this is certainly not a new topic, but i did want to see other's thoughts on it.

through out this game, the encounter cards have gotten steadily tougher to deal with, this i understand and its of course neccessary to counter increasingly powerful player cards (dont worry this isnt a thread about power creep)

as enemies get higher stats, and locations higher threat and progress points, i see new cards that help to overcome this, and everything to me at least appears balanced….player cards arent too powerful that quests are too easy, and the enemies and locations arent too hard that its impossible to win without a great deal of luck

…..however, i do not see this happening with treachery cards. for instance early on in the game a card that said something like 'each player must search the encounter deck/discard pile for 1 enemy of his choice and add to staging' would have been relatively rare, and would be seen as a tough card to deal with, without the likes of test of will….

but now, there are several of these, and they are in every new pack quest. not only this, but i see a large increase in the number of cards with surge on. to me surge is an irritating keyword that increases the luck factor of the game, and there is little ways to deal with them apart from the risk some light and denethor if you are in a solo game.

so my point is, that we need more cards like test of will. do not misunderstand me, im not crying out for a 'deal with all' treachery cancellation card. we have test of will for that. but it must be noted that in the core set there were only 2 of these. if you are playing a 2 handed game with 1 core set thats 2 treachery cancellation cards for everyone.

there are of course more indirect ways to deal with this as ive noted above….risk some light and denethor….and there is still elanor, but the point remains, if you get a treachery, especially a treachery with surge, there is so few ways to deal with them compared to the number of them in each quest….

indeed, added to this, i should probably say that a pair of my decks i usually run with (1 mono tactics, the other lore/spirit) can easily deal with most of the early quests (pre numenor/hobbit 1) and win without any real trouble i would say 90% of the time.

when i play them against any of the numenor or hobbit quests however, they get destroyed. 9/10 times it is due to surge and treachery cards. i dont even think this is down to the decks not being built well for the quests…the decks can handle just about any type of quest (apart from rhosgobel).

so yes, to sum up i would like some more cards that deal with treachery cards….not even directly, but indirectly would do

anyways….that is a rather rambling thread, and i dont want people to think this is a complaing thread because it isnt, i am just wanting other people opinions on this

rich

Yes I think they could do with a another 3 copies or so of a card that has a Cancel when reveled. But I wouldnt want another card exaxtly like Test of Will. I would want a card that cancels differantly. Something a little weaker. Maybe something like discard one card from your hand to cancel a card just reveled from the encounter deck(aslo would cost one recorce). Or place one damage on a character to cancel the when reveled effects(maybe not cuz of Gloin but…). Do you see what I'm saying? It think that kind of a card would bring a little fun to the game rather than another plain card like test of will. Those are my thoughts.

Khamul

One thing I have found annoying is the new trechary cards that state the effect cannot be canceled, so even if I've prepared a deck to deal with trechary cancelation I can't use them. I wonder if we will start to see that for shadow cards too, since burning brand, Balin and others are able to do a good job of taking care of them.

I like your suggestions, Khamul; cancellation for some sacrifice. I guess one argument against that is you are changing a treachery to a "pay one resource" or "place one damage" treachery, although maybe that's not a problem.

I totally agree.

First, about the minor point in the post, surge. I think for a better balanced quest, it is better when this keyword is rather rare, otherwise the luck factor steps in big time.

When revealed cancelation is key. There just isn't enough of that. Of course, we need not another card like A Test of Will, perhaps not even as direct but we need some. I had a post about the parallel development of when revealed and shadow cancelation. Whilst in the core set, these were represented 2 to 1 (Eleanor, A Test of Will vs. Hasty Stroke), now they are represented 2 to 6, if I count right, adding A Burning Brand, Dawn Take You All, Dunedain Watcher, Rider of the Mark and Balin to the latter group. I know some of those are not very efficient most of the time but certainly there are choices, more importantly there are choices from different spheres.

I put myself into the group that wants each sphere feel different but access to when revealed cancelation should be in every sphere, I feel. It is good enough that spirit has a primary on threat reduction; being the only sphere cancelling when revealed, seems a bit too much of a superiority. Lore, perahps, can do without it because it has ways to avoided (with hopefully more encounter control coming) but other spheres need some too. Treacheries, after all, are one of three basic types of the encounter cards, it doesn't seem fair that three out of four spheres are basically helpless against them.

I have high hope this problem will soon be solved, or being begun to be solved, specially as there's the push toward mono-sphere decks. I think Leadership could get allies that would discard to cancel (or prevent - which would bring more suspense, I feel) treacheries.

Coming a full circle, when revealed is only a part of a treachery mechanism, there's doom and surge, too (leaving aside forced effects for now). There's Elfhelm now that can deal with doomed, perhaps we could also see someone (or something) to deal with the pesky surge?

I think we'll see some threachery cancellation for other spheres in the upcoming cycle…don't forget that monosphere decks are one of the main concern in AtS…so I bet there will be something. As for Ideas I always thought that a good trechery cancel for tactics would be like "exhust a weapon attachment to cancel the effect of a treachery just reveald etc…" or "discard a tactics event from your hand to cancel the effect of a treachery card" something like that…maybe cost 2 the first one and cost 1 the second…even though cancelling with tactics is a bit against my idea of this game…I've always seen each sphere as "unable" to do a particular thing…enabling them to do that particular thing would be like depriving them of their originality (for exemple healing for lore, "real" resource generation for leadership, high fighting stats and weapons for tactics, high willpower/low threat and cancel for spirit)..Also because when you build a deck you do it according to different aspects, if you build a lore/spirit deck then you'll be able to quest quickly and avoid most enemies with low threat and some e. deck control, if you build a tactics/leadership deck then you might want to fight through the quest, gainig victory points, boosting characters WP, Strenght and Defense, maybe doing more progress with legolas/blade of gondolin than you do by questing…obviously some scenarios are tough if you don't have one "special feature" (for exemple HoN is quite hardcore without tactics…or AJtR…which is almost completely random without lore, Return to Mirkwood impossible or almost without spirit ecc…)…

So I am positive about getting these kind of cards but not to the point where they would spoil the unique feel each sphere has.

Of course, it is not easy to do it; and I believe when it's done it'll be done right.

As for the theme, I actually see Tactics being very fit to counter treachery - or avoid it somehow. When I first read about the spheres, the description about Tactics didn't sound like All Combat and Little of Anything Else, which it currently is. I really hope there will be no direct healing or high willpower for Tactics but having scouts that prevent a treachery card from revealing by doing something would be cool.

I believe maintaing the spheres' flavour unique could easily be done the way it is for card draw at the moment; Lore gets the lot, others get little (but at least some for each). In a similar way, Tactics are obviously best at fighting but others can do quite a bit of that too, and Spirit, for instance, is getting quite a few combat oriented cards lately (Out of Sight, Light the Beacons, Blood of Númenor). Dealing with treacheries is in some quests almost as important as dealing with enemies or locations; and it is often that a few (if not one) when revealed effects can end the whole campaign, no matter how ambitious.

I will pay a crazy amount of resources for an ally that cancels surge!

thank you all for your repsonses, im pleased im not the only one who wants this. i also support the idea of cancellation for a cost…..pretty much what you have all stated is the same ideas as i have right now.

rich

You must exhaust a ready hero you control

Discard an ally you control

exhaust at least 3 allies you control

disperse X amount of dmg among characters in play where X is 3x the number of players in the game.

nismojoe said:

agreed. something like these would be fine. i think we can all agree on the 'cancellation at a cost'….i wouldnt even mind if that cost was alot, just the choice would be a fine thing

rich

Or partial cancellation effects. Tactics event "Bravely Fought," Response: deal 3 damage to one hero to ignore any threat-increasing "when revealed" effects of a card just revealed from the encounter deck. Or the other way around, "Cloven Shield" event, Response: discard an Armour attachment and raise your threat by 3 to cancel any damage-dealing "when revealed" effects of a card just revealed from the encounter deck.

Such effect-targeting cards would work to increase your options for dealing with treachery, while avoiding the obvious problem of making it too easy to cancel whatever treachery comes up.

The problem with new cards for When-Revealed cancelation is that if it is better (or less costly) than A Test of Will, people will call out power creep and complain how you need to buy newest adventure packs to stay in game (which should be true since it is LCG, but that another topic), if it is not as good as (or more costly) than A Test of Will, people will (once again) point out how there isn't 3 copies of A Test of Will in the Core Set and reflame the old arguement.

The cost to cancel trechery must equal to a card and a spirit resource, or a hero exhausion.

Also the fact there are so many shadow cancellation out there now restricts options for When-Revealed cancellation.
If we were to see a 3 Cost Leadership ally that has ability to discard itself to cancel when-revealed effect, that's being generic and not creative at all. So there is need to spice things a bit. (change sphere? cost? extra restriction? additional ability? I don't know)

But from what I've seen in the Hobbit expansions and HoN delux expansion, I have every faith Caleb will do an excellent job (unless he already did excellent job and our new when-revealed cancellation cards are printing as we type)