So I hate to break it to you, but I am not a huge Hobbit fan. The movies were fine enough, and I have read the book (which is more than I can say for Lord of the Rings).
However, I am not repeating the mistake I made with Lord of the Rings and ignoring the set just because I wasn’t bothered about the source material. I’m all in on an actual fantasy-based UB product, and I’m going to give you five reasons you Commander players should be too.
The Chief Warg
A lesson I’ve learnt since returning from Magicon Amsterdam is that I’ve been severely underestimating menace. Even as a player that loves to punch faces, I rarely bother looking at evasive keywords. Maybe that’s a weakness on my part (it most certainly is), but it’s one I hope I can advise you not to share.
The theming on this commander is clearly throwing big things at your enemies, and building around that is going to be key. Giving trample, pumping up creatures (and making sure you draw into these spells with the on board effect), these are all things that green does well, and splashing into some black removal will keep the coast clear for you to do some real damage!
Bolg of the North
One of the key mechanics of this set (much like its previous counterpart) appears to be “Amass”. Rather than Orcs, we are looking at Goblins this time, which is both a blessing and a curse. As any commander player knows, Goblins are a very well supported tribal archetype, as proven by the Secret Lair deck recently, as well as the variety of reactions you’ll get at any given event when you even mention the name “Krenko”.
Normally though, Goblin decks focus on going wide rather than tall (making a lot of small creatures instead of building up a big one). That doesn’t mean building this deck is going to be impossible, far from it, but it does mean that you’re going to have to be a bit smarter about what you include in the 99!
Bard, King of Dale
Speaking of going wide with tokens, Soldier decks just got a new favourite commander. I’ve spoken many times before about how useful utility commanders are. You don’t need to have a splashy finisher on your commander if it just plain helps with a game plan. This mythic printing of Bard? He helps alright.
If you remember Reed Richards in the last set that let you draw cards when you make tokens, he’s going to be right at home here. You want to draw through your library to find cards that make soldier tokens (or heck, treat yourself and look at Angels instead) and go nuts!
Bilbo, Thief in the Night
Who wants to just play cards from your hand? That’s so last year. Playing them once and having them stuck in the graveyard? That’s a waste. Another enabler here, letting you access spells from your graveyard means you don’t have to fear nasty discard and mill effects, or you can just use useful spells again if the mood strikes you.
It isn’t just Bilbo’s own effect that trigger him either, think about the multitude of cards that let you exile cards and cast them from exile. The possibilities are endless!
The Lord of the Eagles
One of the most common tokens blue makes are Birds, and one of the keywords most people associate with the colour is Flying. Suddenly this high-cost commander isn’t so high, and you’re swinging for a minimum of eight commander damage pretty consistently.
Let alone the fact that this reduction also applies to commander tax too, so removal is less of an issue if you can quickly build a board state back up first and then drop this beast for two blue!
For somebody that dislikes blue, I’m sure looking at a lot of blue commanders in this set, but my word it’s packing some blue heat! I hope you found some of these ideas useful, and I honestly think I will be “splashing” out into blue when I build some decks from this set for sure.