Hello! Welcome to my set review of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.
Yes, there will be and artifact and lands review as well as a multicoloured review.
Given that the set also comes out with a set of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article.
Without further ado, here are my favourite White cards!
This is a bonkers little guy that just keeps giving every time I read it. Three mana for a 3/3 Human Soldier with Vigilance isn’t crazy, but it’s still decent for types. The first ability counters any spell your opponents cast without spending mana on it. Knowledge Pool and Possibility Storm lock your opponents out. Say goodbye to Cascade and Omniscience, opponents.
Then on top of this, you get a sacrifice ability that protects all your creatures! Indestructible for the board and you get tempted by The Ring? That’s pretty great for a costless activation.
There’s already an infinite combo with Ratadrabik of Urborg who says when a legendary creature you control dies, you create a nonlegendary token copy of it that’s a 2/2. Well, when The Ring tempts you, you have to select a Ring-bearer to gain The Ring’s abilities – the first of which is making it legendary! So Boromir dies, trigger Ratadrabik, create a copy of Boromir, The Ring Tempts you, make the new Boromir the Ring-bearer. Rinse and repeat.
Boromir is cool as hell and I know that he’ll be making appearances in lots of decks this summer.
Equipment decks get a brand new cool piece of tech. A mild version of Puresteel Paladin meets Leonin Shikari with an equipment reanimation on a blinkable permanent. Equipment decks getting to move things around on their own turn at instant speed means that any attack with multiple creatures are scary. It doesn’t matter that you’ve blocked a threat, the Swords of X & Y are gonna trigger.
Is this like having a Puresteel Paladin and Leonin Shikari? No, those are much better when they’re out together. But that’s two cards and they’re creatures, a card type that gets killed a lot more than others, even just incidentally. Regardless of these limitations, I think Forge Anew has potential to be a solid include in Boros Equipment decks and whatever other Equipment themed decks are out there.
Retribution of the Meek with upside! Destroy all the beefy creatures and then give all your little guys a snack!
With The Battle of Bywater, you’re looking at most likely including it in a token swarm or white weenie strategy and I say hell yeah. There aren’t a ton of spots for this card, but with a this board wipe sparing your little guys, maybe you’ve got a Reckless Fireweaver or Hedron Detonator left over who can make use of the tokens entering. Can’t forget if you’ve got indestructible across the board! Board wipe, keep yours, boom, lots of Food. Not a bad deal!
A Saga makes the cut! Tale of Tinuviel grants one of your creatures indestructible for two turns, reanimated a creature from your graveyard, and gives two of your beat sticks lifelink.
You have to really want this for the indestructible at the very least unless you can get a second lore counter very quickly. There are a lot of reanimation spells in white cropping up, but on a repeatable permanent that can be blinked? Just Elspeth Conquers Death comes to mind off the top of my head and that’s its final ability, so blinking it needs to be instant speed. So this being a delayed reanimation might make this perfect for Aminatou, the Fateshifter – give your blocker indestructible to keep your planeswalker safe before getting back another piece. I think this card is fantastic.
I wanted to pick this as my favourite white card but flipped a coin between this and Boromir, Warden of the Tower.
Gandalf the White is one of the coolest white creatures, combining a legendary-specific Panharmonicon and Teysa Karlov-esque abilites, all while adding flash to all your legendary and artifact spells.
To me? Gandalf the White is going right into my Will the Wise and Mike the Dungeon Master deck. Will triggers when he enters and leaves.
Don’t forget that it’s not the legendary permanent or artifact’s abilities per se that get triggered again by Gandalf. Let’s say you have a Zulaport Cutthroat and you have a Will the Wise die – you can trigger Zulaport Cutthroat twice. If you have a Vraan, Executioner Thane and your Grizzly Bears dies, this will not trigger Vraan twice. But if Will the Wise died, he would trigger Vraan. Anyway, remember that when brewing!
Honorable Mentions
- Bill the Pony – People love a little guy and this one lets creatures you control hit with their butt if you feed the Pony a Food.
- Dawn of a New Age – This is a Phyrexian Arena that shows up too late and requires you to have a board of creatures. It feels like a control card but wants creatures? A mythic! It’s weird!
- Eastfarthing Farmer – A solid pump creature for Food decks (like the precon coming)
- Eowyn, Lady of Rohan – Great for Equipment decks. Where else to put this, honestly?
- Faramir, Field Commander – A little extra card advantage for having a creature die before your end step that also gives you a disposable creature token when the ring tempts you.
- Flowering of the White Tree – A two mana anthem for your board with a little oomph for your legends is definitely power creep. Two for your devotion is solid for something you might want for your legends anyway. Ward 1 isn’t huge, but it’s still something that’ll stop something in the early game.
- Frodo, Determined Hero – I love that it’s Equipment of 2 or 3 mana value because they knew they couldn’t let it be one mana value because of Colossus Hammer. He takes no damage on your turn, so send him out to swing.
- Gandalf, White Rider – This is really sneaky. Cast a spell and you get to scry 1. It gets a little tedious to track if the spells you’re casting are creatures, but otherwise this card is pretty sweet!
- Lost to Legend – LET’S BRING BACK THE TUCK RULE LOL!
- Reprieve – A better Remand but it’s white. This is silly. It gets around “can’t be countered” because it doesn’t actually counter!
- Rosie Cotton of South Lane – There are so many cards that make tokens and to tack a +1/+1 counter onto them entering is pretty sweet.
- Samwise the Stouthearted – Return something that died to your hand on a flash body that gets a Ring temptation out of it? Sounds niche but good.
- Slip On the Ring – A Cloudshift with a Ring temptation. Fit it into your tempting decks.
- War of the Last Alliance – Two legendary creature tutors on a single permanent. Great for people who like tutors.
- Saradoc, Master of Buckland – Great card for turning all your 1 or 2 power nontoken creatures into Attended Knight.
- Took Reaper – Ring temptation on death trigger is pretty great for aristocrats decks.
Get all your board game news from The Bag of Loot! www.thebagofloot.com
Get all your board game needs from Three Kings Loot! www.threekingsloot.com
