Staff of Saruman on Companions

[JamesCB]

Could I play Staff of Saruman, during my shadow phase, on my opponent's Gandalf or Radagast? I searched the rules, and it says you cannot play possessions or artifacts on other players minions, but it doesn't say anything about other people's companions. You can play conditions, like Banished, on companions, so why not Staff of Saruman?

[Air Power]

I can't find anything saying it's not allowed; well done!

[ket_the_jet]

One could, but should one?
-wtk

[Legion]

You can, and there is a legitimate use for it: I've done it before in my Gollum deck in expanded. Gandalf is a lot easier to exhaust than he is to kill, so play it on him, and drop Desert Lord and Gollum with Saruman from set 4. Using Desert Lord and Promise Keeping in conjunction with the Gollum wounding conditions, you can exhaust Gandalf even if he doesn't fight.

Desert Lord will likely be killed: he exhausted himself in the archery phase. Then remove Gollum from play with Web, and Saruman is the only minion left, so you can discard the staff to return him to your hand, but most notably, you kill Gandalf in the process.

Tough to pull off, but the Saruman is useful anyway at hitting huge conditions like Stewards' Legacy, so your only adding one staff to a deck that can discard cards anyway. And if a Gandalf deck losses Gandalf, it's normally game over.

[JamesCB]

One could, but should one?
-wtk

As Legion pointed out there is a use, and I would just like to share another one I thought of.
Orc Overseer plus The Trees are Strong (to get Orc Overseer out of the way), then discard Saruman, just like Legion said.

[Shelobplayer]

I normally use Too Great and Terrible in Saruman (Throne of Isengard) decks to get rid of Gandalf, but that Staff trick works too (I've seen it in action). Another use is with Wormtongue, as said, Gandalf is usually easier to exhaust than to actually kill, but many of his equipment have vitality bonuses (Narya, various staves, GOTM, Radagast's Herb Bag), but most players usually respect Wormtongue and won't risk losing Gandalf to it, hovewer Saruman's Staff can be used to kill him in the same manner if he has another + vitality source on him while exhausted.