This card is great. Can really help build some strong combat Hobbits.

The fact that it's guarded with only enemy type allows for some decent encounter deck manipulation. If there is a terrible location or treachery waiting for you, plop down sting and send it to the encounter discard. Guarded cards in general can be really good with scrying.

The direct damage plays great work tactics Bilbo, but with all the action advantage available to hobbits you can still do a lot of direct damage with this card and use the stats on a few hobbits. Sam is also great with Hobbit cloak, sting and his bonuses (not to mention Rosie!) he can be a beefy direct damage tank as well. Frodo works, Tom Cotton, even Fatty. Bilbo and Sam are best though.

Great design. It's really not hard to fit unique Hobbits in a deck. With Hobbits this card goes from good to great. There is a deck thinning aspect to any card that replaces itself, and more than once have I found myself wishing for one or two more Mulligans.

I initially underestimated this card, after playing with it more, I think it's very strong for certain decks. It's less consistent than say Word of Command, but it's a lot more splashable. It's amazing for decks that want to use secrecy it doomed cards early. It really shines in a Hobbit secrecy deck, which frankly needs it for the consistency.

It's nice to have some competition or alternatives to peace and thought and daeron's runes. Fine addition to the card pool.

Fun card, great card.

I must say, I really like this card. Enough that if I have a unique Hobbit and , it'll probably be an auto-include.

Basically, if you control a unique Hobbit, it serves as a mid-game mulligan, as the 1 extra card draw replaces the card itself. So with 3 of these in your deck, it essentially tightens it to a 47 card deck... assuming you're OK doing mid-game mulligans. The drawback is you may already have the cards you want, but simply can't pay for them yet, in which case, Drinking Song is taking up space until you can play it later. So where might it fit well? In decks with several duplicates that may clog your hand, and/or decks with various key cards you want to fish for, and you've no Daeron's Runes at the moment.

Without a unique Hobbit, it's harder to justify (but not impossible) as it no longer replaces itself. Still, in decks with large card draws, it'd be handy for those times when you're holding 10+ cards, but you still can't draw the 1 key card that's been eluding you, so it's time to "roll the dice" and see if it pops up.

I love the idea and artwork, which hints at Hobbits being lax in their vigilance, with the result being you won't quite know what'll happen. Will your replacement hand end up worse? Or turn out better, such as when Pippin gazed into the Palantir?

One of the few cards in the game that I'd truly call a "fun" card, for its name, artwork, and an ability that provides a mid-game mulligan.

It's unfortunate the book quote that inspired this card couldn't fit on the card's flavor text, but here it is, when the fellowship meets Celeborn and Galadriel...

"Very tall they were and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for those were as keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory."

Cue Magali Villeneuve to do her thing, and wow, does she deliver. Galadriel's piercing gaze seems to look right through you. So artwork-wise, this card is great. What about the ability? It also delivers. After all, if Galadriel aids you (as when she gives gifts to the fellowship, with Gimli's interchange being my favorite) then expect a big payoff, and this card gives 3 great options. Of course, the drawback is the very high cost.

The main way to play this card efficiently is with cards that put non-point cards (at times including themselves) into the victory display, such as Out of the Wild, Scout Ahead, Leave No Trace, and None Return, which quickly make Keen as Lances much cheaper. Not only that, but playing Keen as Lances also makes later copies cheaper as it also goes into the victory display.

However, you'll note that all the other cards are , which seems to limit you to that sphere... or does it? After all, the card is neutral. That leads to the other use I've found for this card, which is if I'm playing two-handed with no , and at least 1 deck (optimally both) tend to have an abundance of resources (but are a bit shallow on card draw) then I've put 3 copies of Keen as Lances into both decks. In such decks, at some point (usually fairly early) I'll have plenty of resources to play the first copy, then the next is cheaper, and so on. It works great with wealthy decks, and even includes a threat-lessening option if necessary.

I've thought it'd be interesting in a 4 player game to have each deck contain 3 copies of Keen as Lances (assuming at least 2 decks are resource rich) to start a big domino effect, later making it Christmas for everyone else's copies. Theoretically, that'd be 15 resources for drawing 36 cards. (Unless 1 deck does one of the cards above, making it far cheaper, and dropping the total cost of them all to 6 or less). Of course, the drawback is they could clog hands until they're made playable, but as I said, that's all theoretical.

Every deck I make with at least one hero has three copies of this card. It does have synergies with Haldan and other Woodmen which can be a powerful combo but even on its own it is so effective to chew through locations with high questing points and it's cheap to boot. I like cards that don't require a lot of infrastructure around them to make them work and this card fits that bill. The art is also really well done!