The MTG Lord of the Rings crossover set contains several Elvish-language cards, written in the Tengwar constructed language (conlang) invented by J.R.R Tolkien, and a script of the elves of Middle Earth.
The cards are representations of the elvish, dwarvish, and human rings (which you probably recognize from the “One Ring to rule them all” poem), as well as Sauron’s One Ring. In Magic terms, these are reskinned Sol Rings, with Elvish-language script replacing the text. There’s therefore no danger of not being able to understand the cards (if you don’t know Sol Ring you’re in dire need of our guide to the best MTG mana ramp cards).
When MTG Lord of the Rings was first announced, there was plenty of debate about whether The Ring would be a Sol Ring, or its own unique card. The answer, it turns out, was ‘both’, as there’s also a mechanically unique card for The One Ring in the LOTR set.
These Elvish MTG cards are clearly intended to be collector’s items, as they are serialised cards, so there’s only a limited number of them, each one with a unique serial number stamped on it.
To go along with that poem, there are 3000 non-serialised and 300 serialised versions of the elvish rings for the “three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky”. There are 7000 non-serialised and 700 serialised versions of the dwarvish rings, for the “seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone”. And then there are 9000 non-serialized and 900 serialized versions of the human rings, for the “nine for the mortal men, doomed to die”.
And then, there’s a single unique version of Sol Ring, in Elvish language, representing Sauron’s One Ring. Wizards of the Coast is only making a single copy, guaranteeing that this card will be very, very preciousss.
Of note, there are now two incredibly complex fictional languages that you can get Magic: The Gathering cards in – Phyrexian language and Lord of the Rings’ Elvish.
For more details, check out the MTG Lord of the Rings release date guide. And don’t miss an MTG set with our MTG release schedule guide. Or, if you’re new to playing MTG digitally, get a stack of free cards with our guide to MTG Arena codes.