The White Tree

Resource: Premanent-event
Marshalling Points: 5

Unique. Sage only at Minas Tirith.
Playable only if a Sapling of the White Tree is at Minas Tirith. Minas Tirith becomes a haven for the purposes of healing and playing hazards.


Pretty nice. Not incredibly good, but pretty good nontheless. For reference, here's the text of Sapling of the White Tree (since I'll be referring to it a good deal):

Sapling of the White Tree
Resource - Major Item
1(2) marshalling pts, Not playable in a Shadow-Hold or Dark-hold. May be stored at Minas Tirith. 2 marshalling pts if stored at Minas Tirith.

Okay, this card (The White Tree, not the sapling) has two main uses. The first of these is the 5 marshalling points. Combined with the 2 marshalling points from Sapling of the White Tree (well, it has to be stored at Minas Tirith for The White Tree to be playable) you have SEVEN marshalling points, more than any single card and most, if not all, other two-card combos (not counting Minas Tirith, though it's common enough in starters so most people have it).

This is a huge bonus to any marshalling point-based strategy. And it's pretty easy, too, compared to other ways of getting that many points (there is no single card that even has that many listed, after all).

And then there's also the other, more interesting feature of this card. It makes Minas Tirith a haven for some purposes. In fact, the main thing you can't do is play a character at it who doesn't have it as his home site (except Gandalf - his home site's "any haven", I'd think this is included.).

But it keeps the same "safety" of a haven in it - there's no hazard creature I know of that can attack havens (except Traitor, and that's a special case). And not many hazards in general.

Plus, you can heal characters there. This is useful if you're out there near Mordor and don't particularly want to go all the way back to Lorien to heal from that huge Nazgul attack your opponent just played on you in Gorgoroth. Plus great for getting some of those big-ticket items in the southern areas.

Only two problems with this card. The first is that Sapling of the White Tree is required. Sapling doesn't give you much except the two marshalling points for playing it. And you can even store it THREE times, for ELEVEN points (I forgot to mention that before). This is only a little useful with one, but as good as The One Ring with three, so not much of a problem. The second is that it's sage only, but that's minor since there are so many sages. Overall, a useful card, which doesn't belong in every deck but belongs in many.


Ratings for: THE WHITE TREE
RaterRating
Gandalf7.0
Lobelia8.0
Morgoth5.0
Faramir7.5
Shadowfax7.0
Beren9.0
Isildur9.0
Cirdan7.5
Average7.56

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