First Impressions: The Black Serpent

There are two write ups in the queue waiting to be finished, but I just got my grubby hands on The Black Serpent and I wanted to finally do something that has been on my mind for a while: A first impression player card review.

This is right out of the gate. The box is sitting to my left with the seal remove and the clamshell just cracked. Here we go!

Fastred
Alright, so I saw this guy on someone's Facebook post yesterday (which is how I knew the pack was out, since my FLGS had their shipment delayed). Spirit Rohan is great, but the stats are not crazy impressive to me 1 willpower, 2 attack, 3 defense, 3hp. Bounce to the staging area and reduce my threat. I'm thinking of combos with Spirit Merry to lower that threat. Or what about lore Faramir, who would get an attack boost? Still, enemies are often going to have 3+ attack, plus whatever is hiding in their shadow card. Three hit points does not give me a lot of confidence in defending those attacks. Ally Arwen can help. Other than that, I'm struggling thinking of consistent Spirit defense boosters right now. I did see Tales from the Cards used this guy, Tactics Eowyn, and someone else (Dunhere?) for some success. I'm not salivating over Fastred, but he's not Spirit Pippin either.

Song of Hope
Resources = Willpower. Nice. Being Leadership and requiring consistent resources makes me think of Leadership Denethor bringing this with him to slap on the designated quester. Heck, the existence of Steward of Gondor will likely make this a staple for me in any deck with Leadership.

Bursting into Song
Why yes I am. Ready heroes with songs? Into the Elfhelm horse deck you go. Any other applications would probably only happen if I look down at my decklist and realize I have a good handful of songs.

Defender of Cair Andros
A 4 cost situational Tactics ally? First glance says "Pass." But let's think about this. The 1 willpower and 1 attacks gives him some utility early on. At 30+ threat, he can defend decently (I'm much more of a fan when an ally has three defense and three hit points, vs a hero). At 40+ he's a great defender with a Spear of the Citadel tacked on. We'll change that "Pass" to a "Maybe."

Oath of Erol
Full of good attackers and short on defenders? Well, then hopefully you drew this card! When this was spoiled a bit ago I thought of using it in a Hama deck as a back up in case Thicket of Spears didn't make it into my hand. May still try that one out.

Fearless Scout
Cantrip + Scout trait. Not really exciting to me. I remember a card that cares about Scouts questing. Would work well there. I would need to look at the ally pool to see if this has implications for Tactics Prince Imrahil.

Rally in the West
Hello multi-player all-star! A whole table getting +1 willpower? Worth including that hero that fetches a side quest just for this guy. Even solo I wouldn't mind this type of consistent, untouchable willpower increase.

Dunedain Pipe
Oooh, I like this one. You still get to "keep" the unwanted card in your deck (because it shouldn't be fully unwanted if it's in your deck) and you're not risking shuffling the temporarily unwanted card away only to have it be what you draw (at least not risking drawing that exact copy).

Old Toby
...is more flexible than I am. This picture makes me uncomfortable. The card itself is fine. I haven't done a fully dedicated pipe deck, but now with four pipes and two cards that care directly about them, I may have to give this a spin.

Southron Refugee
The full Harad deck is another one I haven't tried yet. Stackable reduction is good incentive to try! Auto-include with that archetype.

Well that is a nice pack of player cards. With the exception of  Defender of Cair Andros, everything strikes me as having a clear place and I look forward to seeing them there.