Guys, let's make a list of the existing ways to workaround saruman hero limit to threat reduction. Which cards allow to reduce threat of more than 1 bypassing saruman negative ability?

New pillars of the king seems to work allowing to set your theat to 40

I do not think the same happens of favor of the valar and lore aragorn since both say to reduce your threat, so saruman text would apply.

Leadership frodo, galadriel and spirit beregond seems the hero cards which would pair best with saruman as they reduce threat of 1 to begin with.

3 minutes ago, Halberto said:

Leadership frodo, galadriel and spirit beregond seems the hero cards which would pair best with saruman as they reduce threat of 1 to begin with.

Nori too if you manage to sneak in Saruman in a Dwarf deck. In multiplayer having someone else having Song of Earindil could help too.

Revitalizing song of earendil would be great

Galadriel handmaiden too, how could i forget one of my favorite spirit ally in the game...

3 hours ago, Halberto said:

Guys, let's make a list of the existing ways to workaround saruman hero limit to threat reduction. Which cards allow to reduce threat of more than 1 bypassing saruman negative ability?

Easy answer. There aren't any. Even if a card doesn't use the word 'reduce', if the value on your threat dial goes down then you are still reducing your threat. The best you can hope for is to reduce your threat by 1 multiple times.

If you want to reduce your threat by more than 1 at a time then you need to get rid of Saruman.

11 minutes ago, PocketWraith said:

Easy answer. There aren't any. Even if a card doesn't use the word 'reduce', if the value on your threat dial goes down then you are still reducing your threat. The best you can hope for is to reduce your threat by 1 multiple times.

If you want to reduce your threat by more than 1 at a time then you need to get rid of Saruman.

Source: rulings in this thread.

1 hour ago, PocketWraith said:

Easy answer. There aren't any. Even if a card doesn't use the word 'reduce', if the value on your threat dial goes down then you are still reducing your threat. The best you can hope for is to reduce your threat by 1 multiple times.

If you want to reduce your threat by more than 1 at a time then you need to get rid of Saruman.

So sure new event which set your threat at 40 doesn't apply? I'm not so sure.

51 minutes ago, Halberto said:

So sure new event which set your threat at 40 doesn't apply? I'm not so sure.

Reproducing parts of the rulings I linked above:

Quote

In every case where card text says that your threat “cannot be reduced” it means that the actual value on your threat dial cannot go down. This is important because there are several ‘threat reduction’ effects in the game that do not use the word reduce .

For example, Elrond’s Counsel says “lower your threat by 3” but I think players understand that if I cannot reduce my threat, then I cannot use Elrond’s Counsel to lower it either.

Similarly, if I cannot reduce my threat then I cannot ‘set’ my threat to a value that is lower than my current one because I would have to reduce it in order to do that.

and

Quote

Any effect that causes the value of threat dial to go down is reducing your threat. Ramshackle Manor prevents your threat dial from being decreased by more than 1 each round. So if Ramshackle Manor is in play when Favor of the Valar triggers, you cannot reduce your threat by more than 1. If your threat is still 50 or higher after the effect resolves, then you will still be eliminated.

Essentially, in the Pillars situation with threat >40, I believe Saruman fires a replacement effect for the "set" sentence, reducing your threat by 1 instead—this is despite the fact that Pillars does not use the word "reduce", as the rulings show that the precise word is not necessary for Saruman's limitation to apply. (And Ramshackle Manor uses very similar wording to Saruman.)

What about the quest where you start at 0 threat? Does Saruman ruins it for you as well?

1 minute ago, John Constantine said:

What about the quest where you start at 0 threat? Does Saruman ruins it for you as well?

You mean Shadow and Flame? That is an encounter card effect (not player card), so Saruman's limitation does not apply to it.

My initial thought is fall of gil-galad on saruman, chump out, then play the houses of healing/fortune or fate (plus a whole bunch of threat reduction in between)

Or desperate alliance him to another player and reduce threat as much as possible before Saruman is back

Now that would work well if you also had lore Aragorn

Spirit Merry with 3x Fast Hitches and praying for lots of enemies.

*deleted, see below*

On 11/17/2019 at 12:25 PM, Halberto said:

Or desperate alliance him to another player and reduce threat as much as possible before Saruman is back

That's an awfully patient teammate taking that doom! Hopefully you play with loragorn and can pass him over as well. (Not at the same time obviously)