I actually don't think all Wizards should work with the top card of your deck, I'd even say that's something only Gandalf should do. My personal vision of Istari heroes is that they should be neutral, and each should have their own gimmick NOT to play with the top card, but to gain recource icons in order to play stuff. Gandalf gains the icon of the top card of your deck, but Radagast could do that for your discard pile (though in my custom version I could never make that work), or maybe Saruman can play 1 sphered card per phase, but that card gains Doomed, something like that. Though I could understand if they didn't do this if they wanted Wizard Pipe to work with all Istari, but that's really unnecessary IMO.

And I was just looking for Vilya deck inspiration. Glad to see a new top (toppest) tier lineup from Seastan.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/5/4/the-wizards-quest/ I hope you guys are excited! As for me, I'll be my usual negative self and say I'm pretty meh to be honest. The mechanical aspect with the customization seems amazing, and the quest will probably fun and balanced. The theme of it though... I wonder if new players that just bought the core, are amped for WoR and saw this announcement will say "****, the game designers are really obsessed with Mirkwood". TBH I feel Caleb has been kind of redundant with the themes of his quests recently, I mean we were in Harad last cycle and he still made a spider quest! And now this... At least if these stages are an indication we might get Radagast hero, I'm all for it. So what are your presumably more positive thoughts on this?

At this point I don't even care half as much as I did before what our possible Saruman and Radagast heroes would do... I just want Caleb to get on with it and make them. After pretty much 2 cycles mostly comprising some very tertiary characters or FFG created characters, it's long due for us to get some powerful Istari for a change...

I hate it when people use wit to defend FFG.

Holy!! And I thought here in Chile we had delayed product. I've had my Crossings of Poros for weeks now!

Whenever I see one of these threads announcing a new blog, I just think "if only FFG were half as devoted to their own game as its fans are".

I would hope Radagast isn't as narrow as his ally version. Even if he were excellent, I would be disappointed if all he did was work with Eagles/Creatures while a hero like Gnadalf is so splashable and works in such big variety of decks. Sure, Gandalf was the wandering all rounder wizard, true, but IMO Radagast should be somewhat at his level, a bit more universal than his ally version. I remember creating a custom version of him a while ago. He was neutral, was 3/2/2/5, and his ability dealt with gaining, switching and changing sphere icons and sphere matches, essentially being the "resource smoothing" hero, reflecting of course his role as a "changer of hues". EDIT: This is my custom version of Radagast. Doesn't seem too flashy, but much like Bifur, he is a more subtle hero and his ability could be important as a glue hero for a variety of decks. Also, way more splashable and universal and overall much more wizardly IMO than just working with Eagles.

We don't necessarily have to go to the place a character lives in order to get that character. I thought we all would agree with that by now. However, there's more likelyhood if we are around that character's home. With that said, I think Thranduil is almos guaranteed, as is Thorin III. I just hope there's still enough space for hero Radagast (who I think would and should be neutral), as well as artifact support with not only attachments (unique palantiri, lesser rings) but also events relating to them with all this attachment support (whuch I hope is not just item support).

Honestly to me it's not a matter of whether the community cares about the game or not, and where and when they talk about it. It's more about the fact that FFG doesn't care about the game. The community itself has been great and extremely loyal to the game, to the point that I think FFG is clearly taking way too much advantage of that. The problem is not us (we talk and contribute to the community ALL the time), the problem is FFG's obvious neglect for the game.

For this cycle, that's what I hope for the most.

Dutch angle making you dizzy? In LOTR LCG? I thought everyone would be accustomed by now. 90% of the card art in this game is at a friggin dutch angle, it's like Battlefield Earth!

@Bullroarer Took That's what I'm saying. I know we'll probably not see THE drake till the end of the cycle, but if you're starting us off with a product called The Withered Heath, I sure hope to see at least A drake. But, considering Caleb didn't give us Half-trolls of Far Harad in the Harad cycle, the boss could be a Spider for all I know. @Ywingscum Nothing totally new either See Redhorn Gate.

K. A few things to go over here. First, Grimbeorn is amazing. Totally reasonable, you can pump him up and he becomes a powerful combat hero, both in solo and multiplayer. I love him. Same for Hidden Way. Excellent card. Both Leadership cards also look totally playable and good. Nothing more to say here. The scenario and cycle itself I'm very curious about. So, the cycle seems to be about hunting an ancient cold-drake that threatens Wilderland. That seems about the perfect premise for the Rhovanion cycle. Intuition would tell me he (or she) is gonna the big boss of the cycle, so we will probably kill him in pack 6. That leaves me wondering then what are we exactly gonna do this first pack, named after the Withered Heath, cradle of dragons per excellence in ME. If we're not gonna hunt and kill the boss in the first pack, and only begin our hunt as the article suggests, then I sure as **** hope we're at least gonna see some minor drake enemies in this first pack. I mean, it's called the Withered Heath. It'd be weird if this was only about the beginning of the hunt and we didn't see any drakes in this pack. The presence of a Troll in the cover of the pack worries me. Basically, I'm worried Caleb continues his trend of going to exotic places and not really exploring them. Going to the Withered Heath? Here, fight some trolls. Now obviously this is speculation, but it seems the big dragon we have to kill we're not gonna see till the later packs in the cycle. I hope we have some minor drakes to fight in these early packs. Regarding the player card themes this cycle, it's clear we're gonna see lots of Dale and Beorning support. To be expected obviously, as these were the last major groups of Free Peoples left to explore (not counting the Lossoth and Woodmen). I only hope we also see some of the stuff I've been advocating for this cycle, namely Istari support (Radagast hero would be a perfect fit for this cycle) and artifact support in the shape of attachments representing actual unique palantiri, and magic rings (remember? This game is called Lord of the Rings and only a few months ago we saw our first generic ring. Are you kidding me?). I hope Caleb actually tackles this big part of the lore which both the MECCG and LOTR TCG explored excellently.

This. You said it better than I could have.