The first spoilers for the Universes Beyond MTG set, Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth are here, revealing one of the series’ most iconic characters, as well as its most infamous piece of jewellery. Check out the Lord of the Rings MTG spoilers below.
Though MTG Lord of the Rings’ release date isn’t until June, we’ve been treated to an early look at a handful of cards, revealed by IGN. First up is The One Ring, a card we’ve been wondering about ever since Magic: The Gathering’s Lord of the Rings crossover was announced. This neat little four-mana artifact provides its caster protection from everything, meaning you won’t be damaged by your opponent’s creatures, or targeted by their spells. Do note that your creatures and permanents won’t benefit from that protection, however.
There’s another great benefit to this card, but it comes with a painful drawback, representing The One Ring’s corruption. Each time you tap the card, you put a burden counter on it and draw cards for each counter on it. But at the start of each of your turns, you’ll lose life for each of those counters. In essence then, you’re choosing how much you want to use the ring’s power and fall prey to its dangerous influence.
Now, onto Gandalf the Grey, an interesting legendary creature. Seemingly designed to be an MTG Commander, he’s in the spell-slinging Izzet colours, and as you read the card, you’ll certainly be envisioning a Storm-y spellslinging deck that looks to combo off – as each time you cast an instant or sorcery you access a different ability…
That is, until you reach the final line of the card and get a rude awakening. You can’t rely on old Gandalf’s magic too much, or he’ll soon tuck himself back on top of your library. At any rate, each time you cast Gandalf the Grey you get to use the full bag of tricks again, and you can also blink the card to reset it. If you build your Commander deck right, you probably won’t be using that fourth ability very often.
The final part of the reveal is full art MTG land cards from the set – which feature segments of the iconic Middle Earth map, chopped up and stuck onto cards.
Source: Wargamer
