THE LORD OF THE RINGS COMMANDER
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target="_blank">Four Commander decks were released as companions to the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. They represent four distinct groups taking part in the War of the Ring: the Riders of Rohan are translated into a Jeskai Human tribal deck, with a new version of Éowyn as the commander; the Fellowship of the Ring is in Abzan, with Food as a theme and Frodo and Sam as partner commanders; the Elves get a Simic "scry matters" list with returning Council mechanics (in reference to the Council of Elrond), and their commander is a different incarnation of Galadriel; and last but not least, we have a Grixis spellslinging deck for the Dark Lord Sauron and his horde.
The new creatures fall into she same dense groupings of the mother set, with the main peoples of Middle-earth, namely Human, Halfling, and Elf, being heavily represented, as well as crucial classes like Noble and Soldier. On the other hand, Dwarf, which is actually one of the free races of Arda, is even more overlooked than in Tales of Middle-earth, with only one new member added. Of course, not having a devoted deck hurt their chances to begin with. The legends are also a strong theme again, with almost 68% of the new creatures having the legendary supertype, which is extraordinary even for a Commander product. Many named characters are yet another version of those that we had already seen, sometimes in multiple copies, in the main set.
Let's then have a look at the new creatures and their tribes. As always, the tribes are presented alphabetically, and you'll find a hypertextual list at the end.
NOTE: Alchemy cards, Acorn cards, and other non-tournament legal cards aren't counted toward the tribal totals.
Infodump
- Cards: 297
- New cards: 80
- New creatures: 53
- Reprinted cards: 217 (including 30 skinned cards)
- Reprinted creatures: 50
- New Legendary creatures: 36
- New Snow creatures: 0
- New artifact creatures: 0
- New enchantment creatures: 0
- Triple-subtype creatures: 0
- Creature types affected: 31
- Tribes with more than 3 additions: Human (+14), Halfling (+12), Noble (+12), Elf (+8), Soldier (+6), Avatar (+5), Advisor (+4), Citizen (+4)
Advisor: +4
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New Tribal Total: 90, online: 81
Related Tribes: Halfling, Human
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: More Advisors from Middle-earth and more incarnations of the same characters from the main set, except now they're (even more) Commander-oriented – a trend we're going to see repeated throughout all the cards of these companion decks. We start with Merry and Pippin as secondary partnered commanders of the Abzan Food list that Frodo and Sam are meant to lead. They're depicted during their brief tenure as Wardens of Isengard, after the Ents defeated Saruman and captured the fortress, but before the two Hobbit cousins were separated and taken one to Rohan and the other to Gondor. It's a moment of tranquility after many tribulations and an Ent-draught-caused growth-spurt, so both Merry and Pippin can focus on what matters to them the most: eating many breakfasts. Selesnya Merry
, who chronologically goes in between monogreen Merry
and Boros Merry
, refers generically to "artifacts" in his rule text, but it's clear what kind of artifact token he's wishing to see entering the room, so that he'll be compelled to summon a host of 1/1 lifelinkers, if one at a time. Golgari Pippin
, who follows his monogreen origin
and somehow precedes his final Azorius form
, is more proactive and can generate Food himself, then feed four portions of it to Merry's assembled team (or anybody else), generating a form of gastronomic Overrun
. Merry could work outside of Food-related strategies, perhaps with Treasure production. He seems too slow for competitive artifact decks, as well as poorly matched, color-wise. Pippin takes similarly a lot to get to the boost on his own, so his preferred environment is one that's already rich in Food (which is completely appropriate). But his Overrun surrogate doesn't provide trample, so damage penetration isn't guaranteed, even if granting hate might work with one-shot mass token production. Overall, the best use of these two, who have decent but not extremely impressive stats, is precisely within the kind of Abzan Food deck they came with, where they can also have the added value of exploiting the partner keyword to summon each other, as they would.
We also meet a rare Dimir version of the treacherous Gríma after the basic monoblack uncommon Gríma Wormtongue
. He's now an unblockable stealer of spells. Effects of this genre, like Thief of Sanity
, usually only look at the top few cards of the opponent's library in search of their haul; but in that case, Gríma wouldn't be guaranteed to hit an usable card, since he only cares for instants and sorceries, so he uses a cascade-like system to dig for it instead. There's still a fail case, though, given that instants and sorceries picked and cast at random might not find suitable targets, which is most notably true of countermagic or combat tricks. And certain decks might not rely on instants and sorceries much, if at all. Then again, our Saruman's agent will still reasonably produce a free spell per turn on average, in the face of a four-mana initial investment. And, of course, in Commander he's much more likely to reveal expensive, game-breaking stuff.
The Riders of Rohan deck is preoccupied with monarch – flavorfully, a Gondor deck would be even more, but we didn't get one, so we see elements of it merged with the Rohirrim theme, in some sort of joint "Human good guys" faction. Archivist of Gondor
is one of these elements, using commander damage to trigger monarch, and then doubling down on the related card draw. It can be powerful, but it also doesn't do anything if the commander isn't active, and especially if we didn't pick a commander that's likely to ever connect.
Archer: +1
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New Tribal Total: 98, online: 93
Related Tribes: Elf
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: Let's be honest, for being such a popular Lord of the Rings character (particularly in light of the film adaptations), Legolas didn't get a satisfying incarnation in the main set. Is this amended in the Commander decks? Sort of, but not really. Now we get a Legolas who grows and draws cards via saboteur, both of which are very good abilities – except none of them is too easy to actually enable. First of all, we need a "legendary matters" theme just to move Legolas past his painful starting setup of a three-mana 2/2 with reach. And even there, how fast could he grow, barring some improbable pairing like Norin the Wary
. And then, the only thing that helps Legolas through is the daunt mechanic, which however only means he won't be chump-blocked (it might also mean he has a chance of attacking unopposed once on turn four if we were on the play and the opponent didn't cast anything with above-the-curve body on three, which is a lot of ifs). So we have a beater that keeps growing, albeit realistically not at a very fast rate, and the opponent will have to trade with or throw something of value in front of, otherwise we'll draw a card. Not bad by all means, but not the heroic Legolas we were expecting, either. Reach on a saboteur creature is also a waste, but clearly that was just a flavor-based addition, to show he's a master Archer.
Avatar: +5
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New Tribal Total: 103, online: 100
Related Tribes: Demon, Horror, Wizard
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: The Avatar tribe encompasses new instances for the five main Maiar that appear in The Lord of the Rings – the primordial spirits that serve the greater angelic powers, the Valar, directly descending from the supreme creator. Three of these Maiar are the Istari, the Order of Wizards that were sent by the Valar with the mission of uniting the mortals against Sauron. Then there's the rebellious Dark Lord himself; and the monstrous Balrog, another corrupted Maia.
The fifth card incarnation of Gandalf (more than he has in the story!) portrays him in his final days on Middle-earth, while he's sailing towards the Undying Lands. For the occasion, his monowhite form returns to blue and somehow adds green, perhaps to symbolize his ultimate, peaceful communion with nature and Elves. He's a five-drop 5/5 that cares for expensive spells. The rule text is a bit convoluted (the repetition of "that spell" might trick you into thinking it was referring to the revealed spells), but the short version of it is: as long as you keep casting spells that cost five mana or more, you'll draw a card off each of them; or else you'll copy them, but in that case, it's the opponents that get to draw a card. For instance, if we cast Thragtusk
under Gandalf's watch, and at least one of our opponents has a creature on top of their library, we get two Thragtusks, and they get to draw their creature. If they didn't reveal a creature on top, we get our Thragtusk and we draw a card – which honestly could be the preferred outcome in general, especially when what we're casting is legendary and can't be copied anyway, or maybe it's something that requires a target and the copy wouldn't have one. There are ways to check or even manipulate an opponent's library, though it's not really feasible for more than one opponent at once; but there are also better ways to draw extra cards than a five-mana creature with no much additional value and a condition that makes it harder to chain-draw because it only works with high-cost spells. And sure free copies are neat, but giving extra cards to our opponent is not.
Curiously, this west-bound Gandalf is Simic-colored, just like the second version of Radagast, the Istar who failed his mission because he lost himself in nature (it's possible that both designs had to adapt to the color identity of Galadriel's Elven Council deck). If Radagast the Brown
was busy collecting creatures of various kinds, Radagast, Wizard of Wilds
is all about Beasts and Birds specifically – which is extremely flavorful, since those are the words Gandalf himself uses to describe his fellow Istar in The Fellowship of the Ring: "beasts and birds are especially his friends". There's again a "five mana or more" mechanical concern, but Radagast rewards us for going big by adding to the deal our choice of either a 3/3 green Beast or a 2/2 blue Bird with flying. It's a fixed advantage that might even beat a random card or conditional duplication. Plus there's some bonus ward attached, which might not matter much in the bigger picture, but it doesn't hurt, and blue-green Radagast himself is cheaper than blue-green Gandalf.
Down in Sauron's deck, the renegade Istar Saruman has his third incarnation – the second as a three-colored card, relocating from Esper to Grixis. It's sort of a counterpart to Radagast, as a token-making four-drop with a defensive body; except Saruman cares for noncreature spells of any value and then turns that value into amass. Plus, a higher ward is granted to his pet subtypes, which in his case are naturally Orcs and Goblins. It looks like a more effective cards if played within the right environment, which clearly is a spellslinging build – particularly one that has ways to sacrifice the Army tokens that Saruman will keep amassing.
As for the boss of that list, Sauron is given the eponimous moniker of Lord of the Rings. He's a big eigh-mana spell that puts on the battlefield a 9/9 trampler, a 5/5 Army, and one reanimation target. The Ring temptation triggered by an opposing commander's death is just gravy, but it can be some nice additional value, given that opposing commanders are bound to die against a Grixis build. Notably, Sauron is not a good reanimation target himself, because all that bonanza of effects only take place when we cast him (which incidentally makes Sauron partially countermagic-proof, as he should be). As a nongreen commander, he might be too expensive to run, probably even less desirable than the hard-to-kill Sauron, the Dark Lord
; but this is more of a Timmy/Tammy incarnation, fully capable of conveying the "wow" factor such a character is meant to elicit.
Finally, The Balrog of Moria
also reaches his third version, exhausting all of his better known epithets in the process. This one is larger and more difficult to cast than his previous incarnations; he takes trample from the five-mana Balrog and haste from the seven-mana one, from which he also borrows the death trigger, now exiling its target and affecting all our opponents. Perhaps his most peculiar trait is that he can be cycled, which is a clear invitation to reanimate the big guy. We even get two Treasures to better set up the reawakening of the hidden threat that was waiting underground – and yeah, that is a flavor win as well.
Bird: +1
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New Tribal Total: 331, online: 317
Related Tribes: Noble
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: The king of the Great Eagles loses the blue component this time around, taking his cues from other monowhite flyers: the "fly with me" mechanic is a classic of Pegasi, Griffins, and Hippogriffs, while the token-making triggered by lifegain is reminiscent of Angels. And a 5/5 flyer for five is already a pretty decent base. Better as a curve-topper in ground-based white weenie with lifegain synergies, rather than surrounded by other Birds – so less of a tribal lord than Gwaihir the Windlord
from the main set was, although even that version wasn't particularly apt at leading his tribe.
Boar: +1
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New Tribal Total: 45, online: 43
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: This is quite the strange mana dork. It belongs to the wide sub-category of "two mana, taps for any color", of which Sylvan Caryatid
is still the most prestigious representative. In fact, Prize Pig
positions itself close to the Caryatid, with the defensive big butt as its most evident secondary characteristic. But then there's the "lifegain matters" angle, which ties back to it being a domestic swine from some Hobbit's farmhouse. In practice, every time we gain three life, we can untap the Pig. Which is to say, every time we crack a Food for life, we get one mana back. There's probably some elaborate combo to discover here, but I doubt this specialized piggy is going to compete with more universally valuable specimens like the Caryatid, or Paradise Druid
, or Llanowar Loamspeaker
. Except, well, in Boar decks, which never had built-in mana acceleration before. Speaking of, given that Hound has been reclassified as its parent set of Dog, shouldn't Boar become Pig? A card like this very clearly states its not being a Boar.
Citizen: +4
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New Tribal Total: 42
Related Tribes: Halfling
Impact of the New Additions: High
Highlights: Through Citizen we explore the dark side of the Hobbits – and that side is, to nobody's surprise, Food-releated. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is back with another three-mana version that can sacrifice a Food token (or any artifact, which is always a welcome bit of flexibility that makes these top-down designs less narrow) to drain our opponents for two or cast some stolen cards for free. And given that her wording is "play", she can also grab lands this way, so there's no real whiff in her ability – although I suspect the lifedrain might remain the safer option in most circumstances.
The other new Halfling Citizens are non-legendary, and they all look like guests from the ominous birthday party Bilbo hosts at the very beginning of The Lord of the Rings. The only other non-Gollum monoblack Hobbit, Rapacious Guest
, grows in size whenever Food is sacrificed, and then regurgitates it on the opponent's face in form of damage when she leaves the battlefield, which is a pretty inescapable clause. What's even better is that she's a Food producer herself via creature connection – any creature, although, by being a menacer, the Guest might do the honor of connecting for the first couple of times, which actually makes her less lazy than she looks. She worked for that binge!
Feasting Hobbit
introduces the obvious and yet so far missing merger of Food and devour. In this first application, it results in a daunting "bear" that could easily be deployed as an unblockable 5/5 or 8/8 for two mana. It's also easy to dispatch, but the required investment, even counting one or two devoured tokens, seems worth the risk. Also, the Proudfoot mentioned in the flavor text is an actual Hobbit clan that was present at Bilbo's party.
Last but not least, isn't "affinity for Food" the Hobbits' defining trait? Bilbo's Banquet Guests
exploit it to help make the X in their cost as large as can be, so they can trample over to the other side of the table. And ay leftover will make them indestructible! Abzan Food really got a number of aggressive payoffs in its dedicated deck.
Demon: +2
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New Tribal Total: 158, online: 152
Related Tribes: Avatar, Spider
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: Paired with biggest baddest Balrog in the Demon compartment is the second Shelob, this time appearing in monoblack. It's a less impressive version than Shelob, Child of Ungoliant
, and this time she has no relation with Spiders. What she gets instead is a pair of different ways to exploit creatures that die on the opposing side. They all get exiled, supposedly representing Shelob wrapping them in her web silk (which somehow heals their wounds?). And then we can either pay three mana to have Shelob eat them, which makes them regular-dead again, in order to grow larger and wiser, resulting in two +1/+1 counters and a card. Alternatively, she can... convince them to join our side? But in this case, we basically have to cast them anew, adding an extra two mana for their troubles. It's very clearly a mana-intensive card best suited for long-winded Commander games – her immediate impact on the battlefield is akin to a black Hill Giant, and remains so until an enemy dies for unconnected reasons.
Dragon: +1
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New Tribal Total: 324, online: 319
Impact of the New Additions: Null
Highlights: Why, Lord of the Rings designers? You had done so well by resisting the Obligatory Dragon rule and not including any of them in the main set, except for a Saga about the late Smaug
! Because he was the last of them, and there are no more Dragons left on Middle-earth in the Third Age. Tolkien actually states there might have been a few surviving ones, but one hopes they won't translate to a nine-mana card whose only redeeming qualities are strictly dependent on what deck the opponent is playing. And even if we sideboard this in, and manage to cast it for two and create seven Treasures, that means the opponent is piloting an artifact build and has a board filled with artifacts, so we're probably still losing that game.
Dwarf: +1
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New Tribal Total: 118, online: 110
Related Tribes: Warrior
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: They seem fixated to have Gimli be a counterpart to Legolas. If two characters are often fighting side to side, it doesn't mean they have to share the same abilities! And yet this Commander-degree Gimli duplicates the new Legolas's legendary-based growth and downgrades his saboteur from drawing cards to making Treasures, which might be flavorful but it's definitely not on the same level. But at least Gimli is a double striker, except he also starts as a humble 1/1 for three mana. In the end, they really failed to create a single exciting incarnation for such a celebrated Elf-Dwarf team.
Elephant: +1
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New Tribal Total: 67, online: 66
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: The artwork for this card feels like it was made following the exact same description given for Oliphaunt
. And it's another red Elephant with a cycling ability, the second monocolored after Oliphaunt itself. It's possible Commander might find some use for a piece of self-replacing mass artifact removal that, in pinch, can be fielded as a big expensive trampler, and searched for with creature-tutoring spells.
Elf: +8
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New Tribal Total: 558, online: 543
Related Tribes: Archer, Noble, Scout, Soldier
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: They were given their own dedicated deck, so it's not surprising to find a lot of new Elves here. Most of them are blue-green, starting with the deck's designated commander, Galadriel, Elven-Queen
. The Lady of Lothlórien is one of the three high-profile Elves to make use of the council mechanic from Conspiracy, as hinted by the deck's name ("Elven Council"). Four more new council cards are instants or sorceries. The thing about "vote" cards is that they play very differently in one-on-one games than they do in multiplayer, the mode for which they have ostensibly been created. In the latter, they're fun, political tools where the outcome might not always be easily predicted, especially on a full table. When we're only voting against one opponent, though, the outcome is predetermined, defaulting to the "if the vote is tied" result, because the opponent won't agree with our vote. For instance, to mention two of the most played council cards, Council's Judgment
will always exile the permanent we pick, while Coercive Portal
will always draw us a card. That's incidentally also what we can expect from Galadriel, at least during a turn when we deployed an Elf – which makes her a tribal Coercive Portal, more fragile but with the added value of also being a 4/5 beater. Of course not every turn we'll be able to enable her voting process, but that's why she's strictly meant as the commander of an Elf build.
Council Elrond (he's a true expert of the matter) employs a new variant of the voting mechanic called "secret council". The twist here is that the vote is secret, so it's not easy to gauge where the table is leaning and take the path of least resistance. Specifically, Elrond's options don't give any default "safe" vote to a single opponent; both are highly disadvantageous, as they either have to give us the control of one of their creatures, or let us place a +1/+1 counter on our entire team. Board states heavily influence the decision, though, especially considering the controlled creatures cannot attack their owner. But it's still removal, and each separate vote generates one of the two effects, which makes Elrond one of the most powerful new cards in the set – even if he'll just drop as a 4/4 on an empty board.
The final council card is a character that hasn't appeared in the main set, Círdan, the master of the port of Grey Havens. His voting is also secret, and is repeated through the "Titan trigger" (ETB and every attack). Each player can just vote for themselves and draw a card, but the tricky part comes with the "no votes" clause, which might cheat into play humongous things – and not even just creatures – at the cost of gifting an extra card to the opponent. It's more situational than Elrond, and potentially a double-edged sword, but an intriguing design nonetheless.
Less inspired is a returning character, Elrond's daughter Arwen, whose fourth incarnation (if we also count her "team up" with Aragorn) is just a slightly different take on green +1/+1 providers like Renata, Called to the Hunt
. Arwen is cheaper and has a higher ceiling, but she's also easier to kill right away. Elf characters that are new to Magic include Elrond's vassal Erestor, who's given a "voting matters" card with an extremely convoluted text; and Galadriel's guard Haldir, who's just a scalable late-game Elf booster. There's also one single non-legendary Elf (they really exist!), Mirkwood Trapper
, but it's kind of a mediocre defensive card with some minor political value in multiplayer.
Elk: +1
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New Tribal Total: 25, online: 24
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: We finally went there: an Elk that cares about Elf! We can be certain that Mirkwood Trapper wasn't after this guy. The repeated lifegain that accompanies the off-tribe recursion to hand could combo with cyclers like Elvish Aberration
, but I'm not sure that's such a noteworthy interaction.
Halfling: +12
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New Tribal Total: 44
Related Tribes: Advisor, Citizen, Horror, Peasant, Rogue, Scout
Impact of the New Additions: Medium to High
Highlights: Hobbits galore, once again! The little fella dominate the "Food and Fellowship" deck, heralded by the partnered couple of master and gardener, Frodo and Sam. The fourth incarnation of the former is sort of an enhanced Frodo Baggins
relocated to the Orzhov colors; same mana value, same body, same focus on self-contained temptation. Being a mythic for Commander, Legacy and Vintage, rather than an uncommon for Modern, the power level is understandably higher. Frodo adds an additional card-drawing ability to the Ring-bearer's second level of temptation, provided he's the designated Ring-Bearer; so now every time we have him attack, we'll both loot and draw. It's also easier to trigger temptation, we just need to gobble some Food, or otherwise gain 3 life during the precombat main phase. His partner Sam is there to supply that Food and make it cheaper to consume. This third and mythic Sam doesn't have any other function except Food synergy enabler, but he's one of the most effective cards ever printed in that field, with a reasonable cost, an appropriately resilient body, and no questions asked. Among the payoff for Food consumption there's Sam's own dad, the Gaffer (aka Hamfast Gamgee), who will draw us a card per meal, master farmer as he is. As we've already seen, the new Merry works in conjuction with Food as well, albeit through the "artifact entering" angle rather than the lifegain angle, while the new Pippin is another Food provider, slower than Sam but with a built-in, high-profile payoff.
It's interesting to note how the four Halfling Citizens gorge themselves with Food, while the Peasants like the Gamgees either create the Food or reward us for using it as intended. Another Peasant is Sam's future father-in-law, i.e. Rosie's dad Tolman, known to everyone as Farmer Cotton
. His card is quite the powerful X spell, as it mass-produces both 1/1 tokens and Food tokens at once; on top of the inherent value, it's a way to trigger effects that care for either creatures or artifacts entering the battlefield.
As for the outliers, Frodo's adoptive father and The Hobbit protagonist Bilbo gets a completely top-down, flavor-dictated incarnation with Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
. For a bit of Abzan mana, we can exile Bilbo (because he disappeared from his party), gather onto the battlefield all the creatures in our deck (because everyone attended that party), but only if we have 111 life (because that was Bilbo's age at the time). It's an absolutely ludicrous card that's mostly just fun to read if you know the story. Bilbo has a passive that slightly boosts our lifegain, but in order to actually fulfil the requirements, we'd need some hardcore lifegain plan that probably already has its own, better wincon, like Aetherflux Reservoir
.
Finally, poor tortured Gollum reaches his fourth incarnation with an Obsessed Stalker version that restores the proper skulk keyword (never seen printed on a regular card since its introduction in Shadows over Innistrad block) to an aspirant Ring-bearer, given that the first ability associated with temptation is just the verbose explanation of skulk. There's not much else to say about this new Gollum, though. He has a connection ability that's basically Sanguine Bond
with extra steps. It is a cheaper way to achieve that result, but there's a limit to skulk's capability of letting a creature through unopposed.
Horror: +2
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New Tribal Total: 272, online: 271
Related Tribes: Avatar, Halfling
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: Sauron and Gollum, the two true aberrations of The Lord of the Rings. It might be true. One built the infamous Ring, the other felt its influence the most. And their cards sit at opposite ends of the spectrum: one is the most difficult to cast among the new cards in the set, the other is one of the easiest. The largest body versus one of the smallest; the biggest impact on the board compared to what most of the times will feel like an almost unnoticeable nuisance. I'm not sure where these considerations are going, but here we are.
Horse: +1
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New Tribal Total: 43, online: 38
Impact of the New Additions: High
Highlights: In a Food synergy build, this trusty steed is going to enter the battlefield and swing right away as a 6/6 vigilant trampler that also boosts the rest of the team. And if we can keep the Food production going, the rewards are collected at every subsequent attack, not just the first turn (a small boost is guaranteed even without Food). That's one very alluring carrot we're dangling there.
Human: +14
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New Tribal Total: 3136, online: 2930
Related Tribes: Advisor, Knight, Noble, Pirate, Soldier, Warrior
Impact of the New Additions: Irrelevant but kinda High
Highlights: What's nominally presented as a Rohirrim deck is actually a Human tribal list, so we'll have to endure a number of "Humans matter" card, because there's never enough of those in the game. King Éomer (Théoden's nephew and eventual successor) makes for a very powerful curve-topper in that kind of build. He's a double striker with a body as large as the number of other Humans we control plus two. On top of that, his entering the battlefield deals a one-shot amount of damage to any target equal to his power, which might even end the game right then and there. And there's more, he even makes us the monarch! Hey, I thought he was the monarch!
As busted as Éomer sounds, the deck is actually led by his sister Éowyn, the Witch-king slayer. She adds blue to her white and red colors (she's been adding one color per rarity of incarnation) and more properly works as a top-notch tribal lord, essentially doubling the Humans we deploy (2/2 Knight with trample and haste, now that's a token!) and potentially drawing a card at every combat if our Human team is wide enough, which might be win-more or just snowballing towards victory.
Compared to these legendary Rohirrim, the Gondorians appear less explosive, but they still perform their tribal functions with gusto. Éowyn's future husband Faramir's new card doesn't care about Humans, but his unfortunate brother Boromir does, in an Azorius incarnation that digs for more of them on ETB and attack. He searches for artifacts too, which are certainly supposed to be of the Equipment variety, but the more inclusive wording can be exploited accordingly. We also get Faramir's bodyguard Beregond and another, unnamed captain from Lossarnach, both triggering when a Human, including themselves, enters the battlefield under our control. Beregond grants a temporary boost to the team, while the Lossarnach Captain
taps opposing creature to clear an attack. Her body is more frail but she's a first striker, which ensures more survivability in combat. She also more valuable for the same amount of mana, because she spontaneously generates 1/1 Soldier tokens at every upkeep, so it's one free tapping per turn. It goes without saying, these two are great together, because those tokens trigger Beregond's ability too, as well as benefiting from it.
Knight: +2
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New Tribal Total: 393, online: 380
Related Tribes: Human
Impact of the New Additions: Medium to High
Highlights: Strangely enough, a deck called "Riders of Rohan" only feature two new Knights. One is the designated commander, Éowyn, who's "Humans matter" setup is going to affect the Knight tribe in large measure too. The other is the deck's namesake, and it's basically a group of three Knights, one big and dumb, two slimmer but highly skilled. We can even dash the main Knight for six mana, to keep generating pairs of better Knights after we return him to hand at the end of turn. It's a costly process, but a late-game boon.
Kraken: +1
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New Tribal Total: 26
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: Is this supposed to be the Watcher in the Water again
? Somebody really wanted to have Krakens in their Lord of the Rings. This one is a Standard-level islandcycler, with an option of paying five extra mana to cast a Sleep
. I'm sure it can win games out of nowhere, but so does Sleep, and it doesn't need to have a vanilla 4/6 body attached to do it.
Noble: +12
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New Tribal Total: 97, online: 96
Related Tribes: Bird, Elf, Human, Wraith
Impact of the New Additions: Medium to High
Highlights: Lots of Noble kings and regents, and of course almost all of the Elves. Focusing on the cards that haven't been reviewed in the entries of other tribes, the final form of Aragorn catches the eye. His past as a green Ranger is over, now he's High King Elessar Telcontar, ruler of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor. But hey, he's still a damn good fighter, a four-drop 4/4 with vigilance and lifelink that kickstarts the monarch status, and then uses it to stop the opponent's creatures from blocking. On the right board state, it's basically a kind of "I win next turn" card, and rightfully so, since this is the Aragorn who very much won. And even if we lose the monarch status in the meantime, Aragorn still prevents at least their best creature from blocking, which could mean an immediate reappropriation of the monarch's crown – also extremely flavorful, but nowhere near what they did with the card dedicated to Aragorn's mother, Gilraen. She's a deep-cut character that only appears in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings (there's a popular fan film about her, though). What her card does mimics exactly her story: she hid Aragorn in Rivendell ("Exile another target creature"), then she could reveal him as the heir of Isildur and the Dúnedain right away ("You may return that card to the battlefield"), but she chose to wait for him to have enough experience first ("a vigilance counter and a lifelink counter", which are Aragorn's keywords in his King of Gondor incarnation). The flavor text is what's written on her memorial in Rivendell, and translates to "I give my hope to Men, I keep none for myself". "Hope" in Sindarin is "Estel", which is Aragorn's childhood name during his exile in Rivendell. Incidentally, Gilraen is also a solid flickerer that gives extra value to her flickered targets.
Then we have another parent-child pair with the Stewards of Gondor. The conflicted Denethor, who was Orzhov-colored in his uncommon appearance
, is now blue while using the palantír of Minas Tirith, which is the Seer Stone alluded to in the card's name. It's a simple card that for two mana gives us some scry, a 1/3 body, and the option to spend four more and sacrifice Denethor to cast a Lighting Bolt
and become the monarch at instant speed, which guarantees at least one card draw. His son Faramir, who was Steward for a little while before Aragorn took the throne and made him Prince of Ithilien, also traffics in monarch statuses, quite appropriately. In his third incarnation, which chronologically sits in the middle, Faramir is apparently ready to acclaim king any legendary with mana value equal to at least 4 – too bad Yawgmoth
wasn't on Middle-earth at the time. Once the monarch is established, the former Steward is going to summon pairs of 1/1 Soldiers at every end step. That's a powerful trigger, but unfortunately Faramir is not going to do enough on his own, and the requirement of a semi-expensive legendary (of course Aragorn is what the card was designed for) is a hard build-around. Even if we enable it, the moment we lose monarch status, Faramir goes back to doing nothing.
Orc: +2
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New Tribal Total: 88, online: 87
Related Tribes: Rogue, Soldier
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: No Goblins this time – even if Moria Scavenger
really looks like one – and only two new Orcs overall, because the Sauron deck is a spellslinging build with lots of amass and few actual creatures. The mentioned Scavenger is a hasty rummager that doubles as a good blocker with deathtouch and high toughness. If we rummage away a creature, we get to amass, although it's hard to envision a creature that's worth less of a 1/1 token or a +1/+1 counter on an existing token – unless we're intentionally pitching something that we can return or reanimate.
(Orcish Siegemaster) is a bit of a new lord for Orcs and Goblins, giving them trample. He's a 0/5 that only gets power in attack, borrowing the greatest we have under our control; so it's not even that good in a go-wide situation. Definitely less of a Goblin card and more of an Orc card, which at least fits his main tribe better. Orcs and Goblins also get a new off-tribe "lord" that makes them unblockable, if through a very mana-intensive process. Corsairs of Umbar
specifically creates Orcs via amass when they connect, so again the Orc tribe is rightfully of primary concern here.
Peasant: +3
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New Tribal Total: 33
Related Tribes: Halfling
Impact of the New Additions: High
Highlights: Sam, his dad and his father-in-law: foodies extraordinaires. They respectively generate a steady flow of Food and make it more digestible; reward us with card when we eat that Food; and mass-produce both Food and gluttons. The Peasant tribe contains a valid Food lineup in Legacy right now, and almost all of the cards supporting the theme are, unsurprisingly, Hobbits.
Pirate: +1
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New Tribal Total: 124, online: 114
Related Tribes: Human
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: The Corsairs of Umbar (of which we had previously met one of their captains
) were allied with Sauron during the War of the Ring, hence the Orcs and Goblins focus on this card. Which does a couple different things, but it's not a particularly efficient creature. Technically, it could stand on its own by making itself and the Army it generates unblockable, but it's a very mana-intensive proposition at three mana per iteration. It's flavorful enough – the Corsairs and the troops they transport are raiding coastal villages by night, with the element of surprise – and it could be used to push other Pirates through, but it all sounds pretty janky. This said, I can see it winning a very casual game of Commander by sending an increasingly large Orc Army to take care of each of its enemies.
Rogue: +2
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New Tribal Total: 409, online: 389
Related Tribes: Halfling, Orc
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: The juxtaposition between Bilbo and that goblinoid from Moria is pretty funny – but hey, Rogues have multiple facets. I doubt the tribe is going to be interested in any of these two, as one is a novelty card made for flavor only, and the other is just a midrange rummager with minor bits of extra value.
Scout: +2
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New Tribal Total: 182, online: 174
Related Tribes: Elf, Halfling
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: These are both strictly-for-Commander cards. The Trapper is not even good, and Frodo mostly works only as a commander in partnership with Sam. Even in a Orzhov lifegain-based build, there are better payoffs to include in the 99.
Soldier: +6
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New Tribal Total: 847, online: 786
Related Tribes: Elf, Human, Orc, Spirit
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: Most new Soldiers are concerned with different tribes: Beregon and the Lossarnach Captain with Humans; Haldir with Elves; the Siegemaster with Orcs and Goblins. Of the remaining two, Champions of Minas Tirith
is an expensive monarch card that taxes the opponent's attack; and the Spirit Soldier Grey Host Reinforcements
is graveyard hate that potentially leaves a big warded flyer behind. It could be worth four mana, but it's very situational, essentially a sideboard card that nobody will ever actually use.
Spider: +1
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New Tribal Total: 75, online: 73
Related Tribes: Demon
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: New Shelob is a decent card but shows no love for her Spider offsprings and relatives, which is disappointing. She has a weird interaction with her previous form, though: if both are on the battlefield, her victims (or the victims of other Spiders) are simultaneously turned into Food and kept in exile to be consumed or turned into mind-controlled puppets. Shelob makes sure nothing go to waste!
Spirit: +1
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New Tribal Total: 587, online: 577
Related Tribes: Soldier
Impact of the New Additions: Medium
Highlights: We've already encountered other cards from the Army of the Dead in the base set: Soldier of the Grey Host
and their commander, the King of the Oathbreakers
. The flavor remains strong with the Reinforcements: these are the dead Soldiers who swear allegiance to Aragorn, recognizing him as the Heir of Isildur, to redeem themselves for their past betrayal. With this new card, we can see them raise from their graves to join the fight. Well, they actually raise from anybody's grave, apparently, but we get the sense of it.
Treefolk: +1
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New Tribal Total: 96, online: 94
Impact of the New Additions: Medium to High
Highlights: After a truly disappointing main-set incarnation as Fangorn, Tree Shepherd
, we finally get a worthy Treebeard card. And extremely flavorful, too: the two Food tokens he creates when he ETBs are meant to represent the Ent-draughts that Treebeard feeds to Merry and Pippin, making them grow larger in size. This is actually a perfect fusion of flavor and mechanical soundness, because in a lifegain build, Treebeard turns all life gained into +1/+1 counters galore, turning himself into a huge resilient trampler, or else enhancing another Treefolk (or a Halfling, if we absolutely want to recreate the scene from the books). The white splash is not usually what Treefolk deck pursues, unless we're running a Doran, the Siege Tower
Abzan build. And the lifegain theme is not easily enabled in-tribe. So perhaps Treebeard works better as a Commander or as payoff for generic lifegain lists.
Warrior: +2
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New Tribal Total: 951, online: 927
Related Tribes: Dwarf, Human
Impact of the New Additions: Null
Highlights: Nothing of consequence for the Warriors, which are overall taking a back seat to the Soldiers in the setting. Boromir, who's a "Humans matter" card, is here portrayed as a Warrior because he's supposedly at the time when he joined the Fellowship of the Ring, which is the grandfather of any subsequent adventuring party of all fantasy books, films and games. Gimli is the other main Warrior of the party; too bad his card incarnations in Magic are always lacking.
Wizard: +3
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New Tribal Total: 959, online: 935
Related Tribes: Avatar
Impact of the New Additions: Low
Highlights: Once again, there are no Wizards in The Lord of the Rings; only five angelic Maiar masquerading as the Istari, old men belonging to an alleged "Order of Wizards", in actuality supernatural agents of the Valar sent to Middle-earth to unite the people against Sauron. (The two missing Istari, the "Blue Wizards" Alatar and Pallando, have no role in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so they've been conveniently omitted from this adaptation). Apart from that, none of these three new cards fits too well within the Wizard tribe: Gandalf and Radagast care for big spells, a concern that other Wizards might share but it's not really a tribal theme; Saruman is more fittingly preoccupied with noncreature spells, but all of them requires exotic deviations from the blue basis the tribe most enjoys. They're very evidently designed for Commander only, and in large part as commanders themselves.
Wraith: +1
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New Tribal Total: 10
Related Tribes: Noble
Impact of the New Additions: Extreme
Highlights: The resurrected Wraith tribe is gifted with yet another Nazgûl – in fact, yet another Witch-king, the third incarnation for the character, and the first dipping into Dimir territory. It's mostly a flavor-based card, with the protection from Ring-bearers hardly having any relevance even when playing exclusively with Lord of the Rings cards. The "instants and sorceries matter" mechanic is designed to assemble "the Nine", and then boost them for a turn. It's a repeatable effect, but can you imagine controlling eight 9/9 menacer and one 9/9 flyer and still not having won the game? (It's actually conceivable. Stranger things happen in a game of Magic). The big flavor fail here is that the Lord of the Nazgûl allows us to go past the nine threshold, when everyone knows there are only nine Nazgûl. Tolkien wouldn't be pleased.
SUMMARY
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