Pillars of the Kings

Event. Cost: 4.

While your threat is less than 40, reduce the cost to play Pillars of the Kings by 4. Action: Set your threat to 40. If this effect raised your threat, draw a card (draw 4 cards instead if it raised your threat by 10 or more).

"Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings!"
-Aragorn, The Fellowship of the Ring
Sam White

Printings:
  • ‣ Wrath and Ruin #3
  • ‣ Defenders of Gondor #24
Leadership.

Pillars of the Kings
Reviews

Am I thinking correctly that this card functions the same way The Galadhrim’s Greeting does? At first, I was only focused to make it work as an engine for drawing tons of cards, but now I realized that it can actually keep you in Valour mode for a very long period of time. It can reduce your threat by 9, which is pretty awesome for mono leadership decks.

Rimogard 326
Also, since it says "set" your threat, it doesn't specifically reduce it like The Galadhrim's Greeting, making it incredibly overpowered in quests with the Dire keyword. — AlasForCeleborn 798
@AlasForCeleborn, are you certain? Going 30-->40 counts as "raised", so it seems that going 49-->40 should be "reduced". — ellipticaltable 244
What I wanted to say is that it basically allows mono leadership decks to reduce their threat instead of using overused conbos such as Sneak Attack & Gandalf. I’m not sure about the wording and how it will affect certain quests. — Rimogard 326
That’s quite interesting though, it makes the card even better. I’m almost 100% sure that setting your threat to a certain level is different than reducing/increasing your threat. — Rimogard 326
Caleb clarified that "reducing your threat" includes all instances where your threat level goes down in number, no matter which verb is used "set", "reduce", "lower" and so forth. So using this card in a Saruman deck with 45 threat would only bring you down to 44 due to Saruman's effect — Alonewolf87 2817
Nice catch, thanks for the clarification. — Rimogard 326

A card I have a very soft spot for and a card that is quite hard to assess due to its variance and complexity. Some decks like it for its card draw, some for its jumpstart to valour, many also for its late-game threat-reduction potential. The decks I end up including it in often have a use for all three, where it then can really shine. Definitely not a staple by any means, since you will have to take a lot more heat in most cases when jumping 10+ threat points, however the ceiling here is quite monumental.

One very thematic and undeniably very powerful combination is alongside Aragorn, where you can either use it multiple times for its full draw effect or completely eliminate the downside of it once. I had decks built around drawing 8 cards in a single refresh phase (make that 13 with Peace, and Thought) starting the next round completely flushed for options and then cruising to victory due to these options. A very fun, high skill-cap card and undeniably powerful, great design!

Rating: 7.5/10

Decks of mine using Pillars of the Kings

All my card ratings

Mormegil 10505