As LOTR Spoiler season for Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth continues to dominate the MTG community, more and more cards with unique applications continue being spoiled. Among these is a reference to The Hobbit that may have caught some players by surprise. Any who took a look at MTG designer Mark Rosewater’s teasers may have been able to figure this one out. In an unexpected twist, Smaug looks absolutely devastating in MTG’s newest set!
It doesn’t end there, though. Among the new Lord of the Rings cards are a series of abilities that seem extremely silly. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting spoilers that have surfaced!
There and Back Again
There and Back Again, previewed today, is a new Saga that details the events of Bilbo’s book written at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings adventure. For five mana, you get access to a Saga with three chapters.
Honestly, the first two modes of this Saga are nothing to get excited about. The first mode can help you get aggressive in Commander. The Ring tempting you is a nice bonus.
The second mode ramps you slightly. This, once again, is ok in a Commander context since games tend to go quite long. Notable here is that players do not need to find a Basic Mountain, but can instead find a Mountain card.
Finally, the third phase creates something insane: a 6/6 Legendary Dragon Creature token with Flying, Haste, and an incredible death trigger. When it dies, you create 14 Treasure tokens!
A five-mana Saga like this one that doesn’t have a major payoff until its third phase probably isn’t going to see play in competitive formats. With Commander as this card’s general context, the most efficient way to abuse Smaug may become creating copies of it. Helm of the Host can help create copies that won’t immediately die to the Legend Rule, but creating Legendary copies of the card is also perfectly fine.
Whether the Legend Rule kills it or something else does, every time one of your Smaugs die, you create 14 Treasure Tokens. This means that copy effects like Phantasmal Image and Clever Impersonator can be turned into 14 Treasure Tokens! Combine that with the new common that everyone is freaking out about and you can end games incredibly fast.
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant features a mediocre ability followed by something rather ridiculous. As we all know, Bilbo is a rather old Hobbit. In this sense, if you manage to celebrate Bilbo’s birthday with your life total, you get to put every single creature card in your library onto the battlefield! The catch? Bilbo is turning 111 in this case.
Even with Bilbo’s ability to grow your life gain by one in each instance, getting to 111 life from 40 is rather difficult. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes can help here. It will be pretty difficult to ultimate this Planeswalker, but doing so will reward you with 100 life and, hopefully, all of your creature friends to enjoy your birthday!
In this vein, the other easy way to get to 111 life is too, well, gain infinite life. Here are some infinite life combos available in Bilbo’s colors:
- Heartless Summoning + Sedgemoor Witch + Chain of Smog
- Cleric Class, Spirit Link + Triskelion (this is also infinite damage)
- Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista (this is also infinite damage)
- Kitchen Finks + Tribute to the World Tree + Sacrifice Outlet
- Preston the Vanisher + Wispweaver Angel + Distinguished Conjurer
- Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Kitchen Finks + Sacrifice Outlet
A New Three-Card Infinite
Samwise Gamgee may be bringing back a tired loop that MTG Arena players are scared of: Cauldron Familiar. Every time Cauldron Familiar enters the battlefield, Samwise triggers, creating a Food token. As long as you have some sort of repetitive free sacrifice outlet, like one of the many Altar artifacts, you can infinitely kill and resurrect your cat.
Copy All The Spells!
Another exciting Mythic Rare previewed today, Display of Power is a three-mana instant that copies any number of target instant or sorcery spells. Notably, the card itself cannot be copied, but Display of Power can either become a huge value payoff for your own cards, or can surprisingly steal other player’s cards on the stack.
This can create absolute mayhem during a big stack resolution. This card will allow you to copy every single instant and sorcery during a counterspell war, for example. Should this resolve (it can still be countered, just not copied), you could have your pick over what resolves and what gets countered.
Since it can counter any number of spells, this can be a funny way to pack some Storm hate. No matter how many Grapeshots your opponent resolves, you can copy all of those copies and have them kill the table before you die.
Read More: Powerful MTG LOTR Spoiler Shuts Down Free Spells!
Moria Marauder
This little Goblin does much more than it may look at first glance. For just two red mana, you get access to a creature that can Impulse draw (exile and allow you to play for a limited time) two cards every turn! All you need to do is get it to deal combat damage somewhere. Since Moria Marauder has Double Strike, you get to grab two new cards!
As such, Moria Marauder seems like a fantastic addition to Goblin Commander decks. Because of the amount of spot removal currently available in the Modern format, I’m not sure if Moria Marauder makes the cut there, but it could be a sideboard option against slower matchups where the card advantage matters more.
Double Legendary Tutor!
We did not get a picture of War of the Last Alliance in English, so allow me to translate this card’s abilities for you:
The first and second phases of War of the Last Alliance both allow to search for a Legendary Creature. The last phase gives all your creatures Double Strike until the end step and Tempts you with The Ring.
It’s tough to find a card that allows you to tutor for two cards. Even more difficult to come across is one that does this for just four mana! A variety of decks are going to want this, but Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful sticks out as a Commander that this card slots amazingly well with.
Read More: New MTG LOTR Spoiler Creates Two-Card Infinite Combo!
Forge Anew
Forge Anew is a really interesting card. Just one mana less, and this card would definitely see competitive play. At three mana, the card still offers a lot of potential to Hammertime archetypes in Modern and Legacy but is a little pricy. Chances are this is good enough to see some play there.
The card is also exciting in Commander. Reducing your first equip cost to zero and allowing you to move your equipment around at instant speed, Forge Anew can make it really difficult for opponents to attack into your Sword-themed deck. Imagine re-equipping one of your Swords at instant speed to give a creature protection from a removal spell!
What Will You Use?
These are only a few of the cards offered in the new Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set. If you’re interested in seeing some more, take a look here.
Honestly, even though this is a Modern-legal set, MTG’s latest Universes Beyond set definitely seems tailored to the Commander format. Some cards look incredibly powerful, but a lot of these cards look like interesting opportunities for MTG players to try something they haven’t able to try before.
Read More: MTG LOTR Spoiler Kickoff Unveils Multiple Incredible EDH Additions!
