Ever since I saw Foolish Words in Dragons I've been waiting for Offering Attempts. Now we have one and it doesn't seem as cool as I had hoped, but on second thought it can be pretty cool.
Token of Goodwill - Resource - Short-event
Offering Attempt. Playable on a diplomat whose company is facing an attack of
the type listed below. Target diplomat makes a corruption check. If he does
not fail, discard an item from his company (as listed below), and make a roll
(or draw a #) adding the diplomat's unused direct influence. If the result is
greater than the listed values, the attack is cancelled, and you may take one
resource from your play deck or discard pile into your hand (reshuffle play
deck if searched). Against a Dragon: greater item/5, against a Drake: major
item/6, against Men, Slayer, or any Agent: minor item/7.
When most people first look at this card the immediate reaction is "This card sucks." However, this card can be both very useful and very powerful. As just an attack canceler it's pretty limited, but it is the most powerful deck searcher in the game.
First off, it's hard to play. It can only be used against a dragon/drake/man/ slayer/agent attack. Dragon auto-attacks can be easily arranged, but it may be hard to get one of the other attacks in. However, you may just want to get one attack opportunity. The next step is making the roll. Especially if your diplomat is planning on being a faction influencer, he'll probably have about 2 free DI (assuming you have a diplomat...). A wizard can also act well in this position. However, taking two as an average, you will need to roll over a 3 to 5, depending on the attack type. Then you have to discard the appropriate item, which is the major drawback of this card. Who wants to discard the Emerald they just got from the Lonely Mountain the turn they leave and get attacked by Smaug Ahunt? This makes this card primarily a card to use against Men, Slayers, and Agents, which is pretty limited.
There are some good parts, though. You can use a minor item strategy along with this card. Mathom Lore, Cup of Farewell, and Armory work well here. You could even include several Tokens of Goodwill and recycle your minor items with Mathom Lore and Armory. Needless to say, discarding a card like a Potion of Prowess is well worth searching your deck and discard pile for any resource (you can even get back that minor item if you really want to...). And I find agent attacks to be at least moderately common, as well as slayers and men (yes, you can use this to cancel the first attack of a slayer). Often, a major item is worth a search through your deck.
That deck search is, of course, the best part of this card. This aspect of the card is better than most other card aspects. It's not limited like Dwarven Rings, Far Sight, Palantir of Annuminas, et al. Any resource. Item, event, whatever. You can also grab something your wizard brought from the sideboard to your discard pile too. I don't think anybody can count the number of times she has wanted to have that ONE resource. This card is currently, for instance, the only card that can fetch Gollum's Fate.
One card should be mentioned in the context of this card. Leaf Brooch. You can get a Leaf Brooch from Lorien, march right up to Gold Hill and say: "Here, Itangast, I'll trade you this nice little brooch for that big sword over in the corner. Or maybe I like that nice shiny emerald." That combo pushes up my rating by at least 1.5 it's so nice.
So all in all, Token of Goodwill is a nice card that, while hard to play, can be very useful when you do play it.
| Ratings for Token of Goodwill: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 6.75 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Samwise: | 8.5 |
| Wormtongue: | 6.2 |
| Legolas: | 6.0 |
| Strider: | 1.5 |
| Gandalf: | 8.5 |
| Morgoth: | 7.0 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 6.5 |
| Average: | 6.5 |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1996 by Trevor Stone. Permission given to duplicate so long as no profit is made and the copyright notice is kept in tact, blah, blah, blah.