Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

The Mirkwood Bats!

Didn't expect "token matters" in black to come back again, and certainly not on a Bat.

[Venedrex]

I won't lie, Long List of the Ents made be laugh out loud.

The Mirkwood Bats!

Didn't expect "token matters" in black to come back again, and certainly not on a Bat.

Prolly because Amass is one of the core mechanics. I'm happy to see it back and I definitely agree with using it to represent the massive amount of Orcs without having sixty different 1/1 Orcs on the battlefield. Big fan of the choice to bring it back.

[NZB2323]

So far last March of the ents and Gandalf the white seem like the biggest bombs.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Amass Orcs also appears to permanently add Orc to the the token's creature type, which is great flavorfully but going to be an actual pain to keep track of (at least for me). I better swap out the Dreadhorde token for the Orc Army one as soon as that happens.

[duducrash]

Boromir, warden of the Tower is nice, I'll slot at least into Karador, if not more decks

[Hermes_]

this is the best card from the set

[benjameenbear]

Boromir, warden of the Tower is nice, I'll slot at least into Karador, if not more decks

I'm no rules master when it comes to Storm, but does this stop Storm triggers? I'm inclined not to think so.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

I'm no rules master when it comes to Storm, but does this stop Storm triggers? I'm inclined not to think so.

Copy is not cast, so sadly no. Counters a flashbacked Dread Return though.

[Venedrex]

Single tear for the fact that battles were designed long after this set was finished apparently.

[RedCheese]

Woow The Balrog, Flame of Udûn is so BAD. biggest disapointment

[pokken]

Boromir, warden of the Tower is nice, I'll slot at least into Karador, if not more decks

It's hilarious to me that it incidentally shuts down Jeweled Lotus / Lion's Eye Diamond / Mana Crypt shenanigans

[Venedrex]

Woow The Balrog, Flame of Udûn is so BAD. biggest disapointment

Look how they massacred my boy.

Wizards: We can't do a vanilla creature in a set because vanillas are bad. Oh the Balrog, the super iconic villain from LOTR? Yeah make it a french vanilla with a massive downside. Sometimes I don't understand.

[Dunharrow]

Biggest issue with the Balrog is that it isn't named Durin's Bane.

[Hawk]

I totally get the flavor of the card, but The Balrog, Flame of Udûn is terrible. With that (again, super flavorful!) drawback this needed to be bigger (Ward, Menace, better stats) and/or be cheaper (4 MV). As it stands it's awful in limited since there's so many random legends around and awful in commander, while still being too slow for Modern. Worst of all possible worlds for the card.

[DirkGently]

I mean considering there are 45 versions of Frodo I think there's a strong chance we see another balrog card.

@Hermes_ actually true.

[Hermes_]

I'm not sure if Feed the Swarm will find a home in commander, well a limited reprint of Cavern of Souls hopefully it will get a better reprint in CL

Nice flavor on the Nazgûl Frodo, Determined Hero MIGHT make a decent addition to my voltron deck but i doubt it

[DirkGently]

Jeez there's a lot of spoilers.

As expected, a lot of very mid uncommon legends that no one will play.
sauron, dark lord seems like the best version by far. Interesting use of ward costs this set.
Saruman of Many Colors has a very weird name (was that a title he had in the book? Sounds like a Andrew Lloyd Weber musical) but pretty cool effect, albeit wordy. Maybe the commander I'm most likely to build so far.
Legolas, Master Archer very cool design, although difficult CI for it.
gandalf the white rider FIFTH from the top bro? jeez, forget it, I'll just pay the tax.
Gandalf the White is probably the most "ugly" commander spoiled so far, although at least it's mono-white. And it's a unique enough subset of cards it effects that it might not see TOO much play in the 99.
And yes Bill the Pony is adorbs.

[duducrash]

Its day one, so this is an early sentiment but this seems to be no modern masters. Im really liking it, much more tuan what I antecipated

[DirkGently]

I've gone through every card with the "cute" tag on scryfall and I can now confirm that Bill the Pony is indeed the cutest card in all of magic, and BY FAR the cutest commander. Good job buddy, you did it.

[Hawk]

Legolas, Master Archer is a very funny "Fight" Commander since every fight spell makes him bigger and also does double damage to opponents effectively. Legolas is known for his archery, but his real skill is apparently Rabid Biteing orcs to death.

[darrenhabib]

I played Middle-earth Collectible Card Game which was around 1995 (there have been other LotR card games after that) but I remember enjoying it and of course I was still fresh to Magic and thinking how amazing it would be to have a cross over using Magic mechanics. A slam-dunk right? Well near 30 years later it arrives and .. well it's a stinker.
It seems to be another corporate fail, the same way that all pop-culture appropriation has happened in the last 7 years or so.
The mechanics are mediocre. Food tokens are of course a joke. Amass was a not so great mechanic in the first place, the thing it doesn't actually do is amass anything. The Ring tempting is about the most interesting but is fairly limited in scope.
The art on the whole seems budget. Cost savings on such an amazing IP just doesn't seem like good decision making. The art quality might be the same as other recent releases, but this is Lord of the Rings, painting a visual extravaganza should have been a priority.
The characters themselves should feel worth playing. We are talking Gandalf here. I'm not excited about a single character so far.

Are there individual cards that I will put in decks? Yes, but for me personally I wanted a Lord of the Rings experience and this just doesn't feel like you get transported to Middle Earth.

[DirkGently]

The mechanics are mediocre. Food tokens are of course a joke. Amass was a not so great mechanic in the first place, the thing it doesn't actually do is amass anything. The Ring tempting is about the most interesting but is fairly limited in scope.

Why are food tokens "of course a joke"? Their innate lifegain ability is usually fairly uninteresting in commander, but there are commanders that enable them to have additional effects, either in the vein of Bill the Pony or by virtue of being artifacts tokens, or permanents. Since the innate ability of food is a lot weaker than, say, treasure, they can do things that would otherwise be more dangerous.

Amass is typically more limited-focused, but an ability like Sauron, the Dark Lord is going to create a solid amount of p/t pretty quickly, and he gives it a powerful added effect. I agree that it doesn't capture the feeling of having a lot of units in the same way that a wide board of tokens does, but it's also a lot less risky design-wise. The world where Sauron created a 1/1 token for every spell instead of a +1 counter would be a lot scarier.

It's not about the name on the mechanic, it's how you use it, is what I'm getting at. And ofc you have to keep in mind that this is a full set that is trying to create a viable limited environment, so a lot of cards are going to be catered to that. Yeah a 1/1 flyer amass 2 for 3 is trash in commander but it's a solid limited card.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "a corporate fail". If I controlled the world, this set wouldn't exist in the first place, but outside of the decision to make it I'm not sure to what extent the larger corporate forces have much creative control. I would assume it's mostly in the hands of designers.

[toctheyounger]

was that a title he had in the book

It was. When Gandalf seeks his aid and reveals that he knows of the one ring, this is how Saruman reveals himself; betrayal via technicolor dreamcoat.

FIFTH from the top bro? jeez, forget it, I'll just pay the tax.

"On the fifth day, at dawn, look to the east"

Weirdly the most impressive card to me so far is Boromir, Warden of the Tower. Hatebear plus protection is actually really great.

[NZB2323]

Jeez there's a lot of spoilers.

As expected, a lot of very mid uncommon legends that no one will play.
sauron, dark lord seems like the best version by far. Interesting use of ward costs this set.
Saruman of Many Colors has a very weird name (was that a title he had in the book? Sounds like a Andrew Lloyd Weber musical) but pretty cool effect, albeit wordy. Maybe the commander I'm most likely to build so far.
Legolas, Master Archer very cool design, although difficult CI for it.
gandalf the white rider FIFTH from the top bro? jeez, forget it, I'll just pay the tax.
Gandalf the White is probably the most "ugly" commander spoiled so far, although at least it's mono-white. And it's a unique enough subset of cards it effects that it might not see TOO much play in the 99.
And yes Bill the Pony is adorbs.

If I remember correctly, Saruman used to be Saruman the white, and had a specific role as the "white wizard." Saruman was making fun of the Brown wizard for being a simple wizard, and Gandalf said that he was serving his purpose, as we all do. Saruman said that he wasn't Saruman the white anymore, but Saruman of many colors. Gandalf said something like, "you can't be all the colors."

Saruman no longer being Saruman the white allowed Gandalf to come back as Gandalf the white.

I think it's supposed to be a metaphor where you're supposed to serve your purpose in life, and if you try and prioritize everything you'll end up prioritizing nothing.

[Mookie]

....so they just spoiled the entire set in a single day? Sure. Guess I'll just review everything. >_>

• Shire Terrace looks like a nice upgrade over Ash Barrens, since it works better with Crucible of Worlds effects.
• Frodo, Determined Hero looks like an interesting voltron commander, since you can ignore equip costs. No Colossus Hammer, but there are other options.
• Mordor Trebuchet is fun. I don't think it's good (and it's obviously very conditional), but I like the design.
• Éowyn, Fearless Knight lacks the usual 'exile for as long as you control this' clause and looks like a nice Nekrataal, if a bit conditional.
• Rising of the Day is a strictly better Fervor. It was already outclassed by multiple options, but not strictly so in mono-red.
• Shadow of the Enemy is a significant upgrade over Hedonist's Trove. You don't get lands, but it's otherwise better in pretty much every way.
• Minas Tirith is a nice draw engine for aggressive white decks.
• Barad-dûr looks excellent for Teysa, since there's no 'X can't be zero' clause. It is conditional, but this is the only land that can create a token (even a 0/0) for a single mana - almost every other option starts at 3 mana.
• Bilbo's Ring is a nice piece of equipment, but the hefty equip cost (outside Halfling tribal) is painful.
• Hew the Entwood looks like a trap, but I'm sure some people will build around it.
• Orcish Bowmasters is a nice token producer / hatebear / pinger.
• Last March of the Ents is expensive but dumb.
• Storm of Saruman is interesting but a little clunky. Ward is very nice though.
• Mirkwood Bats is sort of scary, since it double triggers off tokens. I won't say it's better than Zulaport Cutthroat or Corpse Knight, but it can definitely add up very quickly.
• Saruman of Many Colors looks fun, but annoying. Tricky to kill and gives lots of value (even if it is random, and you need to pay mana for your initial two spells).
• Nasty End is a reasonable Village Rites variant. Three cards is a lot for two mana.
• Sauron, the Dark Lord is probably broken with something, but seems good if you want to go heavy on the set themes.
• Gandalf the White is the obligatory 'we want EDH players to buy the set so we're adding in Panharmonicon'.
• Sauron, Lord of the Rings is expensive but a bunch of value.
• Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant is nonsense and a sweet build-around.

I'll agree that the set looks a bit core-set-ish - several vanilla creatures, lots of reminder text, and some designs that look to be aimed at newer players. That said, I do see plenty of interesting new cards in the set. Honestly, I prefer the set being a little underpowered to being another Modern Horizons in disguise.