All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
The last pack has been announced, and with it one of the most versatile cards in the game. Thorongil can be applied in dozens of situations, and here we have a look on which combinations might work, and which don’t. If this is to be the final swan-song of the game, it is a fitting one that lets us re-examine heroes from the first, to the very last.

https://visionofthepalantir.com/2020/07/04/thorongil/

Well done. The combo with the Harad objective heroes never occurred to me.

I do think that the Jubayr/Yazan abilities will stack, since they are separate responses identically worded, conceptually the same as multiple copies of Blood of Numenor or Gondorian Fire. My understanding is that Heavy Stroke's limitation applies to other copies not because it is a response, but because it is an event.

Though it's not ironclad, I kind of took this ruling as an indication that objective-heroes like the Harad ones wouldn't really be part of your collection :

Technically, his ruling says '“Your collection” means cards that you could normally include in your deck'. This would exclude *all* hero cards, since not a one of them is normally included in your deck. He does go on to exclude boons, treasures and encounter cards, but the objective heroes aren't encounter cards either, or stage 1A would direct you to get them out of the deck.

I suppose an objective hero intended to be used with a single scenario isn't really meant to be considered part of your collection of heroes, but it's not game-breaking and I love the historical irony of attaching Thorongil to a Haradrim! I'd allow it.

If they did qualify, they'd also arguably be eligible for Helm of Secrecy, if you interpet the "no threat cost" as being zero.

13 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Technically, his ruling says '“Your collection” means cards that you could normally include in your deck'.

This is true (and why I said my impression isn't ironclad), but I think it's a mistake to read Caleb's rulings as if they're written in the same legalese dialect that card text is. Caleb is writing in regular, relatively conversational English, with all the imprecisions that that entails.

I believe his intention is more in line with what you also said:

13 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

I suppose an objective hero intended to be used with a single scenario isn't really meant to be considered part of your collection of heroes

I'd guess that if asked, Caleb would certainly go against LAoM objective heroes as being part of "your collection" for the purpose of Thorongil (and Helm of Secrecy, though it could be argued that "no threat cost" is not the same as zero, so threat isn't actually comparable for that purpose). So please, no one ask him. Closing off this fun interaction benefits exactly no one.

When I talk about my LOTR collection I mean *all* of the content, in the absence of additional qualifiers. LAoM heroes are not part of my player cards, but they unambigiously are heroes in my collection.

It just seems like a small over-sight, but Im sure Caleb did not intend for LaoM heros to be considered part of 'your collection.' They are not player cards

They certainly are not player cards.

They are, however, heroes -- and they are part of my collection. I agree that Caleb did not *intend* them to be considered Thorongil targets, but treating them as such breaks nothing.

Very nice write-up! That must have been quite some work. 🙂

One little note: In the MotK section, you posted a picture of Thorin for Gimli.

Bye
Thanee