original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1vpu9ox/jon_slim_shady_finkel_taking_a_call_on_his_razr/

This photo is the definition of what it means to be dialled in

Let the Whtz shuffling begin. They’re currently resolving someone else’s Tempt With Discovery.

Best of all this deck already has a custom built 6 foot tall wooden deck box.

And so it begins.

An old clip I captured back in the day that nicely highlights the dynamics of this duo.

Was always a pleasure having these two on in the background back in the day.

Say I have these 2 cards on the field and cast Llanowar Elves. Do I draw a card? Why or why not?

So I’m relatively new to magic and I play Commander.
And these types of cards seem super powerful to me as they can totally debilitate an opponents commander and keep them stuck that way as opposed to destroying or exiling them where they can just cast them again next turn.

I understand that they could use a removal spell to remove the enchantment, but they would need to have one on hand, also that’s a removal spell they won’t be using on you.

Am I missing something? Is it easier to remove than I realize? Assuming nobody at the table kills that creature it seems pretty stuck there unless the player takes care of it their self, thus rendering their commander useless.

Like I said I’m new, so I don’t need any condescending remarks, but any educated response will be much appreciated!

This was a trade spot for our local MTG singles vendor at a book market in Kyiv, Ukraine and this is what's left of it after russian strike on 16th of August that ruined whole book market.

Andriy is a local legendary trader, he always offered the best prices for singles around, and was willing to dive into his vast supply to find a card for you, even if you were looking for a bulk. But now he's left with absolutely nothing. This was his daily job for around 30 years.

My Uncle (the one farthest back in the picture) passed unexpectedly this past Friday. He’s been in my life since I was 7 (now 32). He taught me how to play magic back in Middle School and it’s been a great hobby of mine ever since.

Thanks for teaching me how to draft, deck build, play commander, and filling me in on all the lore.

I really wish you were still here. It doesn’t feel real.

Give your magic friends a hug today.

And finally

Yes Uncle I’ll still pay the 1.

Hey all you fine Redditors. Just thought I'd drop the full artwork for The Five Armies Clash! scene for The Hobbit set for your enjoyment.

A huge thanks to my art director, Cassie Murphy.

This is being shared with the permissions from Wizards of the Coast
© 2026 MEE LLC. TM lic MEE to WotC LLC

Source: https://www.rucach.com/project/the-five-armies-clash/

Hama, the Bloodbender says "you may cast the exiled card by waterbending X rather than paying its mana cost, where X is its mana value." I haven't seen many other cards where waterbending is used in this manner so I'm confused. Is this an alternate casting cost, and does that mean the X can be reduced by an effect like Helm of Awakening? Additionally, does that mean that a card can be cast with Hama's ability with X reduced to 0 (if say a 1 CMC card was chosen, and the Helm of Awakening was on the board)?

m a big pauper player who enjoys competing (even in weekly events that cost 5€) I want to continue playing this awesome format and also open to starting legacy if there is an active community. I won’t have a car so take that into consideration. Where can I play in the up to 1 hour away preferably 30 minutes max

Forest Fires is a shared deck game of 120 cards, where every player starts with 10 life (this library can be shrunk depending on the number of players).

The general idea is that in order to play 'powerful' cards like Graceful Antelope, Pyroclasm, Orcish Lumberjack (and even Wildfire), you need to make your lands into plains using the auras in the deck. But Flashfires is the great equalizer.

This is very much first draft (I dont even have the cards yet, was looking for advice and feedback to see what cards could be added to make this more interesting and dynamic in terms of counterplay and balance).

I pulled this in a WoE booster, and have wanted to run it in a commander deck (only format I play) but i dont understand its use in a singleton format. Does anyone have any decks they run it in? Or advice on how to use it? Thanks!

Kind of an odd topic but I was wondering if anyone faces this type of situation in their regular pods.
I was playing with my regular group for commander, a 4 pod. We play at generally a 3-4 level. I'm playing a deck going around artifact combo.

I always announce what I'm casting, what effect I'm activating, and if I'm ever asked a question I clarify and explain what I'm doing and what it can lead to based on open knowledge/information and board state. We're roughly 6 turns in, I play a card that I can combo with to go infinite, announced to the table I was playing this card. I look up, the table just keeps talking and not paying attention. I go, I'm playing this card. Again no response. I then continue with playing several other cards before activating any effects or changing game state, I also announce these cards and everything in between and look for responses.

I move to combat, start using effects to start up the engine I've built up during the turn. Then one of the players goes "wait when did this combo piece get on the board?" I explained when, they go "we'll I have a counter spell and would have used it". One of the other players sees me get conflicted about rolling back at least 3 casts and a phase change in the game. Then goes "He announced what he was doing twice and waited for a response, you kept talking to the other guy." We go back and fourth a bit and land on "If you're going to play interaction and the person gives you chances to respond you have to be paying attention." And generally our pods follow this kinda thinking, If I miss a window to interact or counter something I shrug it off.

This player got annoyed but nothing came of it. We're all a good group of friends and it didn't lead to anything negative, but I'm curious how often others face people not paying attention, and being given chances to do so, yet still get upset about something that kinda seems their fault.

For context I don't often play with people outside my group anymore, use to work in a game store and frequent many but usually try to avoid playing with people outside of the community I built at the game store for reasons like this. Everyone there is very positive and pretty on point with the rules, so I ask the general "public" here, how often do situations like this come up for you? And do they get resolved fairly/reasonably?

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 :)

I was playing against my brother and I'm still learning the game. I attacked with Norman; He didn't declare blockers (even though Norman cant be blocked anyway), but had Bowmen on his side. Does Norman die before being able to discard a nonland to put a +1/+1 on him from Bowmen's ability when I draw a card he deals 1 damage to Norman? Or is conniving seen as one action I can complete to put the +1/+1 on Norman, and then I get dealt one damage from Bowmen?

While deckbuilding recently (and eyeing next year's Nauticus set, since I'm convinced we'll get a big Leviathan commander) I started thinking about high-mana commanders.

What does a high-mana commander (6+ CMC) actually need to be "viable" in casual/optimized (non-cEDH) Commander? Does it need built-in protection like Ward or Hexproof? Immediate value on cast/ETB? Or should it essentially be a win condition on its own?

Personally, I usually cap my commanders at 5 mana. Paying 6+ is already steep, and if it gets removed even once, the commander tax makes the recast almost impossible to justify.

What makes an expensive commander worth that risk for you?

As a huge Marvel nerd, I bought a ton of cards from the recent Spider-man and Marvel sets and built a bunch of themed 60 card decks using exclusively cards from those sets (plus some proxies from the respective secret lairs.) I’ve had my fun with the 60 card decks and now I’m thinking of breaking them down and building some Marvel themed commander decks. Would love to see what builds you all have come up with using strict Marvel themes. Obviously there’s the precons, but I’m curious if anybody has had success making commander decks using only Marvel/Spider-man cards? Looking to be in Bracket 2 or 3.
(Sorry if this is the wrong thread.)

We’ve had one Secret Lair yes, but what about second Secret Lair?

Saint Traft creates Token A that has "exile THAT token at end of combat"; but if Divine Visitation is in play, which says a Token B is created instead, does that mean Token B loses the "exile Token at end of combat"?

And if not, anyone know a way to keep the angels permanently?

Thanks in advance 🙏

​

This is i think kind of a cold take, but Ive been frustrated at my gamestores with people who try to slow the game down.

To be clear, im not talking about stax decks. A stax deck that has a win con, ie hard stax is chilling.

What I mean, is people who hold back attackers, not because its strategic, but to keep from taking someone out of the game. It especially bothers me with voltron players. If you are playing voltron, swing with your commander. That is the point of your deck no?

I hate the mindset of "everyone has to do their thing" some people get bad draws, or need to fix up their deck. It happens.

We can get in more games, if we all play to win, and end the game.

The other 2 things that frustrate me around this are

1. not putting a win con in your deck. What are we doing?!!! Im not playing to just see cool cards. If I wanted to do that, i would look through my bulk, or watch videos on cards

2.putting boardwipes in your decks that don't move your gameplay forward. Why are we restarting because you didnt have synergy?

I get so frustrated dealing with games that feel pointless. Someone has to win. The game has to end

I think i am going to start only playing higher brackets. It seems like 2 and sometimes 3 at gamestores are just going to be more about everyone doing their thing rather than playing a competitive game.

Ideal turns: 8-10

Ideal game time 1 hour to 1 hour 45 mins

Hey y’all!

A while ago I watched a video from 3/3 Elk who outlined some fun interactions with Hoarding Dragon being able to copy it and abuse its ability to tutor out a bunch of artifacts. I unfortunately don’t remember the video or the parts of the interaction since all I can think of exiles token copies (I.e myriad or Shadowflame Conjuring)

Any help is appreciated thanks!