LotR Commander Deck Lists;

[3drinks]

So these are pretty juiced, why did WotC suddenly start putting actual good cards in these decks and sought after reprints? Obviously we can't trust the listed dollar value because they're still in wild spec phase, but these decks, like man. Is this the new trend, or is this just to sell these specific decks?

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/th ... -decklists

[TheAmericanSpirit]

No way the prices sustain, but the construction is pretty good. If the 40k decks are any example to go on, it seems WotC really wants these IP crossovers to succeed. It makes sense; no one wants to see their favorite Non-Magic IP show up on cards and then have it stink within the larger context of the game, so these decks are being pushed a little. Fine by me, I'll equip Bilbo's Ring to Optimus Prime, Hero // Optimus Prime, Autobot Leader so I can swing past my opponent's Zangief, the Red Cyclone which is being buffed by their Rick, Steadfast Leader any day if I must.

[Igzex]

Look, since Legolas, Master Archer has reach I'll use him to block your Goku, Super Saiyan to protect the Battle Card Infinity War

[5colorsrainbow]

The decks are also higher priced so better reprints and being a tighter deck also helps justify the price tag.

[Cyberium]

Favorite being Host of Mordor and Elven Council. Elven Council is, in a way, what Quandrix could've been, even if it's just their precons.

[DirkGently]

I haven't looked at nor care about the reprints, but in terms of new cards I think they look significantly below par. Lots of legends as with the rest of the set, but only a couple that look remotely interesting.

[3drinks]

The decks are also higher priced so better reprints and being a tighter deck also helps justify the price tag.

You mean these aren't gonna be the same standard $45?

[5colorsrainbow]

The decks are also higher priced so better reprints and being a tighter deck also helps justify the price tag.

You mean these aren't gonna be the same standard $45?

They been preselling for ~$50-60 and its been noted that the other sealed products are at a higher price as well.

[gsgfdf]

The decks are also higher priced so better reprints and being a tighter deck also helps justify the price tag.

You mean these aren't gonna be the same standard $45?

They been preselling for ~$50-60 and its been noted that the other sealed products are at a higher price as well.

My LGS is preselling the Commander Masters decks for 120€...

[Hawk]

I think there's a few factors here beyond the higher price point:

1) There are a small but vocal minority that claim they'll "never buy UB Product" - but getting an easy crack at high-value cards like Rejuvenating Springs, Heroic Intervention, Toxic Deluge, etc. might just change their tunes. Good reprints will serve as a bit of an extra carrot to try and get the "NO UB IN MAH MAGICS!" crowd onboard.
2) There's also a huge swath of folks who are going to buy these decks as their first ever magic product, never adjust them, and never want to adjust them to keep the pure UB aesthetic. While they can't give these decks fetches and shocks and every staple under the sun, it also is going to be pretty feel-bad for those players to give them the usual Temple and Guildgate-heavy mana base with 50% etb tapped lands. It's much more important that these decks be not just playable out of the box, but playable at an average LGS commander table out of the box, for the long haul. A compromise that also serves purpose 1 is to make sure these decks get the checklands and painlands (Elves picking up a battlebond land is extra gravy).

I certainly wouldn't take this as a sign of WotC's intent to give us actual good reprints in other product - I suspect this is gonna be what they do with UB, and we'll see similarly great value from the oncoming Dr. Who decks.

[yeti1069]

While they can't give these decks fetches and shocks and every staple under the sun,

Why can't they?

We've seen shocks in some precons, I believe, and there's expensive exclusives like Dockside and Fierce Guardianship, but it's also WotC's product. They could put better reprints in. Are they making money off the secondary market?

[3drinks]

While they can't give these decks fetches and shocks and every staple under the sun,

Why can't they?

We've seen shocks in some precons, I believe, and there's expensive exclusives like Dockside and Fierce Guardianship, but it's also WotC's product. They could put better reprints in. Are they making money off the secondary market?

Don't open that box. An admittance to this brings them back to the loot crate comparison and opens up gambling legislation they'd have to contend with.

[DirkGently]

I think there's a few factors here beyond the higher price point:

1) There are a small but vocal minority that claim they'll "never buy UB Product" - but getting an easy crack at high-value cards like Rejuvenating Springs, Heroic Intervention, Toxic Deluge, etc. might just change their tunes. Good reprints will serve as a bit of an extra carrot to try and get the "NO UB IN MAH MAGICS!" crowd onboard.
2) There's also a huge swath of folks who are going to buy these decks as their first ever magic product, never adjust them, and never want to adjust them to keep the pure UB aesthetic. While they can't give these decks fetches and shocks and every staple under the sun, it also is going to be pretty feel-bad for those players to give them the usual Temple and Guildgate-heavy mana base with 50% etb tapped lands. It's much more important that these decks be not just playable out of the box, but playable at an average LGS commander table out of the box, for the long haul. A compromise that also serves purpose 1 is to make sure these decks get the checklands and painlands (Elves picking up a battlebond land is extra gravy).

I certainly wouldn't take this as a sign of WotC's intent to give us actual good reprints in other product - I suspect this is gonna be what they do with UB, and we'll see similarly great value from the oncoming Dr. Who decks.

#2 might be true to a certain extent, but #1 doesn't follow at all. If they wanted to entice reticent players, they would give them great reprints AND the same price point. When you jack up the price point, the interest returns to baseline. Also most of the new cards are pretty weak, so less enticing than normal imo.

I'll open door #3 - more expensive decks means they make more money. And they know people fangirl over LotR so they've got an all-but-guaranteed market regardless of cost. Pretty straightforward.

Why can't they?

We've seen shocks in some precons, I believe, and there's expensive exclusives like Dockside and Fierce Guardianship, but it's also WotC's product. They could put better reprints in. Are they making money off the secondary market?

Dockside and fierce guardianship are commander exclusives in the first place, and see no play in other formats afaik. Shocks and fetches see play everywhere they're legal. If you put them into precons, you'd have tons of modern/legacy/etc players scooping the precons off shelves and cracking them just for the lands, like True-Name Nemesis back in the day.

And while wotc doesn't directly benefit from the secondary market, if the economy of game collapses because everything is available super cheap, then people aren't going to buy packs anymore and they go out of business. Even for cards they don't reprint, people can get skittish about investing in cards if there's a possibility that the value is going to tank from a reprint at any moment. That's why they don't tend to put super expensive cards in easy-to-get places. A certain degree of scarcity is necessary for the game to function as a TCG.

[Hawk]

I think there's a few factors here beyond the higher price point:

1) There are a small but vocal minority that claim they'll "never buy UB Product" - but getting an easy crack at high-value cards like Rejuvenating Springs, Heroic Intervention, Toxic Deluge, etc. might just change their tunes. Good reprints will serve as a bit of an extra carrot to try and get the "NO UB IN MAH MAGICS!" crowd onboard.
2) There's also a huge swath of folks who are going to buy these decks as their first ever magic product, never adjust them, and never want to adjust them to keep the pure UB aesthetic. While they can't give these decks fetches and shocks and every staple under the sun, it also is going to be pretty feel-bad for those players to give them the usual Temple and Guildgate-heavy mana base with 50% etb tapped lands. It's much more important that these decks be not just playable out of the box, but playable at an average LGS commander table out of the box, for the long haul. A compromise that also serves purpose 1 is to make sure these decks get the checklands and painlands (Elves picking up a battlebond land is extra gravy).

I certainly wouldn't take this as a sign of WotC's intent to give us actual good reprints in other product - I suspect this is gonna be what they do with UB, and we'll see similarly great value from the oncoming Dr. Who decks.

#2 might be true to a certain extent, but #1 doesn't follow at all. If they wanted to entice reticent players, they would give them great reprints AND the same price point. When you jack up the price point, the interest returns to baseline. Also most of the new cards are pretty weak, so less enticing than normal imo.

I'll open door #3 - more expensive decks means they make more money. And they know people fangirl over LotR so they've got an all-but-guaranteed market regardless of cost. Pretty straightforward.

Door #3 is absolutely fair and a huge part of it. They want money, and they know folks will pay it for Hobbits and Balrogs. 110% that's the higher price point, that and a bit of passing on whatever licensing fees the Tolkien estate had for this on to us the loyal customers.

#1 can be true, but if we're ranking them it should be third - it's the thing they care least about. They care less about it because if hypothetically they did tweak and upgun the elf deck, cutting bad lands for Misty Rainforest, Breeding Pool, and Ancient Tomb and maybe cutting some of the weaker cards for Expropriate, Cyclonic Rift, and other format staples while keeping a price point of $50, no one in group 2 would be able to get a copy of this deck because speculators would snap up every copy to resell on the secondary market. Not even opening the can of worms that is WotC absolutely caring about also maintaining the value of those cards for their own interests, they're more interested in group 2 than group 1, and they're more interested in profit than anything else. But I absolutely think they're also peppering in better reprints in this product than they did just a few weeks ago in the March of the Machines commander decks (which for the record had similarly abysmal new cards) to entice reticent players a little bit.

Speaking of new cards, while a lot of them are mediocre every deck has a few cards that I think seem pretty legit. Nothing Fierce Guardianship or Dockside Extortionist-level (and that's a good thing for the format!) but each deck has a few cards that I wouldn't be surprised to see at $20 long-haul and creeping higher the longer they go without some sort of reprint.

Elves: Arwen, Weaver of Hope looks strong for elf or +1/+1 counter decks, two perennial archetypes for Gx. Raise the Palisade is no Kindred Dominance or Cyclonic Rift but I expect it to be a new staple in Ux Tribal decks - for Yuriko and Wilhelt, two of the most popular commanders in the format, this is just Dominance/Rift for 2 less and will similarly let them set up back-breaking plays.

Forces of Mordor: Lots of cards here seem like more niche roleplayers - folks seem really hyped about Cavern-Hoard Dragon and Subjugate the Hobbits and I ain't seeing it. Moria Scavenger and Rampaging War Mammoth seem more like where it's at, but they're still going to be niche cards for cycling and madness decks. I will shoutout Saruman, the White Hand though. Kykar, Wind's Fury and Talrand, Sky Summoner have proven some of the most popular commanders in the format, and while Saruman is more awkward and at a glance worse than them he's also an insanely popular pop culture character in a different color combination than those two. I expect he's going to join Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph as the second UB Commander to be in the top 200 commanders of the format; unlike Starn I also think Saruman will see regular play in the '99 of Kess and Anhelo spellslinger decks.

Riders of Rohan: Verge Rangers are interesting as a white take on Oracle of Mul Daya (although they're closer to a white Courser of Kruphix, since they don't give you extra land drops). But yes, you are right, this deck is mostly coasting on reprints + Aragorn, King of Gondor who won't demand a good price but will sell decks.

Hobbits: This deck is also sorta coasting on the hobbits and reprint value, but The Gaffer is the next Bennie Bracks, Zoologist/Smothering Tithe. Lifegain is popular and he says "each end step" - card is gonna be everywhere ya'll.

[Mookie]

I feel like the new cards in the precons are less exciting than usual, but that may just be because they're more specialized for the decks instead of generic goodstuff (which is probably better for the format). You're never going to run Erestor of the Council outside a vote-focused deck, for example. That said, there are some nice mid-tier reprints like Toxic Deluge and Reanimate, and I hope they'll bring prices down a bit (even if I don't see any $50+ top-tier reprints).

[aliciaofthevast]

Ewwww, but $60usd decks though?

[DirkGently]

@Hawk I'd quibble over a couple cards - making one big token is much much weaker than kykar (not that I'm complaining) and rangers is a reprint (and I think a cheap one). Personally I think shelob will be popular too. That's a small fraction of the total cards though.

Can't comment on reprints vs MoM since I don't care enough to check lol. But I do think MoM had noticeably stronger new cards.

I feel like the new cards in the precons are less exciting than usual, but that may just be because they're more specialized for the decks instead of generic goodstuff (which is probably better for the format). You're never going to run Erestor of the Council outside a vote-focused deck, for example. That said, there are some nice mid-tier reprints like Toxic Deluge and Reanimate, and I hope they'll bring prices down a bit (even if I don't see any $50+ top-tier reprints).

Agreed, though I'm pretty sure erestor (interesting though his design may be) is basically unplayable atm, there aren't enough vote cards available yet.