Set Prospective
Tales of Middle-earth Commander
This article is part of our community-sourced Set Prospective series. We survey Cube designers before the set’s official release to document their first impressions of new cards.
Results
Cube curators submitted 50 responses for our LTC survey, giving an average rating of 6.3 on a median of 2 cards tested.
| Card | Testers▼ | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Forth Eorlingas! | 54.0% | 8.3 |
| Riders of Rohan | 22.0% | 5.9 |
| Arwen, Weaver of Hope | 18.0% | 5.8 |
| Aragorn, King of Gondor | 18.0% | 6.8 |
| The Balrog of Moria | 12.0% | 6.0 |
| Fealty to the Realm | 10.0% | 6.4 |
| Éomer, King of Rohan | 10.0% | 6.4 |
| Relic of Sauron | 10.0% | 6.5 |
| Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit | 10.0% | 6.0 |
| Rapacious Guest | 8.0% | 5.8 |
| Oath of Eorl | 8.0% | 4.5 |
| Gimli of the Glittering Caves | 6.0% | 4.3 |
| Trap the Trespassers | 6.0% | 5.5 |
| Moria Scavenger | 6.0% | 7.2 |
| Lossarnach Captain | 6.0% | 2.3 |
| Sail into the West | 6.0% | 5.4 |
| The Black Gate | 6.0% | 3.4 |
| Summons of Saruman | 6.0% | 6.1 |
| Pippin, Warden of Isengard | 6.0% | 4.9 |
| Farmer Cotton | 6.0% | 7.3 |
| Denethor, Stone Seer | 6.0% | 6.1 |
| In the Darkness Bind Them | 6.0% | 5.6 |
Single Card Discussion
Boros Beatdown
“"Oh, no thank you, I've already had TWO Boros Grave Titans today."”
These two Boros cards are juiced up to give Boros commanders enough oomph in a color-restricted format, but they scale very favorably in 1v1 Cubes that don’t adopt color identity rules. Forth Eorlingas! uses the Monarch mechanic notorious for scaling well in 1v1 Magic, and Riders of Rohan exploits Commander’s ability to absorb tons of battlefield stats with a single board wipe. Both are powerful options for Eternal cubes.
Many more cards are seeing niche Cube play (less than 20% popularity). Whether you hope Monarch will be more tolerable at high density, or want an instant-speed wheel for combo, there is plenty to love in this set.
Reprint Alert
Commander sets are always rich with reprints, and LTC sets a new standard with a hoard richer than Smaug’s. Some of these reprints are of highly desirable, often-printed staples in multiple Eternal formats, so while they may not become suddenly affordable, they do open up options for new bling, or they may sweeten the deal on a precon you’d already buy for other reasons.
A second group of reprints is likely to be made temporarily more affordable thanks to increased supply, but these are also options to spice up a cube with Middle-earth flavor or to enrich a LTR set cube with new options.
LTC is also Consider’s first printing with its Surveil erratum written.
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