There has been surprisingly little discussion about good old Elrond so far (perhaps because of all the new expansions), so I'd like to dedicate this thread to the guys of FFG for creating a hero like Elrond. First of all, he is incredibly powerful, better than Glorfindel. This is balanced by his high starting threat. There are some strong card combos to power him up, namely LoV + Vilya. I love this combo and it's fun to play with it. The other combo is Elrond + Warden of Healer. We now get two DotN for only 2 resources.
However, the main reason why I am so in love with Elrond is his ability to pay for other spheres' allies. You might already know that I am one of those who was quite unhappy about how the tactics sphere was treated so far - for solo play, at least. The main reason why tactics didn't work solo was it's lack of WP. To get enough WP you have to play some eagles, but these are expensive. One solution was to play Radagast, but that way you still had to wait several rounds before you could play the high cost eagle allies.
Now Elrond solves this problem. Not only does he add 3 points to your WP, but he also provides resources to pay for eagles. It's now possible to play an eagle/tactics deck with only one tactics hero in your portfolio. The only price you have to pay is a relatively high starting threat (> 28). In the Dwarrodweld scenarios a high starting threat isn't that troubling, but in the Mirkwood cycle it can certainly cause some problems.
Hope everyone else here enjoys Erond the way I do. IMO his abilities are a big contribution to the game experience as they open new possibilites for deck construction. The same can be said about new Glorfindel and Loragorn, so:
Well done, FFG!
