Thranduil is the sovereign of the elves, the king of the Woodland Realm, and one of the chief belligerents of the Battle of Five Armies. For all of his accomplishments, though, he’s probably most famous for being the father of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings. Well, that might be about to change, because he’s now the most popular commander from the MTG The Hobbit Crossover.
Thranduil, the Elvenking (spelled as one word, because elves are a bit pretentious like that I guess), is a green, black, and blue elf noble. For five mana, he’s a 5/6 with all of the activated abilities of the elves in his controller’s graveyard, and he allows them to draw two cards and discard one, whenever another legendary elf enters the battlefield under their control.
Thranduil is one of the best MTG cards to use as the commander of an elf typal deck. Thanks to his tricolor nature, decks led by him can include both the green/black elves from planes like Lorwyn, Kaldheim, and Ravnica, and also the blue/green elves that appear on Middle-Earth. His abilities also incentivize a graveyard focused strategy, where he gradually gains access to a massive host of elven abilities by drawing and discarding his way through the deck.
EDHREC is a site that logs the number of Commander decks built across a wide variety of online deckbuilding services like Moxfield and Archideckt. According to EDHREC’s data, there are currently (as of 08/23/2026) 5,488 decks built around Thranduil, the Elvenking, making him by far the most popular commander from the set.
Currently, the top five most popular commanders from The Hobbit are…
- Thranduil, the Elvenking – 5,488 decks.
- Smaug the Impenetrable – 3,902 decks.
- Thorin, King of Durin’s Folk – 3,887 decks.
- Beorn the Fierce – 3,391 decks.
- The Great Goblin – 3,347 decks.
The Hobbit also contains two more printings of Thranduil, but neither of them is nearly as popular as The Elvenking. Thranduil, Sindarin Liege (his uncommon variant from the main set) currently leads 517 decks, while Thranduil the Strategist (a card that’s currently collector booster exclusive) leads 697.
Are there any commanders from The Hobbit that you’re looking to brew a deck around? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord.
Source: Wargamer
