The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is a set designed specifically to impact Modern (and to some extent, Alchemy and Historic for MTG Arena)… But will it? Let’s explore the new toys the set has given us and see if they can slide into existing or new archetypes.
The One Ring
This is the most iconic card in the set, both due to the amount of flavour it has and the craze happening around the 001/001 edition being an absolute lottery ticket. However, it does have a ton of raw power and potential to see play in Modern.
Actually, I believe there might be multiple homes for the deck. Let’s explore a few.
Mono Green Tron
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
13 mythic
10 rare
10 uncommon
23 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Companion
Creatures (7)
Artifacts (20)
Lands (18)
60 Cards
$600.96
Sideboard
15 Cards
$194.91
The first deck to talk about it Mono Green Tron. A deck that hasn’t seen a lot of play in recent months but might just make a come back. It is heavily punished when it does not assemble Tron or the assembly is disrupted. Since Urza's Saga is the most powerful land in the format, Tron might get incidentally hit with the Saga hate despite not being explicitly targeted.
This is where The One Ring comes in. It provides a great way to spend mana even if you’re short on Tron lands. On top of that, it allows you to survive one more turn, potentially helping find the missing pieces and go off.
Mono Black Coffers
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
16 mythic
19 rare
11 uncommon
10 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (4)
Sorceries (14)
Artifacts (4)
Lands (26)
56 Cards
$1066.8
Sideboard
14 Cards
$198.86
Another ramp strategy. Since the deck is mono colored, there aren’t that many options when it comes to the cards it plays. Thankfully, The One Ringis colorless so you can easily slide it in there. If you can keep trading 1-for-1 with their cards, you will always end up ahead thanks to the sheer number of cards you get to draw. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in conjunction with The One Ringis an excellent way to stabilise *while* accruing card advantage.
While the deck was on the fringes before, this bump in consistency and power might make it more of a mainstay strategy.
Azorius Narset
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
11 mythic
29 rare
12 uncommon
8 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (4)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$961.46
Sideboard
15 Cards
$176.81
Another strategy that I could see play The One Ring is Azorius Control, but specifically the version that utilises Narset, Parter of Veils and Day's Undoing. It’s a tap-out control deck which will happily welcome a way to stay alive for one more turn.
On top of that, the extra cards you draw can be used to fuel Solitude or Force of Negation that help you thwart the opponent’s plan.
All in all, there are multiple decks that will try out The One Ring and the fact that it can boost so many different strategies makes it a banger in my eyes.
Reprieve
Boros Midrange
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
18 mythic
27 rare
7 uncommon
8 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Sorceries (3)
Lands (23)
60 Cards
$936.32
Sideboard
15 Cards
$147.01
Reprieve is a white version of Remand which already makes it a tempting addition to some decks. While it’s not revolutionary for blue decks since they’d already had access to Remand as mentioned previously, it is a big deal for non-blue strategies. It might include Boros Midrange (shown above), sideboards of aggressive Mono White strategies, or other miscellaneous shells.
It works particularly well with Blood Moon since you can disallow a spell that the opponent has barely been able to amass the correct mana to cast.
It does have a significant upside over the wording of Remand though. It does not technically counter. It returns. It means that it does not care for effects like Supreme Verdict, Veil of Summer, or Dovin's Veto – it will still return the targeted spell. It also conveniently dodges discounted Mystical Dispute.
There is talk in the Azorius Control community that it might replace Counterspell in the shells that want to lean more on white as the main colour as well.
Flame of Anor
Izzet Control
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
8 mythic
24 rare
13 uncommon
15 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Instants (28)
Sorceries (4)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$527.3
Sideboard
15 Cards
$145.21
If Flame of Anor can’t make Snapcaster Mage playable, nothing can.
Me
Snapcaster Mage, if played at all, has mainly been used in Izzet shells thanks to its nice tempo-oriented gameplan including Lightning Bolt. Recently though the 2/1 body has not been enough to warrant its playability.
Enter – Flame of Anor. It explicitly benefits you for having a Wizard and conveniently Snapcaster is one. With it on the battlefield, for three mana you can kill a threat and draw 2 cards. Against artifact strategies, you can, say, destroy Colossus Hammer *and* kill Puresteel Paladin.
Other than that, it’s an Izzet control shell that plays the best cards like Counterspell, Expressive Iteration, or Murktide Regent. You can’t really go wrong with that core.
I do hope that Flame of Anor will rekindle Snapcaster’s career in Modern.
Samwise Gamgee
Food
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
4 mythic
30 rare
21 uncommon
5 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (25)
Sorceries (4)
Lands (18)
60 Cards
$616.52
Sideboard
15 Cards
$84.55
Food strategies based around Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar have been fan favourites in Modern. They come in all shapes and sizes, centered around different payoffs. They frequently but not necessarily are coupled with Witch's Oven and Cauldron Familiar engines. It is a good way to get some Food tokens but you can’t really amass them since for every Cat you want to return and sac, you need to use one Food.
Samwise Gamgee is a new Food-matters card whose first line of text works perfectly with the aforementioned Cat. Now for every iteration of the loop, you net a Food thanks to Samwise.
The second ability can recur historic cards which includes other copies of Samwise Gamgee, Asmo, Witch's Oven, The Underworld Cookbook and…Urza's Saga! Having a maindeck way to keep replaying Urza's Saga is a sure way to grind through all the fair games.
While it might push the deck to a very specific set of colours since you’ll need Green and White for Samwise and Black for Cat, maybe it’s better to have a solid Abzan shell than multiple which are subpar.
Rosie Cotton
Heliod Combo
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
4 mythic
31 rare
14 uncommon
11 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (31)
Instants (4)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (21)
60 Cards
$519.3
Sideboard
15 Cards
$33.57
Heliod Company was a deck in Modern but got pushed out. It revolved around Heliod, Sun Crowned and Spike-Feeder, resulting in infinite life. On top of that, you could grant Walking Ballista lifelink and shoot the opponent for lethal.
With Lord of the Rings, we get another combo that also slots in Selesnya colours. Scurry Oak and Rosie Cotton together create an arbitrarily large number of tokens and an arbitrarily large Scurry Oak. If we build this combo into the deck, more combos are possible such as Scurry Oak + Heliod + a creature that gains life when another creature enters play like Auriok Champion
It is possible that the deck requires proper ironing out to optimise the proportions of all those different combo pieces. The potential is certainly there!
Stern Scolding
Stern Scolding is a card that fights for the same slots that Spell Pierce and Spell Snare occupy. It hits a surprising number of creatures including:
- Grief
- Solitude
- Thassa's Oracle
- Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
- Ledger Shredder
- Dragon's Rage Channeler
- Kaheera, the Orphanguard
- Arcbound Ravager
- Seasoned Pyromancer
- Esper Sentinel
- Stoneforge Mystic
- Puresteel Paladin
- Dauthi Voidwalker
And the list could easily go on. It counters so many threats in Modern it’s unreal. While it is admittedly a blank against decks like Creativity, Rhinos, or Cascade, it’s an absolute banger against Murktide, Scales, or Hammer.
Creativity
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
15 mythic
27 rare
9 uncommon
9 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (3)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$781.92
Sideboard
15 Cards
$144.4
Creativity is an interactive combo-esque strategy that wants to answer most of the stuff thrown at it. Stern Scolding could assist its already robust interaction suite.
Izzet Murktide
by Skura
Gladiator
best of 3
8 mythic
17 rare
22 uncommon
13 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Instants (20)
Sorceries (4)
Artifacts (4)
Lands (18)
60 Cards
$616.84
Sideboard
15 Cards
$151.51
It could also slot into Izzet Murktide. It’s a clean answer to multiple different creatures and is frequently mana positive, which fits into the overall tempo plan of the deck. Even if it proves its playability, it might eventually get relegated to the sideboard.
End Step
All in all, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is a solid set for Modern. It’s by no means as earth-shattering and won’t make any decks that you own unplayable overnight. On the contrary, I see it mainly boosting fringe-ish strategies that players have wanted to take to battles for a long time.
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Skura
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