I'm surprised that as of this writing, none of the reviews on this page have mentioned Lórien's Wealth yet. I started with the revised core set and as soon as I saw the two right next to each other, I wondered what the use of Gandalf's Search could be over Lórien's Wealth. Sure, you can pay 1 resource to have any player draw 1 card with Gandalf's Search, but as soon as you pay 2 resources to still only draw 1 card, it loses to Gléowine (also in the core set), and if you pay 3 resources, it loses to Lórien's Wealth, and it just keeps plummeting from there on out. Sure, you get to rearrange the top of your deck, but isn't drawing cards better than rearranging them almost 100% of the time? Especially on a one-shot effect where you have to pay more resources to look at and rearrange more cards. And by the time cards and scenarios came out that finally did care about the top cards of your deck, we had already gotten much better deck rearrangement options like Imladris Stargazer and Wizard Pipe. The only time I have ever used this card was when playing the mono- starter deck from the revised core set, and that was only to pay 1 resource to draw 1 card.

I did see a comment on a Youtube video a while ago (I don't remember which video) where the commenter had made a house rule errata for Gandalf's Search: it costs 3 instead of X, and lets the chosen player search their entire deck for a card (and then shuffle their deck) rather than searching only the top few cards of their deck. I wonder, if that were the case, how much more play would it have seen? Would it have been worth it to use a deck slot and pay 3 lore resources to have a player search out their combo piece? And, on the other hand, would it have been healthy for the game to have a deck-searching card right from the beginning? But I'm not a designer.

Ah, the Hungry Creature! Bane of riddlers everywhere, always lurking, waiting to gobble all the cards in your hand... or an unlucky hero.

Anyhow, can I discard an encounter card that's in my hand, such as "Lost in the Wild", as a 0-cost card? Lost in the Wild says it cannot be discarded by player card effects, but Hungry Creature is not a player card.

While this is an excellent card and should be included in most Lore decks, I disagree with those who say it has no drawbacks and should be included in every single lore deck. Some decks needs to have a high number of allies for certain cards to hit consistently (ie A Very Good Tale) and another example is Zigil Miner decks, where you may want most cards to cost the same amount. While these drawbacks will still rarely outweigh how good this card is, they are still worth consideration.

On the one hand, this is less powerful and generally applicable than just straight up canceling a shadow effect. So cards like Hasty Stroke or A Burning Brand or responses like those of Erkenbrand or Déorwine are generally better. Those others can deal with shadows that do things like give extra attacks, deal direct damage to the defender or raise threat.

However, there are two clear advantages to this card. First, the zero cost. The worst thing about Hasty Stroke is having to save back a resource just in case it is needed instead of spending that resource on an ally who will definitely help that round. So if you are on a quest where the shadow effects that concern you are attack boosts, this might be better. Second, it targets the defending character, not the shadow card. So this will still work, for example, when it is Night on the Wastes of Eriador and encounter cards can't be canceled or when facing an enemy whose shadow cards are immune to player card effects.

What to make of the 2 tactics resource kicker? THE card of this type where the kicker consistently makes sense is Heed the Dream. For this card, it would have to be a very specific circumstance -- maybe a Mablung deck that has a surplus of tactics resources would want to trigger it, but not much else.

TL/DR: A quest specific alternative to general shadow cancelation that can be cheaper and more useful in some circumstances.

I do have a question about this card, I wonder if this card is used to transfer one ally from one player to another would that count as leaving and then re entering play? if so it would set up a deadly dual hand or or multiplayer technique with Meneldor, Descendent of Thorondor and other enter/leave play effect combo cards, Either way at 1 cost the noble trait is good to have, along with the ability to assign eagles where they are needed most is very thematic.