That prerelease was probably the most wholesome mtg experience ive ever had. Like 70 people packed into my LGS playspace. The store owners were stoked. The people varried from old players to young kids, all either in love with mtg or lotr, and all of us falling a little bit more for both.
My whole pod was there, we had all gotten subway before hand and we ate it at the back table as we cracked bundles and oggled at our copies of the one ring. I remember my first pack had Bill the Pony, and we all cheered at the fellowships MVP.
People dressed up, and there were little kids running between our feet, laughing. Every alt art, rare, and legendary creature pulled from a pack was celebrated by the whole space. The joy was infectious. They even had the extended edition dvd on the old tube tv in the back of the room as we played. The vibes were unmatched.
It felt like Bilbo's birthday. I'll never forget it.
I'll point out something that I haven't seen anyone talk about in the thread yet: For the first time since 2001, we got a massive amount of Lord of the Rings artwork that doesn't take inspiration from the Peter Jackson films.
I love the films, but they are just one (very well done) interpretation of the books. As a big Tolkien fan, it was pretty awesome to get hundreds of new interpretations of what Lord of the Rings could look like.
As a Universes Beyond set, I think the original art was a big part of the set's success with me. It was nice to pull magic cards with Legolas and Aragorn on them, not Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen
I think not taking too much visual inspiration from the films was a huge win as well. I love the films and their aesthetic but it was so refreshing to see a new interpretation. I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t more standout beautiful pieces but I think the art direction was a major part of helping the set stand out.
> I'll point out something that I haven't seen anyone talk about in the thread yet: For the first time since 2001, we got a massive amount of Lord of the Rings artwork that doesn't take inspiration from the Peter Jackson films.
[LOTR LCG](https://www.ringsdb.com/) which has been releasing content since 2011 says oof.
Bit of a tangent from the thread, but in light of this take (which I wholeheartedly agree with) I'm curious what your opinion is on *The Hobbit* entering the public domain in nine years?
My favorite set. Although the massive influx of UB sets has been a bit much for me, LotR was easily the best of them in my opinion. Fun cards to play with, incredible flavor, and my LotR-only Nazgul commander deck has been a ton of fun. I'm still working on collecting the whole set, but overall I feel very positive about it
You made the right choice. Although, you could play all nine Nazgul cards and just never have the ninth one and The Witch King on board simultaneously and that would still be a flavor win I think.
I am having a similar conundrum…I got all 9 Nazgul but now I don’t think I’m going to slot them all into my Sauron deck because it’ll pretty drastically change the amass/Ressurection theme I’ve got going on.
Toying with the idea of a Golgari Gollum deck featuring all the Nazgul.
I'm very curious to see how the Final Fantasy and multiple Marvel UB sets compare. Yes they don't fit the "feel" of magic thematically, LOTR still set the bar high.
Full tentpole set announced [back in 2022](https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/magic-the-gathering-game/news/magic-the-gathering-final-fantasy-assassins-creed-universes-beyond)! Draftable and modern legal.
Curious what decks you've made! So far I've only put together two: the obvious Hobbits food deck that basically builds itself, and a super-janky WU deck with Watcher in the Water, Faramir, Prince of Ithilien, and Rosie Cotton. Somehow I pulled five Watcher in the Water (not a single One Ring or Bowmasters) so I figured I should make the best of it.
I also have my eye on an Izzet Gandalf deck and a monoblack Nazgul deck that I can't afford.
My group plays at a high level casual. So former standard decks, downtweaked modern/pioneer decks, etc.
Golgari Gollum - [https://manabox.app/decks/BwJKVggbRNa242iYywN8Kw](https://manabox.app/decks/BwJKVggbRNa242iYywN8Kw)
Grixis Lords of the Nazgul - [https://manabox.app/decks/MHqi7TGOQm2bzqEmevUsVQ](https://manabox.app/decks/MHqi7TGOQm2bzqEmevUsVQ)
Selesnya For the Shire! - [https://manabox.app/decks/Pq1k5RLkQGe\_GMw-XJVnZg](https://manabox.app/decks/Pq1k5RLkQGe_GMw-XJVnZg)
Boros Rohan - [https://manabox.app/decks/vmAcrbp9Q56V7SZf28UzeQ](https://manabox.app/decks/vmAcrbp9Q56V7SZf28UzeQ)
Grixis Mordor Control - [https://manabox.app/decks/v-00rGhwSOqQ5wW7v2jWBA](https://manabox.app/decks/v-00rGhwSOqQ5wW7v2jWBA) (work in progress - if I don't land bowmasters this deck sucks so I may abandon card draw counter spells)
Abzan Let's get Frodo to Mordor - [https://manabox.app/decks/ufIpgeOOR--bRO\_pyhvSnA](https://manabox.app/decks/ufIpgeOOR--bRO_pyhvSnA)
Bant Elves - [https://manabox.app/decks/M7he0G1LSS2duDZxiI5heQ](https://manabox.app/decks/M7he0G1LSS2duDZxiI5heQ)
Trying to build Bombadil - [https://manabox.app/decks/uvxeiM5\_SfCZvRHhhinYLQ](https://manabox.app/decks/uvxeiM5_SfCZvRHhhinYLQ)
Selesnya Aragorn leads the Company - [https://manabox.app/decks/uxevNpQLQaCU6ekfNs7VoQ](https://manabox.app/decks/uxevNpQLQaCU6ekfNs7VoQ)
I love the thematic deck titles. Golgari Gollum, Selesnya For the Shire!, and Grixis Mordor Control were my favorite names although Abzan Let's Get Frodo to Mordor deserves an honorable mention.
I'm intending to make an Azorius Kingdom of Gondor deck, the intent is a lot of defender cards like [[Rammas Echor]], [[Wall of Omens]], a few cards to flicker like [[Ephemerate]], and finishing it off with [[Aragorn, King of Gondor]].
And another I'm intending is a Legions of the Eye deck. Might be Rakdos, might go Grixis for a splash for Sauron. Mental roadblocks because im staunchly anti-orc lol
Really want to try Rainbow Hobbits using all the "name a creature type" lands, but I'm lacking inspiration right now for it.
Of course! If you like any of them but are interested in a lower budget, I can give suggestions!
A lot of my more expensive cards are remnants of when I used to play modern like the lands
definitely looking for lower budget suggestions. Doesn't have to be pauper level, but trying to keep decks at <=$30. That certainly rules out the nazgul deck, but I won't be making that one.
Try out the For the Shire one, that deck slaps aggressively for around $30. If you ditch the Horizon Canopies that should get the deck to be around $20
1. Similar. It looked good, and it was.
2. The Ring Tempts You is too complex, but otherwise I quite liked the set's mechanics.
3. All good. Going in, I didn't know much about LOTR beyond the movies, but this has done well to build on that.
4. I enjoyed playing it in Limited, and I've been incorporating cards from it into cubes since then.
5. I don't care about Constructed, but Bowmasters and The One Ring sound annoying for Modern. Did you copy/paste this question and leave in the mention of Standard?
6. I think the legendary creatures are really cool in general, but my favorite ones to play with have been ones working in the token theme like [[Mordor Trebuchet]] and [[Mirkwood Bats]]. However, [[Old Man Willow]]'s power level bugs me.
7. Polarizing. People who like it will keep liking it, people who hate it will keep piling on more of that hate. I have to imagine there will be a time when some people look back on LTR as the golden age of UB, which is funny to think about.
8. I don't like how Bilbo and Pippin's colors were so inconsistent between LTR and LTC.
> The Ring Tempts You is too complex, but otherwise I quite liked the set's mechanics.
"The Ring Tempts You" was a mechanic designed by Sauron and Saruman and nothing can convince me otherwise.
"Look at how good being tempted by the ring is - there's no downside. It just keeps getting better and better! The more you're tempted the happier you'll be. Tempt everyone, and then tempt them 3 more times each..."
This was even something that maro talked about when the set was being revealed. Tempt originally had actual downsides to it, but they didn’t like the play patterns that brought. It was a flavor issue that they had to concede on in order to make the gameplay more enjoyable
The problem is that the implementation that we got still sucks. It fails at flavour from multiple angles. Kill an opponent's ringbearer and you don't get to claim it and start using it against them. There's no "chase" for the ring. Each player can simply have a ringbearer, who will all merrily do their own thing. And, even more frustrating, it does absolutely nothing with The One Ring. The literal Ring does not tempt you.
Plus, the progress chain of "The ring tempts you" is just an overly complex mess. You really need the card on hand to be able to use the mechanic because, like the initiative, it's an unintuitive mish-mash of abilities that they couldn't arrange into something elegant and fitting, so they vomited every idea they had for it onto a reminder card and left it for the players to muddle through.
MaRo saying the ring having downsides created bad play patterns says to me they should have gone back to zero and tried something new. Because you can't go "oh, I'm making chocolate chip cookies, but the chocolate chips weren't good so we just left them out." What you get might taste fine, but they aren't chocolate chip cookies, and no one coming across a plate of them would recognize them as such.
I have tried so many times to articulate what I disliked about the mechanic, and I think you hit on almost all of it better than I could. Well stated.
The only thing I'll add is the one phrase I kept coming back to: *it felt like doing homework.* Even aside from flavor, it wasn't fun to play. It was like they didn't have chocolate chips *or sugar* in their chocolate chip cookies.
Yeah the ring tempts you mechanic actively made me like the set less than I would have otherwise. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense thematically and plays horribly. Tnx for putting into words what I’ve been feeling 🖤
I mean I kind of disagree with him: they *chose* to concede on it. They've talked about how downside mechanics are disliked (except for the ones that aren't...), but I do think they did both the flavor *and* the gameplay a disservice by making the ring tempting you entirely upside.
The Lord of the Rimgs set is why I play Magic at all.
I started 2 months ago when I found out about it, bought all 4 then started modding them.
I'm locked in, stuck on this game now. Can't stop buying singles to try out to save my life!
Late welcome to cardboard crack. Please try to just have (and stick to) a budget! The four commander precons are hella fun (though I have didn't get the elf one) from my experience playing with em.
Same, but started playing a month or so after the set was released. Just finished reorganizing my LTR cards tonight actually.
WotC got me, I play Magic at my LGS weekly now and I go to every prerelease I can.
As a player who is very cEDH-brained, i have to say that, although there is no one culprit, LOR and the printing of [[Orcish Bowmasters]], The One Ring, and [[Lotho, Corrupt Bandit]], along with [[Born Upon a Wind]] and [[Delighted Halfling]] all contribute their part into creating a midrange hell where every deck is flooded with Tier 0 value engines that profit off every play. Specifically the TOR is the biggest offender because it went straight into every deck.
I agree 100% with this. I'm a "casual" cEDH player (I play cEDH FNM but don't do tournaments), but I personally despise the One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters especially. The rest are bad as well, but I feel they're not *quite* as universal/obnoxious as those two.
The One Ring was just a massive blunder.
Lotho isn't a hate piece, he's a value engine. Everyone wants to be double spelling, so he's going to generate a crap ton of treasures over a 2-3 turn cycle.
I think it's a fantastic set and the only successful UB to me. But I still wish it wasn't modern legal, I really.hate that it started precedent for that
I think it was an above average set in general, I mostly play commander and liked the new cards, though I do hate "the ring tempts you" outside of Arena, I find tracking these kinda mechanics very annoying.
My takeaway as well. I have an all-LOTR card [[Aragorn, king of Gondor]] commander deck, and there are good cards I deliberately did not put in the deck because I cannot be bothered to mess with the ring tempting mechanic. Explaining it to newer players is a nightmare. Why they did not just do a "draw a card and lose 2 life" type of mechanic or anything more simple, I will never know.
> Why they did not just do a "draw a card and lose 2 life" type of mechanic or anything more simple, I will never know.
It's almost appalling how much better that would have been, lol.
Absolutely love it, and I have a Sauron Commander deck that is rocking all the goofy, illegible art cards I can fit from the Winter rerelease. Big, BIG fan.
1. More favorable. I've found that the more that I play with the cards, the more fun I have with them. I was already enjoying the set, but I keep finding more gems.
2. The mechanics were mostly fine. I am probably in the minority in saying I like the Ring Tempts You, and I love food in all forms.
3. I think the art and flavor are spot on and some of the best. The lore and adaptation of ideas is consistent with Tolkien's writings, and hits on a lot of the themes he does in the books. There are a few odd things, like Bilbo's colors not being consistent between versions, and Glorfindel feeling a little weak for a character who is as notably powerful as he is but that's fine.
4. I think the limited environment was fun. I enjoyed it a lot, personally, even if it was unbalanced in favor of black.
5. This set was a bombshell for both 60 card constructed and Commander. I don't play Modern anymore, so I can't speak personally on the effects, but there certainly has been a large Commander impact, and I keep seeing cards pop up in my local Pauper and Legacy events. Also, Cube. My cube has a handful of the more powerful cards in it and players seem to enjoy them. I think it had mostly positive impacts, save for The One Ring, but I think that there's a certain subset of the community that has blown the negative impacts out of proportion BECAUSE it is a UB set.
6. I think my favorite cards from the main set are \[\[Goldberry, River-Daughter\]\], \[\[Nazgûl\]\], and the \[\[Horn of Gondor\]\]. From the Commander set, my favorites are \[\[Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles\]\], \[\[Rapacious Guest\]\], and \[\[Motivated Pony\]\]. I could probably write an essay on why I love Goldberry, honestly, and I might sometime. She's one of those weird little cards that just checks something in my brain that makes me happy because it is so wholly unique.
7. I think that over time it will be remembered well, but there will always be a vocal subset of haters that will keep loudly banging that drum.
8. I like 3 of the 4 Commander decks quite a bit. I think that the Elves deck just didn't quite work. It had some good cards in it, and some great land reprints, but overall what it was trying to do didn't feel well supported.
I had 2 good friends that I couldn't get into magic for the longest time. LotR set comes and I say "this is it, this is the time, get on arena and learn, you bastards are going to a pre-release". Both are big Tolkein fans, they learned the game, enjoyed it, played the prerelease, also enjoyed it, bought commander decks, and loved it.
Flash forward one year, both are still playing. They've got others to play too. Other than we've all spent too much money on magic since, I'd say it was a huge success, and thanks in very large part to this set.
Also, the flavor of this set was fantastic, I don't think anything will ever beat it. (Ring tempts you aside).
My feelings are “This set was bad for MTG, and WotC did that entirely to sell more product”.
The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters should never have been printed. They are so blatantly obviously power crept to sell packs. They’re not even fun to play in the limited environment, they’re just broken. They’ve irreparably warped every format they’re legal in, and in a way that I do not agree is positive. I *fucking hate* playing against The One Ring in modern. If I can’t counter it, the game’s basically just over, and not in an interesting way.
What I dislike about The One Ring the most is that it's one of those cards that you can throw into a lot of decks and it will make them better, with no real restrictions. Amulet Titan? Throw 4 rings in there. Omnath? 4 rings. Tron? Rings. Control? Rings. Hardened Scales? Rings. That's bad design if you ask me.
Edit: Not to mention that it can fit in virtually any commander deck
This is so wildly inaccurate. Meta decks in modern are not considering price.
The card is too powerful, I agree there. But to say itd be in 98% of decks if not for the price is just absurd
u/StereoZombie was certainly talking about modern. However I believe u/VoiceofKane chimed in with a comment about commander. You responded to u/VoiceofKane.
Hardened Scales doesn't play rings. Looking at the meta on mtggoldfish, the only decks with >1% metashare that run ToR are Titan, Omnath, UW, Coffers, and Tron. Together they account for ~15% of the meta. Yes a new set has just released and there's a PT upcoming, but it's certainly not the oppressive card every deck jams that it was initially. There are far more problematic cards in Modern.
While overall I dislike the LotR set, it's silly to blame it for Bowmasters. While clearly pushed for Modern, the card isn't Tolkein themed, and would no doubt have appeared in MH2.5 or whatever they'd done last year if they hadn't made LOTR.
I feel the exact same way and I'm an absolutely massive LoTR fan both of the movies, novels, and all of the mythology but I still hate Magic becoming a hodgepodge of other IP soup. It's why I'm never going to play modern in any focused way.
Coherent games and universes don't dump other worlds into their games. Do you see Warhammer doing this? No they focus on enhancing their world. Doctor who? No. Magic shouldn't be a dumping ground to advertise the newest assassin's creed or final fantasy game. Same with Marvel properties. It's lazy and uninspired.
I agree, though I do think that LotR and W40k were the least egregious additions to MTG. At least those two IPs feel like they could exist in a magic set with some name swaps.
Even then, I think it's a misstep. Including other IPs just dilutes the brand and makes MTG feel less distinct.
I don't think two cards being too much means an entire set should be canned. Hate the cards by all means, but unless the set featured a great amount of it, such as affinity in Mirrodin or Eldrazi in Oath of the Gatewatch, where its absence would've changed the set's feel greatly, don't pan the entire set when the cards' absence or design change wouldn't have changed anything of the overall feel.
The problem is this was a straight to Modern set, and unless Wizards fired everyone that knows how to play Magic, they knew very well that 2-3 cards were going to completely overwhelm the format. The set could have been made without those cards, or it could have been made not direct-to-modern. Wizards specifically told us that this set was slightly below Modern power level, and then printed the Ring and Bowmaster.
So yes, the set as printed was a mistake that Wizards should stop making. They've already ruined Commander by direct printing outrageous value, they should keep it there and not do the same thing to Modern.
As someone who plays a lot of Arena, the two cards that have made their way into almost every unskilled hack's deck are The One Ring and even more ever-present is [[Palantír of Orthanc]]. I can't tell you how often I've seen an opponent turn 3 Palantir.
Any W or G deck has to include artifact removal for these two alone.
I really appreciated the draft format. It's an important lesson on the importance of color balance in Limited. Hint: it's a lot less important than most people think.
For those who didn't draft it, the power difference (especially at common) between black and green was *heinous.* Black was the best color, red and blue were quite good, white was good when paired with red, and green was essentially unplayable. But the numbers, black's middle performing common was better than green's best common. LSV somewhat infamously drafted a very, very good version of the blue/green Scry deck (we're talking multiple rare payoffs, at least one in multiples) at the Pro Tour and was promptedly smashed by three very unremarkable nongreen decks.
But you know what? It was still a really fun, really deep draft environment. Once everyone learned to avoid green, there were a ton of cool decks that did different, interesting things. Most people remember the format fondly, despite its obvious flaw. And that's grand.
It was the one MUB set I was looking forward to, and the fact it still somehow didn't click with me actually turned me on the concept of MUB more broadly. I used to mock people for catastrophizing over MUB cards showing up every game, but now that it's happened it does feel awful.
Every character having sixteen Legend cards hurt the worldbuilding and it hurt the characters.
Limited gameplay was flawed, but a ton of fun.
The one-of-one Ring was awful and crass and while it isn't actually the cause it's still become emblematic in my mind of WotC changing this game from a game first to a tawdry collectible with a game attached.
Not really a fan. The set was mostly forgettable aside from the two broken cards that have warped every format they’re in around them. But not too objectionable other than that—just kinda meh.
The one thing that really bothered me was that they printed five different versions of the same characters, which makes it so hard to remember the names of each card and what card does what. I think it’s part of why I found the set so forgettable—none of the important characters had a single standout card that can be easily identified. One of the Aragorns cares about colors, one about monarch—are they the same one? I don’t think so? What are their names? Who can remember? One of the Gimlis care about treasure—or do more than one? No idea! Bilbo turned eleventy-one on one of the cards! That one I can even remember the name of because it has the word birthday in it. But no idea what the UR Bilbo does. Etc. Really just left me shaking my head and caring about none of the set at all.
Each of the main characters goes through a journey, if you will, of themselves. Aragorn goes from a ranger to a king. Gandalf being grey going to white. Hobbits have a change. Etc. So it makes sense.
Had it been a digital-only set, almost more a cube than a full "set release", I'd have loved it.
A few drafts were really fun, captured the flavour of the series really well and going "Hobbit Food Beatdown" or "Rohirrim Deck" was awesome.
The more I played it, the less fun I found it - the draft environment didn't have longevity with how unbalanced it was, and some of the cards (Bowmasters, One Ring, Forth Eorlingas) I actively dislike for how generically strong they are. I get you'll always have better cards than others, but they feel pushed to the point of "we need some *truly* busted shit to sell the packs, so let's just turn up every single lever".
To be fair, I also feel similarly about the likes of Sheoldred or Atraxa as I do One Ring/Bowmasters (pushed =/= interesting to play with/against) but the power disparity between the busted cards and, well, the rest is obscene.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but this set really killed what enjoyment in commander I had left. I really dislike when the best in slot card for a theme is suddenly from an IP I don't care much about. One Ring in every deck and multiple cards bumped out others for best in slot.
Then with the subsequent Doctor Who set later that year, I just stopped showing up for commander. With at least LotR set I knew stuff about the cards, Dr.Who just doesn't interest me one bit, I didn't have time to read all the cards from it with the other more important sets to me coming out, and a whole edh table filled with LotR and Dr.Who commanders just broke my immersion and enjoyment.
I've played against, I think the necron precon, once. Should be the graveyard one if I am remembering correctly, and I was floored with how powerful it was when the player told me it was straight out of the box.
It's kinda crazy they couldn't take a theme from magic lore and do the same idea, and instead we just get commander precons with cards of mixed spells of various different planes and such. Like if we are going to get unique card power creep, why not keep it in the brand as well?
1. Less favorable, as an extension of a general souring on universes beyond products.
2. Ring tempts is overly complicated for no real payoff, food tokens already existed, and amass already existed.
3. Flavor and lore fits good. The art didn’t feel Lord of the Rings to me, and there wasn’t a single character who’s art I could recognize without being told it was LotR art first
Edit: forgot about Tom Bombadil, 10/10 on him
4. Played it once at prerelease, had a good time
5. Negatively for sure. As much as a lot of cards were and are great includes, orcish bowmasters and the one ring are simply absurd. Bowmasters hates 1 toughness creatures out of any format it can be played in, and the one ring goes in literally every deck that can run it
6. Favorite is peregrine took, love me some dumb token nonsense. Least favorite is the already mentioned one ring and bowmasters
7. Well it’s relevance won’t go away unless either it’s cards get banned or the entire game power creeps into something unrecognizable, not sure about fondness though
8. Never played with or against them, but they seem fine I guess
Like anything, there were benefits and detriments to the set.
**Benefits**
- It was a huge success commercially. The set brought in a lot of money, new players, and even old players.
- It added unique cards to almost every format. Even a grumpy walker like me had to add [[Horn of Gondor]] into my Kyler Humans deck.
- The flavor was on point.
- It is still fun. My local cube group had a Draft of it like two months ago and everyone enjoyed it.
**Detriments**
- The Golden Ticket Effect. The 1 of 1 The One Ring and other rare variants were an obvious cash grab. This does cheapen the game and experience when whales are buying it solely for a single card and literally throwing out countless product that could have been repurposed, like donations.
- The Power Creep. See everyone else's comments on The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters, or for Arena players the Palantír of Orthanc.
- The Fortnite Effect. I'm old enough to remember when Lord of the Rings had its own collectible card game. I'm old enough to remember when LotR had a second ccg based on the movies. Now, whole properties are just Magic sets. While I saw the waste that was the mid-90s and early 00s CCG scenes, it still feels weird to me that you can have a Commander pod of LotR, Warhammer 40k, Fallout, and Doctor Who, and that's Magic, Baby!
From a competitive perspective, it wasn't great. Limited format was pretty imbalanced color-wise and bomby. The Ring Tempts You was too strong in limited, has essentially no impact in constructed, and is tedious to keep track of. And most of the power is tied up in just a few cards that don't really have much to do with LotR. The land cyclers and Bowmasters are generic designs that could exist in any set and are just pushed on rate. The One Ring is a win on flavor due to being powerful and desirable but that's about it...kinda miserable as a card that sees play.
Overall I'd say it has been a negative for competitive constructed and wasn't a good limited format. Maybe it's still worth it for the joy it brings to people who love LotR and don't judge magic cards based on how strong they are or the play patterns they create.
Thematically it was A Universes Beyond set that made sense. This is important to everyone, but it is to some of us. I've got virtually no interest in most of the Universe Beyond sets, but I was excited for the Lord of the Rings one.
The product offerings were... hit and miss. They did what WotC has been doing too much of lately: releasing ridiculous amounts of product with much of it being premium-themed with premium pricing, but they did have some options which were affordable, even if they still felt expensive.
Playwise it was fun in Sealed. I didn't do draft but I'm sure it would have been fun. The family has been doing a lot of set-only constructed formats and the set is internally very playable but I'm not sure of its impact on other formats.
My initial opinion was favorable, nothing has really changed that. If anything, other Universes Beyond sets have caused me to regard it with more favor.
Im kinda tired about orcish bowmasters but other than that I like the cards :)
Edit: I like card draw hate effects, but bowmaster is TOO good. Two mana for two bodies and a ping would already be above the curve. The fact that it sits there pinging and growing the army is kinda nuts. It could have easily been a three mana card and be fair and balanced.
But then it wouldnt be the number 1 creature in modern, and a staple in every other format its legal in, which Im guessing is what Wizard wanted by releasing the set directly to moderm.
I don't like the fundamental concept of UB, so this set had that going against it for me. I was primed to dislike it. On the other hand, I am a LotR fan, so there was some hope. Ultimately, it went over about as good as a UB set can go in that regard. I begrudgingly found the cards to be a really strong representation of the source material.
I really enjoyed a lot of the individual cards from a Mel perspective: the flavor and mechanics meshed really well. A notable example is the Eowyn 1R smiting spell that can one-shot the Witch-King. Super cool.
There's one big giant elephant-in-the-room exception: The Ring Tempts You might be my least favorite MtG mechanic since I started playing (late 2018). It's an *awful* flavor fit, it felt like I had to do research mid-game to figure out what my opponent could do, it was terrible to track, and the balance felt off when you could stack a bunch of ring tempting together. An all-around mess of a mechanic that never once improved the gameplay experience for me, and which frequently made it worse. I'm a limited junkie, and I was done with this set after about 20 drafts because I hated Ring Tempting so damn much.
So for starters I like more cards, but I just don't like UB. I'm not going to like UB. I know this opinion has become part of the minority all of a sudden, but yeah. Even then, I think LOTR was the worst draft/premier set that came out last year and I don't think it was close. (Aftermath and Doctor Who are worse but they're not close). I think UB only hits if the IP is resonant to you personally, and I am not a big fan of LOTR. Which is kind of what bugs me about UB - every magic player likes magic cards, not every magic player likes LOTR so it leaves feel bad. I think this was more pronounced for me in Doctor Who (which to a non-fan just seems stupid), but still present here. I was hoping MH3 had some UW reprints but I guess not.
I think the set should not have been modern legal. We have a pathway for getting nonstandard cards into modern and its through Modern Horizons. I feel like one of the things they (they might be people who like UB and not wizards) were saying to get on board is that UB was going to be a casual/commander/legacy thing, and don't worry cause you're not playing those, but that seemed to have been broken immediately. They said, oh don't worry you don't have to play them ever, but that isn't the case anymore if I want to play modern. At least they were clear about LOTR's legality - I still am not 100% sure on Assassins Creed's legality. Plus a lot of the cards that are good in Modern, you know the ones, are just kind of not fun.
I think that if you need to make 3-5 versions of every legend, there might not have been enough source material. Or at least, they didn't do a good job mining it. There are so many Frodos and Gandalfs man, its hard to keep track.
The Ring Tempts You is a bad mechanic. Its in the same vein as Venture and Initiative and it sucks. Its hard to track for not enough payoff. Its weird they keep doing these types of mechanics when I don't really ever hear anything great about them? Maybe they poll well with the non-enfranchised but this doesn't seem like the thing that would.
I think the draft format was fine. It different, but with The Ring Tempts You being a big blight on the format and, as far as I could tell, the format not being all that balanced, I got bored of it fairly quickly.
It wasn't all bad. I like the changes to Amass. But still, I was not a fan.
Your summary of modern is certainly interesting. The One Ring might be one of the more egregious design mistakes in recent memory. I'm less receptive to complaints about Bowmasters. x/1 creatures are supposed to be fragile, if they were meant to be difficult to kill, they'd have been printed with more toughness.
Aside from these two power outliers, the set is mostly positive. Limited was fun and replayable, despite being one of the more wildly unbalanced formats in terms of colour in recent memory. Lucky there was a lot of cool stuff to do in Grixis colours I guess. The flavour didn't feel out of place in MTG at all, which I have my doubts we'll be able to say about the onslaught of Marvel content we're sure to be buried under.
This is coming at it from the perspective of a Tolkien reader more than as an MTG player.
I still think, despite the overarching fantasy realm elements, Magic's aims and mechanics are an awful fit for Tolkien's deeply spiritual and meaningful legendarium. And there wasn't any attention paid to the meaning of the story to offset that mismatch.
Still think it was a great set flavor wise. The Gameplay was fun enough, though also not comparable to something like say Neon Dynasty Limited or Battle for Baldues Gate Limited.
The One Ring was probably to strong as it was designed, but it is what it is.
Overall, it was like a solid B kinda set. Good but not great.
I know this isn't as important to players but that set has maybe my favorite art of the whole game. I think it's probably the best LOOKING set ever, in my opinion.
For one thing, as a long term LotR fans, seeing brand new designs of these characters was so exciting. The movies are obviously fantastic, but seeing LotR that was doing its own thing was great. \[\[Galadriel, Elven-Queen\]\], \[\[Sauron, the Dark Lord\]\], \[\[Éowyn, Shieldmaiden\]\] and \[\[Aragorn, the Uniter\]\] were some highlights. That LotR is already fantasy meant that it fit in Magic really well too, it wasn't too out of place. Plus, they turned Goldberry into a blonde curvy queen! How can you not love that?
Additionally, the alt arts are absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I can't even link them because I'd end up just linking all of them! This set really made Andreas Zafiratos and Dominik Mayer my favorite artists of the game. They have such a unique, creepy vibe, the way they're hyper focused around the center of the art, the use of the cards colors, my god- there's even Elvish on the border! Here's
Again I know it's not as important as mechanics or anything but I just wanted to mention that because I'm not sure anyone else will. I hope I'm wrong!
That's really interesting, because I felt like a majority of the set felt super generic to me, to the point where I would not identify 90% of it as LotR without card titles and general context to match the art.
The ring, Gollum cards, and Minis Tirith/White Tree/Gondor insignia are identifiable, but like almost everything else could have been from anywhere or anything vaguely high fantasy. I seem to remember Elrond especially felt unidentifiable even with full context, just a vaguely elf-ish man casting vaguely magical swirls around him.
Stellar set. Lots of really cool and powerful cards, and is in my opinion what every UB set should be: Cool and interestingly designed cards tied to an IP that is adjacent in flavor to MTG.
In terms of its impact on formats, I can't believe that the one ring hasn't been banned in commander yet. I think cards that make every deck in a format better should be, at the very least, looked at and considered for banning. The RC is probably not interested because its an expensive card and not everyone will want to spend a bunch of money to buy one or more for their decks. However, in my own (admittedly biased) experience, every single game I play at an LGS, someone drops this card, whether that is in a high powered table, or a precon where they cut a card to slot it in.
I like commander, and its what I play the most in paper, but the One Ring remaining legal highlights what happens when you balance a format on what is essentially a "casual vibe" rather than power level. In other formats, the one ring occupies an interesting niche where (for the most part) it makes bad decks better. It actually has a positive impact of diversifying the format. However, not every deck benefits, and not every deck wants it. Every commander deck that exists is better with a one ring in it, and thats a problem.
I like playing bowmasters and against it, it makes for interesting games imo. Its a very, very powerful card and it warps formats in a very peculiar way, where draw spells have to be exceptional to see play. Overall, I think its fine but I wouldn't be shocked if it got banned down the line.
I got all of the main set in order to build a cube because It was a set I wanted to draft for a long time. However compared to some of the recent standard sets, they really dropped the ball on balancing the card strength in the colors. Many of the sub themes were really bad and underrepresented in their payoffs. Scry? Draw 2? Green trying to do anything? Black was just so oppressive with the average power of the commons being so much higher. I was very happy they did the extra decks and commander decks so there were Lotr themed cards to pull into the cube to make it better. I personally swapped out a bunch of the lower performing cards and rares and put in cards from the commander decks to bolster the power. I never did get all the Nazgûl variants, and I still am incredibly annoyed they made it artificial chase.
Artistically and thematically, it’s really sweet. The designers clearly are huge LotR fans and put a lot of love into every card. Even bulk commons are gorgeous.
As a Modern and Limited player though, my praise stops there. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters are miserable cards that made the format worse, and most other cards are not playable apart from landcyclers. The limited also was pretty rough due to the horrific color balance with green being literally unplayable and black being OP.
There's no failing with an IP as universally beloved as Lord of the Rings, but honestly, most of the bad stuff WotC could do with UB stuff, they did with Tales of Middle-earth, mainly, pushed, over-priced, limited release stuff; and convoluted mechanics that make you think of the IP, but don't really translate it to Magic language.
It might have been on purpose though, 'cause they knew LotR wouldn't fail they tested the waters of consumer tolerance. We'll probably see their conclusions with the Marvel set
> A mechanic that appears at common that creates an emblem, something that previously was only done at mythic was a mistake in my view.
Devil's advocate -- how's it different from dungeons/initiative?
>Devil's advocate -- how's it different from dungeons/initiative?
It's not much different from those and I also very much dislike those mechanics. I don't think abilities that are excessively nuanced and complicated should be keyworded (and the overwhelming majority of keyworded abilities aren't anywhere near as wordy and complex as Dungeons, Tempted By The Ring and Attractions).
Outside of the game mechanics can be done well. The Monarch is a perfect example, (Ascend was also cool) but I think that mechanic is elegant, intuitive and promotes dynamic gameplay without creating unnecessary additional tracking and logistical complexity.
Overall a decent set, but obviously points lost for printing TOR and Bowmasters, both cards that are so stupidly strong and format warping it’s ridiculous. Completely pushes x/1 creatures out of modern, and TOR is a one card value engine better than anything else in the game. There are still a bunch of really neat cards like Flame of Anor, the basic land cycling cards, etc. but I will always feel negatively about pushing out game breaking cards to sell packs
I think it's one of the best sets they ever did and the absolute best of the UB releases. The art was incredible and gave a f resh take on the setting. The mechanics were fun and not oppressive. They didn't just print stupidly op shit either. It felt balanced against MTG. And they really did a great job matching mechanics to the theme. Honestly was blown away by the set.
It was a great set flavor-wise.
I don’t see many cards played from it. A handful maybe outside of the theme decks that occasionally pop up.
It was nice to have and the most memorable set last year, especially given the hype around it.
I didn’t like the commercialization of it.
That said I am not looking forward to Marvel although I like comic book stuff.
I would be down for a Delicious in Dungeon set with Dungeons, Adventure and Food as mechanics.
As an Elves enthusiast, I have beef with the bowmasters. As a reasonable person, absolute lol at people who call it a cash grab. Companies do what they need to I'm order to profit, that's the whole point
I don't mind the mechanics and I enjoy some of the cards. But I' m not a fan of it being LotR themed and legal in modern. We already have a product like that with Modern Horizons. Also Magic has a rich story, based on a similar medieval fantasy, that now gets underminded in my opinion. It's like Chandra fighting Gandalf now. What comes next? Will there be Batman establishing justice on Dominaria?
So that's whats bothers me, but the card design is great I think.
As an Arena drafter, it was the first set I’ve ever drafted less for flavour reasons. I never considered myself to care much about flavour, and I’m sceptical but not inherently opposed to other settings appearing in Magic (the D&D set had a fun feel). But LotR in Magic just felt wrong to me. Two great tastes that didn’t taste great together.
That seems to be very much a minority opinion though.
Every game came down to giant amass token/ringbearer vs giant amass token/ringbearer. Which cards amass the orcs and who's bearing the ring changed but it mostly didn't matter.
The upside to this is every game captured that lotr flavour, the downside is for weirdos like me who draft every set 50+ times it got very old very fast.
Here's hoping the final fantasy and Marvel sets can use their wider catalogue of material to be less monotonous
I think it’s one of the best designed sets in modern magic. I hope one day they’ll be able to reprint either the set or the cards as they are too fun/gorges for smaug ass collectors to hourd for gold.
I know I'm in a minority but I wish it hadn't happened. Even though I love LotR I was indifferent before the set came out, skipped Magic last summer to avoid it, and now feel slightly annoyed whenever a heavily Tolkein themed card makes an appearance. Especially as the characters aren't even based on the ones from the movies.
I only build cubes and I am less skeptical than many others towards universes beyond. For me, the set was positive overall. Cards I love include [[Flowering of the White Tree]] and [[Mount Doom]]. I also liked the high number of legendaries because it offers more options for commanders for my EDH cubes. The mechanics were overall good, I like food and I loved what was done with scry. Amass is a pretty low power mechanic but was very flavorful. I agree with most other here that tempt was bad. The tracking is not so much the issue. Rather, the mechanic is pretty parasitic in that it is not very relevant if you dont have multiple cards that can do it. Ring and Bow masters seem problematic for eternal formats but that seems forgivable. If you compare the number of problematic cards and the success of the set, that seems pretty reasonable. I hope that those cards get banned if necessary but won't comment on whether it might be necessary because as I mentioned I don't play modern and legacy.
Great set with some inspired design and good synergy with preexisting strategies. The Ring Tempts You while being overly-complicated gives a reliable way to make creatures harder to block, amass orcs is a bland and kind of mid mechanic but it was great for what it offered, and the amazing support for food and sagas as themes immediately shot them up to very viable and fun strategies!
My one experience of this set is a man child at my LGS talking up his Frodo EDH deck and scooping on turn 5 when another player resolved a Dictate of Erebos. Blew my mind. He got up and left and I haven’t seen him since.
It was my first set and I doubt any other set could have given me such an easy entrance to the game. I am a LotR Fan and a friend of mine who plays a lot of Commander gifted me the starter deck set, played some games with me and explained the game. I was already interested in the concept of TCGs and while YuGiOh and Pokemon were of the table quickly, mtg was something I had no contact with until the friend came around with the decks. While I really like some other sets, especially Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Wilds of Eldraine, hopefully Bloomburrow and some older sets aswell, LotR is still my favourite.
I like the set but the price point was a bit high for what was in the set. And the one ring was a huge mistake and a flavor fail as it doesn't tempt you
This set has been my favourite since urzas block from back in the day. It reminds me of the legends set in that it is powerful but super fun. I use to play modern but not anymore and exclusively play commender now. I love the one ring and it’s pretty fair in the commander format. I’ve killed myself a few times off of it. The ring tempts you mechanic is super fun and I play nazguls heavily in my sauron deck.
This set is a 10/10 for fun and for the art and flavor text. Also I noticed cracking packs of the set boosters I’m getting good pulls vs other sets.
I’ve been a huge fan. Great, evocative card designs and gorgeous art. I had to miss the prerelease and draft at my LGS just didn’t fire so I never got to play the limited environment. I might try to get some in at Origins or Gen Con this year if there are any events going.
As primarily a paper limited player, it was okay-ish. Art was alright, mostly. I don't remember too much of it outside of orcs and food being good. That and Horn of Gondor being almost completely unbeatable if you don't have an immediate answer. I only did 5 events for it, and I'm not an arena grinder, so unless a format is super good (like Kamigawa or MH2) or super bad (Capenna or Crimson Vow) it doesn't stick in my mind too much.
I love this set. It’s probably my favorite set to come out in the past 2 years. Bought all the commander decks and kept three of them with only lord of the rings cards, and making artisan decks with the commons and uncommmons is just so fun. I don’t play a ton of competitive magic anymore, but for casual, this set was amazing
Being able to pack in 9 Nazgul has made it very easy to consistently get them on the board. I found my recursions knights deck in commander loves them especially with the ring mechanics which further help me get my cards into the graveyard to reanimate.
I've only just started playing mtg. my partner finally got me into the game (after more than a decade of people trying and failing) by buying me the elven council commander deck and a couple of boosters. I love lotr and my partner figured that if this didn't get me into magic, nothing would.
now I'm hooked! first I bought more lotr cards (I told myself I would limit my spending by only buying from this set, which...has not happened), then I started reading articles and watching videos about how to build and upgrade decks, then I bought more cards, then I started watching episodes of shuffle up and play, then I bought *even more* cards...now I'm constantly working on upgrading my blue/green/white elves deck with [[galadriel, light of valinor]] as my commander. I'm not quite ready to play with strangers yet, but my partner and I play together most days after work and I'm having a lot of fun!
I never would have tried mtg at all if not for this set. it's been a really lovely introduction to a new hobby that's brought me a lot of joy so far.
I was kinda zoned out of magic when the set came out for a couple months, and looking back I really wished I was keeping track of spoiler season and went to prereleases and whatnot, because it looks like such a fun set!
Whatever feelings I have toward the set don’t matter because I can’t not think of the sealed prerelease event I attended that played the trilogy soundtrack during deck building.
i think Wotc should stop doing cross over sets entirely and focus on ORIGINAL concepts that exist with in the universe they created. I don’t want to play dr. who the board game.
I think it was a massive home run. Super fun cards, tons of which see regular play in commander. Pretty much everyone i know had at least one lord of the rings deck. The variety in mechanics and really cool reprints is super sweet. Big con is the price but that’s hardly unique.
Overall, I loved the set. The Ring Tempting you was kind of a dud, imo, but I think they purposefully and successfully kept the power level low enough that it doesn't really show up outside Limited.
I really only have one nitpick: Orcish Bowmasters should have been red!
I am indifferent about LOTR properties but i love the movies if that makes sense. So as a UB product i dont care for it except maybe slight inconsistencies when it comes to magics flavors.
I love how the cards are designed. The powerhouses of the one ring and bowmasters can feel oddly fair but usually feel game warping in some sense. I still remember the one ring reveal on reddit and everyone calling it a commander card never seeing play in modern. I thought every fair deck can play it and i was mostly right. They also made that card widely accessible trough the bundles which im really happy about.
The land cyclers have been my favorite cards so far. I knew theyd see play but not this much. I play them in commander ive enjoyed them in legacy and felt underwhelmed but enjoyable in modern but i was being cheeky about it there. There is other cards that i immediately enjoyed such as [[flame of anor]], [[palintir]], [[elven chorus]], [[saurons ransom]] and many more. That are usually good enough for a random commander deck or as a spicy tech in a legacy or modern deck. Most of the cards feel fair yet strong and dont feel like modern horizons cards but they never feel like slouches. A nice in between.
Most of my evaluation where understated. I didnt think the one ring was going to be as game warping in commander but i knew it would be good. I knew the fog effect mattered but its what makes in playable in the eternal formats. Bowmasters is a different story i didnt think it was gonna be that great in modern as ragavan was seeing less play but it was still a strong enough card. Everyone knew it would be the best card for legacy but i didnt expect it to be in 1/2 the decks. I felt the same way about the land cyclers.
There is so many little things in the set i believe we will see them become on and off relevant for years. [[rise of the witch king]] might be modern playable one day as a 4 mana reanimatiom spell/edict. There is a handful of food related cards that might spawn a combo deck. [[Samwise the stoutheart]] is white snapcaster mage and see minor play in legacy death and taxes maybe it can see more play over time. [[horn of the mark]] is a 2 mana engine maybe it will see play if there is a viable go wide deck that can play this. [[sting the glinting dagger]] untaps a selected creature every turn. Its absurd really whats in the set not cards so overpowered but cards that can fill niches that other decks might need which is what i believe is the true power of the set.
The mechanics of the LOTR set felt weak. Amass is a bad mechanic, food was just ok, the ring tempts you is not strong enough for eternal format. A cute commander deck sure.
Not saying much anyone else hasn’t said but loved the limited, hated that playing Red Black “4th best cards in the pack” was generally your best bet and better than a lot of solid decks
As a legacy player I've really enjoyed the impact it has had on the format - people complain about the Bowmasters but they do create interesting gameplay patterns.
Love the set in general, hate that it's Modern legal.
Commander is a format about creative expression. Universes Beyond is an important element of that expression.
Modern was created so that MTG could have a nonrotating, competitive format unburdened by the Reserved List. Printing hundreds of cards that Wizards of the Coast cannot legally print more copies of is directly counter to that goal. "But what about the Universes Within loophole?" I would appreciate this much more if it had been better designed. As it stands, neither [[Eleven, the Mage]] nor [[Cecily, Haunted Mage]] indicate anywhere on the card that the game considers both of these cards with different names and art as two copies of the same card. Players are already trained by similar/identical cards (ex.[[Thraben Inspector]]/[[Novice Inspector]] and [[Deglamer]]/[[Unravel the Aether]]) that cards with different names and art but the same text box are different cards. If someone messes up and puts a UB and UW version of the same card in their Commander deck, that's an oopsie. If someone puts more than 4 copies of the same UB/UW card in their Modern deck, that's a disqualification. And all of that assumed that Universes Within versions of a given card are even made available before some old UB card gets prohibitively expensive.
For Legacy and Vintage, the Reserved List is already a fact of life and Universes Beyond don't make it worse.
But there's no reason to expose Modern to the thing that it was *literally created to avoid.*
It's definitely my favorite set that they've done in a long time. It's really well designed and I had a ton of fun playing it.
My only complaint is that [[The One Ring]] isn't restricted to one copy in a deck. Being able to run 4x copies of it is a massive flavor fail and probably pretty bad for 60 card formats.
Prerelease slapped, playing within the fully self-contained environment was fun. Someone even opened a serialized Sol Ring (human I think).
As soon as the cards left the prerelease or went into any decks? Massive fucking L that took a while to really manifest.
I thought I’d be able to at least use the LotR cards since they’re so fantasy adjacent. I was wrong and it really ended up putting me off of magic as a whole.
I haven’t sat down with a pod to play magic since then and really have no desire to even try. My spending has dried up.
And let me pre-empt all the jack-off “well then why are you here?” comments - I’m here because this thread is on the first page that popped up when I got shortcutted to this subreddit. I opened Reddit today to engage with gardening, not MTG, and I highly recommend it.
Much cheaper, and when you walk away from a gardening store feeling a little dirty, it’s for a whole different reason than when you walk out of a magic card shop.
TL;DR: my life is way better now and I have more or less quit engaging with magic. As someone who has spent way too much time and energy on a game that can’t even be faithful to *itself*, much less its audience… it’s “not for me” anymore.
The One of One Ring was a cashgrab, however in the context of LOTR, it was one of the only times where it was acceptable, if not flavorful that everyone was coveting and tracking The One of One. I mean, my mom is a huge LOTR fan and has no idea what MTG is, and even she caught wind of this thing when Post Malone bought the ring for a couple million dollars. It's certainly not something they should do every set.
Orcish Bowmasters is way too good, and unlike the One Ring (where it's basically the central plot point of the whole series and so it was understandable that it was pushed, albeit a little too far), this card is just kind of out of nowhere broken, I don't even know what this card is supposed to be a reference towards (other than the fact that it's some generic orc). And, the way it's designed is that it's supposed to punish opponents who draw too many cards, but you can ping down anything. So player A could draw 10 cards, and then player B is the one who gets his shit sniped down. Not only is it broken, it's also poorly designed.
I dislike the branded sets/cards as they feel out of place in a mtg match. I would be more understanding if Bowmasters and the one ring weren't good enough to see play.
It was what brought me back into magic in regards to buying sets again. Last set was ixalan (dinosaurs). Bought all commander decks. 2 collector box and 1 regular box. Have 7 decks being lotr theme. Im glad they added in characters not well known (non-book readers). Now I am saving for final fantasy. Overall, a great addition to the world of magic
That prerelease was probably the most wholesome mtg experience ive ever had. Like 70 people packed into my LGS playspace. The store owners were stoked. The people varried from old players to young kids, all either in love with mtg or lotr, and all of us falling a little bit more for both. My whole pod was there, we had all gotten subway before hand and we ate it at the back table as we cracked bundles and oggled at our copies of the one ring. I remember my first pack had Bill the Pony, and we all cheered at the fellowships MVP. People dressed up, and there were little kids running between our feet, laughing. Every alt art, rare, and legendary creature pulled from a pack was celebrated by the whole space. The joy was infectious. They even had the extended edition dvd on the old tube tv in the back of the room as we played. The vibes were unmatched. It felt like Bilbo's birthday. I'll never forget it.
Yeah my former LGS had none of that wholesome awesomeness on Pre-Release unfortunately. I wish I had been at your LGS
Yeah every prerelease at my LGS attracts the toxic crowd who just wanna win packs.
I wanted to go to a prerelease so bad, but there aren’t ever any Sunday prereleases in my area anymore :(
I'll point out something that I haven't seen anyone talk about in the thread yet: For the first time since 2001, we got a massive amount of Lord of the Rings artwork that doesn't take inspiration from the Peter Jackson films. I love the films, but they are just one (very well done) interpretation of the books. As a big Tolkien fan, it was pretty awesome to get hundreds of new interpretations of what Lord of the Rings could look like.
As a Universes Beyond set, I think the original art was a big part of the set's success with me. It was nice to pull magic cards with Legolas and Aragorn on them, not Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen
Great point
I hated movie marketing so much as a kid I would purposefully find books that didn't have the movie cover on them.
lol I still do this. Most i’ll tolerate is the tiny stamp that says “now a major motion picture” or whatever
As a Tolkien fan the influx of fantastic new art was a real high point for me as well.
I think not taking too much visual inspiration from the films was a huge win as well. I love the films and their aesthetic but it was so refreshing to see a new interpretation. I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t more standout beautiful pieces but I think the art direction was a major part of helping the set stand out.
Reading the flavor texts coupled with the new art has been such a joy, too!
> I'll point out something that I haven't seen anyone talk about in the thread yet: For the first time since 2001, we got a massive amount of Lord of the Rings artwork that doesn't take inspiration from the Peter Jackson films. [LOTR LCG](https://www.ringsdb.com/) which has been releasing content since 2011 says oof.
I was about to say, that game is/was huge and the art is amazing
I need a secret lair with Viggo Mortensen. I miss him. Plus, Sauron looked like a He-man character.
You should check out the LOTR Living Card Game. Tons of art and cards.
Bit of a tangent from the thread, but in light of this take (which I wholeheartedly agree with) I'm curious what your opinion is on *The Hobbit* entering the public domain in nine years?
My favorite set. Although the massive influx of UB sets has been a bit much for me, LotR was easily the best of them in my opinion. Fun cards to play with, incredible flavor, and my LotR-only Nazgul commander deck has been a ton of fun. I'm still working on collecting the whole set, but overall I feel very positive about it
[удалено]
You made the right choice. Although, you could play all nine Nazgul cards and just never have the ninth one and The Witch King on board simultaneously and that would still be a flavor win I think.
I am having a similar conundrum…I got all 9 Nazgul but now I don’t think I’m going to slot them all into my Sauron deck because it’ll pretty drastically change the amass/Ressurection theme I’ve got going on. Toying with the idea of a Golgari Gollum deck featuring all the Nazgul.
I'm very curious to see how the Final Fantasy and multiple Marvel UB sets compare. Yes they don't fit the "feel" of magic thematically, LOTR still set the bar high.
I’m sorry, did you say Final Fantasy? Where did I miss that announcement?!
Full tentpole set announced [back in 2022](https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/magic-the-gathering-game/news/magic-the-gathering-final-fantasy-assassins-creed-universes-beyond)! Draftable and modern legal.
Wow! Totally missed that one, thank you for the link.
I've built like 9 casual 60-cars decks from the set
Curious what decks you've made! So far I've only put together two: the obvious Hobbits food deck that basically builds itself, and a super-janky WU deck with Watcher in the Water, Faramir, Prince of Ithilien, and Rosie Cotton. Somehow I pulled five Watcher in the Water (not a single One Ring or Bowmasters) so I figured I should make the best of it. I also have my eye on an Izzet Gandalf deck and a monoblack Nazgul deck that I can't afford.
My group plays at a high level casual. So former standard decks, downtweaked modern/pioneer decks, etc. Golgari Gollum - [https://manabox.app/decks/BwJKVggbRNa242iYywN8Kw](https://manabox.app/decks/BwJKVggbRNa242iYywN8Kw) Grixis Lords of the Nazgul - [https://manabox.app/decks/MHqi7TGOQm2bzqEmevUsVQ](https://manabox.app/decks/MHqi7TGOQm2bzqEmevUsVQ) Selesnya For the Shire! - [https://manabox.app/decks/Pq1k5RLkQGe\_GMw-XJVnZg](https://manabox.app/decks/Pq1k5RLkQGe_GMw-XJVnZg) Boros Rohan - [https://manabox.app/decks/vmAcrbp9Q56V7SZf28UzeQ](https://manabox.app/decks/vmAcrbp9Q56V7SZf28UzeQ) Grixis Mordor Control - [https://manabox.app/decks/v-00rGhwSOqQ5wW7v2jWBA](https://manabox.app/decks/v-00rGhwSOqQ5wW7v2jWBA) (work in progress - if I don't land bowmasters this deck sucks so I may abandon card draw counter spells) Abzan Let's get Frodo to Mordor - [https://manabox.app/decks/ufIpgeOOR--bRO\_pyhvSnA](https://manabox.app/decks/ufIpgeOOR--bRO_pyhvSnA) Bant Elves - [https://manabox.app/decks/M7he0G1LSS2duDZxiI5heQ](https://manabox.app/decks/M7he0G1LSS2duDZxiI5heQ) Trying to build Bombadil - [https://manabox.app/decks/uvxeiM5\_SfCZvRHhhinYLQ](https://manabox.app/decks/uvxeiM5_SfCZvRHhhinYLQ) Selesnya Aragorn leads the Company - [https://manabox.app/decks/uxevNpQLQaCU6ekfNs7VoQ](https://manabox.app/decks/uxevNpQLQaCU6ekfNs7VoQ)
I love the thematic deck titles. Golgari Gollum, Selesnya For the Shire!, and Grixis Mordor Control were my favorite names although Abzan Let's Get Frodo to Mordor deserves an honorable mention.
I'm intending to make an Azorius Kingdom of Gondor deck, the intent is a lot of defender cards like [[Rammas Echor]], [[Wall of Omens]], a few cards to flicker like [[Ephemerate]], and finishing it off with [[Aragorn, King of Gondor]]. And another I'm intending is a Legions of the Eye deck. Might be Rakdos, might go Grixis for a splash for Sauron. Mental roadblocks because im staunchly anti-orc lol Really want to try Rainbow Hobbits using all the "name a creature type" lands, but I'm lacking inspiration right now for it.
##### ###### #### [Rammas Echor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/5/558c1fcc-cb01-4031-ada5-4e39d65aee27.jpg?1695346528) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rammas%20echor%2C%20ancient%20shield) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/505/rammas-echor-ancient-shield?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/558c1fcc-cb01-4031-ada5-4e39d65aee27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Wall of Omens](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/32341fcd-b29b-434c-b004-3430e307a45b.jpg?1706240651) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wall%20of%20Omens) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/90/wall-of-omens?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/32341fcd-b29b-434c-b004-3430e307a45b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Ephemerate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/d/2da5f3f8-5eef-498f-ba2c-2f3fbc3745aa.jpg?1562201088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ephemerate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/7/ephemerate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2da5f3f8-5eef-498f-ba2c-2f3fbc3745aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aragorn, King of Gondor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1c7ac04c-8510-468b-aa6f-f249bde9ff87.jpg?1686963734) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20King%20of%20Gondor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/5/aragorn-king-of-gondor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1c7ac04c-8510-468b-aa6f-f249bde9ff87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Links aren’t working for me 😭
Lemme edit this when I'm at a computer and I'll reply again when they *should* be working
Okay try again!
works now. thank you!
Of course! If you like any of them but are interested in a lower budget, I can give suggestions! A lot of my more expensive cards are remnants of when I used to play modern like the lands
definitely looking for lower budget suggestions. Doesn't have to be pauper level, but trying to keep decks at <=$30. That certainly rules out the nazgul deck, but I won't be making that one.
Try out the For the Shire one, that deck slaps aggressively for around $30. If you ditch the Horizon Canopies that should get the deck to be around $20
Can you share your decklist? I love making LotR only decks. I’d love to see your take.
1. Similar. It looked good, and it was. 2. The Ring Tempts You is too complex, but otherwise I quite liked the set's mechanics. 3. All good. Going in, I didn't know much about LOTR beyond the movies, but this has done well to build on that. 4. I enjoyed playing it in Limited, and I've been incorporating cards from it into cubes since then. 5. I don't care about Constructed, but Bowmasters and The One Ring sound annoying for Modern. Did you copy/paste this question and leave in the mention of Standard? 6. I think the legendary creatures are really cool in general, but my favorite ones to play with have been ones working in the token theme like [[Mordor Trebuchet]] and [[Mirkwood Bats]]. However, [[Old Man Willow]]'s power level bugs me. 7. Polarizing. People who like it will keep liking it, people who hate it will keep piling on more of that hate. I have to imagine there will be a time when some people look back on LTR as the golden age of UB, which is funny to think about. 8. I don't like how Bilbo and Pippin's colors were so inconsistent between LTR and LTC.
> The Ring Tempts You is too complex, but otherwise I quite liked the set's mechanics. "The Ring Tempts You" was a mechanic designed by Sauron and Saruman and nothing can convince me otherwise. "Look at how good being tempted by the ring is - there's no downside. It just keeps getting better and better! The more you're tempted the happier you'll be. Tempt everyone, and then tempt them 3 more times each..."
This was even something that maro talked about when the set was being revealed. Tempt originally had actual downsides to it, but they didn’t like the play patterns that brought. It was a flavor issue that they had to concede on in order to make the gameplay more enjoyable
The problem is that the implementation that we got still sucks. It fails at flavour from multiple angles. Kill an opponent's ringbearer and you don't get to claim it and start using it against them. There's no "chase" for the ring. Each player can simply have a ringbearer, who will all merrily do their own thing. And, even more frustrating, it does absolutely nothing with The One Ring. The literal Ring does not tempt you. Plus, the progress chain of "The ring tempts you" is just an overly complex mess. You really need the card on hand to be able to use the mechanic because, like the initiative, it's an unintuitive mish-mash of abilities that they couldn't arrange into something elegant and fitting, so they vomited every idea they had for it onto a reminder card and left it for the players to muddle through. MaRo saying the ring having downsides created bad play patterns says to me they should have gone back to zero and tried something new. Because you can't go "oh, I'm making chocolate chip cookies, but the chocolate chips weren't good so we just left them out." What you get might taste fine, but they aren't chocolate chip cookies, and no one coming across a plate of them would recognize them as such.
I have tried so many times to articulate what I disliked about the mechanic, and I think you hit on almost all of it better than I could. Well stated. The only thing I'll add is the one phrase I kept coming back to: *it felt like doing homework.* Even aside from flavor, it wasn't fun to play. It was like they didn't have chocolate chips *or sugar* in their chocolate chip cookies.
Yeah the ring tempts you mechanic actively made me like the set less than I would have otherwise. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense thematically and plays horribly. Tnx for putting into words what I’ve been feeling 🖤
I mean I kind of disagree with him: they *chose* to concede on it. They've talked about how downside mechanics are disliked (except for the ones that aren't...), but I do think they did both the flavor *and* the gameplay a disservice by making the ring tempting you entirely upside.
[Mordor Trebuchet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/4/648bc8ae-1798-4c2f-a372-0487a90ba4d3.jpg?1686968597) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mordor%20Trebuchet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/97/mordor-trebuchet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/648bc8ae-1798-4c2f-a372-0487a90ba4d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mirkwood Bats](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/5/15f035df-784a-4dc8-b7f5-77139a4e6e99.jpg?1686968575) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mirkwood%20Bats) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/95/mirkwood-bats?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/15f035df-784a-4dc8-b7f5-77139a4e6e99?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Old Man Willow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/3/0362b7c4-fff5-4bc2-b32d-913f85c23cc4.jpg?1686969917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Old%20Man%20Willow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/217/old-man-willow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0362b7c4-fff5-4bc2-b32d-913f85c23cc4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The Lord of the Rimgs set is why I play Magic at all. I started 2 months ago when I found out about it, bought all 4 then started modding them. I'm locked in, stuck on this game now. Can't stop buying singles to try out to save my life!
same here. big lotr fan. this got me back into MTG after 25 years away.
Late welcome to cardboard crack. Please try to just have (and stick to) a budget! The four commander precons are hella fun (though I have didn't get the elf one) from my experience playing with em.
Same, got the 4 precons and upgraded them with lotr cards
Same, but started playing a month or so after the set was released. Just finished reorganizing my LTR cards tonight actually. WotC got me, I play Magic at my LGS weekly now and I go to every prerelease I can.
As a player who is very cEDH-brained, i have to say that, although there is no one culprit, LOR and the printing of [[Orcish Bowmasters]], The One Ring, and [[Lotho, Corrupt Bandit]], along with [[Born Upon a Wind]] and [[Delighted Halfling]] all contribute their part into creating a midrange hell where every deck is flooded with Tier 0 value engines that profit off every play. Specifically the TOR is the biggest offender because it went straight into every deck.
I agree 100% with this. I'm a "casual" cEDH player (I play cEDH FNM but don't do tournaments), but I personally despise the One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters especially. The rest are bad as well, but I feel they're not *quite* as universal/obnoxious as those two. The One Ring was just a massive blunder.
[Orcish Bowmasters](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109.jpg?1686968669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Bowmasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/103/orcish-bowmasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Delighted Halfling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692.jpg?1686969281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Delighted%20Halfling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/158/delighted-halfling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Can’t forget [[forth earlingues]]
Wrong format but another pushed montrosity
I've never seen Lotho before. It seems a decent but play-aroundable hate piece. Why is it oppressive?
Lotho isn't a hate piece, he's a value engine. Everyone wants to be double spelling, so he's going to generate a crap ton of treasures over a 2-3 turn cycle.
I think it's a fantastic set and the only successful UB to me. But I still wish it wasn't modern legal, I really.hate that it started precedent for that
I think it was an above average set in general, I mostly play commander and liked the new cards, though I do hate "the ring tempts you" outside of Arena, I find tracking these kinda mechanics very annoying.
My takeaway as well. I have an all-LOTR card [[Aragorn, king of Gondor]] commander deck, and there are good cards I deliberately did not put in the deck because I cannot be bothered to mess with the ring tempting mechanic. Explaining it to newer players is a nightmare. Why they did not just do a "draw a card and lose 2 life" type of mechanic or anything more simple, I will never know.
> Why they did not just do a "draw a card and lose 2 life" type of mechanic or anything more simple, I will never know. It's almost appalling how much better that would have been, lol.
[Aragorn, king of Gondor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1c7ac04c-8510-468b-aa6f-f249bde9ff87.jpg?1686963734) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20king%20of%20Gondor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/5/aragorn-king-of-gondor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1c7ac04c-8510-468b-aa6f-f249bde9ff87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Absolutely love it, and I have a Sauron Commander deck that is rocking all the goofy, illegible art cards I can fit from the Winter rerelease. Big, BIG fan.
1. More favorable. I've found that the more that I play with the cards, the more fun I have with them. I was already enjoying the set, but I keep finding more gems. 2. The mechanics were mostly fine. I am probably in the minority in saying I like the Ring Tempts You, and I love food in all forms. 3. I think the art and flavor are spot on and some of the best. The lore and adaptation of ideas is consistent with Tolkien's writings, and hits on a lot of the themes he does in the books. There are a few odd things, like Bilbo's colors not being consistent between versions, and Glorfindel feeling a little weak for a character who is as notably powerful as he is but that's fine. 4. I think the limited environment was fun. I enjoyed it a lot, personally, even if it was unbalanced in favor of black. 5. This set was a bombshell for both 60 card constructed and Commander. I don't play Modern anymore, so I can't speak personally on the effects, but there certainly has been a large Commander impact, and I keep seeing cards pop up in my local Pauper and Legacy events. Also, Cube. My cube has a handful of the more powerful cards in it and players seem to enjoy them. I think it had mostly positive impacts, save for The One Ring, but I think that there's a certain subset of the community that has blown the negative impacts out of proportion BECAUSE it is a UB set. 6. I think my favorite cards from the main set are \[\[Goldberry, River-Daughter\]\], \[\[Nazgûl\]\], and the \[\[Horn of Gondor\]\]. From the Commander set, my favorites are \[\[Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles\]\], \[\[Rapacious Guest\]\], and \[\[Motivated Pony\]\]. I could probably write an essay on why I love Goldberry, honestly, and I might sometime. She's one of those weird little cards that just checks something in my brain that makes me happy because it is so wholly unique. 7. I think that over time it will be remembered well, but there will always be a vocal subset of haters that will keep loudly banging that drum. 8. I like 3 of the 4 Commander decks quite a bit. I think that the Elves deck just didn't quite work. It had some good cards in it, and some great land reprints, but overall what it was trying to do didn't feel well supported.
##### ###### #### [Goldberry, River-Daughter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bf4f0a7c-620e-4ed8-8da3-fa6564e8a0cd.jpg?1686968111) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Goldberry%2C%20River-Daughter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/52/goldberry-river-daughter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bf4f0a7c-620e-4ed8-8da3-fa6564e8a0cd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nazgûl](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/3/833936c6-9381-4c0b-a81c-4a938be95040.jpg?1686968640) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nazg%C3%BBl) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/100/nazg%C3%BBl?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/833936c6-9381-4c0b-a81c-4a938be95040?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Horn of Gondor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b14eaeec-d7ce-462a-90d3-2ae5ff605fdb.jpg?1686970170) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Horn%20of%20Gondor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/240/horn-of-gondor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b14eaeec-d7ce-462a-90d3-2ae5ff605fdb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c17c3bb-aa20-43b0-8a28-b46a18b060ef.jpg?1686963834) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gwaihir%2C%20Greatest%20of%20the%20Eagles) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/15/gwaihir-greatest-of-the-eagles?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c17c3bb-aa20-43b0-8a28-b46a18b060ef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rapacious Guest](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ff9dfba4-07d2-4407-a441-88acc7284d43.jpg?1686963959) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rapacious%20Guest) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/28/rapacious-guest?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ff9dfba4-07d2-4407-a441-88acc7284d43?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Motivated Pony](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9be4f8b6-90ef-4c77-ae70-bffae229d243.jpg?1686964093) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Motivated%20Pony) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/42/motivated-pony?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9be4f8b6-90ef-4c77-ae70-bffae229d243?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I had 2 good friends that I couldn't get into magic for the longest time. LotR set comes and I say "this is it, this is the time, get on arena and learn, you bastards are going to a pre-release". Both are big Tolkein fans, they learned the game, enjoyed it, played the prerelease, also enjoyed it, bought commander decks, and loved it. Flash forward one year, both are still playing. They've got others to play too. Other than we've all spent too much money on magic since, I'd say it was a huge success, and thanks in very large part to this set. Also, the flavor of this set was fantastic, I don't think anything will ever beat it. (Ring tempts you aside).
My feelings are “This set was bad for MTG, and WotC did that entirely to sell more product”. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters should never have been printed. They are so blatantly obviously power crept to sell packs. They’re not even fun to play in the limited environment, they’re just broken. They’ve irreparably warped every format they’re legal in, and in a way that I do not agree is positive. I *fucking hate* playing against The One Ring in modern. If I can’t counter it, the game’s basically just over, and not in an interesting way.
What I dislike about The One Ring the most is that it's one of those cards that you can throw into a lot of decks and it will make them better, with no real restrictions. Amulet Titan? Throw 4 rings in there. Omnath? 4 rings. Tron? Rings. Control? Rings. Hardened Scales? Rings. That's bad design if you ask me. Edit: Not to mention that it can fit in virtually any commander deck
The only real reason not to have The One Ring in about 98% of all decks it's legal to play in is the price tag.
That might be a bit of a hyperbole, but I agree t goes in a lot of decks and it feels very out of place in most of them.
This is so wildly inaccurate. Meta decks in modern are not considering price. The card is too powerful, I agree there. But to say itd be in 98% of decks if not for the price is just absurd
I think they're talking about commander
The person mentioned 5 or 6 modern decks, there's no real reason to think that.
u/StereoZombie was certainly talking about modern. However I believe u/VoiceofKane chimed in with a comment about commander. You responded to u/VoiceofKane.
Hardened Scales doesn't play rings. Looking at the meta on mtggoldfish, the only decks with >1% metashare that run ToR are Titan, Omnath, UW, Coffers, and Tron. Together they account for ~15% of the meta. Yes a new set has just released and there's a PT upcoming, but it's certainly not the oppressive card every deck jams that it was initially. There are far more problematic cards in Modern.
While overall I dislike the LotR set, it's silly to blame it for Bowmasters. While clearly pushed for Modern, the card isn't Tolkein themed, and would no doubt have appeared in MH2.5 or whatever they'd done last year if they hadn't made LOTR.
I feel the exact same way and I'm an absolutely massive LoTR fan both of the movies, novels, and all of the mythology but I still hate Magic becoming a hodgepodge of other IP soup. It's why I'm never going to play modern in any focused way. Coherent games and universes don't dump other worlds into their games. Do you see Warhammer doing this? No they focus on enhancing their world. Doctor who? No. Magic shouldn't be a dumping ground to advertise the newest assassin's creed or final fantasy game. Same with Marvel properties. It's lazy and uninspired.
I agree, though I do think that LotR and W40k were the least egregious additions to MTG. At least those two IPs feel like they could exist in a magic set with some name swaps. Even then, I think it's a misstep. Including other IPs just dilutes the brand and makes MTG feel less distinct.
I don't think two cards being too much means an entire set should be canned. Hate the cards by all means, but unless the set featured a great amount of it, such as affinity in Mirrodin or Eldrazi in Oath of the Gatewatch, where its absence would've changed the set's feel greatly, don't pan the entire set when the cards' absence or design change wouldn't have changed anything of the overall feel.
The problem is this was a straight to Modern set, and unless Wizards fired everyone that knows how to play Magic, they knew very well that 2-3 cards were going to completely overwhelm the format. The set could have been made without those cards, or it could have been made not direct-to-modern. Wizards specifically told us that this set was slightly below Modern power level, and then printed the Ring and Bowmaster. So yes, the set as printed was a mistake that Wizards should stop making. They've already ruined Commander by direct printing outrageous value, they should keep it there and not do the same thing to Modern.
As someone who plays a lot of Arena, the two cards that have made their way into almost every unskilled hack's deck are The One Ring and even more ever-present is [[Palantír of Orthanc]]. I can't tell you how often I've seen an opponent turn 3 Palantir. Any W or G deck has to include artifact removal for these two alone.
[Palantír of Orthanc](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/e/6efb6a69-562c-4d95-858d-b067444cfd7e.jpg?1686970247) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Palant%C3%ADr%20of%20Orthanc) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/247/palant%C3%ADr-of-orthanc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6efb6a69-562c-4d95-858d-b067444cfd7e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It brought me back to magic and introduced me to EDH, so I’d say it’s pretty great for me 😊
I hate the whole ring bearer thing. Powerful set but I just don't like the mechanics of it.
A few words: SCREW THE ONE RING! THIS HAS BEEN SO ANNOYING! BOWMASTERS AS WELL!
I really appreciated the draft format. It's an important lesson on the importance of color balance in Limited. Hint: it's a lot less important than most people think. For those who didn't draft it, the power difference (especially at common) between black and green was *heinous.* Black was the best color, red and blue were quite good, white was good when paired with red, and green was essentially unplayable. But the numbers, black's middle performing common was better than green's best common. LSV somewhat infamously drafted a very, very good version of the blue/green Scry deck (we're talking multiple rare payoffs, at least one in multiples) at the Pro Tour and was promptedly smashed by three very unremarkable nongreen decks. But you know what? It was still a really fun, really deep draft environment. Once everyone learned to avoid green, there were a ton of cool decks that did different, interesting things. Most people remember the format fondly, despite its obvious flaw. And that's grand.
Very interesting insight, thanks for sharing!
It was the one MUB set I was looking forward to, and the fact it still somehow didn't click with me actually turned me on the concept of MUB more broadly. I used to mock people for catastrophizing over MUB cards showing up every game, but now that it's happened it does feel awful. Every character having sixteen Legend cards hurt the worldbuilding and it hurt the characters. Limited gameplay was flawed, but a ton of fun. The one-of-one Ring was awful and crass and while it isn't actually the cause it's still become emblematic in my mind of WotC changing this game from a game first to a tawdry collectible with a game attached.
Not really a fan. The set was mostly forgettable aside from the two broken cards that have warped every format they’re in around them. But not too objectionable other than that—just kinda meh. The one thing that really bothered me was that they printed five different versions of the same characters, which makes it so hard to remember the names of each card and what card does what. I think it’s part of why I found the set so forgettable—none of the important characters had a single standout card that can be easily identified. One of the Aragorns cares about colors, one about monarch—are they the same one? I don’t think so? What are their names? Who can remember? One of the Gimlis care about treasure—or do more than one? No idea! Bilbo turned eleventy-one on one of the cards! That one I can even remember the name of because it has the word birthday in it. But no idea what the UR Bilbo does. Etc. Really just left me shaking my head and caring about none of the set at all.
Each of the main characters goes through a journey, if you will, of themselves. Aragorn goes from a ranger to a king. Gandalf being grey going to white. Hobbits have a change. Etc. So it makes sense.
Had it been a digital-only set, almost more a cube than a full "set release", I'd have loved it. A few drafts were really fun, captured the flavour of the series really well and going "Hobbit Food Beatdown" or "Rohirrim Deck" was awesome. The more I played it, the less fun I found it - the draft environment didn't have longevity with how unbalanced it was, and some of the cards (Bowmasters, One Ring, Forth Eorlingas) I actively dislike for how generically strong they are. I get you'll always have better cards than others, but they feel pushed to the point of "we need some *truly* busted shit to sell the packs, so let's just turn up every single lever". To be fair, I also feel similarly about the likes of Sheoldred or Atraxa as I do One Ring/Bowmasters (pushed =/= interesting to play with/against) but the power disparity between the busted cards and, well, the rest is obscene.
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but this set really killed what enjoyment in commander I had left. I really dislike when the best in slot card for a theme is suddenly from an IP I don't care much about. One Ring in every deck and multiple cards bumped out others for best in slot. Then with the subsequent Doctor Who set later that year, I just stopped showing up for commander. With at least LotR set I knew stuff about the cards, Dr.Who just doesn't interest me one bit, I didn't have time to read all the cards from it with the other more important sets to me coming out, and a whole edh table filled with LotR and Dr.Who commanders just broke my immersion and enjoyment.
What killed commander for me was seeing how much better the 40k precons were than the actual MTG precons.
I've played against, I think the necron precon, once. Should be the graveyard one if I am remembering correctly, and I was floored with how powerful it was when the player told me it was straight out of the box. It's kinda crazy they couldn't take a theme from magic lore and do the same idea, and instead we just get commander precons with cards of mixed spells of various different planes and such. Like if we are going to get unique card power creep, why not keep it in the brand as well?
1. Less favorable, as an extension of a general souring on universes beyond products. 2. Ring tempts is overly complicated for no real payoff, food tokens already existed, and amass already existed. 3. Flavor and lore fits good. The art didn’t feel Lord of the Rings to me, and there wasn’t a single character who’s art I could recognize without being told it was LotR art first Edit: forgot about Tom Bombadil, 10/10 on him 4. Played it once at prerelease, had a good time 5. Negatively for sure. As much as a lot of cards were and are great includes, orcish bowmasters and the one ring are simply absurd. Bowmasters hates 1 toughness creatures out of any format it can be played in, and the one ring goes in literally every deck that can run it 6. Favorite is peregrine took, love me some dumb token nonsense. Least favorite is the already mentioned one ring and bowmasters 7. Well it’s relevance won’t go away unless either it’s cards get banned or the entire game power creeps into something unrecognizable, not sure about fondness though 8. Never played with or against them, but they seem fine I guess
Like anything, there were benefits and detriments to the set. **Benefits** - It was a huge success commercially. The set brought in a lot of money, new players, and even old players. - It added unique cards to almost every format. Even a grumpy walker like me had to add [[Horn of Gondor]] into my Kyler Humans deck. - The flavor was on point. - It is still fun. My local cube group had a Draft of it like two months ago and everyone enjoyed it. **Detriments** - The Golden Ticket Effect. The 1 of 1 The One Ring and other rare variants were an obvious cash grab. This does cheapen the game and experience when whales are buying it solely for a single card and literally throwing out countless product that could have been repurposed, like donations. - The Power Creep. See everyone else's comments on The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters, or for Arena players the Palantír of Orthanc. - The Fortnite Effect. I'm old enough to remember when Lord of the Rings had its own collectible card game. I'm old enough to remember when LotR had a second ccg based on the movies. Now, whole properties are just Magic sets. While I saw the waste that was the mid-90s and early 00s CCG scenes, it still feels weird to me that you can have a Commander pod of LotR, Warhammer 40k, Fallout, and Doctor Who, and that's Magic, Baby!
Middle Earth ccg had some of the best art
[Horn of Gondor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b14eaeec-d7ce-462a-90d3-2ae5ff605fdb.jpg?1686970170) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Horn%20of%20Gondor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/240/horn-of-gondor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b14eaeec-d7ce-462a-90d3-2ae5ff605fdb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Absolutely stellar set. From limited to flavour, it was all great.
From a competitive perspective, it wasn't great. Limited format was pretty imbalanced color-wise and bomby. The Ring Tempts You was too strong in limited, has essentially no impact in constructed, and is tedious to keep track of. And most of the power is tied up in just a few cards that don't really have much to do with LotR. The land cyclers and Bowmasters are generic designs that could exist in any set and are just pushed on rate. The One Ring is a win on flavor due to being powerful and desirable but that's about it...kinda miserable as a card that sees play. Overall I'd say it has been a negative for competitive constructed and wasn't a good limited format. Maybe it's still worth it for the joy it brings to people who love LotR and don't judge magic cards based on how strong they are or the play patterns they create.
Thematically it was A Universes Beyond set that made sense. This is important to everyone, but it is to some of us. I've got virtually no interest in most of the Universe Beyond sets, but I was excited for the Lord of the Rings one. The product offerings were... hit and miss. They did what WotC has been doing too much of lately: releasing ridiculous amounts of product with much of it being premium-themed with premium pricing, but they did have some options which were affordable, even if they still felt expensive. Playwise it was fun in Sealed. I didn't do draft but I'm sure it would have been fun. The family has been doing a lot of set-only constructed formats and the set is internally very playable but I'm not sure of its impact on other formats. My initial opinion was favorable, nothing has really changed that. If anything, other Universes Beyond sets have caused me to regard it with more favor.
Im kinda tired about orcish bowmasters but other than that I like the cards :) Edit: I like card draw hate effects, but bowmaster is TOO good. Two mana for two bodies and a ping would already be above the curve. The fact that it sits there pinging and growing the army is kinda nuts. It could have easily been a three mana card and be fair and balanced. But then it wouldnt be the number 1 creature in modern, and a staple in every other format its legal in, which Im guessing is what Wizard wanted by releasing the set directly to moderm.
I don't like the fundamental concept of UB, so this set had that going against it for me. I was primed to dislike it. On the other hand, I am a LotR fan, so there was some hope. Ultimately, it went over about as good as a UB set can go in that regard. I begrudgingly found the cards to be a really strong representation of the source material. I really enjoyed a lot of the individual cards from a Mel perspective: the flavor and mechanics meshed really well. A notable example is the Eowyn 1R smiting spell that can one-shot the Witch-King. Super cool. There's one big giant elephant-in-the-room exception: The Ring Tempts You might be my least favorite MtG mechanic since I started playing (late 2018). It's an *awful* flavor fit, it felt like I had to do research mid-game to figure out what my opponent could do, it was terrible to track, and the balance felt off when you could stack a bunch of ring tempting together. An all-around mess of a mechanic that never once improved the gameplay experience for me, and which frequently made it worse. I'm a limited junkie, and I was done with this set after about 20 drafts because I hated Ring Tempting so damn much.
So for starters I like more cards, but I just don't like UB. I'm not going to like UB. I know this opinion has become part of the minority all of a sudden, but yeah. Even then, I think LOTR was the worst draft/premier set that came out last year and I don't think it was close. (Aftermath and Doctor Who are worse but they're not close). I think UB only hits if the IP is resonant to you personally, and I am not a big fan of LOTR. Which is kind of what bugs me about UB - every magic player likes magic cards, not every magic player likes LOTR so it leaves feel bad. I think this was more pronounced for me in Doctor Who (which to a non-fan just seems stupid), but still present here. I was hoping MH3 had some UW reprints but I guess not. I think the set should not have been modern legal. We have a pathway for getting nonstandard cards into modern and its through Modern Horizons. I feel like one of the things they (they might be people who like UB and not wizards) were saying to get on board is that UB was going to be a casual/commander/legacy thing, and don't worry cause you're not playing those, but that seemed to have been broken immediately. They said, oh don't worry you don't have to play them ever, but that isn't the case anymore if I want to play modern. At least they were clear about LOTR's legality - I still am not 100% sure on Assassins Creed's legality. Plus a lot of the cards that are good in Modern, you know the ones, are just kind of not fun. I think that if you need to make 3-5 versions of every legend, there might not have been enough source material. Or at least, they didn't do a good job mining it. There are so many Frodos and Gandalfs man, its hard to keep track. The Ring Tempts You is a bad mechanic. Its in the same vein as Venture and Initiative and it sucks. Its hard to track for not enough payoff. Its weird they keep doing these types of mechanics when I don't really ever hear anything great about them? Maybe they poll well with the non-enfranchised but this doesn't seem like the thing that would. I think the draft format was fine. It different, but with The Ring Tempts You being a big blight on the format and, as far as I could tell, the format not being all that balanced, I got bored of it fairly quickly. It wasn't all bad. I like the changes to Amass. But still, I was not a fan.
Just wish I had bought 1000 one rings when they were 30 bucks each.
Your summary of modern is certainly interesting. The One Ring might be one of the more egregious design mistakes in recent memory. I'm less receptive to complaints about Bowmasters. x/1 creatures are supposed to be fragile, if they were meant to be difficult to kill, they'd have been printed with more toughness. Aside from these two power outliers, the set is mostly positive. Limited was fun and replayable, despite being one of the more wildly unbalanced formats in terms of colour in recent memory. Lucky there was a lot of cool stuff to do in Grixis colours I guess. The flavour didn't feel out of place in MTG at all, which I have my doubts we'll be able to say about the onslaught of Marvel content we're sure to be buried under.
This is coming at it from the perspective of a Tolkien reader more than as an MTG player. I still think, despite the overarching fantasy realm elements, Magic's aims and mechanics are an awful fit for Tolkien's deeply spiritual and meaningful legendarium. And there wasn't any attention paid to the meaning of the story to offset that mismatch.
Still think it was a great set flavor wise. The Gameplay was fun enough, though also not comparable to something like say Neon Dynasty Limited or Battle for Baldues Gate Limited. The One Ring was probably to strong as it was designed, but it is what it is. Overall, it was like a solid B kinda set. Good but not great.
I know this isn't as important to players but that set has maybe my favorite art of the whole game. I think it's probably the best LOOKING set ever, in my opinion. For one thing, as a long term LotR fans, seeing brand new designs of these characters was so exciting. The movies are obviously fantastic, but seeing LotR that was doing its own thing was great. \[\[Galadriel, Elven-Queen\]\], \[\[Sauron, the Dark Lord\]\], \[\[Éowyn, Shieldmaiden\]\] and \[\[Aragorn, the Uniter\]\] were some highlights. That LotR is already fantasy meant that it fit in Magic really well too, it wasn't too out of place. Plus, they turned Goldberry into a blonde curvy queen! How can you not love that? Additionally, the alt arts are absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I can't even link them because I'd end up just linking all of them! This set really made Andreas Zafiratos and Dominik Mayer my favorite artists of the game. They have such a unique, creepy vibe, the way they're hyper focused around the center of the art, the use of the cards colors, my god- there's even Elvish on the border! Here's Again I know it's not as important as mechanics or anything but I just wanted to mention that because I'm not sure anyone else will. I hope I'm wrong!
That's really interesting, because I felt like a majority of the set felt super generic to me, to the point where I would not identify 90% of it as LotR without card titles and general context to match the art. The ring, Gollum cards, and Minis Tirith/White Tree/Gondor insignia are identifiable, but like almost everything else could have been from anywhere or anything vaguely high fantasy. I seem to remember Elrond especially felt unidentifiable even with full context, just a vaguely elf-ish man casting vaguely magical swirls around him.
There's something SO painful about LotR being called "vaguely high fantasy." It INVENTED high fantasy!
Yeah that's kinda my point.
##### ###### #### [Galadriel, Elven-Queen](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8fa46d54-563d-4b5c-9c69-5ab37dd529b3.jpg?1686963714) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Galadriel%2C%20Elven-Queen) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/3/galadriel-elven-queen?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8fa46d54-563d-4b5c-9c69-5ab37dd529b3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sauron, the Dark Lord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/3/034e0929-b2c7-4b5f-94f2-8eaf4fb1a2a1.jpg?1693611218) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sauron%2C%20the%20Dark%20Lord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/224/sauron-the-dark-lord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/034e0929-b2c7-4b5f-94f2-8eaf4fb1a2a1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Éowyn, Shieldmaiden](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/dd4a00ff-2206-4e12-a0ab-61ed82c9e6c5.jpg?1686963690) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=%C3%89owyn%2C%20Shieldmaiden) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/1/%C3%A9owyn-shieldmaiden?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dd4a00ff-2206-4e12-a0ab-61ed82c9e6c5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aragorn, the Uniter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205.jpg?1686969644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20the%20Uniter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/192/aragorn-the-uniter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Stellar set. Lots of really cool and powerful cards, and is in my opinion what every UB set should be: Cool and interestingly designed cards tied to an IP that is adjacent in flavor to MTG. In terms of its impact on formats, I can't believe that the one ring hasn't been banned in commander yet. I think cards that make every deck in a format better should be, at the very least, looked at and considered for banning. The RC is probably not interested because its an expensive card and not everyone will want to spend a bunch of money to buy one or more for their decks. However, in my own (admittedly biased) experience, every single game I play at an LGS, someone drops this card, whether that is in a high powered table, or a precon where they cut a card to slot it in. I like commander, and its what I play the most in paper, but the One Ring remaining legal highlights what happens when you balance a format on what is essentially a "casual vibe" rather than power level. In other formats, the one ring occupies an interesting niche where (for the most part) it makes bad decks better. It actually has a positive impact of diversifying the format. However, not every deck benefits, and not every deck wants it. Every commander deck that exists is better with a one ring in it, and thats a problem. I like playing bowmasters and against it, it makes for interesting games imo. Its a very, very powerful card and it warps formats in a very peculiar way, where draw spells have to be exceptional to see play. Overall, I think its fine but I wouldn't be shocked if it got banned down the line.
Fuck UBs
##### ###### #### [Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/ce01ff8f-a037-484f-9148-c847ffaabc5a.jpg?1686969873) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lotho%2C%20Corrupt%20Shirriff) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/213/lotho-corrupt-shirriff?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ce01ff8f-a037-484f-9148-c847ffaabc5a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Aragorn, the Uniter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205.jpg?1686969644) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Aragorn%2C%20the%20Uniter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/192/aragorn-the-uniter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e98d5321-ec09-456c-a9ea-c8ca2cfc6205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Meneldor, Swift Savior](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/62d2ee20-abbc-4a9d-8d30-4223242123e8.jpg?1686968213) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Meneldor%2C%20Swift%20Savior) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/62/meneldor-swift-savior?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/62d2ee20-abbc-4a9d-8d30-4223242123e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Shower of Arrows](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/92cd3884-18d1-4200-b28e-a52349ef37aa.jpg?1686969600) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shower%20of%20Arrows) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/188/shower-of-arrows?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/92cd3884-18d1-4200-b28e-a52349ef37aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Rosie Cotton of South Lane](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/5/75338f49-1f02-4333-87e4-5779ef14e688.jpg?1686967894) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rosie%20Cotton%20of%20South%20Lane) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/27/rosie-cotton-of-south-lane?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/75338f49-1f02-4333-87e4-5779ef14e688?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Delighted Halfling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/1/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692.jpg?1686969281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Delighted%20Halfling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/158/delighted-halfling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/71384418-173a-4f77-adab-56e52fa23692?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Reprieve](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/b/1bd3fa8a-6c50-4f7f-9ae3-0810eec5e3db.jpg?1686967885) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Reprieve) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/26/reprieve?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1bd3fa8a-6c50-4f7f-9ae3-0810eec5e3db?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Lórien Revealed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/c/0ce44270-a684-4489-9077-521456e6dfaa.jpg?1687210977) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=L%C3%B3rien%20Revealed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/60/l%C3%B3rien-revealed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ce44270-a684-4489-9077-521456e6dfaa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oliphaunt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/6989018c-37b1-4282-a4af-9cc97f160b4d.jpg?1687210982) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oliphaunt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/139/oliphaunt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6989018c-37b1-4282-a4af-9cc97f160b4d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Orchish Bowmasters](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109.jpg?1686968669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Bowmasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/103/orcish-bowmasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Ragavan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a9738cda-adb1-47fb-9f4c-ecd930228c4d.jpg?1681963138) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ragavan%2C%20nimble%20pilferer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/138/ragavan-nimble-pilferer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a9738cda-adb1-47fb-9f4c-ecd930228c4d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [The One Ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2.jpg?1715080486) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20One%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/246/the-one-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/1det7db) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I hate the universes beyond border otherwise cool archetype support for legends, food, and to a lesser extent scrying
It was the only universes beyond product that seemed to fit the magic theme. The rest have been ip intrusive and very cringey
I got all of the main set in order to build a cube because It was a set I wanted to draft for a long time. However compared to some of the recent standard sets, they really dropped the ball on balancing the card strength in the colors. Many of the sub themes were really bad and underrepresented in their payoffs. Scry? Draw 2? Green trying to do anything? Black was just so oppressive with the average power of the commons being so much higher. I was very happy they did the extra decks and commander decks so there were Lotr themed cards to pull into the cube to make it better. I personally swapped out a bunch of the lower performing cards and rares and put in cards from the commander decks to bolster the power. I never did get all the Nazgûl variants, and I still am incredibly annoyed they made it artificial chase.
[[Orcish Bowmasters]] marks the point in my mind when creatures made today started being better than other high-power spells made in the past.
[Orcish Bowmasters](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109.jpg?1686968669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Bowmasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/103/orcish-bowmasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The set did one damage to me when I drew a card. Modern changed forever. Flame of annor was cool tho.
Artistically and thematically, it’s really sweet. The designers clearly are huge LotR fans and put a lot of love into every card. Even bulk commons are gorgeous. As a Modern and Limited player though, my praise stops there. The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters are miserable cards that made the format worse, and most other cards are not playable apart from landcyclers. The limited also was pretty rough due to the horrific color balance with green being literally unplayable and black being OP.
There's no failing with an IP as universally beloved as Lord of the Rings, but honestly, most of the bad stuff WotC could do with UB stuff, they did with Tales of Middle-earth, mainly, pushed, over-priced, limited release stuff; and convoluted mechanics that make you think of the IP, but don't really translate it to Magic language. It might have been on purpose though, 'cause they knew LotR wouldn't fail they tested the waters of consumer tolerance. We'll probably see their conclusions with the Marvel set
> A mechanic that appears at common that creates an emblem, something that previously was only done at mythic was a mistake in my view. Devil's advocate -- how's it different from dungeons/initiative?
>Devil's advocate -- how's it different from dungeons/initiative? It's not much different from those and I also very much dislike those mechanics. I don't think abilities that are excessively nuanced and complicated should be keyworded (and the overwhelming majority of keyworded abilities aren't anywhere near as wordy and complex as Dungeons, Tempted By The Ring and Attractions). Outside of the game mechanics can be done well. The Monarch is a perfect example, (Ascend was also cool) but I think that mechanic is elegant, intuitive and promotes dynamic gameplay without creating unnecessary additional tracking and logistical complexity.
I agree -- just don't think it's true to say it was only previously done at mythic! (Particularly as some rare ONE walkers made emblems)
The ring tempts you is a really annoying mechanic if you don't have a reminder card
Still hate it.
Overall a decent set, but obviously points lost for printing TOR and Bowmasters, both cards that are so stupidly strong and format warping it’s ridiculous. Completely pushes x/1 creatures out of modern, and TOR is a one card value engine better than anything else in the game. There are still a bunch of really neat cards like Flame of Anor, the basic land cycling cards, etc. but I will always feel negatively about pushing out game breaking cards to sell packs
I think it's one of the best sets they ever did and the absolute best of the UB releases. The art was incredible and gave a f resh take on the setting. The mechanics were fun and not oppressive. They didn't just print stupidly op shit either. It felt balanced against MTG. And they really did a great job matching mechanics to the theme. Honestly was blown away by the set.
It was a great set flavor-wise. I don’t see many cards played from it. A handful maybe outside of the theme decks that occasionally pop up. It was nice to have and the most memorable set last year, especially given the hype around it. I didn’t like the commercialization of it. That said I am not looking forward to Marvel although I like comic book stuff. I would be down for a Delicious in Dungeon set with Dungeons, Adventure and Food as mechanics.
As an Elves enthusiast, I have beef with the bowmasters. As a reasonable person, absolute lol at people who call it a cash grab. Companies do what they need to I'm order to profit, that's the whole point
I don't mind the mechanics and I enjoy some of the cards. But I' m not a fan of it being LotR themed and legal in modern. We already have a product like that with Modern Horizons. Also Magic has a rich story, based on a similar medieval fantasy, that now gets underminded in my opinion. It's like Chandra fighting Gandalf now. What comes next? Will there be Batman establishing justice on Dominaria? So that's whats bothers me, but the card design is great I think.
>What comes next? Will there be Batman establishing justice on Dominaria? Relax, it will be Spider-Man instead
As an Arena drafter, it was the first set I’ve ever drafted less for flavour reasons. I never considered myself to care much about flavour, and I’m sceptical but not inherently opposed to other settings appearing in Magic (the D&D set had a fun feel). But LotR in Magic just felt wrong to me. Two great tastes that didn’t taste great together. That seems to be very much a minority opinion though.
Every game came down to giant amass token/ringbearer vs giant amass token/ringbearer. Which cards amass the orcs and who's bearing the ring changed but it mostly didn't matter. The upside to this is every game captured that lotr flavour, the downside is for weirdos like me who draft every set 50+ times it got very old very fast. Here's hoping the final fantasy and Marvel sets can use their wider catalogue of material to be less monotonous
I think it’s one of the best designed sets in modern magic. I hope one day they’ll be able to reprint either the set or the cards as they are too fun/gorges for smaug ass collectors to hourd for gold.
I know I'm in a minority but I wish it hadn't happened. Even though I love LotR I was indifferent before the set came out, skipped Magic last summer to avoid it, and now feel slightly annoyed whenever a heavily Tolkein themed card makes an appearance. Especially as the characters aren't even based on the ones from the movies.
"This post was made by a wotc employee"
overall great set to draft and cards and lore both makes the drafting experience very flavorful and fun
Been playing since 95. It's my favorite set ever printed. I just love the flavor, the draft experience...my fav.
I only build cubes and I am less skeptical than many others towards universes beyond. For me, the set was positive overall. Cards I love include [[Flowering of the White Tree]] and [[Mount Doom]]. I also liked the high number of legendaries because it offers more options for commanders for my EDH cubes. The mechanics were overall good, I like food and I loved what was done with scry. Amass is a pretty low power mechanic but was very flavorful. I agree with most other here that tempt was bad. The tracking is not so much the issue. Rather, the mechanic is pretty parasitic in that it is not very relevant if you dont have multiple cards that can do it. Ring and Bow masters seem problematic for eternal formats but that seems forgivable. If you compare the number of problematic cards and the success of the set, that seems pretty reasonable. I hope that those cards get banned if necessary but won't comment on whether it might be necessary because as I mentioned I don't play modern and legacy.
[Flowering of the White Tree](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/2/2203b2cd-48e5-471a-85fe-dc81012e5d61.jpg?1686967772) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Flowering%20of%20the%20White%20Tree) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/15/flowering-of-the-white-tree?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2203b2cd-48e5-471a-85fe-dc81012e5d61?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mount Doom](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/5/b5bc71a1-2344-4bc6-aa60-658cec19d0d6.jpg?1686970382) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mount%20Doom) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/258/mount-doom?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b5bc71a1-2344-4bc6-aa60-658cec19d0d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It was one of the sets of all time
Great set with some inspired design and good synergy with preexisting strategies. The Ring Tempts You while being overly-complicated gives a reliable way to make creatures harder to block, amass orcs is a bland and kind of mid mechanic but it was great for what it offered, and the amazing support for food and sagas as themes immediately shot them up to very viable and fun strategies!
My one experience of this set is a man child at my LGS talking up his Frodo EDH deck and scooping on turn 5 when another player resolved a Dictate of Erebos. Blew my mind. He got up and left and I haven’t seen him since.
It was my first set and I doubt any other set could have given me such an easy entrance to the game. I am a LotR Fan and a friend of mine who plays a lot of Commander gifted me the starter deck set, played some games with me and explained the game. I was already interested in the concept of TCGs and while YuGiOh and Pokemon were of the table quickly, mtg was something I had no contact with until the friend came around with the decks. While I really like some other sets, especially Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Wilds of Eldraine, hopefully Bloomburrow and some older sets aswell, LotR is still my favourite.
I like the set but the price point was a bit high for what was in the set. And the one ring was a huge mistake and a flavor fail as it doesn't tempt you
i should of got a bundle , totaly missjudged the one ring , sucks that its not totaly out of my budget
Wow it’s already been 1 year?! Feels like it was just 6 months ago.
Incredible set. No other UB will come close
Nazgul is a funny deck to play . The art quality though is pretty hit or miss
This set has been my favourite since urzas block from back in the day. It reminds me of the legends set in that it is powerful but super fun. I use to play modern but not anymore and exclusively play commender now. I love the one ring and it’s pretty fair in the commander format. I’ve killed myself a few times off of it. The ring tempts you mechanic is super fun and I play nazguls heavily in my sauron deck. This set is a 10/10 for fun and for the art and flavor text. Also I noticed cracking packs of the set boosters I’m getting good pulls vs other sets.
I’ve been a huge fan. Great, evocative card designs and gorgeous art. I had to miss the prerelease and draft at my LGS just didn’t fire so I never got to play the limited environment. I might try to get some in at Origins or Gen Con this year if there are any events going.
As primarily a paper limited player, it was okay-ish. Art was alright, mostly. I don't remember too much of it outside of orcs and food being good. That and Horn of Gondor being almost completely unbeatable if you don't have an immediate answer. I only did 5 events for it, and I'm not an arena grinder, so unless a format is super good (like Kamigawa or MH2) or super bad (Capenna or Crimson Vow) it doesn't stick in my mind too much.
I love this set. It’s probably my favorite set to come out in the past 2 years. Bought all the commander decks and kept three of them with only lord of the rings cards, and making artisan decks with the commons and uncommmons is just so fun. I don’t play a ton of competitive magic anymore, but for casual, this set was amazing
Being able to pack in 9 Nazgul has made it very easy to consistently get them on the board. I found my recursions knights deck in commander loves them especially with the ring mechanics which further help me get my cards into the graveyard to reanimate.
The draft set was my favorite of the past 2 years.
I've only just started playing mtg. my partner finally got me into the game (after more than a decade of people trying and failing) by buying me the elven council commander deck and a couple of boosters. I love lotr and my partner figured that if this didn't get me into magic, nothing would. now I'm hooked! first I bought more lotr cards (I told myself I would limit my spending by only buying from this set, which...has not happened), then I started reading articles and watching videos about how to build and upgrade decks, then I bought more cards, then I started watching episodes of shuffle up and play, then I bought *even more* cards...now I'm constantly working on upgrading my blue/green/white elves deck with [[galadriel, light of valinor]] as my commander. I'm not quite ready to play with strangers yet, but my partner and I play together most days after work and I'm having a lot of fun! I never would have tried mtg at all if not for this set. it's been a really lovely introduction to a new hobby that's brought me a lot of joy so far.
[galadriel, light of valinor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/4/f485596f-3a23-4714-ad7e-4c493ab1b530.jpg?1695428241) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=galadriel%2C%20light%20of%20valinor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/498/galadriel-light-of-valinor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f485596f-3a23-4714-ad7e-4c493ab1b530?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was kinda zoned out of magic when the set came out for a couple months, and looking back I really wished I was keeping track of spoiler season and went to prereleases and whatnot, because it looks like such a fun set!
Whatever feelings I have toward the set don’t matter because I can’t not think of the sealed prerelease event I attended that played the trilogy soundtrack during deck building.
i think Wotc should stop doing cross over sets entirely and focus on ORIGINAL concepts that exist with in the universe they created. I don’t want to play dr. who the board game.
This set got me into magic and Sauron, the Dark Lord (poster art of course ;) ) is my favorite commander. So I thought it was a great set!
This set got me into magic and Sauron, the Dark Lord (poster art of course ;) ) is my favorite commander. So I thought it was a great set!
Fucking sick! I just made a very fun Bombadil commander deck, with everything AND the kitchen sink
I think it was a massive home run. Super fun cards, tons of which see regular play in commander. Pretty much everyone i know had at least one lord of the rings deck. The variety in mechanics and really cool reprints is super sweet. Big con is the price but that’s hardly unique.
The One Ring was a mistake to print but otherwise set was great and flavorful
Overall, I loved the set. The Ring Tempting you was kind of a dud, imo, but I think they purposefully and successfully kept the power level low enough that it doesn't really show up outside Limited. I really only have one nitpick: Orcish Bowmasters should have been red!
I am indifferent about LOTR properties but i love the movies if that makes sense. So as a UB product i dont care for it except maybe slight inconsistencies when it comes to magics flavors. I love how the cards are designed. The powerhouses of the one ring and bowmasters can feel oddly fair but usually feel game warping in some sense. I still remember the one ring reveal on reddit and everyone calling it a commander card never seeing play in modern. I thought every fair deck can play it and i was mostly right. They also made that card widely accessible trough the bundles which im really happy about. The land cyclers have been my favorite cards so far. I knew theyd see play but not this much. I play them in commander ive enjoyed them in legacy and felt underwhelmed but enjoyable in modern but i was being cheeky about it there. There is other cards that i immediately enjoyed such as [[flame of anor]], [[palintir]], [[elven chorus]], [[saurons ransom]] and many more. That are usually good enough for a random commander deck or as a spicy tech in a legacy or modern deck. Most of the cards feel fair yet strong and dont feel like modern horizons cards but they never feel like slouches. A nice in between. Most of my evaluation where understated. I didnt think the one ring was going to be as game warping in commander but i knew it would be good. I knew the fog effect mattered but its what makes in playable in the eternal formats. Bowmasters is a different story i didnt think it was gonna be that great in modern as ragavan was seeing less play but it was still a strong enough card. Everyone knew it would be the best card for legacy but i didnt expect it to be in 1/2 the decks. I felt the same way about the land cyclers. There is so many little things in the set i believe we will see them become on and off relevant for years. [[rise of the witch king]] might be modern playable one day as a 4 mana reanimatiom spell/edict. There is a handful of food related cards that might spawn a combo deck. [[Samwise the stoutheart]] is white snapcaster mage and see minor play in legacy death and taxes maybe it can see more play over time. [[horn of the mark]] is a 2 mana engine maybe it will see play if there is a viable go wide deck that can play this. [[sting the glinting dagger]] untaps a selected creature every turn. Its absurd really whats in the set not cards so overpowered but cards that can fill niches that other decks might need which is what i believe is the true power of the set. The mechanics of the LOTR set felt weak. Amass is a bad mechanic, food was just ok, the ring tempts you is not strong enough for eternal format. A cute commander deck sure.
##### ###### #### [flame of anor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04779a7e-b453-48b9-b392-6d6fd0b8d283.jpg?1686969766) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=flame%20of%20anor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/203/flame-of-anor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04779a7e-b453-48b9-b392-6d6fd0b8d283?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [elven chorus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/616cfb94-3faf-44fe-bf04-e90643765e48.jpg?1686969302) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=elven%20chorus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/160/elven-chorus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/616cfb94-3faf-44fe-bf04-e90643765e48?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [saurons ransom](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6b98850c-ad69-42da-b91a-8dc5e226c444.jpg?1686970005) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sauron%27s%20Ransom) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/225/saurons-ransom?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6b98850c-ad69-42da-b91a-8dc5e226c444?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [rise of the witch king](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/f/3f440fa1-5387-41d6-a80f-5b19dbb21514.jpg?1686969962) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rise%20of%20the%20Witch-king) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/221/rise-of-the-witch-king?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3f440fa1-5387-41d6-a80f-5b19dbb21514?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [horn of the mark](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/d/dd86b71f-d736-426f-bf15-013bc8da1a08.jpg?1686970181) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=horn%20of%20the%20mark) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/241/horn-of-the-mark?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dd86b71f-d736-426f-bf15-013bc8da1a08?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [sting the glinting dagger](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/afbec7e7-f5b9-407e-bf96-2e088710e791.jpg?1686970284) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sting%2C%20the%20Glinting%20Dagger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/250/sting-the-glinting-dagger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/afbec7e7-f5b9-407e-bf96-2e088710e791?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not saying much anyone else hasn’t said but loved the limited, hated that playing Red Black “4th best cards in the pack” was generally your best bet and better than a lot of solid decks
It shouldnt have been a limited release. I would have loved to have drafted it a few times
the single best set theyve put out thematically, the single best UB set for sure, and every card feels like a love letter to LotR
As a legacy player I've really enjoyed the impact it has had on the format - people complain about the Bowmasters but they do create interesting gameplay patterns.
Love the set in general, hate that it's Modern legal. Commander is a format about creative expression. Universes Beyond is an important element of that expression. Modern was created so that MTG could have a nonrotating, competitive format unburdened by the Reserved List. Printing hundreds of cards that Wizards of the Coast cannot legally print more copies of is directly counter to that goal. "But what about the Universes Within loophole?" I would appreciate this much more if it had been better designed. As it stands, neither [[Eleven, the Mage]] nor [[Cecily, Haunted Mage]] indicate anywhere on the card that the game considers both of these cards with different names and art as two copies of the same card. Players are already trained by similar/identical cards (ex.[[Thraben Inspector]]/[[Novice Inspector]] and [[Deglamer]]/[[Unravel the Aether]]) that cards with different names and art but the same text box are different cards. If someone messes up and puts a UB and UW version of the same card in their Commander deck, that's an oopsie. If someone puts more than 4 copies of the same UB/UW card in their Modern deck, that's a disqualification. And all of that assumed that Universes Within versions of a given card are even made available before some old UB card gets prohibitively expensive. For Legacy and Vintage, the Reserved List is already a fact of life and Universes Beyond don't make it worse. But there's no reason to expose Modern to the thing that it was *literally created to avoid.*
##### ###### #### [Eleven, the Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/3/33e1e8fc-77b4-409d-9fc4-7bc6f6ae3e26.jpg?1682690059) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cecily%2C%20Haunted%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sld/343/cecily-haunted-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/33e1e8fc-77b4-409d-9fc4-7bc6f6ae3e26?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Cecily, Haunted Mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a09ffd51-8ea4-40a6-b64e-58f3acfee533.jpg?1677763550) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cecily%2C%20Haunted%20Mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/slx/3/cecily-haunted-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a09ffd51-8ea4-40a6-b64e-58f3acfee533?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Thraben Inspector](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/299cc386-2ed5-4504-9ba6-17a52e0c9a0c.jpg?1689996111) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thraben%20Inspector) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/66/thraben-inspector?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/299cc386-2ed5-4504-9ba6-17a52e0c9a0c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Novice Inspector](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0ad38866-fc5f-4f62-89c1-afc0f50765aa.jpg?1706241527) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Novice%20Inspector) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/29/novice-inspector?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0ad38866-fc5f-4f62-89c1-afc0f50765aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Deglamer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/985b43aa-58f0-42fc-9ef0-a7925727d58f.jpg?1562880209) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deglamer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mor/118/deglamer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/985b43aa-58f0-42fc-9ef0-a7925727d58f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Unravel the Aether](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/5/5584c26f-62ac-4d0b-9142-5159f2a05734.jpg?1593092698) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Unravel%20the%20Aether) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bng/143/unravel-the-aether?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5584c26f-62ac-4d0b-9142-5159f2a05734?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It was a great set, but mainly helped me feel good that they’ll be able to do Final Fantasy well next year.
It's definitely my favorite set that they've done in a long time. It's really well designed and I had a ton of fun playing it. My only complaint is that [[The One Ring]] isn't restricted to one copy in a deck. Being able to run 4x copies of it is a massive flavor fail and probably pretty bad for 60 card formats.
[The One Ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/5/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2.jpg?1715080486) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20One%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/246/the-one-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d5806e68-1054-458e-866d-1f2470f682b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
its hands down the best set ive experienced in my 25 years of playing the game
I want more of it as soon as possible
Fav card gotta be [[cirdan the shipwright]]. Came with the elves precon and has been super fun commander to play
[cirdan the shipwright](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/4/c4f23d68-d0de-4b57-b0f9-9c0ca770c3c1.jpg?1686964171) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=C%C3%ADrdan%20the%20Shipwright) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltc/50/c%C3%ADrdan-the-shipwright?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c4f23d68-d0de-4b57-b0f9-9c0ca770c3c1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Prices rose and didn’t really go back down.
I made two decks at pre-relrease and did a 39 card swap after game one keeping glamdring. I went 1-1-1, it fucking ruled
Prerelease slapped, playing within the fully self-contained environment was fun. Someone even opened a serialized Sol Ring (human I think). As soon as the cards left the prerelease or went into any decks? Massive fucking L that took a while to really manifest. I thought I’d be able to at least use the LotR cards since they’re so fantasy adjacent. I was wrong and it really ended up putting me off of magic as a whole. I haven’t sat down with a pod to play magic since then and really have no desire to even try. My spending has dried up. And let me pre-empt all the jack-off “well then why are you here?” comments - I’m here because this thread is on the first page that popped up when I got shortcutted to this subreddit. I opened Reddit today to engage with gardening, not MTG, and I highly recommend it. Much cheaper, and when you walk away from a gardening store feeling a little dirty, it’s for a whole different reason than when you walk out of a magic card shop. TL;DR: my life is way better now and I have more or less quit engaging with magic. As someone who has spent way too much time and energy on a game that can’t even be faithful to *itself*, much less its audience… it’s “not for me” anymore.
Honestly I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to UB…
Loved it. Still love it. Love it so much I have a full draft cube.
The One of One Ring was a cashgrab, however in the context of LOTR, it was one of the only times where it was acceptable, if not flavorful that everyone was coveting and tracking The One of One. I mean, my mom is a huge LOTR fan and has no idea what MTG is, and even she caught wind of this thing when Post Malone bought the ring for a couple million dollars. It's certainly not something they should do every set. Orcish Bowmasters is way too good, and unlike the One Ring (where it's basically the central plot point of the whole series and so it was understandable that it was pushed, albeit a little too far), this card is just kind of out of nowhere broken, I don't even know what this card is supposed to be a reference towards (other than the fact that it's some generic orc). And, the way it's designed is that it's supposed to punish opponents who draw too many cards, but you can ping down anything. So player A could draw 10 cards, and then player B is the one who gets his shit sniped down. Not only is it broken, it's also poorly designed.
I dislike the branded sets/cards as they feel out of place in a mtg match. I would be more understanding if Bowmasters and the one ring weren't good enough to see play.
Freaking love it and can’t stop building LOTR decks
I love it, except for the one ring. That card made 8 rack impossible to play without the scam package.
It was what brought me back into magic in regards to buying sets again. Last set was ixalan (dinosaurs). Bought all commander decks. 2 collector box and 1 regular box. Have 7 decks being lotr theme. Im glad they added in characters not well known (non-book readers). Now I am saving for final fantasy. Overall, a great addition to the world of magic
It was great for a number of reasons but mostly because there was a guy in a cobbled together Gandalf costume who arrived late and said the line