When it comes to big, impactful moments, it’s hard to find a story as packed with them as The Lord of the Rings. From climactic battles to tender scenes of friendship, the rich tapestry of human experience is on full display across its many sparkling pages. It’s a credit to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering's designers, then, that they’ve managed to capture so much of this greatness in the long-awaited Tales of Middle-earth expansion.
That said, these big, impactful moments are not all afforded big, impactful cards, with much of the set being surprisingly tame for a straight-to-Modern pr🅺oduct. Much, but decidedly not all. Some of the new cards introduced are incredibly powerful, particu♒larly in what is inarguably Magic’s most popular format: Commander.
10 Spiteful Banditry 🍷
Those who were around to see the reign of terror The Meathook Massacre brought to Standard will undoubtedly be breathing a si🐷gh of relief that Spiteful Banditry won’t be taking its place in the format, but that relief doesn’t extend to Commander players. Because Banditry is, in essence, a color-shifted version of the same effect, albeit with a different, potentially much more dangerous upsiไde.
As an X-scaling board wipe, Spiteful Banditry retains relevance at all points in the game, but its passive ability꧑ really pushes it over the top. Generating around four Treasures per turn cycle, the effect can easily ramp you into terrifying multi-color threats, to the point where simply playing the card for two mana and ignoring the board wipe aspect will likely be a viable line for many decks.
9 Call ཧOf The Ring
While self-con💖tained, set-specific mechanics don’t tend to perform well in the long run, ‘the Ring tempts you’ looks set to buck that trend, by stacking up universally-useful passive abilities and granting them to any of your creatures. Call of the Ring is the most reliable source of temptation in the set, giving you a guaranteed trigger every turn on your upkeep.
Each time you choose a Ring-bearer, which you can do almost every turn, Call of the Ring let🤡s you draw a card in exchange for two life, acting as a cheaper-but-more-conditional Phyrexian Arena. Even if this angle doesn’t pan out, simply building up to the fourth tier of temptation early in the game is powerful enough, as it allows you to turn any creature into an evasive, looting, mass-burning monstrosity with pseudo-deathtouch.
8 Elven ♚Chorus 𓆉
There’s no shortage of Future Sight effects available to Commander players, with green in particular having a range of good options, but Elven Chorus really pushes the concept to the next level. Not only does it let you see what cards are coming next, and play those cards if they’re c✃reatures, but it also offers a means of paying for them by turning every creature you control into a mana dork.
As is made obvious by the name, this card fits perfectly into 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:any kind of Elves deck, but it’s also just genericall💦y useful in any creature-based deck running green. The easy color requirements, and the fact that it can produce any color by itself once things get going, make it ideal for greedy four-or-five color builds in particular.
7 The One Ring ไ
Whether The One Ring is the most iconic artifact in all of fiction or not is likely debatable, but what isn’t debatable is how powerful its Magic incarnation is in Commander. As one of only three cards that can grant you protection from everything, it joins an exclusive club alongside Stasis Coffin and Teferi’s Protection. Unlike those lesser cards, however,🎶 The One Ring doesn’t exile itself on use.
This means that, in the right build, you can cast and then bounce The One Ring every turn, biding your time until you can pull off a combo win. Alternatively, you can play the card ‘fairly’, using it as a powerful draw engine with very little downside, e🙈specially if you can end the game before your next upkeep.
6 Ringsight
For singleton formats ဣlike Commander, new Tutor options are always worth considering carefully, and Ringsight is no exception. For three mana, you get one ‘the Ring tempts you’ trigger, then you can search up a card that shares a color with any legendary creature you control.
The order of effects here is key, since even the first tier of Ring temptation buffs will make one of your creatures legendary, turning what looks like a niche effect into one that nearly any deck can use effectively. And while it is inefficient as a Tutor compared to some of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the tried-and-tested options, the added value that a ‘the Ring tempts you’ trigger provides gives it a unique angle that none of tho﷽se options can boast.
5 Flowering Of The White Tree ꧑
Legendary as a supertype has been receiving a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:steady stream of support cards in recent years,ཧ and Flowering of the White Tree is one of the best we’ve seen yet. For just two mana, it grants all of your legendary creat✨ures a sizable +2/+1 boost alongside ward one. This makes it much harder for your opponents to remove your bespoke buddies with targeted removal.
The protection angle here is appealing, but you can also lean into Flowering as a tool for all-out aggression instead if you’d rather. +2/+1 is a huge boost, and nonlegendary creatures aren’t totally left out eit🌳her, as they still receive +💮1/+1 themselves.
4 Isildur’s Fateful S💎trike ༺
With cards like Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower serving as consistent staples in the formatꦉ, maximum hand size is more of a guideline than a rule in Commander. For this reason, Isildur’s Fateful Str๊ike is incredibly well-positioned in the format, capable of generating game-winning value swings on its own for just four mana.
By exiling every card bar four from an opponent's hand, Strike can punish a greedy Control player in a big way, potentially even completely ruining their plans. Even outside of this ideal scenario, the card is still a solid one-for-one removal spell, with any exiled cards you get on top just welcome upside.
3 Mount Doom 𒀰
If any fictional location is worthy of being represented on a legendary land, it’s Mount Doom. The constantly-looming target of the Fellowship’s quest, both a beacon of hope and a terrifying threat, the mountain is woven into the popular consciousness like little else in fantasy. Thankfully, its Magic incarnation lives𒅌 up to this substantial legacy.
In addition to being a basic black/red pain land, Mount Doom also lets you shower the table with volcanic sparks for one damage each: useful in decks that rely on player damage, such as Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Finally, it can also serve as an incredibly specific (and incredibly flavourful) board wipe, keeping your two favorite cr♑eatures alive to watch the rest of the table burn.
2 😼 There And Back Again
Much like Tolkien’s works, Ther꧙e and Back Again is a Saga that takes some time to really get going. Once it does, however, it can take you places you weren’t expecting. The first two chapters here are underwhelming in constructed formats, never mind Commander - but the grand finale, wherein the Dragon Smaug appears, is another story entirely.
As a 6/6 flyer with haste, Smaug is fairly well-statted for the five mana investment required from the Saga. His ability is the real prize, however. Upon death, Smaug grants you a staggering 14 Treasure tokens: a small fortune, and one that you can put towards any number of game-winni꧑ng plays.
1 Storm Of Saru💫man ඣ
Like its namesake Wizard, Storm of Saruman is immensely powerful, and incredibly hard to stop once it gets going. By doubling up your second spell cast each turn, be it a sorcery, a creature, or a planeswalker,ཧ Storm lets you break one of the fundamental rules of Commander every single turn it rages on the battlefield.
The best value here lies in duplicating permanent spells, especially since the effect circumvents the legend rule to allow multiple copies of legendary creatures and planeswalkers at once. It’s worth noting that it works on other players’ turns as well, however, if you want to lean harder into an 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:appropriately-evil Control strategy.