Perhaps I just missed the discussion, but I wonder why no one here mentioned that these ent guys are way overpowered. They're cheap, they can quest, attack and defend (even in one turn, if you want to), they can soak up so much damage which only makes them stronger. I rarely lost a game in which i could play Treebeard on turn 2. The saga expansions are even worse, because you can play more of them and earlier.
It seems fitting to me that the Ents are powerful. After all, they played a huge part in the defeat of an Istari; I imagine many players would be disappointed if they weren't powerful. I don't know if I would say overpowered, though. Losing the ability to act the round they enter play is a pretty significant, and appropriate, drawback.
If you aren't able to ready them immediately the enters play exhausted drawback I've found is pretty significant. Definitely agree with Danpoage and would not say overpowered but rather simply powerful.
Treebeard's ability to perform two actions every second turn (by readying himself with his ability) with his stellar stats is bit crazy but he does cost 4 and enters play exhausted himself. He may be a little too strong but I really don't think the others so far are.
Definitely not overpowered, Treebeard is crazy but is unique so he's the only copy on the table and will not do well against hard hitting quests from the beginning and does much better for longer quests or turtleing which isn't too popular in recent quests.
Wondering Ent has lots of good stats but you can't use them all and Booming Ent is difficult to get to more than 4 or 5 attack and both of these entering play exhausted is a proper limitation. I do not think they are overpowered at all.
Being able to ready the Ents can get the most of their power but this requires Leadership which none of the Ents are currently in. Just like any deck though if you support it properly it can get way strong but I don't see Ents overly powered compared to other traits right now (they are just a small sub-theme).
I think the best way to balance Ents is to stop releasing them. Make them as rare as they were in Middle-earth.
We have some really nice Ent cards now. With 7 cards you can have a very nice support archetype. Let it stop there.
If they are going to release any more ents, then they need to be unique.
There has to be more Ents! A couple unique ones would be great but a couple more generic ones wouldn't be bad either. Treebeard will always ready himself since he's the most powerful unless Booming Ent gets really strengthened up of which he would need errata to limit his attack if there are lots of more Ents released (limit +3 attack).
I totally agree that there shall be Ents no more.
I think that it's Treebeard's ability that makes them OP. Once he's in play you effectively pay only one resource for all the other Ents, which leaves two resources that one can spent to play other cards. That's enough to stall the encounter deck for one round or two. Or you use Treebeard's power to ready Ents after they enter play, which makes their only weak spot irrelevant.
Btw, if you want to play a strong deck, try Ents together with Hobbits (Frode / Pippin (lore) / Merry). Hell, I think every secrecy deck should go totally nuts with some Ents added to the mix.
I think they've done a great job with Ents so far. I think they should fill out the lore with more unique ents. Do people find that other players gravitate toward OP decks? My group is pretty small and I don't think any of us would habitually play an exploitative deck. We'd try it out, just to see what it's like (I've built exactly ONE outlands deck, myself) but repeated playing a deck that stomps most quests is boring. I remember getting super-tired of playing Eagles about a yearish ago.
I say more Ents. Give me the option to play with them. It's not like anyone is forcing me to build a deck with them.
I think Booming Ents would get too powerful if we get too many more ents, but making the new ones unique would limit the number of ents on the table, thus limiting the power growth of the Booming Ents.
I would really like huorns, as there are many more than ents. They would switch over to the staging area if ever the controlling player would have no ent in play.
Do people find that other players gravitate toward OP decks? My group is pretty small and I don't think any of us would habitually play an exploitative deck.
See, that's the thing. I want to play Ents too. If they are too powerful, it would be boring to play. Then these guys end up collecting dust.
You gusy all miss few important points.
Point one: ents are extremely slow, if you're going to lay all your deck on ents, you'll most certainly will be overwhelmed fast.
Point two: ents function within one player, so if they create non-unique spirit and leadershit ents - it will not hurt the balance as it'll be extremely hard to field so many allies from different spheres at once, especially taking in account that they won't be effective the turn you field them.
True, but Outlands functions the same way with respect to being a multisphere trait. There are ways around the cost restrictions. Outlands has Hirluin, Ents have Treebeard, which is not on the same level as Hirluin in terms of resource generation and reliability to be sure.
Dwarves are slow to build power due to their cost, but once established are unstoppable. And people keep saying that the 'enters play exhausted' is a significant drawback, but I see it as almost negligible. Due to the low cost (so far) of Ents, you can get them in play a round sooner than you would, say a 3-cost Gloin or Bifur ally. No one considered Dwarves underpowered due to their speed. In that case an Ent and a Dwarf couldbe functionally considered equal in terms of their action advantage and access to their stats. But the Ent can be readied and used sooner through some card effects.
Do ents got a leadershit(most rich and easily aquiring resources sphere) hero who can pay for all the ents from different spheres? No. To play Treebreard, you need to draw him first, you need to aquire 4 resources, you need to wait til he builds his pool (you can't give him resources through card effects). It's entirely different from Hirluin.
I don't think Ents are overpowered and I do like their design overall. I will say, however, in the right deck that the "enters play exhausted" weakness isn't really that significant. Specifically, if you have a deck with some action advantage and some relatively decent heroes, they can cover for the Ents until they are set up and ready to go. I haven't found readying for the Ents themselves (beyond Treebeard) all that necessary. Basically, as the OP said, the Ents are pretty **** strong. I've gotten the Booming Ents up to 6 attack each several times, and in one particularly memorable instance, smashed all three guardians in The Three Trials during a single round of combat. So again, I wouldn't say they are overpowered, but with just three different Ent allies, they're already on the high end of the power scale. I could see the Booming Ent potentially needing errata in the future if we do get more Ents, with a +3 cap being reasonable.
I want an ent deck. So more ents please!
Ents a cool. The problems is not to much of them. We need more!
Ha, true. I loved during that game of The Three Trials when the Raven Guardian's time counters went off...putting 1 damage on all of my Ents. Um, yeah, thanks dude, should've thought that one through!
Treebeard is a beast. But, I do find myself not playing him when I have four resources sometimes. The fact that he comes into play exhausted does give you something to think about and is a big drawback. Sometimes I know that I am going to have multiple enemies engaged with me and I just cannot spend four resources for something that is not able to block that turn.
I feel like he is powerful, but I find myself playing him when I am already doing well and basically have four resources lying around. He is also nice if you have a way to spam out some big allies such as Elf Stone or Vilya.
Obviously we will get more Ents - we need Quickbeam! I assume he will come in the next saga expansion.
Who's this Quickbeam bloke everyone talking about?
He's in the books, in scenes with Merry and Pippin. Might be the only named Ent besides Treebeard, but I'm currently re-reading TTT for the first time in years and haven't come very far yet.
I find myself playing him EVERYTIME I have 4 resources, and he never fails to disappoint me.
Hmmmh, perhaps I should have named this thread "Ents are too strong!" to make the expected kind of answer a bit more obvious?