Take No Notice

It is easy to take no notice of this card.

Background

In their dark cloaks they were as invisible as if they all had magic rings. Since they were all hobbits, and were trying to be silent, they made no noise that even hobbits would hear. Even the wild things in the fields and woods hardly noticed their passing.

J. R. R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring Chapter 3

The flavor text comes not long after Frodo overhears the Gaffer telling a Nazghul disguised as a black rider that Frodo left that morning. Frodo then meets Sam and Pippin to sneak away from Hobbiton.

Card Theme

Player threat can be thought of as the attention of Sauron on the players. Engagement cost then represents how high a profile the player’s heroes have to be hunted down. It is fitting that when players are sneaking and intentionally keeping a low profile increases the engagement cost. Rangers and Hobbits being stealthier than others when they want also makes sense it is easier to play this card with them.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Hobbits

Gondorian Rangers and Traps

Rangers also get the cost discount on the cost of the card. The Gondor set of them benefits the most from it. Dunedain Rangers typically benefit from engaging enemies, but the Gondor Rangers work well with traps and want to avoid engagement. Faramir hero powers up for each enemy in the staging area. Poisoned Stakes and Ithilien Pit are two of traps are more effective if the enemy can stay in the staging area. Poisoned Stakes because it can destroy an enemy on its own eventually. Ithilien Pit allows players to declare attacks on the enemy even in staging and won’t need to be defended against. They, however, don’t lock the enemy down in staging like Ranger Spikes. Gondor Ranger heroes also aren’t very low threat with threat cost around 10. Anything that help them avoid engagement makes Traps work better.

Quest Specific

Ring Rating

Card Talk uses the highly scientific yet arbitrary scale of 1 ring for the card to rule them all to 10 to be cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.

I rate Take No Notice at 9 rings. This card is way overpriced at its printed cost. The Galadhrim’s Greeting is a similarly priced event and its effect can also help players avoid engagement or power up Hobbits. Galadhrim’s Greeting effectively increases the engagement cost by 6 instead of just 5. Additionally, the effect basically lasts longer than 1 round since threat is permanently lowered. Take No Notice only makes sense at 0 or 1 cost because of its temporary effect. This limits it to decks with Hobbit and/or Ranger heroes. In a deck with all Hobbit heroes, The Shirefolk is better much like The Galadhrim’s Greeting because the 4 threat reduction is more lasting.

The other major drawback is that adding 5 to engagement cost is not enough to prevent engagement most of the time. Enemy engagement costs vary from 1 to 50 with most occurring at increments of 5. There are only a few cards that increase engagement cost (Mablung ally and Pippin hero) making it difficult to stack. I don’t go as far as 10 since it can work just rarely. A discounted cost of 1 or 0 is reasonable for this marginal temporary effect. It is a shame since Gondor Rangers being in Lore and Tactics don’t have many ways to reduce threat in either sphere. Increasing engagement cost makes a nice way to enable them without further sphere bleed of threat reduction cards. It just wasn’t developed enough to be reliable like threat reduction.

• Dave – 8
• Grant – TBR
• Ted – 6
• Matt – 9
• Average – 7.67

External Links

• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks