Tales Starter Project: “The Shire”

I was going to wait until I had these decks built up in paper before making posts about them, both because that’s cooler and it’d let me get some games in. But who knows how long that will take: I’m still chipping away at the custom Brothers War “Theme Decks” reddit user u/gskyrillion posted to /r/PreconstructedMagic 6 months or so ago. It’s basically mainly just BRO basic lands I’m needing now: why does WoTC make it so hard to get basic basics these days? I used to get Fat Packs largely for the 20 of each they had. Well, and the storage boxes too. But instead of continuing on with that rant, let’s go back to the topic at hand,

The Tales of Middle Earth Starter Kit box.

So back when the Lord of the Rings crossover was announced I had thought I’d probably want to put together a few lower powered 60 card decks from the cards in the set. Either using a 1/1/2/3 M/R/U/C rarity distribution, which I often use for kitchen table builds, or alternatively the Theme Deck formula. Obviously there was always going to be Commander decks for it, but to my surprise Wizards remembered that new and casual players exist and gave us the Starter Kit! Even better that it’s less consistent than the last few actual starter kits, in that it doesn’t have playsets, which actually make them a better product. Much more in line with the Precons of old. And they play really nicely out of the box: they’ve absolutely killed it on these. The biggest issue IMO? The so called Gondor deck is more of a Shire deck. Why not just go all in on the Hobbit theme then?

Nimble Hobbit by JB Casacop

So that’s what this post is about. I started with “Gondor” and finished up with my version of “The Shire”. I plan on doing a few more posts like this, and have currently got 5 other deck lists I’m currently scrounging around for cards to put together. These are:

• “Dol Guldor” – a monoblack deck themed around the Nazgûl: an enemy a bit more in scope for Hobbits than the full forces of Mordor!
• “Isengard” – blue/black/red representing the White Hand of Saruman.
• “The Riddermark” – a red/white deck doing what you’d expect from the mighty Éothéod.
• “Imladris” – taking some cues from the green/blue Elves Commander deck
• “The Old Forest” – a primarily green 5 coloured deck with Tom Bombadil and Ents.

I’m fiddling around with another couple builds but not really happy with anything else yet. I think these selection hits a good number of the things from the set anyway, and don’t want to force anything which isn’t flowing.

Starting with the Starter is a good start.

The full deck lists, with card images, for these can be found via https://mtg.wtf/deck/ltr/gondor-green-white if anyone is unfamiliar.

So the first thing I did was to remove all the cards that weren’t hobbit-y enough. These were:

1 Aragorn and Arwen, Wed
1 Gandalf, White Rider
1 Galadriel, Gift-Giver
3 Knight of the Keep
1 Westfold Rider
1 East-Mark Cavalier
2 Protector of Gondor
1 Landroval, Horizon Witness
1 You Cannot Pass!
2 Wose Pathfinder
1 Generous Ent
1 Galadhrim Bow

It’s fairly clear cut why those are all being cut, I’d think. I don’t mind Gandalf being included, but the cards representing “the Grey” aren’t the right colour.

Meaning we keep 44 cards, at least initially.

1 Frodo, Determined Hero
1 Bilbo's Ring
1 Eastfarthing Farmer
1 Second Breakfast
1 Rosie Cotton of South Lane
2 Banishing Light
2 Mushroom Watchdogs
2 Bag End Porter
2 Many Partings
1 Meriadoc Brandybuck
1 Peregrin Took
1 Stew the Coneys
1 Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper
2 Shire Terrace
2 Graypelt Refuge
11 Forest
11 Plains

Again, I’d hope this all makes sense. The most questionable thing is probably Bag End Porter, a Dwarf, but it says Bag End in the name and it’s a big body even without Legendary creatures – which we’ll have a number of for sure.

Bag End Porter by Daniel Correia

So how am I doing this? Maybe just go card by card for my eventual list and discuss each choice? I can’t remember now my exact process for selecting everything so that’ll probably work.

Creatures

2 x Bag End Porter: In the stock list, discussed above.

1 x Bill the Pony: Added. I mean, you gotta have Bill.

1 x Brandywine Farmer: Added. If you are going to include a Eastfarthing Farmer then stands to reason you’d want the Brandybucks to get some agricultural love too.

1 x Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper: in the stock list.

1 x Eastfarthing Farmer: in the stock list.

1 x Farmer Cotton: Added near the end of the build. Wanted a fun rare to help match the distribution of the original deck, and this one from the Commander precon felt flashy, but not too overcomplicated or overpowered as things purposely designed for that format often do. And we’ve got his dogs, so makes sense he’s here too.

Farmer Cotton card from LTC. Artist: Tomas Duchek.

1 x Frodo, Determined Hero: In the stock list. Fairly important to keep.

1 x Meriadoc Brandybuck: In the stock list. Merry is obviously cool too.

2 x Mushroom Watchdogs: In the stock list. These are definitely worth keeping as they let you do something with all those tokens you’re making. Other than gaining life, naturally.

3 x Nimble Hobbit: Added. Maybe it’s me, but I’m all about this card and it being a two drop common was straight in as a 3 of. Tap down effects are nice, and this has the flexibility of using both food or mana to operate. Even the fact it is 1/3 for that little bit of extra survivability, either on attack or defence, is a great final touch.

1 x Peregrin Took: in the stock list. If you have Merry you have Pippin too.

1 x Rosie Cotton of South Lane: in the stock list. Interesting choice of a character to make a card for, given that Rosie isn’t really a prominent part of the story. And the card is actually pretty strong, too, which is a bit amusing too! So definitely earns it’s place.

1 x Samwise Gamgee: Added. The biggest crime of the stock deck is it didn’t have Sam. Absolutely unforgivable. If you make only one change to either deck: put Sam in it. And this particular version of Sam works well with what the rest of the deck is doing.

Samwise Gamgee from LTR. Artist: Ekaterina Burmak

1 x Shire Scarecrow: Added. The deck doesn’t need the defender or the mana filtering but it just seemed fitting. If you’re wanting to go for a precon vibe chucking stuff like this into the mix is just what you gotta do. Deck just needs to have a scarecrow. Next.

2 x Shire Shiriff: Added. You have tokens. Having O-Ring effects is always good. But even it just being a 2/2 Vigilance is solid enough. Showing my age here, maybe, as it might not be good enough these days. We’ll see I guess.

Second Breakfast by Christina Kraus

Instants

2 x Hobbit’s Sting: Added. Hobbit themed removal. You’re probably going to have enough creatures and/or food for this to do it’s thing.

2 x Pippin’s Bravery: Added. Always like a Giant Growth variant.

1 x Second Breakfast: in the stock list.

1 x Stew the Coneys: in the stock list.

Harmonise by Jason Kang

Sorceries

1 x Harmonise: added. From the Commander deck. Pretty much for the art alone, with an honourable mention for the flavour text. Drawing cards is nice though.

2 x Many Partings: in the stock list. I don’t love this card, but again the art is cute and it helps fix and gives an early food which you might want to use for something on curve? Dunno. But it’s not offensive enough to remove and if I’m going to maintain a precon vibe then keeping the cards that were originally in the precon helps with it.

Fog on the Barrow-Downs by Marco Gorlei

Enchantments

1 x Banishing Light: one copy less than the stock list. The Shiriff does the same sort of thing, but more on theme. In fact, just by writing this all out I’m wondering if I’ve overdone it on the removal a bit. I might look to pull this and maybe one of the Hobbit’s Stings? There’s probably enough creatures but maybe a couple of other utility spells could be good. Some sort of disenchant effect, or even a beneficial global enchantment? Hmm.

3 x Fog on the Barrow-Downs: Added. Absolutely incredible art, on theme, and Pacifism effects are bread and butter for white based basic Precons. Does the creature type thing matter? Maybe in corner cases, but trinket text or not definitely a worthy inclusion. Worthy enough to be one of the 3 ofs in fact.

Heirloom Blade by Ramazan Kazaliev

Artifacts

1 x Barrow Blade: Added. Storyline moment, but it’s cheap to play and to equip. Not sure how useful the loses abilities part of the effect is, but it may come into play at times.

1 x Bilbo’s Ring: in the stock list. Clearly this was never in danger of being cut.

1 x Heirloom Blade: Added. Another cards grabbed over from one of the Commander decks. This represents Sting, which admittedly does have it’s own card. However that’s a rare, which we do need to keep in consideration since we have a limited number to use. This is uncommon: we have a few more of those to play around with. Being able to do a Goblin Ringleader type thing is pretty good in here too I think.

The Shire by Jonas De Ro

Land

2 x Greypelt Refuge: in the stock list. Dual colour tap land: absolutely fine card.

2 x Shire Terrace: a reskinned Evolving Wilds effect: also completely fine.

1 x The Shire: added. Is this exciting enough to take up a rare slot? But what it’s doing does seem worthwhile enough. De Ro is one of my favourite “more contemporary” artists, so hard to go past for that too.

11 x Plains: in the stock list. Taps for white. Good to include in this colour combination.

8 x Forest: three less than stock. We have The Shire which taps for green too, and the deck just felt that it didn’t need as may as it did.

The complete deck. I have no idea why the image generator did that thing.

And that’s it. Can check it out on Archidekt here. Happy for feedback on both the list and this article. It’s late here now so I’m going to just abruptly end thi