Quick Links
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering has given us our first real look at the long-awaited crossover set Lord Of The Rings: Tales Of Middle-earth. Like most sneak preview reveals, this reveal doesn't explain any new mechanics. However, it did show off some of the alternate art we’ll see when we head to Middle-earth, as well as hints to a new mechanic known as “tempted by the Ring”.
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is the first booster set launched under Magic’s Universes Beyond crossover brand. Legal not just in Vintage, Legacy, and Commander, this is also a straight-to-Modern set, like the two Modern Horizons sets before it. Here's everything Wizards revealed in the ahead of its official debut this May - including, of all things, Bill the Pony.
Modern Legality
While Wizards has been upfront about Lord of the Rings’ Modern legality ever since it was revealed back in 2021, we got a few more details about what that woul🍬d ent🐷ail today.
The biggest thing is that, despite being a straight-to-Modern set like the two Modern Horizons, it will have a lower power level. This is because, according to communications director Blake Rasmussen, the set i🔴s designed more to simply be playable within a casualꩲ Modern environment, rather than the hard competitive focus of the earlier Modern sets
Despite not being made exclusively for Modern, it will include some cards made to fill holes within the format. One such card is Reprieve, a white counters🌸pell that lets you bounce spells back to your opponent’s hand while also drawing you cards.
Alongside Moder💫n, Tales of Middle-earth will also be fully playable on MTG Arena, and will be legal in bo🅺th Alchemy and Historic.
Playstyle
Aside from the unexplai😼ned reveal of “Tempted by the Ring”, no new mechanics were shown off in the sneak preview. However, we were given hints on how the set will play, including two of the main themes: legendary-matters, and Food tokens.
The first is an overarching theme of the set, with lots of cards, such as The Shire, caring about legendary permanents. There will also be lots of legendary creatures, with various cards representing the main ꧂cast of characters at different points of the story. For instance, though we have already seen Aragorn in the card Aragorn and Arwen, Wed; Rasmussen did hin🦄t that we may see a card showing Aragorn’s time as Strider as well.
As to what characters we might se in the set, Rasmussen hinted that “if you can name a character, it’s probably in the set”, even going so far as ꦍconfirming Samwise Gamgee’s loyal horse Bill the Pony will be putting in an appearance. We also saw Tom Bombadil, a book-only character who has become something of a meme in the Tolkien community that has been reinterpreted as a WUBRG Saga-matters commander.
The s✨econd theme is Food tokens, and this is implied to be more of a theme of how Hobbits and Hobbit-align💞ed cards will play, to fit their big appetites and famous feasts. We also saw this on The Shire, as you can pay mana and tap a creature to make a Food token. We can expect Food to be used in a number of ways throughout the set, likely centred in the Hobbit colours of white and green.
Notably, there is one big absence we’d normally expect from a Modern set: Planeswalkers. Rasmussen confirmed that we don’t be seeing any Planeswalker cards in this set, as Planeswalkers do not✨ exist within Middle-earth. This is despite both Adventures In The Forgotten Realms and Battle For Baldur’s Gate including them, even though Planeswalkers also don’t in the Forgotten Realms.
Art Treatments
Compared to some recent reꦇleases, like Phyrexia: All Will Be One, Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is being quite conservative in its alternate art treatments.
Alongside the regular versions, we&rsquo🥀;ll be seeing two styles. The first is known as the Ring Treatment, which places art within a circular frame akin to the One Ring itself. So far, the only🍒 cards we’ve seen with this style have been legendary creatures, such as Gandalf the Grey; Frodo, Bane of Sauron; and Golum, and Patient Plotter.
The second style is the Borderless Scene cards, which we first saw at Wizards Presents last August. Borderless Scene cards give you larger views of major events from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, spr✨ead across multiple, borderless cards. Wizards has confirmed that we’ll see seven scenes in the set (with𒉰 the Battle of Pelennor Fields and Mount Doom both already shown off.
Mount Doom consists of just four cards, however all 🐠four pieces will be included as promos in both types of Bundle, ensuring everyone can easily get their ha♋nds on at least one scene. These cards will also be found in Collector boosters in foil.
Lands will be getting one more treatment, with full-art basic lands that use the map of Middle-earth. For instance, the Swamp cards show off Mordor and the De❀ad Marshes, while the Plains focus on The Shire and Rohan. These will likely be found in all kinds of boosters, much like the full-art lands ꦉwe’ve seen in other recent sets.
Rings
It wouldn’t be a Lord of the Rings set without, well… the Rings. To that end, Wizards is doing something pr🐼etty special.
One of the most famous poems in the series is The Ring Verse, which states that there were “Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone”, and “nine for Mortal Men doomed to die”. To re꧋flect that, we’ll be getting three very limited editions of the Commander staple Sol Rong, with art to reflect each of these rings.
Found only in Collec🃏tor boosters, these Sol Rings are printed in the Elven Quenya language, and will be available in both nonfoil, nonserialised forms, and a much more limited ‘Double Rainbow Foil’ serialised form. The Elven ring will have 3000 of the former and 300 of the latter, the Dwarven ring 7000 and 700, and the Human ring 9000 and 900 each.
It’s important to note that this does not mean Sol Ring is suddenly becoming Modern-legal. It is beཧing included under the Commander-exclusive LTC set code reserved for box toppers and Commander precons, and therefoಞre isn’t considered part of the Tales of Middle-earth set itself.
Of course, there is also “one ring the rule them all”, which 🍬is the One Ring itself. This is not a Sol Ring, but instead the new One Ring card from the set itself. However, there will only be one serialised version of it available, and only one in existence. This card will be placed into an English-language Collector booster in the initial release of the set, ensuring whoever fi🌊nds it will immediately have one of the rarest, and potentially one of the most valuable, MTG cards ever released.
Commander
Although Modern has captured most people’s attention for this set, there will also be a huge number of goodiesඣ for Com🍨mander players.
Alongside the aforementioned Sol Rings, there will also be a number of box toppers – promo cards included as extras in booster boxes – that will be included under the larger Commander set. So far, the only cards revealed for box toppers have been reprints of The Great Henge, Wasteland, and Ensaring Bridge, as The Party Tree, Valley of Gorgoroth, and Bridge of Khazad-Dum respectively. We also saw the buy-a-box promo, Lorien Brooch, a reprint of Trailblazer&rsquo🌟;s Boots.
More importantly, we were also shown💝 the themes of all four of the set’s preconstructed Commander decks – though specific face cards were not revealed:
- The Hosts of Mordor is a blue, black, and red deck themed on the big bad of the series, Sauron.
- Elven Council is a blue and green deck that seems to not just care about Elves. If the card Radagast, Wizard of Wilds is anything to go by, this deck might also have a more generic ‘Wilds-matter’ theme, with it caring about both Beasts and Birds.
- Food And Fellowship is a white, black, and green deck based on the Fellowship of the Ring. Interestingly, this deck will have two face cards, with Sam, Loyal Attendant serving as a partner commander with the unrevealed Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit.
- Riders Of Rohan, a white, blue, and red deck. This I perhaps the deck we know least about, but in that colour identity we can expect this to at least have some Human component to it.
Starter Kit
No other set in Magic’s history is likely going to pull in newcomers to the game like this, so it makes absolute sense for Lord of the Rings to be the focal point of this year’s Starter Kit. Containing two 60-card preconstructed decks and a code t🌌o redeem them both on MTG Arena, it’s one of the easiest ways of starting Magic.
The face cards of both decks were revealed in the sneak preview. These cards are not exclusive to the S🔜tarter Kit, and will also be found inℱ the main set itself.
The first is A🍨ragorn and Arwen, Wed, a Human Elf Noble that cares about +1/+1 counters and gaining life in true white/green fashion. This will be especially good for go-wide decks, as just one attack with the pair can put a lot of counters on the board all at once.
Meanwhile the second deck features Sauron himself, with Sauron, the Lidless Eye. This deck lets you steal creatures, and has a pret🔴ty decent mana sink provided you can make enough black and red mana to drain your oppo𒀰nent.
Dates
As Magic still has to sort out its Phyrexian problem in March of the Machine, and come to terms with the multiversไe never being the same again in March of the Machine Aftermath, it is quite a while before we’ll see much more of Tales of Middle-earth.
Oꦗur next sneak preview of the set will be at MagicCon Minneapolis on March 5-7. After that, the full debut and preview season where we’ll see the full set will be from May 30꧙ to June 9.
Lord of The Rings: Tales Of Middle-earth launches on June 23, wit𝄹h the digital release on MTG Arena coming three days earlier, on June 20.