As The Hobbit’s multi-week spoiler season continues, it’s slowly becoming clear just how strong the reprint suite for this set is. Taking the opportunity to reprint both high-demand and low-supply cards from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, The Hobbit is being absolutely packed with value.
Sadly, while the reprints here are quite enticing, the supply and demand issue for these cards is unlikely to be fixed. Because these cards are appearing as box toppers in The Hobbit, they won’t be available in the main set. Despite this, however, these reprints will still go a long way in making MTG The Hobbit booster box openings more exciting.
MTG Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress
Originally appearing in the Flight of the Witch-King Scene Box, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress is a fantastic addition to black Commander decks that want to deal combat damage. Giving a creature of your choice Shadow to make it effectively unblockable, Commanders like Obeka, Splitter of Seconds, and The Infamous Cruelclaw can trigger their abilities safely without worrying about blockers.
While this is the main use of this Lord of the Rings land, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress also turns your Shadowed creature into a Wraith. This can both help Lord of the Nazgul build towards its condition to make all your Wraiths 9/9s, or can grow additional creatures off Nazgul triggers.
Thanks to giving permanent Shadow as a utility land, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress is an extremely popular Commander card, appearing in 69,100 decks according to EDHREC. Considering its popularity and its scarcity, it’s no wonder that this card currently has a reprint value of $22.
MTG Anduril, Narsil Reforged
From the Aragorn at Helm’s Deep Scene Box, Anduril, Narsil Reforged offers a rather simple effect that scales extremely quickly. Granting a +1/+1 counter to all your creatures on attack, Narsil, Blade Reforged works best in go-wide equipment decks like Chisiro, the Shattered Blade or Sokka and Suki.
Of course, Anduril can synergize with far more decks than just go-wide strategies. +1/+1 counter decks like Shalar and Hallar or Marchesa, the Black Rose can turn Anduril into a wave of damage or resurrections, respectively. Since Anduril’s trigger occurs on attack, you can even double it with Isshin, Two Heavens as One, putting as many as four +1/+1 counters on your team.
With so many different uses, it’s no wonder that Anduril, Narsil Reforged sees play in 57,000 different decks according to EDHREC. Making things worse, outside of the Scene Box, Anduril is only available in the extremely expensive Special Edition Collector Boosters, pushing Anduril, Narsil Reforged’s price point to $17.
MTG Witch-King, Bringer of Ruin
While many of the high reprint values among these box toppers are a mix of supply and function, Witch-King, Bringer of Ruin $13 reprint value is purely a scarcity issue. The card can do work in Wraith Typal decks, or with attack doublers like Isshin, but killing one opponent’s smallest creature on attack is not worth the six mana investment.
Printed exclusively in Lord of the Rings starter decks, Witch-King, Bringer of Ruin is only available in the Lord of the Rings Starter Kit and in regular Collector Boosters, making it much harder to find than necessary. Considering this card’s poor gameplay value, this reprint could have a chance of knocking this card’s price down, even if its the reprint is scarce in and of itself.
MTG Mount Doom
While not as exciting as the previous reprints, Mount Doom is still a legendary land that gives Rakdos Commander decks some free value. The life-pinging effect is particularly strong with a fair few different popular choices, like Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls or Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin. Even the life loss that you take from using Mount Doom’s mana ability has some synergy with Rowan, Scion of War.
On top of synergizing with life loss shenanigans, Mount Doom can double as removal so long as you’re running some legendary artifacts in your decks. This makes the card an instant add in any legendary matters decks like Sisay, Weatherlight Captain, or in Ring Temping decks like Sauron, the Dark Lord that can turn any artifact creature into a legendary one.
With its wide array of different uses, it should come as no shock that Mount Doom sees play in an astounding 120,000 different decks according to EDHREC. Despite this massive play rate, however, Mount Doom has a moderate reprint value of $7.50.
MTG Flame of Anor
While it’s the least exciting card here in terms of its $4 reprint value, Flame of Anor is an extremely popular MTG card. Since Wizards are a plentiful creature type, Flame of Anor sees Modern and Legacy play, often acting as a lethal two-for-one in postboard games. Alongside these formats, this card is also commonly found in Fuel Commander, cEDH, and Commander, too.
Appearing in over 86,100 decks, this instant is extremely popular with powerful Wizards like Vivi Ornitier and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist. While this may not be the most exciting reprint to open, the artwork for this Flame of Anor is absolutely gorgeous, giving you some style points in one of your many Wizard decks.
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