Old Friendship

Resource: Short-event

Diplomat only. +5 to an influence check against a character OR +4 to a corruption check made by a character in the same company.

Okay, this card has two main effects: it can increase influence checks or corruption checks. There are tons of uses for this. Let's start with the first one. This is a little less useful than the second, but still good. From what I interpret the meaning as (I.E. only checks against an OPPONENT's character, since you don't have to do a check to influence your characters), you can use it as a powerful weapon against your opponent. If your opponent has a great character out, with lots of allies and factions plus possibly a few good items (like The One Ring) you can use this to get rid of all of them. Plus you get the character, nice if they're a good one like Elrond or Aragorn II.

But now on to the second, better (IMHO) skill. Corruption, as anyone who's played the game more than once knows, is a very dangerous thing. It can cause you big problems with Wizards (and since all of them except Alatar, who's good enough to use anyway, are Diplomats, it's good with them) and with regular characters as well. Plus, it's one of the biggest hazards in destroying The One Ring.

But with this card, you get a much better chance of succeeding in a check. If you have Gandalf, for instance, destroying the ring, and he has no other items (6 corruption points, therefore, for The One Ring), play this to nullify the -4 check, making you with his +1 to corruption need just a 6 or higher on a roll to succeed. Or play it on Frodo in the company for an almost automatic win (overall, +8 to a check with 6 points, making +2, -4 for the Cracks check to just need a roll higher than 2 to win).

There are only two problems with this card. One, it's a one-shot card, meaning you can't benefit from its effects more than once a deck reshuffle (and it's not a spell, so you can't just recycle it with Saruman), though I think that ICE should have made a card like Resurrect in Magic (correct me if I'm wrong on this, magic fans) or Palor Toff in Star Trek to re-use cards you've discarded.

But still, this limitation isn't that bad, considering its great effects. And this card can be duplicated (it doesn't say otherwise). And the other limitation is the Diplomat Only one, which doesn't seem like much of a problem since enough characters are diplomats so that most parties have them. So overall, this is a pretty good card, for almost any deck.

Ratings for: OLD FRIENDSHIP

Rater	Rating
Gandalf	7.8
Turin	8.0
Shadowfax	6.0
Morgoth	8.5
Cirdan	6.0
Ilsidur	4.0
Elrond	7.0
Radagast	9.0
Beren	9.0
Eru	7.0
Average	7.23

[Back to the METW COTD homepage]

Card names and spoilers are copyrighted by Iron Crown Enterprises, Inc., which reserves all rights in its intellectual properties.