The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth review — After all, why shouldn’t I keep it?

Lost to Legend

Well, here we are, Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth has arrived. (That full name sure is a mouthful.) Wizards of the Coast’s first Universes Beyond full draft set will drop into the Magic landscape with Modern format legality. While Tales of Middle-earth likely won’t make huge changes to long established formats; it does interesting things that may spice up the game. The Lord of the Rings is recognized by so many as a cornerstone of fantasy adventure and Tales of Middle-earth has a tough job to balance nostalgia while still being a functional Magic: The Gathering set. I hoped Wizards of the Coast would be able to create something for all kinds of Magic: The Gathering players. So, I gathered some friends both veterans and newbies, to play limited and here’s what we discovered during our time in Middle-earth.

Call of the Ring

So, what does Tales of Middle-earth do with its IP? How does Tales of Middle-earth emulate the classic fantasy known to so many? To begin with, Tales of Middle-earth’s unique set mechanic is “the Ring tempts you,” whenever this happens (if able) you name a creature your ring bearer. Your ring bearer becomes more powerful the more you are tempted. I in particular enjoyed this mechanic, the various ring bearer’s kept games flowing allowing players to chip in damage, filter their card draws, and ultimately end games. “The Ring tempts you,” helped keep the battlefield from stalling out and from games drawing on too long where player’s couldn’t do anything. “The Ring tempts you,” felt like I had The One Ring in my possession, and once I had a taste for power, I wanted more. The key mechanic to Tales of Middle-earth felt reflective of the story and how a simple ring can cause so much chaos.

Tales of Middle-earth is also full of legendaries; unique creatures that a player may only have one of in play at a time. Were they a named character in the book? They’re probably here, maybe even with multiple versions. The Lord of the Rings has a great many memorable characters and Tales of Middle-earth does its best to represent as many of them as possible. There are three different versions of Frodo from different points across the epic tale. Overall, the multiple versions are a great way to show the ways the characters change throughout the story, but this did lead to some confusion about which specific Frodo was currently kicking you in the shin.

Other recurring mechanics from previous sets helped reinforce the flavor of Middle-earth. Amass returns from War of the Spark, this time with orcs. Cards with amass create an orc army token that (hopefully) grows out of control for your opponents. A lot of cards created food tokens and food powered hobbits running amok were a viable strategy. Enchantment sagas that told important tales from Middle-earth were also abound. (We had to ask our resident experts what The Bath Song was.) Lastly, a few smaller mechanics such as historic, landfall, and landcycling were also present. All of these established mechanics felt like good picks for Lord of the Rings and helped translate the books into the realm of Magic: The Gathering.

Lórien Revealed

I cannot think of another way to say this; the artwork for this set is some of the best I have ever seen in all of Magic: The Gathering. While all artwork is subjective, for me, seeing new interpretations of familiar landscapes and characters was one of my favorite aspects of this entire set. There is a lot of attention to detail here that I appreciate across the artwork of Tales of Middle-earth. Wizards of the Coast created nine different Nazgul cards and even the basic lands can be maps of Middle-earth. Here are a few of my favorites of the basic card frames:

The showcase frames for this set are stunning. One friend suggested these events were at each character’s low point in the story. Another friend interpreted them as how the One Ring saw the world. Either way, the showcase frames are among my favorites ever printed:

Wizards of the Coast didn’t stop there, they also created a new type of art treatment for Magic: The Gathering: panorama cards. New to Magic: The Gathering; individual cards can now be combined into larger panoramas ranging from 2x2s up to a massive 3×6 panorama depicting the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Here is a 3×3 of Bilbo’s birthday celebration:

The attention to detail and special artwork treatments are all magical in one way or another. All in all the artwork is the strongest aspect of Tales of Middle-earth and I can’t think of other ways to keep saying that. :)

There and Back Again

I’ve been asked a few times if Tales of Middle-earth would be a good jumping in point for someone new to Magic: The Gathering. After some thought I can answer with a solid, maybe? Helpful I know, but let me explain. Tales of Middle-earth is not the most complex Magic: The Gathering set by far, but it does contain enough text that brand new players may stumble. Here are a few examples we came across:

No one realized how strong the interaction between Orcish Bowmasters and Shelob’s Ambush could be. Orchish Bowmaster’s deals damage with its ability and Shelob’s Ambush would grant deathtouch allowing Orcish Bowmasters to outright kill opponent’s creatures. I later saw the interaction online and had a better understanding of why Orcish Bowmasters is such an expensive card. A new player wasn’t amassing new useful orcs when they should have been due to confusion about Fog on the Barrow-Downs. Fog on the Barrow-Downs disables a creature for combat, but it also changes the creature type to spirit. Amass would then allow that player to make a new army. These are small interactions that aren’t intuitive to new players, but get resolved with experience. I would recommend the Tales of Middle-earth starter decks for brand new players and from there players should explore the Tales of Middle-earth draft set. Tales of Middle-earth has a moderate amount of complexity that has depth for veterans and isn’t too deep for novices, but it does contain some edge cases for your average player to ponder.

One notable downside of Tales of Middle-earth is that as a set it is more expensive than a standard set. As of this writing a draft booster box sells around $160-$180 which is more than the $100-$110 a standard draft booster box goes for. This is likely because the set isn’t standard legal, and is instead Modern legal. This isn’t something that new players are even aware of or why those legalities matter, but It is something to keep in mind when considering a purchase.

Many Partings

For us kitchen table commandos Tales of Middle-earth was full of fun. Tales of Middle-earth does a serviceable job of appealing to new adventurous hobbits while having something for the wise old wizards. It was a joy to watch my friends who know Middle-earth by heart discover each piece of beautiful artwork. For them, each card was a window to Middle-earth itself. For me, I enjoyed the games as the mechanics Wizards chose all made Tales of Middle-earth a flavor win. While Tales of Middle-earth is more expensive than a normal set, it well echoes the themes of the Lord of the Rings and those who wander within will find it worthwhile.

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