Hidden Clue Proves The Hobbit Will Be The Next Small Set

Last updated on May 6, 2026

Smaug the Magnificent | Illustration by John Tedrick

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,

To dungeons deep and caverns old,

We must away, ere break of day,

To claim our long forgotten gold.

– The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

We are going to be returning to the world of Middle-earth soon, with The Hobbit releasing in August. However, there are indications that this set will not be full size, much like the hobbits themselves. But how do we know this, and what impact will it have on the set itself?

Reading the Runes

Plains | Illustration by W Flemming

We know that The Hobbit is going to be a small set because of the numbers in the bottom left corner of the cards. Specifically, we can look at Plains and see that its number is 194. We know from the last several sets that full art basic lands are ordered immediately after the main set cards, meaning that a full art plains being 194 means that there are only going to be 193 cards in the main set.

This is in line with the two other small sets we've gotten recently, with Spiderman having 188 cards and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles having 190 cards. For reference, a normal full sized set usually contains around 270 cards.

Hobbit-Sized Set

Feasting Hobbit | Illustration by Lorenzo Mastroianni

So what does this mean for The Hobbit? For those of you who enjoy playing Draft or Sealed, this is not a good sign. Spiderman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did not set a good precedent of quality for small sets, with the former being especially bad. In part that was caused by generally poor design, but the reduced size of the set exacerbated it.

As for the latter, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did seem noticeably more competent in terms of gameplay for Limited, but again, the reduced set size caused problems with balance and replayability. You were constantly seeing the same busted uncommons like Mighty Mutanimals or Metalhead in game after game. Even rares like Sally Pride, Lioness Leader didn't feel so rare, and this all contributed to quick fatigue from a set people already weren't too excited to play.

Giant-Sized Problems

Stonehewer Giant | Illustration by Greg Hildrebrandt & Tim Hildebrandt

On top of specific problem cards being too prevalent, there are two other design flaws that small sets have. The first is that because the set is so small, there can only be five supported draft archetypes as opposed to ten. This is not necessarily a problem in terms of gameplay, but it is a problem when you consider the wider scope of Magic sets being released, especially recently. We had Spiderman, then shortly after Lorwyn Eclipsed, then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and now Secrets of Strixhaven. These have all been draft sets that only support five archetypes. At a certain point, it begins to be too much. Unsupported archetypes in draft means lower agency in the decks you build and it means less variety, which can eventually make for a less fun experience.

The other flaw with small sets is the number of legendary creatures that get printed at lower rarities. This is a side effect of the small sets all being Universes Beyond, which means fulfilling the needs of the IP to have all the important named characters in card form, thus a deluge of legendary creatures. This is fine from a flavor standpoint, but this causes some pretty big issues in terms of gameplay, especially when they're printed at common. Raphael, Tough Turtle is the kind of card that you'd love to play as many copies of as you can get in limited, but you really can't when it's legendary, as any additional copies become dead cards in your hand. It also gets confusing when the same character exists on multiple cards, and again, this is all exacerbated by reduced set size, meaning that you're more likely to see multiple copies of the same legendary creature in any given draft.

All of that being said, The Hobbit avoids a few of the problems with these other sets. Firstly, it's an IP that people generally care more about, or at least, it makes more sense in the world of Magic: The Gathering. Bilbo Baggins and his hobbit hole make a lot more thematic sense in a high fantasy card game than Pizza Face, Gastromancer does. Additionally, it does seem like Wizards of the Coast is improving somewhat at designing these small sets. Spiderman was abysmal, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was surprisingly fun for a bit if you could get past all the wacky New York sewer mutant animal pizza slop.

An Unexpected Journey

Borne Upon a Wind | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

At the end of the day, I would rather have The Hobbit be a small set than drawn out into a larger set. The actual novel is only about 300 pages, and I'm certain they would run out of things pretty quickly in a full sized set. Can you imagine that? The Hobbit getting strung out into a huge set, maybe even a full three-set block? You'd have to insert a lot of material that wasn't in the original book to make it work. New characters, protracted battle scenes, general nonsense. The list goes on. But that would never happen, because it would stink.

Jokes aside, I'm still looking forward to The Hobbit for what it is, a fun little adventure about a hobbit, and that's all it really needs to be.