This is another card that I underestimated the effectiveness of. Obviously, 1 for 1 cost is always great. Many other allies share this trait such as Erebor Record Keeper, Galadhrim Weaver, Henamarth Riversong, Messenger Raven, Scheming Staddler, and Westfold Horse-breeder. All of these also have great abilities. Dwarven Sellsword, Misty Mountain Journeyman, and Silvan Refugee all go farther with 2 for 1 cost. (Although, they all have added restrictions to compensate.) So the stats are great and lie within established allies.

The ability though is what surprised me as for how good it is. Enemies get +5 engagement cost during the round that Young Tom enters play. Yeah, whatever. Not so exciting, right? WRONG! Anybody who has used Pippin in a hobbit deck can tell you how clutch the +3 (or +4 in Bond of Friendship decks) engagement cost per enemy can be! The entire hobbit archetype revolves around having an threat lower than enemy engagement costs. Especially useful in hobbit decks which start at a much higher threat.

The ability is great not only in hobbit decks though. +5 engagement cost for every enemy? Maybe that enemy you weren't prepared for can stay in the staging area this round. Maybe you are using a card that only works when you optionally engage an enemy (such as Captain of Gondor)? Young Tom helps with that. Want to get +2 on ally Boromir? Young Tom is your friend. Also good for Hobbit Cloak, Staff of Lebethron, Sam Gamgee, ally Pippin, and many others.

I will say that the +5 engagement cost is only active for the round that he enters play (which is perfectly fine considering his cost), but this can be rectified using a card in the same pack: Lily Cotton! She can let you get another action out of him, and then send him back to your hand to play again next round for another +5 engagement cost. Also, Tom Cotton gives him +2 when he enters play. Very thematic, I must say. I think that Lily is Young Tom's mom, Tom Cotton is his dad, Rosie Cotton is his sister, and Sam Gamgee is his brother-in-law. Props if you can get the entire family into play (and Sam's family for bonus points).

Short Cut is unique in its ability, but not particularly good. The biggest problem with this card is that it shuffles the location back in before revealing the new encounter. The possibility of getting back the exact same card is soul-crushing. The next problem is that (unlike what the other reviewer said) it doesn't actually cancel the first card. Any "when revealed" or "forced" effects will still happen before you can use this Response, so you may end up with one and a half or two encounters instead of one!

It should have said:

Response: If a location would enter play, exhaust a Hobbit character to instead set that card aside without resolving any of its effects. Then, reveal the next card from the encounter deck and add it to the staging area. Then, shuffle the set aside location into the encounter deck.

From FAQ 1.9:

Q: If I use the Response effect on Saruman (VoI 3) to treat an encounter card guarding an objective as out of play, does that mean I can claim that objective because it is free of encounters?

A: No. When a card is considered to be out of play, each card attached to it is also considered to be out of play. Because objectives with the Guarded keyword are attached to the enemy or location that is guarding it, if that enemy or location is considered to be out of play, the guarded objective is too.

This card is really fantastic for an #RCO player with a limited collection. Once they own the Dream-Chaser hero pack, they have access to a 0 mana tactics event that can, with the simple insertion of a piece of paper with some writing on it, can be any 0 cost tactics event in the non-revised content.

Need some location management? Now it's Bilbo's Plan. In a Silvan deck it can be Pursuing the Enemy, in a dwarf deck it can be Khazâd! Khazâd!. Gondorian Discipline may be helpful in a Gondor deck, or if you need to take out some enemies you can have it be Straight Shot or Goblin-cleaver.

I've started calling this card the rich man's Sneak Attack, but while it works well with anything with a powerful "enters play" effect(cough cough), it is also one of the few ways to replay anything with a "when played from hand" effect.

The most powerful one I could think of would be Galadriel for her card search and willpower, especially since she would typically discard herself. After that West Road Traveller for active location shenanigans and Andrath Guardsman for enemy shenanigans. Making Rivendell Minstrel repeatable could also help set up more songs for a deck. And of course there's the Doomed allies Greyflood Wanderer, Herald of Anórien, Mirkwood Pioneer, and Henneth Annûn Guard. Of those the Herald seems most interesting to me, as a way to get in off-sphere allies in a leadership and tactics valour deck.

This also works with Radagast to scoop up creatures and replay them to keep triggering his free questing at a discount.

Overall an okay card thats overlooked in favor of Sneak Attack for good reason since you need lots of resources to replay allies and resource generation is typically found in leadership and if you're in leadership you may as well just go for the path of least resistance instead of trying to make a niche card and uncommon "when played" abilities work.