The First Spoilers from MTG: Lord of the Rings

We got our very first look at cards in the upcoming set Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and they started off with some very notable namesakes from Lord of the Rings. Modern Horizons 2, the last direct-to-modern set, turned modern on its head, so we are very excited to see what this set will do to the modern meta. Preorders for this set will be available soon on boarshatgaming.com Lets take a look at this first batch of spoilers.

The One Ring

Starting off with a card we all thought would be in the set. Its a card that references the very ring that most of the franchise centers around. The strength of this card definitely looks to draw on the power level it represented in the books.

This card provides you “protection from everything” as long as it enters the battlefield from you casting it. So you can’t get this effect by making a copy of it with something like The Mycosynth Gardens. However, this effect has only ever been printed on 5 other cards up to this point, and only 3 of those are modern legal.

The last two effects on the card deal with drawing you cards, but then losing life at the start of the next turn. Drawing cards is obviously a very powerful effect. If you can some how remove some or all the counters before the upkeep trigger, like with Power Conduit, you could have quite a powerful draw engine.

Gandalf the Grey

Next up we get to see Gandalf the Grey, an legendary red/blue creature. I was hoping that Gandalf would end up as a planeswalker card, I suppose there is still hope that they could still give us a Gandalf the White as a planeswalker.

A 3/4 for 5 mana definitely isn’t the best rate we have in modern, but the effect it brings with it has a large range of uses. I don’t think this is playable in most modern decks at the moment, but the modern card pool is very large so we will see what players can come up with for Gandalf the Grey.

Basic Lands

We get a set of full art basic lands that have parts of the Middle-earth map on them. If you are a fan of Lord of the Rings, these basic lands will probably be at the top of your list to put in your decks.

The last two direct-to-modern sets (Modern Horizons 1 & 2) caused large changes to the modern meta. We are looking forward to see what Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth brings to the format. More spoilers are already set for tomorrow (March 14th 2023) so stay tuned for those.

Todd Silvia