Timely Aid is one of the best secrecy cards in the game, and my favorite. Outside of secrecy it could be very marginally useful, but who am I kidding, this is a secrecy card. The ability to bring in a huge ally turn one, with two heroes more likely than not; is really what a secrecy deck needs to be successful. Pair with Vilya for shenanigans.

Great card for a secrecy deck but can also be used outside of secrecy to get off-sphere allies into play, sometimes at a discount on their printed cost (e.g. Beorn, Gandalf, Firyal, Jubayr or Gildor Inglorion - the latter of which can help you set up your next timely aid!). As it is in the sphere it shouldn't be too hard to get the required resources either and for this reason it should be at the top of your list when building a deck with access to , particularly as there are only a few draw options in-sphere.

It's also a great card to use in combination with Elrond+Vilya+Imladris Stargazer, so you can play it for free and know that you are going to hit with it every time. It can whiff though, so make sure you have plenty of allies in your deck and some form of deck scrying is very useful. Thankfully, Galadriel is available in sphere to help set you up nicely.

What it comes down to is that Timely Aid is a very curious case. Its effect is simply outstanding, often providing a resource discount of 3-4 while filtering your deck at the same time. However running a non-combo deck below 21 threat has major downsides, in terms of tempo and early-game impact, especially in multiplayer, where you have less time to build up your board before the encounter deck starts to get its combos going. And while playing it for its full cost is still often not terrible, it is not the reason you would include it in your deck for.

So Timely Aid overall has a very unique place in its archetype - it is THE big payoff card in most secrecy/The Grey Wanderer decks you want to target and see as early as possible, however due to these archetypes being more middling in terms of power than others I see it as a 10/10 card in 6-7/10 archetypes, meaning it just missed out on the top grade from me.

Rating: 9/10

Decks of mine using Timely Aid

All my card ratings