Lothiriel is a curious hero, she can make a matching ally quest for free -- but then you lose the ally back into your deck at the end of the quest phase. Free is good, but the cost of a card out of hand makes it tougher (unlike her Tactics Dad, reaching into the deck for his not-free ally). So what to do?

With Gondor, every matching ally is worth at least 1 wp if Visionary Leadership is active. As an alternative to going in the deck, you can discard the lampwright if a surge card comes out, or discard SpAnborn to lower your threat. Then Knight of Belafas can them back for you later. (There are other self-discarders, but they can't really discard during the quest phase). Gondor has a fair amount of useful enter-plays effects and also a leaves play, but none replace themselves with card draw. And sadly a number of Gondor cards have useful effects only when played from hand, which Lothriel doesn't do. If Hunters of Lamedon's effect was just enters play, she'd be an asset in an Outlands deck.

She does make a useful choice for a Caldara deck -- send Imrahil questing, discard Caldara, bam -- he becomes a hero, stays in play, and you get an extra blue ally from the discard.

Paired with Eomer she expands to Rohan -- this is excellent for Escort for Edoras, which drops to 0-cost. It doesn't go back in your deck, but if you have Gamling or Guthwine around, you can get Escort back in your hand and then do it again the next turn. Rohan has a lot of self-discarders, but not many who can discard while exhausted, in the quest phase. The upcoming Rohirrim Scout is perfect for recur-to-discard by preventing an enemy from making an engagement check, Westfold Outrider could be discarded to pull an enemy out of staging before the quest resolves, and Westfold Horse-Breaker can be discarded to ready a hero. Special props to Eomund -- he doesn't discard, but he does ready all the Rohirrim wihen he leaves play at the end of the round.

But how can we create additional card draw? There's a way in a Dale deck, but it takes a bit of setup. Brand/Bard need a partner, and a spirit hero like Lothiriel is a good choice to get King of Dale out quick. After that, Dale can generate card draw with free attachments, but you can't get extra card draw by moving attachments around. But Lothiriel creates temporary allies, and Bard gets attachments on temporary allies back to hand -- where they can be played for card draw the next turn. What we want is the free-to-play Spare-Hood-and-Cloak along with the Lookout (though in a pinch you can do the same thing with Long Lake Trader). Lookout quests without exhausting with SH&C attached, then after the quest resolves he exhausts to give it to Lothriel's ally, it goes back in deck, SH&C goes on the Lookout the next turn to get additional card draw.

This works nicely for allies who exhaust to do something useful in the quest phase. if you don't mind losing the willpower boost on Lookout, you can ready Faramir and let him give everyone a willpower boost. or let Anborn damage the next enemy to come out. You could also transfer past-resolution to enable Warden of Healing to do some healing before he leaves. I put this deck together to test the concept, but haven't tried yet:

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/192233

But what we really want is for the ally to go back in our hand so that we can play it again next turn, and that's where our old friends from play-Gandalf-Every-Turn come in, Elvenking and Elf-Friend. Lothriel in a Silvan deck, with Elf-Friend attached, is just what a Silvan deck needs. With Celeborn out every Silvan she sends gets at least 1 wp while questing, and if you don't have a useful event you just use Elvenking to get him or her back after quest resolution, readying Celeborn (or Thranduil, or Argalad, etc) in the process. All for free.... Let that latent elf-blood shine! Here's a Silvan deck with TaEomer and Celeborn, so she can power up hubby's attack while readying Celeborn, and throw in some Edoras/Guthwine action for another repeatable combo.

https://ringsdb.com/deck/view/192207

Sadly, Keen-Eyed Took is the only ally who can return himself to hand during the questing phase, and with only the Hobbit trait there's no way to get a match -- though even if there were a Honorary Hobbit card, playiing Keen-Eyed Took for free every turn isn't quite so special. If Born[e] Aloft were an item you could do hijinks with Long Lake Trader, but it's not. You'd have to recur Reforged to pull that trick off.

I have been playing Lothiriel quite a bit lately. She is amazing. But I don't think Silvans need any more help or sneaky combos to be honest. I have been playing her with rohan mostly and enjoyed her in a deck with leadership Eomer and Fastred. Her synergy is better with tactics Eomer but I don't own him, since my brother and I have all the cycles but he owns 1 deluxe, I have the next, and so on. I was putting Gamling out and horn of the mark on Lothiriel. Every round free 4 willpower and draw a card from the horn. So cool.

Now I have her in a spirit Gondor type deck. She can't recur those allies as easily but it still works great. Damrod, envoy of pelagir, lore Faramir, all good choices for her. And there are still so many decks I want to try her in! Shes not only good, but a lot of fun. Just bring some extra card draw (ancient mathom, Gandalf) and you will be all set.

I don't look for sneaky Silvan combos because I think Silvans need help -- I look for sneaky Silvan combos because they're fun! Nobody does every-round ally recursion like Silvans.

I was disappointed in Lore Faramir ally as a card, which I think is much weaker than the core Faramir. But he's beautiful with Lothriel -- a 0-cost ally-event that both provides 2 willpower and does direct damage -- a lot of damage with Guarded objectives and player cards! Envoy of Pelargir is a bit weaker at 1 resource and 1 willpower, though if Visionary Leadership is out and on a noble hero it's 2 willpower and the resource you need to make it work. Spirit Damrod could be great with a lot of players (or a lot of Ranger Spikes).

I'm ashamed to say I totally forgot about Horn of the Mark -- that replaces the lost card in a hurry. Even without Eomer around it may be worth having Nor Am I a Stranger just for the combo, and there are precious few cards that make that first-cycle stinker worth having. Heck, now I need to get it on Radagast in my Radagast-plays-Gandalf-every-turn deck.

I have been playing a lot of Lothiriel, too, and she's quickly become one of my favorite heroes. I agree that her weakness is "burning" cards from your hand for no permanent gain. I initially started trying her dropping the biggest Willpower allies for the most help questing (e.g. Denethror), but this quickly ran into issues of having a pretty empty hand and burning brightly but flickering out quickly. After several tweaks, I think I've settled into a slew of allies that contribute very little WP (0-2, pending Visionary Leadership) but provide some other free bonus for appearing in play, which in the long run is far more valuable than an additional point of willpower to the quest:

3x Eomund (readies Lothriel and Eomer and a potential third Rohan hero)
3x Escort from Edoras (for the +4 WP, then discards to be fetched by Guthwine / Stand and Fight to be used every round as needed)
3x Horsebreeder (to draw mounts / chump block)
3x Soldier of Gondor (to draw Gondor ally)
3x Knight of Belfalas (to retrieve dead chump blockers)
3x Envoy of Pelgrir (free Resource / chump block)
3x Squire of the Citadel (free Resource / chump block)

Then I run:

3x Horn of the Mark (mulligan for this)
3x Guthwine (so Eomer can retrieve an Escort from Edoras (or dead Horsebreeder) each attack
3x Valiant Sacrifice (from third [Leadership] hero, to keep cards coming)


For Heroes I use Lothiriel (dedicated quester), Tactics Eomer (dedicated nuke attacker), and a Leadership Hero who plays hybrid quester/defender -- I've toyed with Imrahil , Denethor, Elfhelm , and Erkenbrand who have all contributed well to the deck. Not sure that I have a favorite of the three, but I do greatly enjoy that every Hero/Ally in the deck is either Gondor or Rohan for thematic purposes, representing an Oath of Eorl sort of effort.

Between card draw (Horn + Valiant Sacrifice), ally recursion (Guthwine + Knight of Belfalas), and ally drawing (Soldier of Gondor) your hand stays fairly replenished and you always have an ally to drop with Lothiriel.


With this lineup, I basically think of Lothriel's ally as a 0 Cost event that reads: +1-2 WP to a question character, AND ready a character (Imrahil), AND give a character +2 ATK (Eomer), AND search for card (Horsebreeder/Soldier) or gain 1 resource (Squire/Envoy). That in an of itself is pretty awesome, and then when it also gains the "draw 1 card" text via the Horn of the Mark, it's incredible.


Lothiriel has been a lot of fun to play, and I can't appreciate enough how brilliant of a design she was to coordinate so well thematically with characters like Imrahil and Eomer, who both greatly benefit from a little incentive to put them on the table. A really clever boon for quite a few Gondor and Rohan cards that were otherwise a bit lackluster. Kudos, and just goes to show that after 10 years and 9 cycles, the designers have still got it!

I'm expecting/hoping the remaining packs contain a few more Lothiriel-friendly allies.

I totally agreed about lore faramir. Hes a tough sell for 4 cost but he is great with Lothiriel.

It would be cool to get a Eowyn ally to work with Lothiriel or some more gondor characters.

I built a 50 ally deck on ringsdb that is built around tactics prince imrahil and Lotheriel. Ally triggers become your events, and it's a natural deck to run the Burglar turn. Theres enough tricks to hold the enemies off until you can get the heroes suped (like ancestral armor and gondorian shield on prince imrahil, orcrist and glamdring on eomer) to then start clearing the enemies. It runs extremely well with another burglar deck featuring haldan.

The horn helps with card draw but the cycling of cards is extremely helpful. Since you also do not need to spend money to trigger her ability, she starts stacking resources fast. Near the end game,you can start paying for permanent allies. Card draw is never an issue when you only play an ally from your set of 6 cards during quest and then a card from your deck. If you build your deck with the right allies, you can trigger both sneaky allies each round.

Here is the singular deck:

https://ringsdb.com/decklist/view/14296/summonthearmy-2.0

Here is the fellowship (I also ran this in a hobbit secrecy deck... have not play tested that one):

https://ringsdb.com/fellowship/view/8097/doubleburglardecks

I do not think, that burning cards is a weakness of Lothíriel. In fact, it ensures that both she and her father always have a target, if you run out of your deck, as long as you do not play said ally normally.

1 hour ago, Amicus Draconis said:

I do not think, that burning cards is a weakness of Lothíriel. In fact, it ensures that both she and her father always have a target, if you run out of your deck, as long as you do not play said ally normally.

Well, even the 'deck of one ally' tactic will only work as long as the ally that appears in the combat phase doesn't have to die blocking.

But the card burn aspect is about running out of allies in your hand, not your deck. It's a "weakness" only in the sense that the player's hand depletes rather quickly, and you don't have anything permanent to show for the allies Lothiriel played (they are basically events that add Willpower to one quest phase and then shuffle into the deck). If this is all the allies are doing, the Lothiriel player will run out of in-hand allies at some point, unless the deck is built incredibly ally-heavy and doesn't play any/many other cards from hand normally. But odds are the Lothiriel deck wants to run at least some events (e.g. Test of Will, Hasty Stroke, Dwarven Tomb, Feint, etc.), a few attachments, and probably a couple side quests (e.g. Gather Information and Double Back as the go-tos, minimally), while also probably sparingly playing a few additional allies from hand to pick up some of the slack.

So the best way to mitigate running out of cards in hand is to supplement it with card draw effects to keep her hand from depleting, which is where allies like the Knight of Belfalas and Soldier of Gondor become invaluable, coupled with attachments like Guthwine and the obvious Horn of the Mark.

3 hours ago, player3351457 said:

I built a 50 ally deck on ringsdb that is built around tactics prince imrahil and Lotheriel. Ally triggers become your events, and it's a natural deck to run the Burglar turn.

Nice, but running Lothiriel without 3x Horn of the Mark is not an insignificant opportunity cost. How does it fare on maintaining playable cards in hand?

3 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Nice, but running Lothiriel without 3x Horn of the Mark is not an insignificant opportunity cost. How does it fare on maintaining playable cards in hand?

Totally fine. Because again, if you arent playing events or attachments, and most cards come into play with Lotheriel, the planning phase becomes a little boring. Occassionally you can play an ally you want to keep long term (like gamling, glorfindel, or boromir) but those come in the later rounds. So if you arent playing cards, you lose a card with Lotheriel and gain a card during refresh. Sometimes it makes sense to quest with a character worth 1 or 0 just because they're better in the deck to be pulled with Imrahil.

Sorry to bump this thread but can you use gamling's ability when eomund comes in play from Lothiriels ability? When Eomund would leave play, Lothiriels response says shuffle it into your deck, rather than discard from play. Ive confused myself with this question

A card "discarded from play" goes in the corresponding discard pile, so (unless a specific effect says otherwise) a card that's shuffled back in the corresponding deck it's not being discarded from play. So no, Gamling can't "rescue" Eomund when it's shuffled back in the deck due to Lothiriel's effect

14 minutes ago, wyrm187 said:

Sorry to bump this thread but can you use gamling's ability when eomund comes in play from Lothiriels ability? When Eomund would leave play, Lothiriels response says shuffle it into your deck, rather than discard from play. Ive confused myself with this question

That's unfortunately what I thought, thank you