There's been lots of discussion on what are the best cards to use, but are there any that you consider a waste of your time and resources?

I mainly run Lore and find that there's probably an overdose of Healing cards. Daughter Of Nimrodel and Self Preservation are all I use (as they are permenant), but the other Healing cards aren't really needed. Glorfindal's ability can be used in an emergency, or to top up Allies. I also have a hard time justifying spending valuable resource points to draw cards. Would much rather use Berevor of Gleowine for that.

I'm aware of the fact that some people may have great combos with cards I regard as "waste of space" - please let me know them

I never use:

Ever Vigilant

Comon cause

Grim resolve (too expensive)

Thicket of Spears

Will of the West

A light in the dark

Gandalf's search

Beorn's hospitality (too expensive)

Dark knowledge

And quite seldom:

Brok Ironfist (too expensive)

Lorien guide

While there are more useful and less useful cards, some of it depends on players' styles. For example, unlike you, my main attraction to lore is for their card draw. I find that if I build up a resource pool(usually need leadership for this) card draw is great because it gives you many options and a way to pay for them. Conversely, many people swear by Protector of Lorien. I personally don't care too much for it, because I'm not a big fan of constantly discarding cards. They are in the deck for a reason and thus are far more useful to me played than discarded. Aside from that, I think the poster above named quite a few of the less useful ones. Some are too expensive, some are too situational, some are just not very good. Among others, stuff like Power in the Earth(traveling is a far better solution) and Thicket of Spears(great effect, but only playable by a mono tactics deck) is pretty useless, right now.

Doom1502 said:

Ever vigilant is one of the most useful cards.You can quest with Gandalf and then you can use him to defend or attack a monster.Ever vilgilant is a great card.

Grim resolve with Steward of Gondor is not expensive and this card can save your life.

Will of the west is the best card for nightmare mode.

Funny you mention it, few moments ago I have been thinking about it.

Tactics: Rain of Arrows, Stand Together, Thicket of Spears (never do solo Tactics)

Leadership: Brok Ironfist (never plan on losing heroes), Common Cause, Guard of the Citadel (joke), Longbeard Orc Slayer, Silverlode Archer

Spirit: A Light in the Dark, Fortune or Fate (never plan on losing heroes), Lorien Guide (used to use it), Power in the Earth (rather explore), Strength of Will (used to use it), Wandering Took, Will of the West

Lore: Gandalf's Search, Gleowine (what a picture, blah), Miner from the Iron Hills (although I see he can be very useful, especially when objectives accumulate)

I second the usefulness of Ever Vigilant, one of my favourites. And Grim Resolve can really decide the game, at that time you should have easilly accumulated/saved enough resources for it. The same could go for Beorn's Hospitality although I believe Grim Resolve can have a more striking effect.

Titan said:

I seem to again agree with you; however, Protector of Lorien is one of the cards that I feel I would never exclude from my deck. It only costs 1 and you need not to use it frequently but only when it really matters. And then for either questing or combat - or both in likely cases. Put it on Aragorn for instance. And at the end of the game, of the Dol Guldur scenario, you just get rid of all the cards just to make it final. I love the card.

I would say Lore wins my never used title. They have Lorien's Wealth and Gandalf's Search, neither of which have I used other than discard fodder for a friendly Eowyn.

Mestrahd said:

seconded.

While somewhat expensive, Lorien's Wealth is great to increase your options with a bigger draw. And if you are looking to discard, a bigger hand is always better. There may be cheaper options, Valiant Sacrifice, Gleowine, etc, but I've found it a very effective card in my decks.

Mestrahd said:

I think Lorien's Wealth in reasonably good. It lets you build a deck using cheaper cards which is useful in multi-sphere decks.

I agree with you about Gandalf's Search though. It is too expensive to be of much use. Maybe if it let you look at 3 cards per cost then it might see play in my decks.

Keeping in mind that I play mostly two-player games, and have the least experience with Tactics, the following are some of the cards that I would very rarely or even never consider using, either due to excessive cost or lack of utility:

Rain of Arrows (rarely is any player ever "swarmed" with enemies, and you would have to have a Ranged character in play and exhaust it to play this. Since that character is typically Legolas, I would rather have him attacking directly, 3 is huge and so is 2 progress tokens... I can't rely on Silverlode/Horseback Archer or something being in play)

Brok Ironfist (He has pretty good stats for an Ally, but I just can't justify paying 6 for him. He's an okay attacker and good quester, and while he can defend fairly well with 4 HP and 1 defense, if I'm playing Leadership I'll probably have Gloin out doing all the defending so that he can generate resources and catch heals. That leaves Brok to do a kinda "meh" job where other Allies could do the same for cheaper. As for his ability, I don't want to count on having a Hero leave play, especially so specific as to be a Dwarf hero, and it doesn't happen often enough that I would always want this card in my hand)

Lore of Imladris (For one less resource than a Daughter of Nimrodel or a Self Preservation, you get a one-time heal instead of one that is useable every round, potentially more than once. Heal all damage is much better than 2, but rarely do I find myself ever needing to heal more than 2. With rare exceptions, such as Aragorn wearing 2x Citadel Plate, I just can't justify putting this in as an event when other cards are much more resource efficient)

Beorn's Hospitality (5 resources makes this very difficult to afford, see above. Also worth noting, rarely do I have damage distributed among several Heroes, and when I do, I'd rather save my resources and slowly, efficiently heal them all)

Radagast's Cunning (Since I normally play two-player games that involve Eowyn loaded up with Celebrian's Stone and The Favor of the Lady(s), beating or breaking even with the Threat in the Staging Area is rarely difficult. Considering most enemies contribute 2-3 Threat, I just can't see this as a MUST HAVE card)

Secret Paths (Same deal as above, although at least it's much more likely that I'll have Locations piling up in the Staging Area than enemies, and there are some Locations that have far more Threat than the average creature. For example, the encounter deck during Journey Down the Anduin having several copies of The Brown Lands, as opposed to the third scenario having the only Threat 5 enemy, the Nazgul of Dol Guldur, which is a single. Northern Tracker makes this card far less useful, too)

Gandalf's Search (Two options here: 1) spend hardly anything to play this card and get barely any use, i.e., pay 2 to look at the top two cards of your deck, keep one, and "arrange" the other one to your liking, or 2) blow a ton of resources to get a card you probably need very soon, and you can plan what you draw far in advance. The problem with #1 is that you get hardly any use from it, and the problem with #2 is that you use up all of your resources just to get a card that you then won't be able to afford to play for a while! Maybe good in a mono-sphere or very Lore heavy deck, but I can't see this card as much more than a huge resource investment. Too much, for me.)

Lorien Guide (I feel bad for including this card, as I really want to like it, it's just that Northern Tracker is worlds better in almost every way. To make use of Lorien Guide's ability, you have to travel to locations, and in many cases doing that has detrimental effects that come along with it. Also, if there's no active location, you don't get to use it's ability, making it pretty expensive 1 Willpower Ally; plus, if you're playing Spirit, chances are that you'll have Northern Trackers in your deck, and if you get them into play, you won't want an active location. Awful attacker, even worse defender.)

Power in the Earth (I can see why this card exists, to save people from having to "waste" progress tokens on a location while at the same time keeping the Threat in the Staging Area low, but really? -1 Threat? I can't justify that taking up a spot in any deck. Maybe if it was -2 or -3 I could consider it, but -1?)

A Light in the Dark (Like I posted in another thread, "I personally haven't used Light in the Dark in a deck, but it does seem like an awful lot of resources to just delay engagement with a single enemy one round (and increase the Threat in the staging area), unless you play it and then a The Galadhrim's Greeting or Gandalf to reduce Threat. I suppose the latter could be fairly useful in a few situations during single player, if you happen to have that combo ready to play, and happen to have 5 to 7 resources, but even then it only buys a little bit of time and would put you a lot of resources away from being able to afford stuff to remedy your situation in the long term. Or, maybe by throwing a creature in the staging area, if you have Dunhere it'll let you not only prevent having to eat one attack, but his 3 attack may be sufficient damage whereas an attack of 2 wouldn't be? Or, I suppose if you're somehow getting swamped with creatures it could allow another player to engage it instead of it coming back to you, but really, A Light in the Dark only seems useful in very specific situations. I'm not seeing a whole lot of appeal there, but there could of course be other uses I'm not thinking of.")

* Other cards that I think are good (or at least, not terrible), but that I simply don't ever seem to use are: Citadel Plate, Thicket of Spears (why play monosphere?), Stand Together, Longbeard Orc Slayer, Common Cause, For Gondor!, Protector of Lorien, Lorien's Wealth

Here's my opinions as a Spirit player (backed with Leadership for now, because there aren't enough good cards to do solo Spirit).

The vast majority of their actions are terrible. Light in the Dark is bad. The cards that reduce threat in the staging area are bad. The card that brings heroes back is bad, as someone has mentioned before, you should never really be planning on having heroes die.

That being said, a few cards people have mentioned as being useless surprise me. Will of the West is one of the most powerful cards in the game right now, purely because it allows infinite recursion. It doesn't get played a lot, but once there are more card draw options for Spirit it will prove a very powerful addition. Anyways, I always use 2.

I agree the Lorien Guide isn't as good as Northern Tracker, but to you folks (especially the dude that also said Wandering Took), since when have we been allowed to be picky? Spirit only has THREE guys, how can you play a primarily Spirit deck and not use them? Anyways I'll use Lorien Guide occasionally. Though she's not a staple (and will get cycled out fast once more options are available), I wouldn't say she's a card I "never use".

CAlexander said:

Totaly disagree.

Light in the dark is a very good card and works very well for solo and coop.You save your heroes from an undefended attack if monsters are more than your ready characters and Dunhere can kill them in the staging area.Spirit is the less powerfull sphere at combat phase so light in the dark can make your life easier.

Fortune or fate now not only is not bad but it is one of the most powerful cards.Your example is very bad.No one is planning to kill his heroes but its not in your hand.Your heroes may die and if this huppen you can't do anything if you play any other sphere.This card can bring back not only your dead hero but also a dead hero from your teamate's discard pile, plus you can use this card for a better score if your hero has many wounds on him.You kill him and then you can bring him back with no wounds on him/her and for those who want to play at tournaments score counts a lot.

Finaly i can agree with you about power in the earth.It is not a very good card.I can say that it is useless.

You are allowed to disagree

Light in the Dark is situationally useful, but is far down on my list of action cards I'd like to have in a deck. In a dual sphere deck with Leadership there are too many better cards and it gets bumped. In a single sphere deck (well, once more cards are available and you don't have to include everything) it's too expensive for what it does. That's my opinion.

The hero-resurrecting card just doesn't do it for me. It's too expensive. It's extremely specific. And my characters almost never die. I don't want to invest even 2 slots of my deck to an expensive card that is going to sit in my hand 90% of the time. I guess you're right...you can use it to get a slightly better score by killing your guy. But seeing as my Spirit deck ends 90% of it's games at 0 threat that's a pretty moot point.

Saying it's playable is one thing...saying it's one of the best cards in the game is insane. You've got a long list of cards that far exceed it, especially in a Spirit deck (Galadrim's Greeting, Dwarven Tomb and Stand and Fight just to name a few, and those are only the action cards.)

Anyways, disagree if you want, but right now there isn't a single card I'd cut in my Spirit/Leadership deck for either of those. ymmv

CAlexander said:

Don't worry mate.Different play style and deck combinations make some cards useful or a waste.But fortune or fate is not a bad card.3 times so far have saved me form dursued by shadow's shadow effect wen i have only one exhausted ally and that ally defend troll.An undefended attack from a troll means one hero dead.

servant of the secret fire said:

An undefended attack from a troll means one hero dead.

In most heroe's cases also a defended troll attack means a dead hero

I second the usefulness of Fortune or Fate: I like it as a backup, especially if the troll-trap or gandalf isn't showing up in the early game. And if I don't need it - it was emotionally reassuring

Doom1502 said:

In most heroe's cases also a defended troll attack means a dead hero

That's why you have meatshields aka Allies around . Unlike Hummerhorns where a Hero has to take the 5 dmg from its Forced, any character can defend against Hill Troll. Yes, you'll take a hit on Threat, but better than a dead hero if you have no Raise Dead (Fortune or Fate available).

I know

But unfortunately there are times when you don't have allies around

Doom1502 said:

You already killed them all ? Built a deck without them ?

Still early stages for me in LotR (under 10 plays ), but I keep taking a mulligan if the initial hand doesn't contain an Ally, unless that hand is otherwise utterly kick-ass.

servant of the secret fire said:

Alright, it's definitely got it's uses and it's unique in that it's the only card able to do that, so I'll keep my eye on it. I just like to build my decks to very closely follow a certain strategy. Cards like this - 'just in case' cards, let's call them - don't really fit into my style of play unless it is something that happens to me every game. My heroes very, very rarely die in my games. It might happen once out of every 10 games. I can't afford to use a card that will only be useful once out of every 10 games.

For the Hill Troll example, my Spirit/Leadership deck is completely and totally based around lowering my threat. I almost never get enough threat for the Hill Troll to engage me, so that isn't an issue.

If the card ever had a proactive use - for instance, if a Hero came out that you could destroy to create a huge, game altering effect - this would certainly see play. As is I won't say it's 'bad', but afterall, this thread isn't 'which cards are bad', it is 'which cards do you never use'.

CAlexander said:

We have the same taste.My main deck is leadership/spirit with Aragorn,Eowyn and Eleanor (some times i use Dunhere at Eleanor's place).I use 3 core sets for my deck and yes my heroes are safe with this deck but i allways use fortune or fate to make a better score if my heroes have many wounds on them .

Which heroes you use?

Reasons why it's a bad card with the current pool of resources, ie my 2 cents:

1) If you are playing a legal 50 card deck right now, you are dual - sphere, if only one of your heroes is in that sphere, it will be difficult to accumalte the resources to pay for it, or you won't be able to play it at all (if that hero is the dead hero), having 2 heroes in that sphere makes it an expensive card, but relatively less expensive.

2) If you are expending a turn of resources to brind a hero back from play, you are most likely far enough behind (and still facing the threat that send you hero to the grave) that playing the card will not change the outcome of the game.

3) There is no synergy with hero recursion in the current card pool, while that could change in the future, you are much more likely to play a card that will heal or prevent a hero from getting injured then you are to play one to bring the hero back from the grave. There will be a high percentage of turns, if not games, where you have a dead card in your had or you use said card to discard for travel, Eowyn or something.

Until there are synergies with recursion, from my perspective, I cannot think of a sphere combination where I would want to play this card, because it is very unlikely that it will change the outcome of the game, either way.

Thicket of Spears, Dark knowledge, and the hereos who aren't from the novels. There are probably more that I would never actually use, but I do at least consider the cards when building a deck.

It shouldn't be overlooked that the hero comes back readied with Fortune or Fate, meaning you can often get two actions out of him. And there's a little bit of minor synergy with Brok Ironfist. That's not a strong or consistent enough combo to build around, but perhaps there will be more effects like it in the future.

I think you guys are underestimating Rain of Arrows a bit, it's saved me a few times. You get to damage the enemies before they attack, which is important. With Thalin and/or Gondorian Spearman in play it can give you kills more often than you might think. It is more useful in multiplayer where the Tactics player will probably engaging more enemies though.

Thicket of Spears will get a lot better once we can build mono-tactics decks and/or the tactics-resource song comes out.

And Lorien guide is fine. Not as good as Northern Tracker, but still useful, and 3 vs. 4 cost can be a big difference. Wandering Took compares pretty well to most other 2-cost allies too.