The stuff I’ve got on here about my custom “preconesque” Lord of the Rings decks is pretty messy, so I thought a summary probably made a lot of sense. It should also hopefully work as a “conclusion” to this series in case I don’t do another. I still haven’t finished building up every deck, though most are only a handful of cards away, and my original endgame was discussing how everything played and felt in its own little ecosystem. We could call that an epilogue if it came to it, perhaps.
When the Lord of the Rings crossover set was announced the idea of putting together a few thematic 60 card decks was almost a given. I say almost a given only because I’m pretty pessimistic as a default when it comes to current Magic design. Happy to be proven wrong in this case, the set was a banger. And even better: it came with actual 60 card precons which clearly I was stoked for. Only two, sure, but this meant that was two less for me to make. I could then build 2 or 3 others to match the same sort of power level and vibe as those. Nice and simple.
I’ll be linking my other posts so I won’t repeat too much in the intro. Instead let’s just get stuck in.
Deck #1: “The Shire”
This is a green and white deck with a Hobbit theme. It was modified from the official Gondor Starter Kit Deck, essentially removing anything which wasn’t hobbit related then adding in things that should have been there. Like Samwise! It had Frodo, Merry and Pippin but not Sam?
This deck is one which I have assembled in paper:
I covered this in my original post Tales Starter Project: “The Shire”. Strangely enough, given the name. This is a “walk through my process” type piece if that’s of interest at all. I also gave a brief summery of the other four decks which I’d had worked out at this point.
“The Shire” Decklist
The Creatures
2x Bag End Porter
1x Bill the Pony
1x Brandywine Farmer
1x Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper
1x Eastfarthing Farmer
1x Farmer Cotton
1x Frodo, Determined Hero
1x Meriadoc Brandybuck
2x Mushroom Watchdogs
3x Nimble Hobbit
1x Peregrin Took
1x Rosie Cotton of South Lane
1x Samwise Gamgee
1x Shire Scarecrow
2x Shire Shirriff
Instants
2x Hobbit's Sting
2x Pippin's Bravery
1x Second Breakfast
1x Stew the Coneys
Sorceries
1x Harmonize
2x Many Partings
Artifacts
1x Barrow-Blade
1x Bilbo's Ring
1x Heirloom Blade
Enchantments
1x Banishing Light
3x Fog on the Barrow-Downs
Lands
8x Forest
2x Graypelt Refuge
11x Plains
2x Shire Terrace
1x The Shire
I was using Archidekt for brewing at this point (I currently use Scryfall or Moxfield) and so this can be found there.
Deck #2: “Dol Guldor”
A monoblack deck themed around the Nazgûl, and the whole evil in the shadows vibe from Fellowship.
I liked the flavour of the Mordor Starter Kit deck a lot more than the stock Gondor deck. However with my changes it didn’t feel right that Hobbits would be facing the full might of Mordor. So that was my inspiration for this decklist: a more thematically appropriate companion deck to The Shire. Not to mention the Nazgûl themselves are pretty cool cards, so it just made sense to have them all in a pure black build.
Unfortunately, many other people also think the Nazgūl are pretty cool cards, so I’ve not completed building this one yet.
“Dol Guldor” Decklist
The Creatures
2x Dunland Crebain
3x Easterling Vanguard
2x Haunt of the Dead Marshes
2x Mirkwood Bats
9x Nazgûl
1x Ringwraiths
1x Sauron, the Necromancer
2x Snarling Warg
1x Voracious Fell Beast
1x Witch-king of Angmar
Instants
1x Nasty End
Sorceries
2x Claim the Precious
1x Mordor Muster
2x Night's Whisper
1x The Torment of Gollum
Enchantments
1x Call of the Ring
2x Morgul-Knife Wound
2x Revenge of Ravens
Lands
1x Barad-dûr
23x Swamp
Decklist on Archidekt.
Deck 3: “The Old Forest”
A “five colour Green” deck with small Treefolk tribal and Saga themes.
This deck started with Tom Bombadil – a really very well designed card for the character in my opinion – which lead me in quite an interesting direction. This might actually be more favourite of the decks I made for the set, everything just seemed to fall into place with the flavour and mechanics. The Ent themed cards, Wose Pathfinders, and elves reprinted in the Commander decks helped with the mana in a base green deck. The land search elements could also play in with the landfall of Strider and the Dúnedain Rangers making them both thematically and mechanically relevant; not to mention making Old Man Willow bigger.
My biggest issue with the deck is actually the name because it’s not just that particular forest, there’s Fangorn and Mirkwood and the Drúedain Forest too. I’ve spent a bit of time trying to discover if Tolkien even named the massive forest which covered most of Eriador before the Numenorians started sailing back to Arda… but clearly I’m not a big enough Silmarillion geek.
I did another “walk through the process” type post for this deck too on here, which you can find here. Because Last March of the Ents is a pretty sought after card for Commander I haven’t yet finished this deck either. Once I can find one of those for trade the final few other missing cards should come together quite quickly though.
“The Old Forest” (aka Fangorn, etc) Decklist
Creatures
2 Dúnedain Rangers
1 Eagles of the North
3 Enraged Huorn
1 Fangorn, Tree Shepherd
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Generous Ent
1 Goldberry, River-Daughter
2 Mirkwood Spider
1 Old Man Willow
1 Oliphaunt
1 Quickbeam, Upstart Ent
1 Strider, Ranger of the North
1 Tom Bombadil
1 Troll of Khazad-dûm
1 Wood Elves
2 Wose Pathfinder
Instants
2 Bombadil's Song
2 Entish Restoration
1 Lost to Legend
Sorceries
2 Ent's Fury
1 Harmonize
1 Last March of the Ents
1 Lórien Revealed
Enchantments
1 Fall of Gil-galad
2 Lignify
1 Long List of the Ents
1 Song of Eärendil
1 Tale of Tinúviel
Lands
10 Forest
1 Great Hall of the Citadel
2 Island
2 Mountain
3 Plains
3 Shire Terrace
2 Swamp
And the decklist is here too.
Deck #4: “The Riddermark”
An aggressive red and white deck where the vast majority of cards have horses in their illustrations.
It’s not quite clear why the Commander deck included blue at all, but this was never a consideration for me. Well: I do know why. Gondor was in white and blue (a fitting choice) and the official Riders of Rohan precon could have been better named to reflect it representing the joint forces of humanity.
This one I have put together, as discussed here.
I’d originally had some big crazy “create X 2/2 knight tokens with haste” spell when I built the deck but those Commander players do like their big splashy X spells. I think I just jammed in an extra common as a placeholder, and I don’t think the deck needs it. Especially as I was trying to avoid the Monarch mechanic which that card coincidentally also has. (Forth Eorlingas! I just looked it up.)
“The Riddermark” Decklist
Creatures
3x East-Mark Cavalier
1x Erkenbrand, Lord of Westfold
2x Errand-Rider of Gondor
2x Esquire of the King
1x Gandalf, White Rider
1x Gimli, Counter of Kills
1x Merry, Esquire of Rohan
1x Relentless Rohirrim
1x Riders of Rohan
3x Rohirrim Lancer
1x Shadowfax, Lord of Horses
1x Théoden, King of Rohan
2x Westfold Rider
1x Éomer, Marshal of Rohan
1x Éowyn, Fearless Knight
Instants
2x Lost to Legend
1x Path to Exile
3x Smite the Deathless
Sorceries
2x Banish from Edoras
1x Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin!
2x Quarrel's End
3x Rally at the Hornburg
Enchantments
2x Rising of the Day
Lands
1x Minas Tirith
10x Mountain
9x Plains
2x Wind-Scarred Crag
And over here if you prefer it in a visual format.
Deck #5: “Imladris”
A blue and green deck with Elf tribal and scry matter themes. There is significant overlap with Elves and Scry as it was the main set’s UG draft archetype and the Elven Council Commander deck also was built around it.
Speaking of overlap: I didn’t specifically choose to do UG Elves since there was an official UG Elves. Nor did I set out to do something different just ‘cos. Looking at the colours and the factions and how interesting of a deck could be made… it just happened to work out that way. This particular deck was designed from scratch using the Starter Kit “Template”, but approaching it with the Commander deck as a starting point and working back to flesh it out for 60 card casual could have been interesting too.
I’ve made this one up, too, and had made the switch to my current style of deck photos too. Original post here.
“Imladris” Decklist
Creatures
1x Arwen Undómiel
1x Celeborn the Wise
2x Chance-Met Elves
1x Elrond, Master of Healing
1x Elvish Mariner
2x Galadhrim Guide
1x Galadriel of Lothlórien
1x Glorfindel, Dauntless Rescuer
2x Grey Havens Navigator
1x Legolas, Counter of Kills
3x Lothlórien Lookout
1x Meneldor, Swift Savior
3x Nimrodel Watcher
Sorcery
2x Arwen's Gift
2x Elven Farsight
2x Horses of the Bruinen
Instant
2x Council's Deliberation
1x Dreadful as the Storm
2x Shower of Arrows
Land
10x Forest
10x Island
1x Rivendell
1x The Grey Havens
1x Thornwood Falls
1x Woodland Stream
Artifact
1x Galadhrim Bow
1x Mirror of Galadriel
Enchantment
2x Gift of Strands
1x Lost Isle Calling
Deck #6: “Isengard”
A blue, black and red deck with minor spells matter, amass and +1/+1 counter stuff going on.
The big decision here was to go for UB or not, but the red seemed worth the inclusion. The three colour Saruman from the Commander Decks is way more exciting than the monoblue from the main set — I’ve got both in the list — so that was a pretty compelling reason. The deck is a bit of a hodgepodge but there’s lots of things which all interact with other parts of the deck quite interestingly and the times I’ve played it have all been wildly different experiences. Which is exactly what I was after, real stoked with how it came out.
This was debuted in the same post as the Éored but here’s the link again. And to Archidekt while am at it,
“Isengard” Decklist
Creatures
3x Dunland Crebain
1x Grishnákh, Brash Instigator
1x Gríma Wormtongue
1x Gríma, Saruman's Footman
1x Mauhúr, Uruk-hai Captain
1x Orcish Siegemaster
1x Saruman the White
1x Saruman, the White Hand
2x Snarling Warg
1x Uglúk of the White Hand
2x Uruk-hai Berserker
Instants
1x Bitter Downfall
3x Deceive the Messenger
1x Improvised Club
1x Isolation at Orthanc
1x Nasty End
2x Orcish Medicine
2x Saruman's Trickery
Sorceries
1x Fire of Orthanc
2x Foray of Orcs
1x Surrounded by Orcs
2x Treason of Isengard
Enchantments
1x Bewitching Leechcraft
1x Fall of Cair Andros
1x Fiery Inscription
1x Storm of Saruman
Lands
1x Crumbling Necropolis
3x Evolving Wilds
7x Island
6x Mountain
7x Swamp
If I take one more step…
These were the original six decks I brewed up, and there are six more. But those will be in a part two. If you don’t want to wait then the decklists are all here. I’ll be looking to do the follow up in a week or two.
I’d like to quickly point out the colour balance between these six decks though: there’s one mono colour deck, three two colour, one three colour and one five colour. Each colour is represented in exactly 3 decks. I was quite proud of that. Sadly it’ll all get thrown out the window with the next half dozen.
If anybody is inspired to build up any of these decks, or even just use them as a jumping off point for your own design, then I’d absolutely be keen to hear about it! Please chuck a comment below. 🙂
Beats and Skies 
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