As is now clear, Wizards of the Coast’s experiments with smaller sets proved unpopular, to say the least. On top of these sets having a ton of cards that feel like filler at lower rarities, their Limited formats have consistently been awful. Sadly, The Hobbit continues this unfortunate tradition, with Sealed, in particular, being absolutely egregious.
Rakdos Simulator 2026
If the incessant complaining on social media didn’t make it clear, the massive win percentage discrepancies on 17Lands.com tell a loud story. For Sealed, all but two of black’s commons have a higher win percentage than the entire common suite in white and blue. Due to black’s aggressive nature, it pairs extremely well with red, boosting the color’s win rate. Green’s support with black, despite its slower nature, puts it somewhere in the middle.
This issue, for the most part, is due to the amount of common removal black has, offering three pieces of hard removal compared to one in other colors. This not only means that removal in the color will go much deeper in Draft, but you’ll typically open three times as much removal in black in Sealed.
If that weren’t enough, Crude Bent Blade is a power outlier on its own, being the absolute best common in the set. Not only does this card offer an Edict, but it also makes any of your creatures into a threat. Throw in artifact-sacrificing payoffs like Stir Up Trouble, or Mirkwood Nurturer to recur your Edict, and this card’s 60.9% win rate is higher than most rares.
On top of this, black’s creatures are also far more efficient than the rest of the format, with Goblin Plate Mail being a clear outlier. In addition to functioning as a growing Menace threat, this card can equip to other creatures in the late game, getting the final few points of damage across. Additionally, Rakdos’s incredible Amass cards, like Bothersome Noisemaker and Misty Mountains Raider, can easily snowball this equipment into an aggressive kill.
This all compounds to make Rakdos and Golgari extremely aggressive archetypes, pushing other strategies out of Sealed entirely. Blue, in particular, suffers here, since it has a lot of cards that are strong in games that go longer. With a vast majority of Sealed decks immediately defaulting to Rakdos, this is one of the worst Sealed formats in MTG history, and Draft, sadly, isn’t much better.
Playable, But Lacking
Unlike MTG’s other small sets in 2026, most archetypes in The Hobbit are playable in Draft, but you need to find the right cards. The exception for this is Rakdos and Golgari, whose strengths carry over from Sealed, but all the other archetypes have some issues.
For example, Boros Dwarves has the best rares in the set, but the archetype is too dependent on them. The archetype’s signpost cards, like Fili, the Pathfinder, An Unexpected Party, and Kili, the Resourceful, overwhelm the board while drawing cards, crushing aggressive decks with ease. Sadly, outside of these rares, the archetype’s Enduring Story mechanic means that Boros has a ton of common legendaries which, on top of being weak, create some deckbuilding issues.
The same is somewhat true for Azorius Recruit, as black forces the archetype’s scaling two drops to be under a lot of pressure. This means that cards like Master’s Councilors and Lakeshore Apothecary will be at an absolute premium, and may dry up quickly. Blue’s lack of good rares also hurts this archetype, but the ability to build a coherent strategy without chase rares makes it the best nonblack deck in the set.
The only supported color combination that is debatably unplayable in The Hobbit Draft is Simic, and the format’s aggression is to blame. Many of the archetype’s stronger rares, like Gigantic Big Bear and Radagast of Rhosgobel, get outsped here. Throw in a lack of efficient removal to keep up with aggressive starts, and this deck gets overwhelmed too easily.
Unfortunately, this leaves The Hobbit Limited being a rather poor experience for players. This will make competitive Limited events absolutely miserable, but on the bright side, this format won’t be around for too long. With Reality Fracture Prerelease scheduled for September 25th, The Hobbit Limited will only be around for a month and a half.
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