Galdor of the Havens

Is it me or is his Response broken? If you are looking to get asap a specific card that you have 3X in your deck (i.e. Steward of Gondor, Light of Valinor etc.) and you didn't find it in your starting hand, there's not a chance in hell not to draw it using Galdor's effect, unless you're seriously unlucky. Not to mention that you can always just discard your initial hand no matter what you got just to thin your deck to mere 38 cards! And I do not even touch his synergy with the new Noldor mechanic. His Action is just gravy.

Is it me or is his Response broken? If you are looking to get asap a specific card that you have 3X in your deck (i.e. Steward of Gondor, Light of Valinor etc.) and you didn't find it in your starting hand, there's not a chance in hell not to draw it using Galdor's effect, unless you're seriously unlucky. Not to mention that you can always just discard your initial hand no matter what you got just to thin your deck to mere 38 cards!

You can do all those things with the normal mulligan already, can't you? He just let's you keep the good cards from the initial hand instead of discarding them all (which is amazing, but has nothing to do with what you mentioned).

You 're wrong. Once you mulligan, you draw from a deck of 50 cards. Once you use Galdor, you draw from a deck of 44 cards and you may draw as many as six cards, if you opt to discard your whole setup hand. Once you do, you start the game with a deck as thin as 38 cards.

Once per game is not broken.

I see, thanks! I'm used to VS mulligan where you didn't shuffle your deck but draw the next 6 cards from the top of your deck and put the first ones on the bottom of it instead. I think I have been doing that for all LCG games, which like you pointed out, was wrong.

Interesting variant, though knowing the last six cards of your deck gives you the edge I think. Knowledge is power after all, as Bacon put it. I think the traditional mulligan is the best of the two.

Anyway and back on topic, the combination of lowish threat, excellent response and a very strong action easy to trigger makes Galdor one of the best heroes in the game I believe. So many possibilities... I'm already considering a secrecy deck of him and Spirit Glorfindel for starters. His response might prove crucial to start the game with Resourceful on both heroes. And we all know the importance of an early Resourceful (imagine two) for secrecy builds. A Light of Valinor right from the beginning certainly wouldn't hurt too.

Oh, and his steampunk-like art rocks!

His ability is good, no doubt, but I wouldn't call it broken. Overall he seems pretty comparable to other upper-tier Heroes. I think Beravor's a good yard-stick to use on this one since they're both similarly priced Lore Heroes. 

In the stat-line Beravor wins out in flexibility with her extra defense but Galdor costs one less. Noldor's a better trait than either Ranger or Dunedain, but the combination of both on Beravor probably makes it a wash. Things get more interesting when you're talking about their abilities.

Beravor's just great at drawing cards. She can drop to have any player draw 2 cards. Even post-errata (once per round) that's huge. And if you're running her, you're running some kind of action advantage to make sure you can trigger her almost every round. 

But Galdor's got some tricks of his own. His Action ability can allow him to draw 6 cards (once per game)--3 times what Beravor can draw in a single turn. And his Mulligan ability makes him more likely to see cards he wants when he draws those 6. But Galdor's ability can be a whole lot harder to trigger in a deck not designed to empty your hand and there are going to be games where you like all the cards in your starting hand and don't want to ditch any of them. 

All in all, I think they're both fairly comparable and neither are broken by any means. Galdor definitely works wonders in a Noldor-discard deck that wants to see certain specific cards early, but outside of that pretty specific archetype Beravor has a lot more flexibility. 

I do agree about Galdor's art though--one of my favorite pieces in the game. 

The best thing about Galdor is the capacity to include cards like Elven Light and the other new events that you want in the discard pile already.  Having enough of those in your deck can be really great when you get to automatically pitch them into the discard pile and draw back up.  Another note is that he doesn't have to exhaust for his ability, so no need for action advantage to still get the card draw.

The best thing about Galdor is the capacity to include cards like Elven Light and the other new events that you want in the discard pile already.  Having enough of those in your deck can be really great when you get to automatically pitch them into the discard pile and draw back up.  Another note is that he doesn't have to exhaust for his ability, so no need for action advantage to still get the card draw.

Absolutely. In a Noldor-discard deck running a lot of those new cards he is a fantastic choice since you won't mind ditching a lot of those cards. Plus, in that kind of deck you will probably be running other ways to get cards to your discard pile, making it easier to trigger his card draw ability. 

Beravor is overall better, but who said that I don't consider her one of the best heroes in the game, as well? :-D

Other than that, in this particular LCG, a strong start is of paramount importance; a weak one is usually condemning. It's one of the distinctive spots of this game: it's really difficult to turn a seemingly lost game in your favor (alas, the encounter deck is better at this than the player's deck). Ergo, the first couple of turns are more than crucial. These turns are those where you need the best parts of your machine most desperately, especially in those quests where you find yourself between the hammer and the anvil right from the beginning. Galdor excels at providing you the tools you want. Guaranteed success? Well, no. Great chances of getting them? Hell, yeah. And while his overall presence might seem tailored for a Noldor discard deck, I stand by my statement that he's a much more versatile hero, able to enrich a large number of different decks. He definitely intrigues me more than Cirdan who seems narrower in focus to my eyes.

Beravor is overall better, but who said that I don't consider her one of the best heroes in the game, as well? :-D

 

Other than that, in this particular LCG, a strong start is of paramount importance; a weak one is usually condemning. It's one of the distinctive spots of this game: it's really difficult to turn a seemingly lost game in your favor (alas, the encounter deck is better at this than the player's deck). Ergo, the first couple of turns are more than crucial. These turns are those where you need the best parts of your machine most desperately, especially in those quests where you find yourself between the hammer and the anvil right from the beginning. Galdor excels at providing you the tools you want. Guaranteed success? Well, no. Great chances of getting them? Hell, yeah. And while his overall presence might seem tailored for a Noldor discard deck, I stand by my statement that he's a much more versatile hero, able to enrich a large number of different decks. He definitely intrigues me more than Cirdan who seems narrower in focus to my eyes.

That's actually a very fair point. Galdor's most valuable ability is definitely the modified mulligan. LotR is brutal if either start-of-game flop goes hard against you. 

To be clear--I don't think Galdor's bad outside of a narrowly focused Noldor-discard deck. I just think that's where he's most valuable. Most other deck types, I would probably rather run someone else. But certainly any deck that completely relies on getting a given card out ASAP is looking at Galdor as a possibility. 

Beravor is reliable/repeatable if you don't mind giving up her stats (making them meaningless) to draw cards - or you include specific cards to get action advantage out of her (like Winged Foot).  Galdor doesn't require additional cards to make his ability work but his ability is only really meaningful if you are either running a combo that requires specific cards or you are fueling discard mechanics or both.

However, Beravor could be used when you are looking for combo cards as well due to her draw, and her draw does allow you the cards to fuel discard mechanics... so the conclusion is clear:

run BOTH and do BOTH!  

Beravor is reliable/repeatable if you don't mind giving up her stats (making them meaningless) to draw cards - or you include specific cards to get action advantage out of her (like Winged Foot).  Galdor doesn't require additional cards to make his ability work but his ability is only really meaningful if you are either running a combo that requires specific cards or you are fueling discard mechanics or both.

 

However, Beravor could be used when you are looking for combo cards as well due to her draw, and her draw does allow you the cards to fuel discard mechanics... so the conclusion is clear:

 

run BOTH and do BOTH!  

Honestly, that's not a bad idea. Between the two you could pretty reliably build up 3 or 4 card combos that just aren't viable in most decks. 

Miiiight be a bit swingy though

Another deck idea:

I believe the line-up Celeborn-Galadriel-Galdor is stronger than the Celeborn-Galadriel-Haldir one in a Silvan build, since Galdor is a better hero than Haldir and increases the probability of starting the game with O Lorien! in hand.