Are you a fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? And a fan of Magic the Gathering as well? Then you’re probably very excited about the LotR MTG set: Tales of Middle-Earth, and so are we! Today we’re talking about all LotR MTG spoilers, information, and speculation about this exciting set!
Let’s get right to it, and dive deep into the spoilers:
LotR MTG Set Spoilers
These cards are the only ones official previewed so far. Besides these, you can also find full-art LotR basic lands here.
LotR MTG Set Information
The cards in the set will work just as other Magic cards would. The only special thing is that the art, flavor, and mechanics will be a part of the Lord of the Rings universe. This is possible, since Tales of the Middle Earth set will be the first full set in the Universes Beyond.
What are Universes Beyond?
Wizards of the Coast first announced Universes Beyond two years ago, back in February 2021. It acts as a brand within MTG, and exists in addition to and alongside Wizards’ existing line of products. It’s basically a giant umbrella that holds all the collaborations Magic has with various other intellectual properties.
Some examples of Universes Beyond products would be Warhammer 40k Commander decks, and MTG Transformer cards. Players were a bit skeptical about these products, but they were ultimately a big success.
Set Legality
Whenever a special set such as this one is previewed, the big question is always in which formats is it going to be legal in. For Starters, Lord of the Rings Magic set won’t be Standard legal.
However, the set will be legal in Commander, Modern and Historic. There’s a lot to unpack here. Commander legality isn’t surprising. Nowadays, pretty much every MTG product that comes out is legal in Commander. That makes sense, since Commander is the most popular Magic format.
As with every other set, this one will also be legal in Vintage and Legacy. While Wizards didn’t specifically state so, it would certainly be a big surprise if a set that’s Modern legal, isn’t legal in Vintage and Legacy.
LotR Set = Modern Horizons 3?
For a non-Standard set, the Modern legality is quite unusual. There is precedent of non-Standard sets going directly to Modern. That happened twice before, with Modern Horizons 1 and Modern Horizons 2. Both of these had quite high power level, and changed the format drastically.
Some players are already speculating that this set will be quite similar to them, and are calling this set Modern Horizons 3. This would suggest that there would be lots of cards that would likely see play in Modern, and have a significant impact on the format as a whole.
While this is possible, we don’t think that very likely. Sure, there will be cards that will slot nicely into Modern, otherwise they wouldn’t make the set Modern legal. However, there won’t be as many of them as you’d expect from a Horizons set.
The biggest reason is that Lord of the Rings Magic set will already be a popular one. These two franchises are so popular that you really don’t have to do much to sell a set. That’s why the majority of the powerful Modern designs will probably be saved for a future actual Modern Horizons 3 set.
Of course, these are just predictions, and might not come true. It’ll certainly be interesting to see for what kind of power level Wizards aimed when making Tales of Middle-earth.
What about Drafting?
If you’re an avid drafter, then we have some great news for you. LotR MTG set was made with drafting in mind. This means that you’ll be able to draft a 40-card Lord of the Rings deck, and battle against other players. That’s quite exciting!
As always, you can expect to find a draft guide for this expansion on our website. We can’t wait to dive deep into the archetype breakdown, the best commons, and all the other stuff that’s important for Limited.
Lord of the Rings is coming to Arena!
Arena players probably noticed that the set’s also legal in Historic (a format, in which every card released on Arena is legal). Of course, this means that the set will also be released on Arena.
We don’t know many details about the events that you can expect, but you’ll surely be able to draft the set on MTGA, give that it was designed for that.
Tales of Middle-earth Release Date
You’re probably wondering when will LotR MTG set release. Sadly, not that soon. While we don’t know the exact date yet, we know that it’s getting released in the third quarter of 2023.
This means that July, August, or September 2023 are possible release months. So, it is possible for the set to drop on September 22nd, which is the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. That would be quite a flavor win, and given that this date comes on a Friday, it’s actually possible, as Magic set releases always happen on Fridays.
Products
Wizards said that they “couldn’t do the set justice without creating a full product lineup.” This means we’ll probably get all three major types of boosters. There will also be Lord of the Rings Commander decks, so you’ll be able to purchase a full 100-card LotR deck.
You can find more detailed information about these in our MTG LotR Products Guide. In that article we described each product you can get here in much detail.
Big Picture
Besides, the various art, that you saw in the article, there are also 18 artworks previewed for a set of borderless, alternate art cards. You can find them below:
As you can see, you can arrange the 18 cards in the correct order, you get a big picture of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. (Where the city of Minas Tirith is defended by the forces of Gondor and its ally Rohan.) This will probably be a nice challenge for MTG collectors.
LotR MTG Set – FAQ
In this section, we’ll answer some frequently asked questions about the Lord of the Rings MTG set. Some questions are recaps of the stuff that we talked about earlier. If you don’t find the information that you’re looking for, let us know in the comments, and we’ll get back to you.
Tales of the Middle Earth will be legal in Modern, Commander, and Historic. Most likely in Vintage and Legacy too, but that wasn’t confirmed yet.
In the third quarter of 2023.
Yes, it will. The set will likely be available for drafting, and the cards will be legal in Historic.
No it won’t. You won’t be able to cast Sean Bean as Boromir. Instead, the artwork will be done in the classic MTG style, and it won’t look out of place compared to your other cards.
Conclusion
That’s all we know about MTG LotR set so far. We’ll update the article, when more information becomes available, and if you don’t want to miss it, follow us on Facebook.
So, what are your expectations and predictions? What do you think about this collaboration? Let us know in the comments below. Furthermore, if you want to check some sets, that will release sooner, you can find all upcoming MTG sets here.
Wizards MUST stay true to Tolkien’s lore and ethnic / cultural scope and stay clear of any WOKE Agenda if they hope not to have a tragic FAIL for this set like Amazon did with their Rings of Power
Well this comment didn’t age well
why? Did they mistreat the lore like amazon?
it has nothing to do with racism, it’s about respecting a work from a legend. please read the books and look some lore in youtube there are many great youtuber which explain some lores.
ROP failed because it didn’t stay true to the lore and the writing sucked, but it has nothing to do with wokeness.
Are you mad you obv are not a genuine Tolkien fan lol 😂
This is the least educated, most illiterate take people have these days. Clearly you’ve never read any Tolkien, or you would know that the cultural and ethnic scope of his lore is expansive and does in fact include people of color. You are the one who has fallen in with a political/cultural agenda.
Just to humour me, give me an example. Particularly when he describes a rider or Rohan, galadriel or aragorn as black.
Because Lotr is based on Celtic, Saxon and Norse culture.
The Black Riders. Boom.
Much like everyone else, you must be very disappointed right now when you saw the early card reveals.
If they are going to have to make changes, then at most make a couple different looking Gondor soldiers or random elves. But not the freakin main characters! I want a viggo mortensen like aragorn. Not terefri’s medieval cousin
Financially it really doesn’t make sense for WotC to change the ethnicity of the main characters like this. Hasbro are already making loses.
By changing the ethnicity and authenticity of the core characters they have lost customers. And that is clear from the backlash. Yet had they kept them true to the Lotr description there would be no outcry of “why isn’t he a different ethnicity”. So why do it?
I’m of Chinese descent and I was not considering boycotting if I didn’t see a Asian looking boromir. But now they have changed the authenticity, I am
And this is easily proved because even the sets most hardened defenders would admit that had they made a non race swap range, they would sell far better. Not because all the racist would come out to play but because customers would feel like they are playing with the real eowyn or aragorn instead a multiverse version.