Dain Ironfoot (Spirit)

• Player Card Categories
  • Discard from Deck
  • Defense Bonus

There are many other cards Dwarf cards like Dain’s ability that discard cards from the top for a benefit. There are 2 cards in particular that a Dwarven Mining player wants to discard, Hidden Cache and Ered Luin Miner. Both are basically resource acceleration. Hidden Cache gives 2 resources directly. Ered Luin Miner is a free ally that is great value at 0 but not very efficient at 3 cost.

There are quite a few cards that can pull cards back from the discard pile. Stand and Fight, Caldara, Reforged, To me! O my kinsfolk!, all can put one directly into play. Last one is a a crossover since the ally is put on the bottom of the deck at end of the phase and shares the Dwarf theme. Dwarven Tomb, Erebor Hammersmith, and Second Breakfast can all return a card to a player’s hand. Four of these are even in the first cycle for progression players to combo with the miner.

Recursion cards that take cards from the discard pile and put them into play or hand can turn Dain’s ability into pseudo-card draw or tutoring. For example, Dain could mine an Galadhrim Minstrel, and Unexpected Courage. Stand and Fight then could target the Galadhrim Minstrel and put it into play. The Minstrel’s ability then finds Dwarven Tomb in their top 5 cards. Dwarven Tomb then could put Unexpected Courage into a player’s hand. Stand and Fight, Reforged, To me! O my kinsfolk!, and Dwarven Tomb can target any non-neutral ally, non-neutral attachment, Dwarf ally, or Spirit card, respectively. Aggressive use of Dain’s ability only increases the number of possible targets in the discard pile for each card. Dain’s ability works particularly well with Caldara because of this as well. His ability let’s the player start from turn 1 putting Spirit ally targets in for her ability. It is entirely possible to mine 2 Spirit allies for her to put into play first turn, or better 3 of them on turn 2 if Prince Imrahil ally is in play

The Record attachments of Map of Earnil, Tome of Atanatar, Scroll of Isildur, and Book of Eldacar cover both discard recursion effects. They let you play an event in your discard pile. Then put it back on the bottom of your deck. Map of Earnil and Tome of Atanatar also can replay the recursion identified earlier.

Dain having the ability to get to 6 defense without playing another card makes him a very strong defender. He can block the Hill Troll from Journey Along the Anduin with that high of defense. Spirit doesn’t have many cards that boost this, but Armor of Erebor is perfect for him. It gives 1 defense and gives him sentinel for multiplayer games and qualify for Armored Destrier. Arwen ally is the other main Spirit defense boost and also gives sentinel. Unexpected Courage is in sphere so he can defend multiple times which is great. Pair Dain with Leadership or Tactics for many of the other defensive attachments like Dunedain Warning, Ancestral Armor, Shining Shield, Dwarven Shield, Hauberk of Mail, Gondorian Shield, Round Shield, and Ring Mail.

Thorongil will allow the player to paste Leadership Dain’s ability and sphere onto Spirit Dain. This can be a massive buff if the player is running lots of Dwarf allies.

In the Saga quests, the players have the option in Helm’s Deep to take the Poisoned Counsels burden. If drawn, a player has to discard their hand. Dain offers a way to avoid drawing it.

In the Ered Mithren cycle, there is a treachery with a similar effect, Lost in the Wild. When it is revealed it goes directly to a player’s hand. When that player plays any card, they have to discard their hand. Gildor or Wizard Pipe plus Dain, however, can put it on top of a player’s deck and mine it away.

There are a couple quests where if your deck runs out, the player loses. Dain using his ability only accelerates that loss condition. Deadman’s Dike in the Lost Realm is the first. Will of the West or a larger deck to play around the loss condition can work. There are few encounter card effects, however, that are based on cards in your discard pile. For example, the shadow effect on Dark Sorcery will discard the defender if there is a copy of that ally in your discard pile.

The other is Under the Ash Mountains. It’s even more punishing than Deadman’s Dike. It forces the players to mine down to 40 cards. This one doesn’t allow events to shuffle cards from a discard pile back into the player deck barring Will of the West. The quest will mine a minimum of 2 cards per turn from a player’s deck but often more.