I'm writing the first review of this card. I used it in an Alatar and Pallando deck I was running in the Angmar Awakened Campaign. I love this card merely because I love the thought of playing the enemy (Gríma, Revealed in Wrath, Parrying Cutlass). But I was able to bring an Angmar Captain, a Warg, and a Coldfell Giant to my side. If you have resource generation or a powerful constitution (read: patience), you can create a powerful ally. The "exhaust an Istari character" cost isn't that severe because with Rods of the Five, you can ready the character. Or you could use this in a Gandalf The Grey Wanderer Steward of Gondor deck because of the readying from Shadowfax and The Grey Wanderer and the resources from Steward of Gondor and The Grey Wanderer. This is a great addition to the card collection.
After more than five years since this card's publication, how can there still be no reviews of The One Ring, the centerpiece item of the Lord of the Rings?
This card certainly isn't an auto-include for deck building, but is very good in the right deck. Even at its simplest use, you get to reduce your deck size by one (since the ring starts in play) and pull another card from your deck during setup, giving you effectively seven starting cards and a deck size of 48 instead of 50. Depending on what your deck needs, all four of the master attachments are potentially useful: Power of Command boosts willpower, Inner Strength for blocking, Strength and Courage for attacking, or Well Preserved for health.
It is of course dangerous to use this in a high threat deck or on a quest where there are severe threat conditions, but for a low threat deck (like hobbits, a very thematic choice, or The Grey Wanderer) the threat penalty probably won't even be noticed.
I like the threat payment abilities on the attachments because you're already getting benefit even without paying. I wish the actions had a similar format where you had a base effect with no threat cost and an optional threat cost to boost the power. For example, The Master Ring could have its effect plus an optional threat payment to not draw a replacement card. Similarly, The Ring of Power could have a stat boost and optional threat payment to ready the hero. Likewise, The Ruling Ring could have one target by default plus an optional threat payment for an extra target. In all three cases, the base cost and threat cost would need to be balanced to the effects granted.
Example decks:
Quick summary: A contract that is difficult to make good use of, one which doesn't instantly make things easier like Bond of Friendship, but which can make non-secrecy two-hero decks viable.
Let's start with the downsides: you may only choose two heroes, meaning you get fewer resources and actions per turn, you start out unable to heal, and your heroes cannot gain resources from attachment card effects, so no using anything like Steward of Gondor or gaining resources via Gandalf's Staff.
Let's break down the two heroes. A quick glance through published decks shows that, if you're not running The Grey Wanderer, chances are the deck will have either 3 or, in the case of Bond of Friendship, 4 heroes. The threat cost is worth it when you get more starting actions and more resources each turn. Two-hero decks, which one may think would be the realm of secrecy, have been dead every since Folco Boffin was released, as you can simply include him and, at the worst, be one threat cost better if you immediately discard him, and at best can use his resource(s) and stats until you need to get back into secrecy. If you look through the number of published One Decks, decks able to take on every scenario officially released, the vast majority use Bond of Friendship, because threat is manageable and the extra actions and resources are worth the harsh deckbuilding restrictions.
So, what's the upside? It's certainly not making secrecy more viable, as each starting hero gets +4 threat cost, which is enough to push almost any two-hero combination out of secrecy. Each hero gets a +1/+1/+1/+1 stat boost, which is nice, and you get some inherent resource smoothing. You can recover a hero action by damaging one of your starting heroes to ready the other, though without healing while you're on this side of the contract you do need to be careful.
For the resource smoothing, this enables some very nice plays. If you play with a and a hero, you can select a hero with high innate , have it boosted, and now that hero is in sphere for both A Burning Brand and Armored Destrier, nullifying most shadows and taking care of defensive duties.
Is the +1/+1/+1/+1 boost worth the threat cost and loss of resources? That depends on which heroes you pick. Ideally, you want heroes with some form of built-in action advantage to make use of multiple of these stats. Radagast with 4 and 5, as well as 3 that he doesn't exhaust to quest with, is one example of a hero that uses this contract well. Additionally, the other hero you choose also gains all spheres when playing a creature ally because Radagast gets them printed at that time. Radagast can even use a Wizard Pipe, Hidden Cache, and Messenger Raven to generate resources, and his Staff to apply discounts. Sam Gamgee would be another great choice, provided you can keep your threat low enough to make use of his ability. Of course, cards like Strider or Light of Valinor are essential early cards to ensure you aren't overwhelmed before round 4.
On the fourth round, you can really start hitting back. A 2-card search from your entire deck makes a lot of decks suddenly consistent, and the 6-resource boost puts you ahead in resource terms of where a standard 3-hero deck would be without any acceleration. If your deck relies on a 2-card combo to run in the long-term, you will always be able to find it. It's this 2-card search that really makes the contract worth using at all, and you can build many 2-hero decks that work well with it. That's not to say it's as powerful as some of the official contracts, but I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. Being able to make viable Aragorn-Arwen Undómiel or Elladan-Elrohir decks without making them instantly top-tier is a win in my book.
It seems like this should have cost zero, or come with a card draw like Mighty Warrior, Fearless Scout, Diligent Noble, Song of Eärendil, or Doughty Ranger. Even those examples usually end up as binder fodder, and this is significantly worse. This matches the (awful) template of Nor am I a Stranger (Rohan) and Elf-friend (Silvan and Noldor), which similarly should have had a card draw attached or cost reduced.
If you need the Gondor trait and Steward of Gondor isn't enough, maybe consider Elessar before In Service of the Steward.
This is, without question, the worst designed card in the game. At GenCon a few years ago, a player showed up for the convention exclusive event with this guy as one of his heroes. His intention was to force a game loss by driving everyone’s threat up. It was the most negative play experience I’ve ever had with this otherwise fantastic game. Doomed should have not raised other players’ threats this way.