Gandalf - Hero

[bitzurock 2]

"Play with the top card of your deck faceup. Once per phase, you may play the top card of your deck as if it was in your hand. When playing a card this way, Gandalf is considered to have the printed Leadership, Lore, Tactics, and Spirit icons."

Question: Once per phase, you may play the top card of your deck as if it was in your hand ...that means we can play the top card on every phase? Not only on Planning phase?

[Miceldars 24]

If it is a card you can play on the current phase, yes (it doesn't allow you to play an ally during the quest phase, for example)

[bitzurock 2]

So..no allies and attachments?

[Alonewolf87 304]

33 minutes ago, bitzurock said:

So..no allies and attachments?

Outside of the Planning phase you are still only able to play events even with Gandalf's ability, unless some other card effect says otherwise.

[bitzurock 2]

Ok. Thank you!

[sappidus 531]

1 hour ago, Alonewolf87 said:

Outside of the Planning phase you are still only able to play events even with Gandalf's ability, unless some other card effect says otherwise.

Of note, Hirgon and Thranduil do not work for this:

 

[Felswrath 678]

On another note, can Gandalf (Radagast and Treebeard as well for that matter) pay for neutral cards from your hand?

[Onidsen 571]

7 minutes ago, Felswrath said:

On another note, can Gandalf (Radagast and Treebeard as well for that matter) pay for neutral cards from your hand?

Gandalf,  yes.  Radagast and Treebeard? No. We have no framework effect today tells us what to do with resources on an ally. Because of that, we can only spend ally's resources on the things the ally says we can spend them on.

[Felswrath 678]

Thank you!

[Wandalf the Gizzard 370]

The funny thing is, (correct me if I'm mistaken) you couldn't even play Sword-Thain on Radagast or Treebeard. Neutral does not belong to "any sphere of influence!"

[sappidus 531]

3 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

The funny thing is, (correct me if I'm mistaken) you couldn't even play Sword-Thain on Radagast or Treebeard. Neutral does not belong to "any sphere of influence!"

Yup—you need additional shenanigans to knight a neutral ally, e.g., Narya on Gandalf before attaching Sword-thain. AFAIK there's no similar trick for Radagast or Treebeard yet.

[Felswrath 678]

You obviously wouldn't want Sword Thain on Core set Gandalf, but would it be useful on OHaUH Gandalf? It would be a very useful combo, but I don't know if 5 for him, 2 for Narya, and 4 for sword than, plus 1 more threat every turn would be worth while for the cost. That's 11 resources after all!

[Wandalf the Gizzard 370]

Two more threat per turn, actually.  You raise your threat by one normally, then Gandalf kicks in and raises it by two for a total of three.

[player3351457 167]

On 4/6/2019 at 2:32 PM, Felswrath said:

You obviously wouldn't want Sword Thain on Core set Gandalf, but would it be useful on OHaUH Gandalf? It would be a very useful combo, but I don't know if 5 for him, 2 for Narya, and 4 for sword than, plus 1 more threat every turn would be worth while for the cost. That's 11 resources after all!

Sword thain would not work, since it requires you to play the attachment on a unique character belonging to any sphere of influence. Gandalf, being neutral, would not belong to any sphere.

[Wandalf the Gizzard 370]

17 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

Sword thain would not work, since it requires you to play the attachment on a unique character belonging to any sphere of influence. Gandalf, being neutral, would not belong to any sphere.

True, but you can put Narya on Gandalf, which gives him the Leadership sphere.

[player3351457 167]

On 4/7/2019 at 6:42 PM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

True, but you can put Narya on Gandalf, which gives him the Leadership sphere.

I'm sorry, I should have seen the rest of the post.

Are there any other shenanigans to make any of the other neutral allies into heroes?

[sappidus 531]

1 hour ago, player3351457 said:

Are there any other shenanigans to make any of the other neutral allies into heroes?

Thalion has the intrinsic ability.

[Rajam 139]

About Gandalf hero, when you play a card from the top of your deck, is that considered to be triggering an ability (for the purposes of the Local Trouble treachery)?

 

Local Trouble

When Revealed: Attach this card to the hero with the highest threat cost without a copy of Local Trouble attached. Counts as a Condition attachment with the text:

When attached hero exhausts, readies, or triggers an ability, raise its controller's threat by 1.

[Miceldars 24]

I would say yes

[dalestephenson 1,482]

Absent the Response or Action keywords, wouldn't this technically be a passive effect?  Passive effects aren't triggered.

[sappidus 531]

To be precise, according to the RR parlance, Gandalf has an optional constant ability. Nonetheless, @dalestephenson is substantively right: it is not a triggered ability, which the RR defines quite precisely:

A bold timing command, followed by a colon and the rest of the ability, is indicative of a triggered ability.

So you're safe from Local Trouble here.