The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth - 7 Point Highlander Set Review

Release date: June 23rd 2023

Latest points change at the time of writing this - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

First of all, IN THE SAME SET they've printed Bilbo's Ring, which is also a legendary artifact, and as we all know they're the same fucking ring. Bit much to print the second one when The One Ring is called THE One Ring.

~ earned a lot of hype really quickly, especially because the Pro Tour was modern and just weeks after the prerelease. The hype was justified, ~ earned a point immediatley.

The Omnath Time Walk players from CanCon identified the strength of ~ in their deck. ~ keeps them alive another turn so they have 4 draws to find Time Walk or a tutor, and because Time Walk gets them the extra turn, they have another 4 draws to find a way to return Time Walk from the graveyard. This is all very likely. The One Ring basically reads "win the game" in that deck.

~ is also super strong in Time Vault combo. A weakness of that deck is that Voltaic Key, etc are bad unless you have Time Vault; ~ gives the deck another way to utilise the untap effects, which will likely result in finding Time Vault or a tutor.

~ has is a minor deck building cost, you do need to run several ways to stop yourself dying from the burden counters. You can sacrifice ~, exile ~, gain life, copy ~ (legendary rule), remove the counters (Vampire Hexmage), or the best way, which is bouncing ~ to get another protection trigger.

Beware of cards that get around protection, e.g. Questing Beast and Bonecrusher Giant.

Bizarre that the second best or arguabley the best card in The Lord of Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is not Gandalf, the White, is not Sauron or Saruman, it's this dumb pair of orcs.

~ is excellent against blue decks, which has been the best colour since the beginning of the format. Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, Ponder and Preordain are in practically every blue deck and they typically run another 4 ways of drawing cards. 

~ is cheap, which means it's more likely to catch the draw effect, and because it has flash it's difficult to play around or use counterspells on. Blue decks have kept their draw spells but ~ has pressured them into adding more cheap instant-speed removal. 

A large effect that ~ has had on the format is reinforcing the soft ban on X/1's which cost ≥2 mana. Liliana the Last Hope laid the foundation but is now a distant memory. Wrenn and Six has done most of the work. Now ~ and Fury have really added presence. It seems that players are still willing to run 1cost 1toughness creatures. I suppose the tempo loss of your 1drop dying is half that of your 2drop dying, and if you're on the play your mana dork gives you 1mana or your Mother of Runes can protect herself. The risk is still there though. Having your mana dork Wrenn and Six'd on the draw is typically game over. ~ isn't as brutal on X/1's because only your first X/1 gets Bowmaster'd. The second one will live provided you don't draw extra cards.

~ having flash I think will stop players from running the X/1's that had pseudo protection from Wrenn and Six, e.g. creatures with flash like Vendilion Clique, Aven Mindcensor and Brazen Borrower, or creatures with some kind of protection, e.g. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Elite Spellbinder.

I think in some situations X/1's are acceptable, for example if your deck runs the full suite of Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Dread Fugue, Daze and Force of Will; then you can justify Dark Confidant.

~ creates 2 bodies. This is great for chump blocking but also gives you a little bit of value if they remove ~. It is also an extra creature to convoke with or sacrifice to whatever. It's worth noting that you won't get the Army token if they sacrifice their creature in response to you targetting it with ~'s ETB.

~ is insane with and against Wheel of Fortune/Time Twister/Echo of Eons. In this regard it is an extra Narset, Parter of Veils, Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Hullbreacher.

The blue card of this group, Lorien Revealed, is a sorcery rather than a creature, which is interesting.

This group has had a significant effect on the format, they find dual lands and therefore fix mana. They can be simplified as tapped lands but they have several advantages over tapped lands:

• They go to the graveyard to feed delve, escape, delirium and grow Tarmogoyf, etc
• Generous Ent, Troll of Khazad-dum and Oliphaunt are worthy of Reanimate or Animate Dead. Eagles of the North is not worth of reanimating.
• They can find basic lands, providing protection against Blood Moon and Back to Basics. I would say this is a negative outcome for the format. Blood Moon's strength has been decreasing gradually as the power of the format has increased and average mana costs lowered. This group is  nail in the coffin for Blood Moon. Decks like Omnath are able to beat Blood Moon.
• They are strong threats in the late game, whereas a tapped land would be cycled.
• This group increases the number of cards in your deck that you can pitch to the MH2 Elementals, Force of Will, MH1 Forces, Betrayers of Kamigawa Shoals, Chrome Mox, etc.
• Landcycling triggers cards like Inti, Seneschal of the Sun and Toluz, Clever Conductor. They also let you cast Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdicar.
• This group can find the Throne of Eldraine common land group, most notably Mystic Sanctuary, which can get back the game's best instants and sorceries. If you really want to hit your 5th land drop or if you have nothing to cast on turn5, then Mystic Sanctuary can even put Lorien Revealed back on top.
• Adding an Amonkeht cycling land or Triome to your deck lets you effectively cycle this group for a random card rather then a land, albeit at a high mana price.

In this world of Wrenn and Six and Orcish Bowmasters, ~ is arguably the second best mana dork after Deathrite Shaman. It's not that simple though, not every deck can curve turn1 ~ into any of their 3drops on turn2. Goblins for example runs Goblin Chieftain and Goblin King, so if you have a Marsh Flats or Polluted Delta as your green source, finding Bayou, then you'll be unable to cast your double red 3drops.

The Initiative mechanic has forced every deck to run cheap creatures, except all-in combo decks. Because ≈95% of decks are running cheap creatures, ~ is an excellent maindeck card.

~ is worth considering when your opponent leaves up U. For example, with my Goblin deck I might cast Breeches, Eager Pillager rather than Goblin Chieftain.

THE RING TEMPTS YOU

Several playable cards from Tales of Middle-earth say "The Ring Tempts you." as part of their effect if they're an instant or sorcery, or as part of a triggered or activated ability if the card is a permanent. The rules are conveniently written on the back of 'The Ring' emblem above.

Due to the nature of Highlander you won't be tempted by the Ring as many times as you would in 4of constructed or limited. It's very unusual to add the looting ability let alone the last two. Therefore, only cards that repeatedly tempt you can be used as discard outlets for Reanimate or whatever. For example:

You need a creature for ~ to function. Cheap removal is very popular in the format due to The Initiative and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Therefore, you can't rely on a curve of 1drop creature into ~ because your 1drop could die. Therefore, you should plan to curve 1drop into 2drop into ~, ideally with another 1drop in case your other creatures get killed.

Note that manlands and creatures with flash are good with ~ because there is no targetting involved when choosing a ringbearer and therefore the ability will still trigger if you technically have no creatures at the beggining of your upkeep.

~ costs you 2 life every turn. You'll need a lot of removal to protect yourself. You may think "I've played Ancient Tomb before and that wasn't an issue." The difference here is that you haven't got the tempo boost of Ancient Tomb, in fact you also have tempo loss due to the 2 mana spent on ~.

Once you add the loot ability to The Ring emblem it significantly improves in power. The final ability negates the lifeloss of ~ assuming they have no blockers for your skulking ring-bearer.

~ suits a Lurrus of the Dream-Den deck because you're already chock-full of cheap creatures.

Maximise on fetchlands and ~ will get you value most of the time. Other things you can pick up on turn2 include Baubles, Solitude or simply your 1drop creature that died in combat.

~ interacts nicely with Karakas because his trigger can make himself the ring-bearer, i.e. legendary. That interaction also progresses you through the emblem each time, which should give you enough value to win the game.

Gets back Black Lotus and Lion's Eye Diamond for some big turns.

Interesting that they chose to use the Chalice of Void wording that creates ambiguous rules situations in competitive play.

Boromir can come down turn1 off a Mana Crypt, potentially shutting off opposing Baubles and Moxen.

Underworld Breach combo won't be able to combo off with Lion's Eye Diamond or Lotus Petal until they remove ~.

~ is nice postboard when they bring in Brotherhood's End and other 'destroy' or 'damage' sweepers.

~ goes infinite with Ratadrabik of Urborg + Blood Artist. 

'Human' and 'Soldier' are good creature types. ~ definitely goes in each of those tribal decks.

You could use ~ with Possibility Storm or Knowledge Pool to lock your opponent.

~ shuts off cascade and discover.

I like ~ in combo decks that have a plan-B of casting big delve creatures, which is exactly the plan of current Thassa's Oracle decks.

FOOD

"...and that little ones, was the story of how Flash Hulk combo became underpointed and killed all the opponents on turn 2".

Goes infinite with Cauldron Familiar and a sacrifice outlet, e.g. Viscera Seer. This + Sylvan Safekeeper is the best Protean Hulk package. An alternative to Sylvan Safekeeper is Gingerbrute, which will only protect you against one removal effect but has the benefit of protecting cat from a single graveyard removal effect, e.g. Deathrite Shaman.

The 3 card combo of ~ + Cauldron Familiar + sacrifice outlet is cheap enough that you can assemble it naturally without Protean Hulk. You don't care if Cauldron Familiar dies because you can easily return it with ~. ~ is a decent card by himself if you run several historic cards, which most decks do naturally. The sacrifice outlet is the weakest point; You'll probably want at least one 1mana sacrifice outlet, i.e. Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder, so that you can combo easier with tutors like Chord of calling. If you want some redundancy there are some more robust sacrifice outlets available like Woe Strider and Cartel Aristocrat.

Green Sun's Zenith finds ~. It is also able to find sacrifice outlets, of which there are 3: Varolz, the Scar-Striped, Minsc, Beloved Ranger and Scarland Thrinax. Varolz is the weakest but doesn't require the 4th colour. 

Strong in decks with mostly evasion creatures because you can continue to attack and lay threats whilst you wait for the opponent to play a second creature into ~.

Goes infinite with Experimental Confectioner.

If ~ is already on the battlefield when you cast Experimental Confectioner, then you'll get two food. Then all you need to do is make one more token to get the 3rd food, then you can sac 3 foods to ~, which gives you 3 triggers on the Confectioner making 3 rats and 3 food, which lets you repeat the process as many times as you like until you run out of cards in library. You will have a lethal number of rat tokens but they'll have summoning sickness and can't block, so if you're really behind on board there's a chance you still lose. Obviously you build your deck to not lose form this position, e.g. you could add several zero-mana spells. My mate Brooksey has put a lot of work into his food deck and he uses Mox Opal + Disciple of the Vault for his kill, which is pretty cool.

I like ~ in decks that can tutor for and reliably cast Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdicar.

Would be difficult to build a Food Legends deck but having Mox Amber and Mox Opal is payoffs is pretty nice.

I can only really imagine ~ in Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdicar decks because she's the only worthwhile food payoff.

The food decks want to run mostly forests to find Gingerbread Cabin with green fetchlands and Generous Ent. However, ~ is not a forest, which is a problem. I think you can run both though.

MOX AMBER/LEGENDARIES

Beware nonlegendary double pip spells like Abrupt Decay if you're running ~. Same goes for colour-intense activated abilities like Bard Class.

Crazy in the legends deck. Why do they get ward1 as well!? I really need to build this deck.

Mox Amber turbo aggro legends deck. Turn1 Zurgo Bellstriker or Isamaru, Hound of Konda into ~ is nice. The trick is having enough another legends to trigger ~, whilst also running enough removal to clear the way. Solitude and Fury will be great support here. Ideally you'll want your 3drop legends to have haste so that you draw a card ASAP if your 1drop legend gets Mental Misstep'd or if you simply didn't have the 1drop.

I've had ~ cast against me several times and only now do I realise that ~ isn't holding the sword! It's the guy in the background. Makes me think the artist drew Pippin separately.

~ is generally strong, acting like a Giver of Runes.

Especially good in Lurrus decks.

I've said it already, Soldiers is a playable tribe.

ARTIFACTS

~ goes nicely into my Balance deck because it banks a card pre-Balance, fixes my 5 colour mana and draws a card post-Balance.

~ joins Chromatic Star, Terrarion and Arcum's Astrolabe as 1drop artifacts that replace themselves. These are great with Krark-Clan Ironworks if you can make that work.

I can imagine ~ in a Scrap Trawler combo deck or perhaps reducing the cost of Sensei's Divining Top to go infinite with Mystic Forge, Cemetery Illuminator or The Reality Chip.

A slight upgrade for the Semblance Anvil/Krark-Clan Ironworks combo deck. I doubt that deck is playable but I wanted to mention it incase.

Gruul Mishra's Workshop deck that's mostly creatures? At this point it's clear to me that green is the best colour for Workshop thanks to Ancient Stirrings, Boseiju, Who Endures and Sylvan Scrying.

If you have the space in your mana base, you should run as many manlands as you can so that even against heavy reamoval decks you can trigger ~.

A dangerous tool.

~ was a bit of a sleeper. It only recently picked up popularity as a solid option for grinding against non-initiative decks. You can't run it in hard control because you need to threaten their life total to pressure them into giving you cards.

Mishra's Workshop decks can get away with maindecking ~ and maybe decks cheap creatures and high mana value pitch removal. If you're not either of those things then ~ is better off sideboard.

I reckon Mishra's Workshop decks should run ~, especially if they're multiple colours or have double colour spells, or triple colour spells like Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant.

Workshop decks often have some lifegain that you can double, e.g. Forsaken Monument, Batterskull, Wurmcoil Engine, Crystalline Giant.

If we can get to ≈12 powerful equipment with mana value ≤2 and the same number of ways to equip them for free by turn4, then we're on:

EQUIPMENT

Enlightened Tutor*

Steelshaper's Gift

Stoneforge Mystic

Open the Armory

Colossus Hammer

Commander's Plate

Belt of Giant Strength

Trinket Mage

Tribute Mage

Urza's Saga*

EQUIPPERS

Enlightened Tutor*

Sigarda's Aid

Puresteel Paladin

Forge Anew

Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist

Bruenor Battlehammer

Magnetic Theft

Resolute Strike

Kor Outfitter

Closer than I thought. I think we have enough pieces to consistently attack with a >10power creature on turn4. That's probably too slow. However, if we can fit in enough acceleration with our points then we could speed it up a turn. The remaining cards will be 1mana and 2mana hexproof creatures, and utility like Mox Opal.

Ultimately we're overcomplicting things and we're probably better off just using the Initiative to kill on turn4, a common story.

MISCELLANEOUS

Hard to amass a lot of creatures in this Fury metagame but ~ will win the game if you can just stay alive.

Would be a good to maximise the number of removal creatures you run.

~ allows you to tap Inspired creatures from the original Theros block without having to attack. Same goes for creatures with tap triggers like Emmara, Soul of the Accord.

Metagame dependant. There have been metagames where most players were running at least 3 artifacts maindeck. In that scenario I like ~. There are plenty of legends around and there's only going to be more because Wizards want more money from the Commander community.

~ will get worse as curves lower over time due to power creep, but for now ~ is still playable in decks that are digging for a few key expensive spells and just need to keep their head above water until turn5.

You'll want to win on the same turn you cast ~ because she'll probably die before your next turn.

~ goes infinite with Scurry Oak.

Win condition for Tainted Pact into Squee, the Immortal into Food Chain.

We already have Solitude as a cheap creature to tutor for if we need removal. ~ could be a backup to Solitude though. 

~ gives Birthing Pod more utility as the 2drop removal creatures are all conditional, e.g. Gilded Drake and Mawloc.

I genuinely like Soldier tribal and it's definitely on my list to build. Soldier tokens are relatively easy to create.

Good value if your deck already has about 12 ways to scry and lots of removal to recover the 2mana. 

Draws a card every second turn at the cost of U, which is passable. 

If your deck benefits from removing unwanted counters from things, then ~ goes from passable to strong, e.g. keeping Urza's Saga around to keep making constructs.

Infinite with Time Vault.

If Wrenn and Six gets a second point and drops significantly in popularity, then ~ is an excellent addition to Goblins. As it stands though, if you cast ~ turn2 and they Wrenn and Six it, you lose. Pretty sad. Same goes for Warren Insitigator and Metallic Mimic.

Awesome with all the Modern Horizons II pitch Elementals. I'm surprised I haven't seen that happen in Modern. You might be tempted to run Skyshroud Cutter, which is a little secret card of mine.

If  ~ survives until your end step to choose an opponent, you'll still get the second part of the trigger if ~ dies between. This means you're very likely to get at least one trigger, which is enough.

~ is slow but the opponent only gets one attack before the ground gums up with 1/1's. I suppose ~ is metagame dependant; if people are running trample and evasion, then ~ isn't good.

Ideally you'll be Human tribal to push ~ just a little bit further.

I think you need several cheap Wizards. Pretty hard to lose if you have the Wizard. Strong with Snapcaster Mage.

I think ~ is worth it for 5 mana. Not too difficult to achieve: fetchlands, Baubles, treasure tokens.

~ is especially exciting in my all-in Balance combo deck, which can make ~ cost just RB.

Dylan Kidd has been running ~ in his Boros Initiative deck and no one has tuned that archetype as much as he.

Strong hit off Winota, Joiner of Forces.

Human tribal. Kills quick.

Win condition for Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal.

Naturally you'll want to curve turn1 dude into turn2 ~ + dude, which requires an absurd number of 1drops to do consistently. I like to have about 85% chance of success for these build conditions, similar to the probably of having 2 or more lands in hand, i.e. a keepable hand. To hit my personal 85% we would need twentyfive 1drops! Too many. Perhaps ~ isn't playable. I suppose Moxes also count, as do zero-mana creatures. Nah, that's just too many.

I was scrolling through the CanCon decklists and I found Cody's 151st place Hardened Scales list. Cody, if you're reading this, I want to know if you tested ~.

RB Hyper Aggro. That deck wants to cast red 1drops into Dauthi Voidwalker. It needs as many RB duals as it can get.

~ gains a bit more value in a Death's Shadow build.

SIDEBOARD

I've run Disfigure in my sideboard before. Some strategies need to board out a lot of cards against mono red and 1drops are especially important in that matchup.

Could go in the sideboard of Elf tribal against aggro.
That's also the cheapest indestructible counter I've seen. Perhaps a Hardened Scales deck with cards like The Ozolith, could take advantage of that indestructible counter.

Excellent against Flash Hulk combo. Also works against other combos like Persist or Academy Rector.

Notably searchable with Urza's Saga. You can also find ~ with Trinket Mage but I haven't seen anyone run that in a long time.

CONCLUSION

As always, here is my list of best cards in the set, roughly in order of descending power. It's a long list!:

The One Ring

Orcish Bowmasters

Lorien Revealed

Delighted Halfling

Troll of Khazad-dum

Generous Ent

Stern Scalding

Oliphaunt

Palantir of Orthanc

Boromir, Warden of the Tower

Samwise Gamgee

Flowering of the White Tree

Eowyn, Fearless Knight

Eagles of the North

Pippin, Guard of the Citadel

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth had a huge impact on 7 Point Highlander. Most blue decks run Lorien Revealed, most black decks run Orcish Bowmasters. The One Ring has earned a point, and maybe more in 3 hours time. Tune in to Michael and Kate announcing the post-CanCon, Murders at karlov Manor points change 7pm tonight at https://www.twitch.tv/7pointhighlander. I'm hoping to see a lot of pointings.

See you in the Undercity,

Mulch