Hope Rekindled

Event. Cost: 0.

Song.

Action: Reduce the cost of the next event that has a Valour trigger you play this phase by 2.

Valour Action: Search the top 10 cards of your deck for an event that has a Valour trigger and add it to your hand. Shuffle your deck.

Hope he rekindled, and in hope ended;
over death, over dread, over doom lifted
out of loss, out of life, unto long glory.
The Return of the King
Gabrielle Portal

Across the Ettenmoors #63. Neutral.

Hope Rekindled
Reviews

I've found that there are really two parts to the Valour archetype. The first deals with increasing the stats or providing conditional abilities to allies when the player is in Valour mode. The second and more important part has to do with a medley of events that all have the Valour trigger. A deck that relies on events can be trickier to navigate, since those cards are generally a one time deal with a non permanent effect, unlike allies that will be around turn in and turn out providing a return on the investment of hand-space and resources. The difficulty is heightened when the events that need to be played are costly like many of those with the Valour keyword. In order to play the pricey events in your hand, you will need some sort of resource acceleration. To play those events at all you need to have them in your hand. Hope Rekindled is able to accommodate both of those needs.

First off, the event reduces the cost of any event with the Valour trigger by two. Since the Hope Rekindled has a cost of zero, you are essentially trading a card in hand for two resources. In an archetype which needs to play expensive events continuously (Horn's Cry and Rallying Cry cost two each, while Doom Hangs Still, Hour of Wrath, and Fierce Defense range from three to five resources) this type of resource-acceleration/cost-reduction is absolutely necessary. But besides the obvious benefit of cost-reduction, Hope Rekindled also plays a minor role in resource smoothing. If you are running a single tactics hero that has two resources in its pool but want to play Hour of Wrath then Bam! Slam down Hope Rekindled! Instead of having to wait two more turns you can play it right away! In addition, note that the resource reduction is not a Valour Action. This means that you can still reduce the cost of events even when you are still below 40 . Although this is a minor point since most Valour events don't want to be played outside of Valour mode, one can still conceive of a scenario where a one-cost Fierce Defense would come in handy.

While the cost reduction that comes with this card is great and much needed, I would argue that it is not even its most important effect. What good is reducing the cost to play events if you have none in hand? This card allows you to make sure that any time you have the resources to pay for an event, you will have an event to play. In addition, if one is searching for specific combos such as Horn's Cry and Hour of Wrath, you will be able to pull out whatever card you need, provided it is in the top ten cards of your deck. This ability to handpick the combos you want to implement cannot be overstated. There are few cards in the game that will allow you to search so deeply in you deck for such a wide array of cards. Westfold Horse-breeder is probably the nearest comparison. But even that card costs two resources while Hope Rekindled costs zero, highlighting just how efficient the card really is. Every archetype needs a card that can smooth over its economy. Hope Rekindled is that card in the Valour archetype.

One last parting thought: I find it interesting that the designers decided to make the focal card of the Valour archetype an event rather than the usual attachment or hero. Perhaps they felt the need to switch up the current meta and try something new.