least this attachment heals for more than the Raven-winged Helm can cancel and it is available to non-Sentinels as well. But if you reduce the cost or give some extra hitpoints, then the Helm surely needs a buff as well, as Honour Guard by far is the better option.

I am surprised to not see Dark Knowledge on the list. I usually do not bother at all with this card, as Burning Brand just cancels most shadow effects (and as long as there is no new FAQ out, I will ignore its exhaustion). The debuff for willpower usually is not a problem, as not every hero will be questing. At least it is cheaper than Silver Lamp and does not require a certain sphere icon or readiness. Though I do not have an idea for now to improve this card.