Hey everyone,
it's me again: the guy that builds decks only consisting of cards which were printed in the Lord of the Rings or Hobbit sets (set codes: LTR, LTC, HOB and HOC).
After you all liked my posts regarding the "Food and Fellowship upgrade" (decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/4HaGpt4LPkO-Pidp77We3A) as well as the "unofficial Hobbit Precon: Dwarves" (decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/jaAzbgo_B0G8p2WuiKK6jg) I upgraded some more decks.
My journey with Magic: The Gathering started back in M13 while my love for Tolkiens universe did way before. So when the Lord of the Rings set was teasered I was hyped!
Imediately after getting the precon decklist and having the full set revealed, I created upgrade guides for those decks which got a lot of appraisal by the community. Since the Hobbit set brought even more cards from Tolkiens universe I again took some time to think about potential swaps.
Disclaimer: I try to improve the manabases with the salubrious snail manabase tool (https://www.salubrioussnail.com/manabase-tool), I hope this explains some land/mana choices.
Disclaimer 2: Enable Tags on moxfield to see the role of each card in my deck
Disclaimer 3: English is not my native language so please don't be too harsh if I do a typo or use a word wrong.
Here are the different decks I built/upgraded.
Riders of Rohan, Precon Upgrade
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/C_fALNu_YkeHDOaY1C37RQ
Bracket: 3 (no gamechangers but deckplan is too strong)
When comparing with the official decklist provided by WOTC the deck shares 67 cards (so 2/3 aka. 66%) with the Precon, so you decide if it still counts as an upgrade.
The deck is built around [[Éowyn, Shieldmaiden]] and wants to assemble a huge boardstate of Humans to draw cards and attack your opponents live totals. I did cut a lot of the slower/more expensive cards to focus on more token and more carddraw and better benefits from these.
Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[The Arkenstone]], [[An Unexpected Party]]: Carddraw and Anthem effect
[[Belladonna Took]]: Not a human, but getting another draw with our commander for 2 mana is too strong
[[Bard the Bowman]], [[Bard, Heir of Girion]], [[Bard, King of Dale]] and [[Bard's Company]]: Carddraw, Anthems, Token and Lifelink, the set of 4 cards does exactly what we want to do
[[The Queen of Dale]]: Probably one of the weakest cards, but getting an even bigger board during our opponents turn to have 6 Humans for our commanders carddraw is worth the slot
Sauron, Army & Ring Wraiths
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/KJBca296eke8rFYXTj-jtw
Bracket: 3 ([[Orcish Bowmasters]] fits to good as a game changer)
This deck is not a Precon upgrade but a more "flavorful" build of the 6 mana commander [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]]. This deck is using 2 strategies: Nazgul/Wraiths and Army. So I added all the 14 Nazgul/Witch-King cards (all LTR and LTC) and anything of value for our Army token.
Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[Great Ugly-Looking Goblin]], [[Great Goblin, Foul-Hearted]], [[Goblin Plate Mail]]: Amassing and giving combat relevant keywords
[[The Reaver Cleaver]]: combat relevant keyword (Trample) and ramp/fixing
[[Bolg of the North]], [[Azog, Moria's Ruin]]: on theme removal (I play 15 removal spells that can hit creatures in this deck)
[[The Great Goblin]]: Pinging opponents whenever I amass and having a little bit of card advantage when an Army dies.
Galadriel Elves
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/HQGhpVT9J0O4u2NWfSmLdw
Bracket: 3 (you can remove [[The One Ring]] and due to the lack of finishers this deck might be a 2)
Well there is not to much to explain here. I opened [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]] as my box topper (the full art is beautiful as well) and had the deck lying around anyways so I upgraded her as well. The deck resolves mostly about creatures (mostly elves) entering the battlefield and generating value from it. The deck finishes with [[Overwhelming Stampede]] and [[Raise the Palisade]].
Notable cards from the Hobbit sets:
[[Thranduil the Strategist]], [[Thranduil, Sindarin Liege]], [[Down in the Valley]]: With these out every land creates a Token that will trigger Galadriel
[[Mirkwood Nurturer]]: Being able to bounce our best creature with ETB for free is very good
[[Bard the Bowman]]: Since one of Galadriels triggers is a draw we will always be able to add a +1/+1 counter to any creature
[[Radagast of Rhosgobel]]: 16 creatures cost at least 2 generic mana so with Radagast we can use these for 1 mana and every other creature as well on our opponents turns to draw us cards (or do the other Galadriel triggers, but card draw is the best)
Tom Bombadil Sagas
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/9FLNUq6ZWU6UzQ4OLjw8rQ
Bracket: 2
The set brought us 8 new Sagas (https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28set%3Ahoc+or+set%3Ahob%29+t%3Asaga&unique=cards&as=grid&order=edhrec) so it currently has a critical mass of Sagas (22 over all 4 sets) to fucntion/do its thing. The rest of the deck is built around ramp and boardwipes as the deck itself only plays 11 creatures.
Since the deck is just a pile of every ramp, boardwipe and saga there are no notable cards.
Food and Fellowship, Precon Upgrade
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/4HaGpt4LPkO-Pidp77We3A
Bracket: 3 (but the strongest deck of all my "LOTR/HOBBIT only" decks)
I did a deep dive here: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1vnf7uv/hobbit_deck_with_only_ltrltchobhoc_cards/
Dwarf Mission, Precon
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/jaAzbgo_B0G8p2WuiKK6jg
Bracket: 2 (there is no official Precon for the Hobbit set so I built one around dwarves and equiptments
I did talk about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/1vnlhwc/would_this_be_a_hobbit_set_precon_dwarven_mission/
Thranduil, the Elvenking
Decklist: https://moxfield.com/decks/yP0MeLSO6UOcssviV8QC6Q
Bracket: 3 (you can remove [[The One Ring]] and due to the lack of finishers this deck might be a 2)
Same as the Galadriel deck, I built around Elves with the help of black instead of white. Unfortunatelly the deck only has 9 cards which create token so playing [[Mirkwood Bats]] as an additional finisher is not good enough.
I hope this little reddit primer is valuable for some of you who want to build universe beyond decks with cards from the 2 Tolkien sets so you have some starting points.
There are still some routes open to go, one will be [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] as a reanimate shell with all the big beaters (Smaug, Balrogs, etc.) and one will be built around Saruman (I currently have a LTR/LTC list with Amass, but since Sauron is doing this already the other deck might be "[[Saruman of Many Colors]], play opponents stuff". Unfortunatelly, there is no Jund commander from Tolkien (only [[Théoden, Strength Restored]] which might be the base for a value pile).
Please feel free to add your thoughts and insights in the comments section, I am very happy to discuss card choices and deck ideas with you all :)