Behold the White Rider (4U88)

Valor (4C87)

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Gandalf, Greyhame (4R89)

	Set:		The Two Towers
	Kind:		Free Peoples
	Culture:		Gandalf
	Twilight:		2
	Card Type:		Condition
	Game Text:		Plays to your support area. Each time Gandalf wins a skirmish, you may place a [GANDALF] token here. Skirmish: Wound a minion skirmishing Gandalf for each [GANDALF] token here. Discard this condition.
	Lore:		“‘Gandalf is come again.'”
	Rarity:		U
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General Strategy

The release of The Two Towers introduced a new resource: culture tokens. Each Free Peoples culture (except [Gollum]), the new [Raider] and [Dunland] cultures, and [Isengard] Uruk-Hai got unique conditions which collect tokens whenever their respective character wins a skirmish, all to some different effect. Gandalf's Behold the White Rider is perhaps the least commonly seen of the token-bearing Free Peoples conditions, and for several reasons. Unlike the cards available to other cultures, Behold the White Rider only gains tokens when a specific character (Gandalf) wins a skirmish - accruing those tokens is slow. Similarly, only Gandalf is capable of reaping the benefits of those tokens where the comparable Free Peoples conditions can benefit many characters, some even across cultures. Finally, the effect tends to be underwhelming: Once Gandalf wins several skirmishes, he can use Behold the White Rider to... win another skirmish, albeit often a challenging one.

Since collecting tokens is slow, the condition is unique, and its use tends to be situational, a player hoping to incorporate Behold the White Rider is caught between two opposing forces: including enough copies to play it early and get the full value of it when needed, and not cluttering the Free Peoples deck with extra copies of a card that is rarely useful twice. Still, while the card will rarely make a big game impact, it is capable of hindering an opponents progress and force a Shadow player to make sub-optimal decisions.

Fittingly, Behold the White Rider can enable Gandalf to instantly defeat powerful minions such as The Balrog as long as nothing protects that minion from being wounded. Because it wounds a minion "for each" token, if Gandalf is Defender +X Behold the White Rider can be used to kill multiple minions at once by spreading wounds across minions. This may be particularly handy against swarm strategies when Gandalf, Bearer of Obligation is the Ring-Bearer.

Before Siege of Gondor's Not the First Halfling, Behold the White Rider was the only card which could generate [Gandalf] tokens and heal a [Gandalf] companion via Ring of Barahir. In later sets, cards which use tokens as a resource can benefit from Behold the White Rider. Shadowfax, Roaring Wind can reinforce a [Gandalf] token when played and allow Behold the White Rider's tokens to wound across many skirmishes instead of all at once. Alatar, Final Envoy can reinforce a [Gandalf] token every turn, allowing even a supporting Gandalf to bring down tough minions if he can win at least one skirmish. Gandalf, Returned can double the rate at which Behold the White Rider gains tokens, though other conditions may be able to utilize the free token better.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strong Versus...

• Fierce minions, which offer Gandalf an additional opportunity to win a skirmish
• Minions which are usually very difficult to beat in skirmishes, once the Free Peoples has managed to gather enough tokens
• Swarm decks, if Gandalf is the Ring-Bearer
• Shadowfax, Brego, or Horse of Rohan, whose free exertion can make Behold the White Rider deadly with one fewer token

Weak Versus...

• Decks in which Gandalf is the main skirmisher, as Behold the White Rider is often redundant
• Beatdown decks, which have few skirmishes and often allow the Free Peoples to claim even fewer wins
• Direct wounding decks such as archery, which rarely count on skirmishes
• Condition discard, as tokens on Behold the White Rider are hard to accumulate

Example Decks

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Rules and Clarifications

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• Link to rules discussions on TLHH.

Extra Information

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