Bohemond said:

Yeah, I'm with rich here. Denathor allows you to send to the bottom of the deck, witch in itself is a bad thing. Denathor gets progressively worse with more players or quest with large encounter draw.,. like say dead marshes, were you are drawing for the escape test.. a 3 player game is at 6 cards a turn not including shadow draws.

What this means is that with Denathor and using the bury ability if you do not complete the quest before the deck cycles then the last "x" draws from the deck will ALL be the worst cards in the entire adventure. I have seen time and time again people crash and burn this way, they get to then end of the encounter deck and 10 cards in a row are all THE worst cards possible and it wreaks them. So the reshuffeling of the deck in fact makes denathor BETTER, not worse.

This card allows you to remove a threat completely, how can this NOT be considered a good option. I agree that with out secrecy it might be a little costly.. but you really should be running at secrecy levels anyway, or at least one player should be..

Riversong and Denathor and Rumor all combo with this card, and combo pretty well I feel. I really can not see the point you are trying to make that makes this card bad, especially saying it is worse with Denathor. I do agree though that the main power in encounter deck control is knowing what comes next, so casting this AFTER denathor or riversong is a bad idea, as you are back to square one.. as in not knowing what is next.. but this is question of deck piloting.. NOT the power of the card... just use it at the correct time.

The real combo is rumor, as you can cast it, see what is coming, remove the threat, and then cast it again. (Den/cast/UC+den, or riversong/cast/rumor etc etc etc) 3 mana for deck control is heavy, but the control deck should be running ziggy or steward anyway so mana shouldn't be a major problem. Many players already realize that as good as Denathor is he blocking ability is extremely overlooked. This is why "pros" scry with denathor just before the refresh NOT before questing, as this allows you to scry and leave him up for defense as needed. The main problem with this is that if you do use his ability, your again in the position of not knowing what is next.

All in all, this card seams a little over rated.. but I can also see it getting some major play. Like I would run this in any Journey to Rasgobel deck for example. I'll need to play with it to really find out.. the 1st darrowdelf is not even in Australia yet... .. ..

From the looks of the card, I am liking it. But as I said, I think it is early to tell. When I first pointed out the Zigil + Gildor combo (long before Khazad was released), more people than not seemed to think it would not be a very good one.

booored said:

I think you are wrong on this one. If you are burying cards with Denethor, you don't want to see those cards by definition. And, if you are playing solo, the majority of times you will never run into the cards at the bottom if the deck is not reshuffled. Shuffle the deck puts the horrible cards back into play. it’s never good. You lose control over when you encounter the awful cards. Imagine a fictional encounter deck with 40 cards, 10 of which do awful things to you. Would you rather those 10 cards be randomly distributed throughout the deck, or at the bottom?

Of course, you want them at the bottom. That allows you to know when you will run into the bad cards, and avoid them all entirely if you can move at a decent pace.

I would agree with you that the combo to for this card is Rumor of Earth. But, to really make it click, you are paying an incredibly high price. To keep this combo viable you need to have two specific cards in hand, and 5 lore resources waiting around for something bad to happen. The combo comes with a ridiculously high opportunity costs. The vast majority of the time you would be better off doing something else with those resources.

In valuing the card, people need to stop thinking about it as eliminating a threat. The card doesn't do that. It effectively replaces a threat. Replacing can certainly be a valuable; I am a huge Elanor fan, and not just for her fetching looks. But as we evaluate the card we need to be clear on how it will actually function.

sorry but im still having difficulty seeing your point ok here's how i see it............tell me if im getting anything wrong

DENETHOR - moves threat to the bottom....is at risk from re-shuffling, or in extreme cases going through the entire deck

IN FROM THE WILD- completely removes the card from the game never to return. no chances of enounctering it or it entering play again

OTHER CARDS OF IMPORTANCE- TEST OF WILL ETC. even these cancellation cards just send to discard- and again have a chance of entering play through card effects

i am having trouble seeing how in from the wild doest remove the threat, with all other current methods that come to mind- only this is the first to completely remove from game (after all the victory pile never reshuffles right?)

i agree its a high cost- but im guessing with secrecy theres a better chance of it seeing play, and combo'd with resource draw i reckon its worth it

There is always 1 or 2 cards in each encounter deck that impact the group the most. I would pair Out of the Wild with Denethor's ability to find the worst encounter cards and remove them instead of just playing OotW whenever you can/want to. The cost is high but if used properly it can cause the encounter deck to lose it's punch. By removing conditional attachments and high risk treachery cards you can reduce the immediate impact to your heroes.

I really like this card and I know in due time after playing quests multiple times I will know which of the cards I will want to get rid of.

I can see how this card wouldn't have much of an impact on a single or 2 player game because the quest deck rarely resets itself but 3 to 4 player games it will make worlds of difference.

Bohemond said:

To clarifiy what I meant...

Denethor is never forced to bury the card at the bottom of the deck. His ability states, in a separate sentence, that you MAY move the card at the bottom of the decké So just like with Henmarth, you can just use Denethor to take a peek without putting the card at the bottom.

So in short, at the end of the combat phase (to make sure he can ready for the next turn), if Denethor is still ready, you exhaust him, look at the next card. If you see something that you really want to avoid and take out of the deck, then you play Out of the Wild afterwards and remove the card you just looked at...or another if among the 5 next cards you see something even worse.

Better yet if you have both Henmarth and Denethor. You can dig deeper in the encounter deck since Denethor can put a card at the bottom (especially if it's a rather mild card you won't mind seeing again), and then you could use Henmarth to try and find a nastier card to eliminate using Out of the Wild.

In my mind, if I run Denethor, I use him for his defense first. I see his ability as a bonus, a nice little frosty thing I can use if he's still up. For the threat he's worth and 3 defense, he's not that shabby as a hero.

Sprenger said:

Sprenger, I would agree that it is easier to play the card in a 3 or four player game. However, multi-player presents its own problems. Imagine we have a 4 player, and a 40 card encounter deck and there are a handful of killer cards that you want to take (for the sake of argument, lets say 4). When you are drawing 4 cards a turn, you have, at best, knowledge of 1 of your 4 draws. You have to play it blind and hope you get lucky. Its the high degree of randomness combined with negative card advantage that makes me think this card won't pan out. I would love to be proven wrong and hope to see people put decks together that make the card sing (having a critical mass of secrecy cards will certainly help).

richsabre said:

The important thing is that Test of Will can get rid of one card you encounter. Out of the Wild only prevents 1 out of the top 5 cards to encounter you but that card gets replaced by another card, it doesn't encounter you less cards but only slightly reduces the danger of the coming cards. You can still end up with none of those 5 cards be of any danger which can even make your situation worse. Remember the reshuffling of the deck as you can end up with new top cards which might be worse than the 5 before, you've taken out only 1 danger out of the deck which only makes up a small difference in the short run. I can see the card only perform well if you're sure you will see almost all encounter cards and then you can still not be sure to remove one card of real danger, so you always have to consider that this card might be completely or almost useless when you play it.

ahhhh i see what people have been talking about now, i still stand by my point though, in certian combos/decks this is a great card, though as people say it may be a waste, which you dont want seeing its cost

BiJay said:

Again, your talking about deck piloting NOT about the cards power. Lots of cards suck if you use them incorrectly, but a player making a lame play is not the cards fault.. it is just the player sucking. If you are casting this card after a scry with out the ability to scry a 2nd time you are casting a blind deck scour and then shuffling.. then yeah.. of course it isn't that good. This has been said in like almost every post, many posts have said it time and again... that the combo is scry/cast/scry.. and that is how this card should be used optimally and in that situation is it fantastic.

Currently there is only 3 ways to protect yourself from crazy draws and 2 of them are only able to protect from treacheries. Test of Will, Elenore and Denathor. This just adds a 3rd way. So a deck can run x3test and 3xRoads... that is 6 cards that can be cancelled.

Denathor's ability to bury cards is a very different effect in a solo player game vs a multiplayer game.. as discussed b4, in a 2x+ game cycling the encounter deck is common and happens in almost every game, in a 3x+ game it is almost assured. Burring cards means that by the end of the encounter deck you are drawing every single worst card in the game in a row. and all i and single reveal step.. this is terrible.. This card shuffle effect stops that again another use for this card.

While it's true that it's important time your combinations of Denethor and/or Henamarth with Out of the Wild, it isn't necessarily true that (as booored suggests) the "correct" combination is "scry/cast/scry." That's a good way to play it, but not the only effective way. As I see it, Out of the Wild is useful on its own (at 1 cost, with Secrecy) because the odds are generally pretty decent that if you can remove one of any 3 cards, there's something you'll probably be happy to see removed from the game.

As an example, if there are three enemies engaged with players, that means three shadow cards. Yes, if you play Out of the Wild, you may just remove a weaker shadow effect and substitute Sleeping Sentry, but you may also hit that Sleeping Sentry and remove it from the game. The chances are better that you'll face a nasty shadow effect among those 3 cards if you can't remove one than if you do. If I've got 30 cards left in the encounter deck, and I'm about to face 3, I've got a 3/30 chance of facing Sleeping Sentry. If I play Out of the Wild, I've got a 1/10 chance of removing Sleeping Sentry. Then I reshuffle, and I've now got 29 cards in my deck. If I removed Sleeping Sentry, then (depending how many copies are in the deck--let's say we discarded the rest) I have a 0/29 chance of facing it. If I didn't remove it, I've now got a 3/29 chance of facing it. The 30/29 increased chance of facing Sleeping Sentry is significantly lower in this example than the 1/10 chance of removing it.

The odds change as the deck decreases, but a blind play of Out of the Wild generally leads to good. It's better with scrying to determine the best time to play it, but it's not bad on its own.

For 3 cost? I wouldn't spend 3 blindly. Except, maybe, with Ziggy wealth.

On the math (rounding to the nearest tent of a percent), assuming you have a thirty card deck and three encounter cards will absolutely wreck you

Chance that you draw one of those encounter cards (assuming one draw) without playing Out of the Wild = 10%

Chance you that you can remove one of those cards with Out of the Wild = 43.5%

Chance that you draw one of those encounter cards after playing out of the wild = 8.9%

The short term math on playing this card blind is awful. We shouldn't have any debate about that. Playing a card and resources for that miniscule benefit just isn't worth it.

As boored states, if you are going to use this card efficiently you need two things. You need the ability to scry and the high probability of cycling through the deck. And, as far as I know, know lack the ability to scry effectively in multi-player.

Thorongil said:

I completely agree, I wasn't suggesting that it is a complete fail with out a scry/cast/scry.. I am just saying that this is the "optimal" combo.

There is no doubt that the most powerful encounter control effects are the ones that allow you to know what is getting drawn, and the shuffle effect breaks that, though lets us not forget that unless you are playing solo there will always be at least 1 card that is unknown anyway.

Still I think you have it all correct, wit ha 5 card draw, the chance that something will be good to remove is nearly a certainty. I am not sure I agree with the complaints about cost though, it isn't hard to run at secrecy levels, if your deck is designed for it (might be harder in solo) and with ziggy and/or steward a single resource for this card is irrelevant.

I only wanted to show the point richsabre was missing. Yeah, I can see this card perform well under certain circumstances (Secrecy, ability to scry and knowing to see most of the encounter deck) but that only shows the missing flexibility of the card. And that's where the real question kicks in: Is it really worth it to have it in the deck when it only performs well in certain situations?

I can't answer that myself as I still couldn't play enough games to have enough experience. Maybe soon I hope, especially once we get this adventure pack.

BiJay said:

i have played many many games of this, and i can think of many situations when the 3 cost would be worth it-beside i usually run a high resource draw deck anyways

i understand the point the anti-in from the wild people are saying, but as booored says in a 5 card draw the chances of getting a 'baddy' in one of them is high, and yes you can show me the maths, but i like the risk which is probably why i lose so much

besides- there are other very situation specific cards which arent getting as much grief as this card is....if anything this card is FUN!!

Lets not forget about the pippin and bilbo players out there- this card may not be great for boromirs- but its sounds an extremely cool idea for any upcoming combos, and is a nice theme card

there's more than 1 way to be epic.............