Magic: The Gathering has a major crossover with Lord of the Rings coming up in 2023. This MTG Lord of the Rings set, Tales of Middle Earth, will feature all the classic characters and events you know from the fantasy book series, reimagined with iconic MTG artwork and Magic gameplay.
MTG Lord of the Rings is Wizards’ next big Universes Beyond project, after the roaring success of the MTG Warhammer 40k EDH decks. This time, the company has gone a step further, creating an entire Magic set based on another IP, along with four Commander decks, and some MTG Secret Lairs for good measure. As you may have guessed, Wizards is looking at Lord of the Rings with giant dollar signs in its eyes.
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth is coming out on June 23 – check out our MTG 2023 release schedule to see how it fits in, among sets like Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine.
MTG Lord of the Rings release date
Wizards of the Coast has finally give a firm date for this set. MTG Lord of the Rings release date is June 23. This seems surprisingly early, given that we previously told it’d be here in Q3.
Anyhow, we’re not complaining. The MTG Lord of the Rings set will arrive on MTG Arena on June 20, a few days before its tabletop release. However, paper players will be able to enjoy the cards before anyone else if they go to a Lord of The Rings pre-release – events run from June 16 – June 22.
Before that, we’ll have card previews to enjoy, with spoilers pouring in between May 30 – June 9.
MTG Lord of the Rings cards
While spoiler season doesn’t begin in earnest till May, the first official card spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth have already emerged, showing us iconic characters from Gollum to Gandalf.
Spoilers began with Gandalf the Grey and The One Ring, an Izzet creature and a powerful legendary artifact. This Gandalf is one of at least three versions appearing in the Lord of the Rings set (there’s also Gandalf the White and Gandalf, Friend of the Shire).
You’ll soon notice a trend here, the most iconic Lord of the Rings characters are getting several different cards, showing them at different points in the LOTR story.
Then, in the First Look stream (below), the flood gates opened. We got iconic creatures like Aragorn and Arwen, depicted getting hitched and Sauron, with finger stubs smarting. These rather simple cards are from the Lord of the Rings starter kits, designed to get new players on board.
There’s also Gollum, Patient Plotter and Frodo, Sauron’s Bane. Tom Bombadil has a really interesting card revolving around sagas. And then there are two Sam cards, Samwise the Stouthearted and Sam, Loyal Attendant.
That latter card is from the Commander deck Food and Fellowship. Another Commander card (this time from the Elvish Council deck), Radagast, Wizard of Wilds creates beasts or birds whenever you cast spells.
It’s not just creatures – there’s some interesting sorceries and instants, including Reprieve, which is almost a two-mana white counterspell. And You Cannot Pass (not shall not, it’s a book quote) that can destroy blocked creatures.
Finally, a look at some MTG lands. There are lovely basic lands featuring the map of Middle Earth. And some legendary lands showing key locations. For instance, The Shire can tap creatures for food, and Mount Doom, a red-black land that hurts you when it makes mana, but can also hurt your opponents, and act as a board wipe if you sacrifice it and a legendary artifact (like The Ring).
Another detailed look at MTG Lord of the Rings cards we’ve seen is an 18-card collage that forms one piece of artwork, depicting the Battle of Pelennor Fields. We can see from the way the piece is divided that the Witch-king, Fellbeast wyverns, and a swarm of giant bats all get cards, as do riders of Rohan, orc troops, Gondor soldiers, and Oliphant cavalry. It seems like Minas Tirith may also be a (presumably land) card.
This isn’t the only Lord of the Rings collage in the set, versions of the One Ring, Samwise, Gollum, and Frodo cards combine to form a scene, showing the Ring being cast into Mount Doom.
Finally, MTG cards come in Elvish now. There are a bunch of Sol Rings, reskinned as Rings of Power, with Elvish text.
Rest assured, our all-seeing eye will be scouring the Shire and beyond, and as soon as more card spoilers start filtering in, we’ll display them all here.
MTG Lord of the Rings set details
Like all other Universes Beyond cards, the MTG Lord of the Rings set will not be legal in Magic’s Standard format. However, the cards are legal in Modern, and of course Commander.
The set is apparently not designed specifically for Modern. Instead, it’s primarily considered a Limited format intended for MTG drafts – it remains to be seen what kind of power level the set has, and how big a dent it makes on MTG’s Modern meta.
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth set will also be playable in MTG Arena’s Historic format, as it’s getting a digital release on Arena as an Alchemy set. (It’ll come to Magic Online too.)
Holy moly, there’s a lot of content in this release. As well as the main Lord of the Rings set, WotC is launching four Commander decks. These will each have a few brand new cards, as well as a whole load of reprints. Then there’s two Starter Kit decks, designed to bring new players to the game.
There are also some Lord of the Rings Secret Lairs coming out, but we’ll have to share more details on these as they arrive, since right now, we’ve got nothing official. If they’re like the Warhammer Secret Lairs, we’d expect them to focus on tangential parts of the Lord of the Rings universe that aren’t covered by the main set. Perhaps they’ll have content from The Silmarillion or The Hobbit.
Source: Wargamer
