Nine New Legendary Creatures From The Hobbit Are Exclusive To Collector Boosters And Tease The Return Of Battles

Last updated on July 29, 2026

Through the Forest Gate | Illustration by Leon Tukker

This is certainly one of the biggest surprises from The Hobbit spoiler season. Among the cards revealed today were nine brand new legendary creatures, but there's a catch: None of them will be in the mainset, nor will they be in the commander set. They are exclusive to collector boosters, or at least they are for now.

Collector Booster Exclusives

Smaug the Magnificent | Illustration by John Tedrick

These cards will be appearing in an upcoming product in 2027, The Battle of the Five Armies Co-Op Kit. For whatever reason, Wizards of the Coast has decided to have nine legendary creatures that would be featured in it appear early in collector boosters for The Hobbit, which means they will have inflated prices due to lower supply. Reasoning for this decision and its consequences aside, some of these cards are pretty interesting, and they hint at a card type that we've only seen once before.

Battles Are Back?

Invasion of Zendikar | Illustration by Diego Gisbert

Chief of the Wilds seems like a fun commander for a green black wolves deck, but then you read its second line of text and spot something. Battles? This card cares about battles?! As this card is coming in the aforementioned Battle of The Five Armies Co-Op Kit, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that battles could be part of it given the name. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, battle was a new card type introduced in March of the Machine. Battles are permanents that are formatted sideways, and you could attack your own battles similarly to how you attack your opponent's planeswalkers, and once you defeat them you get to cast the back side of the card.

There are a few more legendary creatures from these nine cards that also care about battles: Thorin, Company's Leader and Bilbo, Unexpected Adventurer, which both make mention of the card type. For Thorin, Company's Leader, sside from being a cool commander for dwarf/treasure decks, it also gives you a benefit for attacking battles, which is a nice upside. As for Bilbo, Unexpected Adventurer, his ability to become pseudo-unblockable makes him a nice candidate for attacking battles, some of which he can get back into play from your graveyard with his second ability.

For all of these cards, the biggest thing for making the battle part of their text relevant is the printing of more battles. Since their debut a few years ago, we haven't seen any battles printed, despite claims from Mark Rosewater, head designer of MTG, that there were sets in the works with battles in them. Perhaps this will be the beginning of seeing more battles appear more often.

The Rest

The other six of these cards don't care about battles, but they're still worth knowing about since they're new and they're cool and they're bound to be expensive due to limited supply.

Bard, Heir of Girion is dead simple. He has reach and vigilance, he gives your creatures +1/+1, and he draws you a card when you attack. Nothing fancy, no trickery, just a plain, simple, straightforward magic card that actually seems pretty good for the cost.

Bolg, Erebor's Reckoning is pretty brutal, which is good because six mana isn't cheap. He gives all of your orcs and goblins +2/+2 and all of your opponent's stuff -1/-1 at the beginning of combat, but it's not just combat on your turn that he does this; It's every single turn. That means in a four player game while this guy is in play, your opponents attacks become very difficult, small tokens can't stick around, and your goblins and orcs become incredible blockers as well as incredible attackers.

Gandalf, Shadow's Foe is a totally unique card. A mono blue landfall flicker commander is something that you don't see too often, and he seems like he has huge potential in the right deck. As for what deck that is, I couldn't say. This card will definitely take some tinkering to figure out, but the potential is there.

Great Goblin, Foul-Hearted is another pretty straightforward card. He makes armies, he grows them bigger, and he gives them trample. What more could you want?

Dáin of the Ancient Halls is yet another dwarf commander. It doesn't do anything flashy, but I suppose if you care about dwarves you'll care about this guy, but it does seem a bit far-fetched to have enough dwarves to make this card any good.

Thranduil the Strategist is our final card, but it's very exciting. A blue green elf commander is always fun when we see one, and this guy loves to ramp. Lands make elves, elves make mana, mana makes you win the game. With this card in play, you're going to be casting Craterhoof Behemoth very quickly.

Wrap Up

Through the Forest Gate | Illustration by Leon Tukker

Overall, these cards look sweet, but I can't say that it's a good thing that they're collector booster exclusives. All it means is that they will be pretty hard to come by for the average player, and artificially scarcity is never fun. As for what they mean for the future of magic, I am excited by the possibility of battles returning sooner rather than later, as I think it is perhaps one of the most unexplored mechanics we've seen, and it has a lot of potential. Will you be picking up any of these, or will you be waiting until 2027 to get them as part of The Battle of the Five Armies kit?