At long last, MTG’s The Hobbit spoiler season is in full swing, reimmersing players in the beloved world of Middle-earth. Not only does this allow for some exciting reprints, but there are plenty of exciting new cards and legends, too. Smaug the Impenetrable, for instance, is a fantastic new Commander that enables a unique treasure-focused deck.
MTG Smaug the Impenetrable
Smaug the Impenetrable, with the right setup, is a win condition that should take over the game when played. When pairing Smaug with damage dealer cards, his triggered ability can create absurd amounts of mana, creating the potential for Storm-like sequences, building towards an infinite combo finish. This allows cards like Cut Propulsion or Abrade to function as removal and a Ritual effect with Smaug in play.
You can easily take this idea further using cards that deal mass damage, like Star of Extinction, Blasphemous Act, or Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought to create an absurd number of Treasure tokens. From there, setting up an instant win with artifact pingers like Reckless Fireweaver or massive X spells like Exsanguinate is trivial. This also allows you to include expensive draw engines like The Endstone to keep cards flowing.
You don’t necessarily need to rely on massive damage effects, however, as cards like Xorn or Academy Manufactor can get a ton of value out of even one damage to Smaug. Fill in your curve with Treasure producers like Professional Face-Breaker and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and you can easily hit the ground running.
With a strong Treasure theme established, ramping out Smaug becomes trivial with just a little support. Goldspan Dragon and Alchemist’s Talent can double the amount of mana your Treasures make, while Rain of Riches becomes pure card advantage. Even some Dragon Typal ramp elements, like Rivaz of the Claw, can help get Smaug in ahead of time.
Even if you aren’t dealing tons of damage to Smaug, a few specific payoffs can help swing the game immediately. Pariah’s Shield, for example, essentially turns any damage you would take into Treasure Tokens when equipped to the Dragon. Alternatively, Fire Covenant essentially allows you to turn your life into Treasure when targeting Smaug.
Multiple Two-Card Combos
With a massive draw engine set up, the most efficient way to win with Smaug is via his infinite combos with cards like Pyrohemia. Since Smaug will create a Treasure whenever it gets damage, it leads to infinite activations of Pyrohemia, allowing you to win the game so long as you have more life than your opponents. Pestilence and Pestilence Demon offer some redundancy for this combo, making it a rather consistent gameplan.
If you don’t want to risk damaging yourself, Smaug can also pull off a wide variety of infinite combos with Mayhem Devil. By sacrificing a treasure and pinging Smaug with the Devil, you’ll create another Treasure Token to replace it, establishing a loop. On its own, this creates infinite mana and tokens enter and death triggers, winning the game with Reckless Fireweaver.
Smaug in the 99
With tons of infinite combo potential and multiple splashable themes, Smaug the Impenetrable looks like one of the stronger Commanders to appear in MTG The Hobbit. The card’s usability isn’t just limited to the Command Zone, however, as it has its uses in the 99 of other decks.
For example, thanks to the focus on reanimation, big-mana plays and board wipes, Smaug the Impenetrable makes for a great upgrade to the Hosts of Mordor Precon. Scion of the Ur-Dragon will also be interested in Smaug, transforming into him at instant speed as a combat trick to reverse damage-based removal.
Regardless of whether you’re using Smaug in the 99 of an existing Treasures deck, or you’re building around it, this is certainly one of the most interesting spoilers from The Hobbit so far. If the rest of The Hobbit’s spoilers are as exciting as this card, we could be in for a very memorable set.
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