A massive wave of new MTG Lord of the Rings cards has been revealed – spoilers for the upcoming Lord of the Rings Holiday release. They include new takes on classic characters like Gandalf, The Witch King, and Aragorn; a couple of new versions of that most overpowered artifact The One Ring, and four new collages, each with six new borderless cards which, if placed together, form a cool scene.
The MTG Lord of the Rings cards are coming out November 3, 2023, shortly before Lost Caverns of Ixalan, which makes this the penultimate set on our MTG release schedule. They’ll be sold in Collector Boosters and Jumpstart Boosters, but if you don’t feel like cracking packs, there’ll also be ‘Scene Boxes’, containing the collage cards preassembled.
There are too many new Magic: The Gathering cards here for us to analyze them all in depth, so we’ll let you look at them all yourselves, and just highlight some of the best. And there’s some really, really strong stuff here, like Mists of Lorien, a versatile bounce spell that, with some careful forethought, can do a good Cyclonic Rift impression. Anduril, Narsil Reforged is an affordable and powerful equipment in a go-wide deck, while Galadhrim Brigade is absurd for elves, a Lord that can fill your entire board if you’ve the mana to pay for its squad ability.
There’s some great new protection spells in this collection too, like Legolas’ Quick Reflexes, which gives Split Second Hexproof, for the creature you really want to save, or Courageous Resolve which cantrips, and can come in clutch in the last turn or two of a game.
The legendary creatures are of course the focus of this spoiler drop. Gandalf of the Secret Fire is an awesome spell-slinger commander, Witch-King Sky Scourge provides another option for Wraith tribal, Aragorn Hornburg Hero can quickly make aggressive creatures gigantic, and Galadriel works great for go-wide or token strategies.
Just a couple of cards that aren’t part of the scene collages have been shown off. Both Riders of the Mark and Minas Tirith Garrison work well in human-heavy decks, but they’re unusual colors, Red and Blue respectively.
As well as these new cards, there are a few new neat reprints worth highlighting. There’s yet more band poster cards as callbacks to LOTR’s role in 1960s counterculture. These are reprints from the first Lord of the Rings MTG set, with variably hard-to-read text, and they’ll be in the main set, not a Secret Lair. There’s also two new versions of The One Ring – a neat detail, they gave this preview to Brook Trafton, the lucky chap who found the $2 million One Ring and sold it to Post Malone.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guides to the best MTG planeswalkers, the best MTG Arena decks, and all the many MTG Arena codes available.