Palantir of Osgilath

Resource: Greater Item
Marshalling Points: 3(5)
Corruption Points: 3

Unique. Palantir If the bearer's company is ever below 2 characters and the company moves, discard. 5 marshalling pts. if stored in a Haven [H]. With its bearer able to use a Palantir, tap Palantir of Osgiliath to force the discard of any hazard permanent-event or to duplicate the effect of any Palantir in play. Bearer makes a corruption check.

Clarification: If bearer's company size goes below two during the movement/hazard phase when the company is moving to a new site, discard this card.


Probably, in fact almost definitely the best Palantir. Its limitation is a smaller version of Amon Sul's, so that you can use it with a traveling Saruman fairly easily. And Saruman's good with it anyway, because he can carry that around and use the abilities of the other Palantiri that you've sent other characters out to set up and use. In its other non-special ability features it's pretty much identical to Amon Sul's, so I won't go over those again.

Its main thing is its special abilities. First let's do the latter of these, its ability to use any Palantir in play's effects. This is extremely useful, even more so than Amon Sul's because it does it with all Palantiri and not just Annuminas (which is really good) and Elostirion (which is really bad). As long as you can get out Osgilath first, it doesn't matter what others your opponent gets out, you can just use them yourself.

So stock a bunch of Far-Sights in your deck to act as (in programming lingo) "pointers" to Palantir of Osgilath, then get it out ASAP, before your opponent does. Otherwise all your efforts to bring out other Palantiri will be helping your opponent too, which sort of defeats the purpose of them (especially since they can often seriously harm the opponent, which becomes you if your opponent uses one of your Palantiri).

So, like I said, it's very important to get this out if you plan on playing several Palantiri. And there's also its other ability, perhaps even better than the first. It lets you discard any hazard permanent-event. Can someone say, "Will of Sauron". Now you don't need Gates of Morning to destroy it anymore, you just need to tap this. Use it to clear up those Nazgul, that Bane of the Ithil-Stone that's causing you so much trouble with your Palantiri, those Lures of xxxxx. Though the main use is Will of Sauron, by far the deadliest Hazard Permanent-event. This trims it down to size, from one of the best hazards to just a mediocre and easily cancelable one (if Palantir of Osgilath is out, if not then it's still extremely deadly). You can also play this with your own Will of Sauron, so that once your opponent's suffered enough and you want to go wandering out again while he tries to re-build his companies you can cancel its effects. But whoever has it can effectively control Will of Sauron.

So overall, Palantir of Osgilath is the best Palantir of them all, with two good abilities and stats that are fittingly good.


Ratings for: PALANTIR OF OSGILATH
RaterRatingRaterRating
Gandalf9.7LobeliaN/R
Morgoth9.0Faramir9.5
Shadowfax7.5BerenN/R
Isildur9.5Gollum9.4
TurinN/RSauron9.7
RadagastN/RCirdan9.0
EruN/RAverage9.14

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