I am like a Hobbit in many respects, not least of which is the fact that my family has lots of useless stuff around that we can't throw away. Hobbits also have lots of mathoms.
Mathom Lore # Resource # Permament-event # 2 CP
Playable on a Hobbit at Bag End; tap the Hobbit. During the organization phase,
bearer may tap to choose a minor item from your play deck or discard pile to
place into your hand. Reshuffle your play deck if it was used. Bearer makes a
corruption check.
While minor items won't get you too many MPs on their own, they can certainly help. This card along with a few from Dark Minions allows you to make minor items a significant part of a deck.
While this card takes some planning to pull off, its reward can be quite useful. First, to get it out you need an untapped Hobbit at Bag End. This can easily be achieved by either including someone like Robin or Folco in your starting company and sending them to the Shire or include one or two in your deck and bring them out at Bag End when you draw them. In either case it's a a good idea to give the Hobbit Await the Advent of Allies if you intend on leaving him somewhere, though you can certainly play Mathom Lore on him and move around with him in your company as well. It's 2 CPs are a little bit of a bummer, but not too much to worry about on a Hobbit.
The effect, as I said, can be very good. For instance, if your company starts with two Potions of Prowess you can have your Hobbit go and fetch them back after you use them. Then pop them into the Armory (if you can pull off 9 minor items and 3 Armories it's worth 3 MPs) and get the Potion back during the site phase. This can also be used to recycle cards like Healing Herbs or Thror's Map (Bilbo knows SO much about small, bizarre items that the Dwarves keep finding big ones). Or you can tap your wizard to bring 5 minor items in from the sideboard and then have your Hobbit bring them slowly into play. You can also use Mathom Lore to get a minor item you didn't start with such as Thror's Map, Sting, a hoard minor item, a Lost Knowledge card, or a third Dagger of Westernesse.
This card combined with Dwarven Ring of Durin's Tribe can also crank out major items at Hermit's Hill. Or send a company for Tharbad and play minor items until the cows come home. Sure, these aren't game winning combos or anything, but when you're getting full use out of Armory, Cup of Farewell, and Mathom Lore you get that Hobbit Role Playing Feel.
So Mathom Lore can let you do some really cool recycling and can help an obscure minor item strategy work.
| Ratings for Mathom Lore: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 7.0 |
| Samwise: | 8.1 |
| Bandobras Took: | 7.6 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 8.5 |
| Frodo: | 7.5 |
| Fingolfin: | 6.5 |
| Beorn: | 6.8 |
| Strider: | 6.0 |
| Legolas: | 6.3 |
| Cirdan: | 5.5 |
| Average: | 7.0 |
Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1997 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.