Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Draft Guide

Bryan Hohns (Veveil) June 30, 2023 Deckbuilding, Draft, Limited, Strategy

Last updated on March 22, 2024

The One Ring | Illustration by Veli Nyström

Greeting planeswalkers! We’re about a week into Magic’s first foray with a Universes Beyond Draft environment. So how has The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth (LTR) played out so far, and what should you do to win more games?

I’ll be guiding you through a general format overview, picking out the best (and worst) cards in the set, as well as giving you a read on how the 2-color archetypes play out. Consider listening to this in the background while you read ahead:

Table of Contents show

Format Big Picture

Lothlórien Lookout | Illustration by Daniel Correia

I’m going to be blunt: LTR is one of the weakest and most poorly balanced sets I’ve played in years! This weakness appears mostly at rare and common, while the poor balance is all over the place and includes both card balance and color balance. Black is substantially better than other colors, and green is almost Battle for Zendikar levels of bad.

Cards like Forge Anew, Fangorn, Tree Shepherd, and Borne Upon a Wind do not feel as though they are from the same set as Meneldor, Swift Savior, Call of the Ring and Claim the Precious. There are also several commons that you should rarely or never play.

LTR is almost the polar opposite of the previous set, March of the Machine; MOM’s general power level was high, there were few unplayables, and I first-picked my rare 90% of the time. In LTR, I first-pick my rare about 33% of the time and feel as though I’m picking mid-level cards most of the time. LTR is also substantially more aggressive than MOM, for many reasons:

“Tempted by The Ring” consistently applies pressure, mitigating mana problems, and ending games. It does nothing for you if your plan is just to sit behind Shire Scarecrow and cast every legend you remembered from the films.
Amass is another subtly aggressive mechanic, as boosts to your army have “haste” because they are effectively pump spells.
The set is full of solid, cheap pump spells and “The Ring Tempts You” makes combat more predictable. For example, “skulk” from the first Ring ability means only certain blocks can happen, and thus they often do.
Every color has a playable 1-mana combat trick: Escape from Orthanc, Deceive the Messenger, Shelob's Ambush, Rush the Room and Pippin's Bravery.
Many rares are bad and there aren’t many rewarding expensive cards to play. The best large creatures are the landcyclers, which encourage you to skim on basics.
Themes like Food and draw-two have sparse support, which means that a good LTR deck is often just one with a strong curve + decent card quality.

What this means for gameplay is that LTR is scrappy. You can run people over just by playing creatures and pump spells without doing anything fancy. There are still synergies to play with, and control is also quite viable. has been one of my favorite decks because of how easily it can overpower a random curve of creatures.

Mechanics

Because you’ve already had LTR for a week, I don’t want to waste your time with “this is The Ring mechanic. It works like [four paragraphs of explaining].” Instead, the focus of this section is to put mechanics into raw gameplay terms.

The Ring Tempts You

It shouldn’t be a big surprise to you that The Ring mechanic is an important part of a set called “Lord of the Rings.” It’s one of the main reasons games in this set don’t end up in constant board stalls. The levels tend to play out this way:

You get a chip shot or two with this level (or even target nothing if you’re casting Birthday Escape). Skulk is underwhelming!
This level is where the mechanic starts to actually matter. Level two is very relevant to prevent flooding and enable reliable attacks.
The sac mode has underwhelmed me quite a bit. While dreamy on something like Rohirrim Lancer (“I’ll take one” says your opponent), I often find this mode to be flavor text. This is because your 1/1 ringbearer often trades with other 1/1s.
Level four is really polarizing in that it can either threaten a clock against your opponent, or be brick-walled by some 1/3 you need to topdeck a kill-spell for. This is unusual for a mechanic that builds up like this, and the subjective nature of The Ring gives you a lot of room to outplay/misplay with it.

Every time you’re “tempted” by The Ring, you will of course choose a ringbearer. The ideal ringbearer is a 1/x creature with evasion, like a 1/1 flying spirit or the aforementioned Rohirrim Lancer. It’s sometimes prudent to make a large creature your ringbearer so that you can start looting, especially if your 1/x would just bounce off something else. The best choice for ringbearer is often whatever makes the most sense in the short term because you can just change your ringbearer if you can tempt again later.

The real worth of temptation will always be tied to whatever board state you’re currently looking at. Evaluating cards with this mechanic can be tricky, so we’ll go over the best ones and the ones that you will only play if The Ring is important to your deck.

Best Cards for Tempting

Claim the Precious is the only slam-dunk common with the mechanic, as 1BB sorcery “destroy target creature” is already great on its own. The other cards that tempt at common are virtual vanilla creatures or simple effects like Sam's Desperate Rescue, Soothing of Sméagol, and so on. These cards lack the raw rate of Claim the Precious, which means they range from “curve filler” to “pretty good” depending on how much your deck values The Ring.

There are a number of more powerful cards with the mechanic at uncommon. Generally they either tack “the ring tempts you” onto an already good card, or are excellent ringbearers that reward you for investing in the mechanic, like Bilbo, Retired Burglar and Frodo Baggins. Cards like Gollum's Bite, Ranger's Firebrand, and Dúnedain Rangers are very good!

How Much Should I Care About the Ring?

“The ring tempts you” is never going to be worth a full card, but the effect stacks nicely with itself. Some relevant considerations for how much you should value it:

How many good ringbearers do you have? Examples include Spirit tokens, Dunland Crebain, Lothlórien Lookout, etc.
Do you have any cards that specifically pay you off for tempting, like Gandalf, Friend of the Shire and Faramir, Field Commander?
How much tempt do you have already? More is better, so this can determine whether or not a medium card like Birthday Escape makes your deck.
What is the opportunity cost of playing the card? Tempts often come on curve-filler creatures, so picture something like Mirrormere Guardian versus Captain of Umbar. Is tempting better for your deck than the alternative card you’d slot in instead?
Is The Ring providing any extra value for you? Remember that it’s an easy source of legendary creatures, and can also provide a 0-mana extra draw for cards like Gwaihir the Windlord.

Advice for Playing Against The Ring

The same creatures that skulk well block skulk well. This means that this is the best set for 1/3s and 0/3s that I’ve ever seen. Pelargir Survivor and Mirkwood Spider can do a great job of holding back your opponent’s ringbearer. Just be aware of combat tricks as your blocks will be rather predictable.

Amass Orcs

Amass has returned from War of the Spark with a new twist; it’s always an orc army in this set. This is relevant for two reasons:

The central reason is the orc/goblin theme, so that your army can get boosted by lords and trigger a couple of powerful effects.
The second amusing reason is for Fog on the Barrow-Downs. WotC was able to include a Pacifism in this set without ruining army gameplay. “Becomes a Spirit” makes it so you’re not stuck amassing a useless army. Instead, you create a new one and restart the process.

There isn’t that much to say about amass. It’s a source of orcs for , of spells for /, and provides aggression for winning games. It contributes to a cute mill win-con with Surrounded by Orcs. Trading off small-medium armies is better for a value approach while building a large army is better for trying to end games.

Basic Landcycling

The last mechanic we’ll cover is the main way LTR lets you mitigate flood/screw, and appears on five commons: Eagles of the North, Lórien Revealed, Troll of Khazad-dûm, Oliphaunt, and Generous Ent. All of these are pretty good, though Eagles and Oliphant are the weakest ones.

I’m happy to start several copies in most decks. Because they cost rather than any colored mana, they can almost be considered a full-colored source. I have already had some success with 14-15 land decks and have seen a friend 3-0 with 13 lands. You don’t have to do this though, and it’s not appropriate for every deck. Instead, consult your curve carefully and think about how much mana you will really need on average.

If your deck is lean and mostly tops at three mana, you can consider these a full land and play a couple of them (14-15 lands). If your deck is less lean, you might just want to only shave one land (for 16) and play 2-3 copies of cyclers.

I generally stick to 17 lands in decks that are severely lacking 2-drops. This is not a set you want to stumble in, as high creature density, The Ring mechanic, combat tricks, and some direct burn (Improvised Club) make stabilizing difficult. If you are in doubt about how many lands to shave and have a couple of cyclers, 15/16 lands is probably the safest compromise.

Individual Card Evaluations in Lord of the Rings

I can’t do a full set review here, but I wanted to go over the top/worst commons for each color. I also will highlight top uncommons/rares and some higher rarity cards you should avoid.

White

White is a mediocre color in this set with lots of creatures and a couple of subthemes (humans, The Ring, and Food). White’s best commons are Errand-Rider of Gondor, Eastfarthing Farmer, Protector of Gondor, Banish from Edoras, and Hobbit's Sting. Errand-Rider is white’s #1 common for being such an easy 2-for-1 (legends are everywhere) and still playable when it “misses.”

White doesn’t have any truly unplayable commons but I’ve been unimpressed with Second Breakfast, Esquire of the King and Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!. Restrict these to decks with strong Food, human, and go-wide themes, and cut them from those when you can too.

Blue

The weaker ones are Nimrodel Watcher, Knights of Dol Amroth and Surrounded by Orcs. Like white’s mediocre commons, these are best in decks that touch on their themes (scry elves, draw-two, and amass/mill) but not great even there.

Blue is well-balanced with one of the flatter power levels in the set. Its best commons are Glorious Gale, Lórien Revealed, Pelargir Survivor, Ithilien Kingfisher and Willow-Wind.

Black

LTR’s best color by a mile is an embarrassment of riches. Its best commons are Claim the Precious, Dunland Crebain, The Torment of Gollum, Troll of Khazad-dûm and Mordor Muster. Claim the Precious is arguably the best common in the set.

What makes black so good though is how strong the rest of its commons are, as I could probably name five more black commons better than most of the other colors’ top five.

Black’s worst commons are Nasty End (good against Bewitching Leechcraft and other Aura-removal), Orcish Medicine (outclassed by Shelob's Ambush) and Mordor Trebuchet (playable in some decks, best with sac synergy).

Red

Red is very uneven in this set. Its best commons are Smite the Deathless, Rally at the Hornburg, Warbeast of Gorgoroth, Quarrel's End and Swarming of Moria, with Relentless Rohirrim as a close #6.

Beyond those though, it has a lot of inefficient junk like Gimli's Fury, Gimli's Axe, and Rohirrim Lancer. The two Gimli’s cards in particular are traps that you should never really put in your decks.

Green

Green is the worst color in LTR. Its best commons are Ent's Fury, Enraged Huorn, Generous Ent, Wose Pathfinder, and Bag End Porter.

Generally, you should be green because you are doing something big/colorful, or you have very strong support for a green-adjacent theme like Food. Green’s worst cards are Brandywine Farmer, Revive the Shire, Elven Farsight and Galadhrim Bow.

Green’s “filler cards” are worse than other colors’. I’m not opposed to drafting green occasionally, but I would look to premium uncommons/rares to get me into it first.

Best Uncommons By Color

Believe it or not, uncommon is where most of the real power in this set is. Drafts will often be shaped by following powerful signpost uncommons or monocolor legends that indicate an archetype/color is open. I tabled The Mouth of Sauron at my last FNM and instantly locked into , for instance.

Additionally, most uncommons in this set are playable at worst, and generally tend to edge out commons on pure rate. The few premium cards in this set stand so far above the vast reaches of filler that you’d be foolish not to pursue them! Let’s examine some cards that stand out for each color at uncommon.