As we predicted (okay, it wasn't very difficult) Magic: The Gathering's The Hobbit set has plenty of dwarves and dwarf synergies. But right now, I'm finding it hard to care much about that, because I'm thoroughly distracted by a most unexpectedly busted new MTG commander: Tom, Bert, and William.
I didn't expect the three trolls that try to eat the adventuring party early on in their journey to have a legendary creature card. In fact, I didn't even know they had names, let alone such classically British ones. But here they are, as a Golgari commander that to my eye, looks extremely powerful.
Admittedly, I'm not super confident in evaluating the power level of EDH cards, but Tom, Bert, and William seems to me like one of the strongest draw engines in Golgari colors that has ever been printed.
Their ability lets you sacrifice a creature, then draw cards equal to its mana value. Then you discard a single card. Given that similar effects like Life's Legacy and Greater Good are green staples, I'm inclined to view this as very good indeed!
It's not quite a Greater Good in the command zone. The big downside is that you have to pay one mana for the sacrifice effect, which effectively shuts off most infinite combo shenanigans.
But the fact you only have to discard a single card to the ability makes it extremely easy to generate card advantage with this commander. You can turn a mere zombie token into a draw 2 discard 1, or draw to a full grip with an 8/8. Plus, when they die, this troll trio come back as an artifact (they turn to stone you see), so you don't have to be shy about blowing them up with a Disciple of Bolas or another card that generates value from sacrificing big creatures.
Tom, Bert, and William are going to be great leading any deck that wants to use the graveyard or death triggers, but there are lots of different ways to take advantage of the card's effect.
You can use it with smaller tokens and do as much looting as possible, playing a Cryptcaller Chariot or Bone Miser to keep the party going. With both on the board, you probably /can/ go infinite.
Or you can try and resurrect big things, using cards like Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist and Meren of Clan Nul-Toth. I'm playing Yargle and Multani in this deck and you can't stop me.
I'm even wondering if this might be a good ooze tribal commander, using all those cards that spit out big tokens to try and get the most card draw possible. Maybe this is even meant to be a Slime Against Humanity deck?
If you don't play this troll trio as your commander, it's still a perfect draw engine for the 99. Jund decks, especially, will want to include this card. Disa loves it, Ziatora loves it, Henzie really loves it - these guys are so good with Blitz!
What's your favorite of the newly revealed Hobbit cards? Let us know over on the Wargamer Discord. And check out the MTG release schedule, to see when everything's coming out this year.