MTG Lord of the Rings has delivered some great cards for EDH players who are fans of niche tribes. Horses and spiders have both received quality MTG commanders, in the form of Shadowfax, Lord of Horses and Shelob, Child of Ungoliant. We’ll look at both Magic: The Gathering cards below.
First up is Shadowfax, Lord of Horses. While it’s probably the new go-to card if you want to build a horse-tribal deck, the more powerful Shadowfax decks will probably have only a few of the very best ponies in them. That’s because while Shadowfax gives all horses haste, his more powerful ability is cheating low power creatures into combat.
If you’re running Shadowfax, you’ll probably want to find some high-cost, low-power creatures like Meteor Golem to cheat out. Or you could load the equine up with equipment, to bring out even bigger creatures.
Did you spot the easter egg on this card? There’s a hidden-in-plain-sight reference to a LOTR line: “run Shadowfax, show us the meaning of haste”. The card here is printed with extra reminder text, literally showing you the meaning of haste. It’s pretty clearly a deliberate joke, because Wizards of the Coast virtually never gives reminders for basic evergreen abilities like vigilance or haste.
Shelob, Child of Ungoliant on the other hand is clearly destined for a deck crawling with spiders. It’s a terrifying 8/8 for six mana, with entirely unnecessary deathtouch on top. It also gives all your arachnid allies deathtouch and an MTG Ward ability, quite the significant effect, assuming all your creatures creep around on eight legs.
The really fun part though is that whenever a spider gets a killing blow on another creature (on your turn), you get to make a grisly food token copy of that creature. From hate bears to mana dorks to activated abilities, there’s all kinds of cool effects you can steal with this power, so you’d better pack some fight spells to ensure you get to nab the ones you want most.
Check out some more top MTG Lord of the Rings spoilers here, and if you’re struggling to marshal your 99, here’s some tips on how to build a Commander deck. And did you know that while it’s not Standard-legal, the Lord of the Rings set is still coming to Arena? Check out every MTG Arena code here.