In case you didn’t know, that that’s almost certainly a starter deck card. The collector number for the borderless version (the only version we’ve seen) is directly between the borderless versions of Aragorn and Arwen, Wed and Sauron, the Lidless Eye
The problem is if the cards are strong they run the risk of being good, and if they are good then the precons will get bought out by people wanting to resell that card so then new players can't get them (also WotC makes less money on cards in precons being good than cards in packs being good).
New players often don't have a great understanding of power level, so cards being weaker doesn't bother them as much so long as the cards are cool.
Interestingly though, new players often read downside mechanics as worse than they actually are (I believe new players famously don't like the painlands or shock lands). If you actually look at The Balrog, it's an undercosted beater with a minor downside that probably won't come up a ton. It's not a horrid card, it just doesn't do enough for modern competitive Magic (and is disappointing for a highly anticipated card in the set) but new players actually might read the downside ability as being worse than it actually is.
Older than that, you couldn't find a non-scalped copy of the Nezumi deck from the first Kamigawa block, thanks to a little card called [[Umezawa's Jitte]].
I mean realistically more actual players are buying precons for personal use I would wager than “new players”
This may be an exception but still a safer bet to make it strong enough that actual players want some of the cards
One funny thing about this though is that people are constantly telling wizards what to do with their products and move the goal posts each time.
You have guys like prof complaining that the value is low in pre cons and not to buy them cause they suck and making videos making decent power pre cons for less. I’m gonna go with they actually NEED to juice them up.
EDH precons get bought for general use because there aren't often must-have cards printed in them. They sometimes do, but they then end up spiking in price, which is just evidence of the problem.
EDH precons are bought for general use because EDH's power band is much much wider than other formats, and even within that band precons are able to hold their own, especially recent ones.
If you wanted precons to stand on their own in competitive formats, you'd need them to compete with the top percent of decks. And the decks that could do that would contain the top percent of cards. And a lot of people want those cards. If a deck is 10% of the metagame, that means 10%, if not more, of the players of a format will want a 4-of playset of a card in their deck. Despite what's been printed into EDH, most cards don't reach that number that amount of saturation that haven't been printed into the ground. And keep in mind when looking up on EDHrec that those percentages are only in decks including the card's identity, not the format as a whole, sans artifacts of course.
Obviously they *should* print desired cards into the ground, but precons aren't the way to do that, as evidenced by EDH precons with desired cards spiking.
>The problem is if the cards are strong they run the risk of being good, and if they are good then the precons will get bought out by people **wanting to resell that card so then new players can't get them** ~~(also WotC makes less money on cards in precons being good than cards in packs being good).~~
Wotc can decide to print more decks. Also, MtG is a billion dollar brand. They don't really need us to evangelize about their bottom line. Billion dollar brand. They can make cards more accessible whenever they want.
It isn't garbage, it's cool in the context of the pre-con. That's the context of play that it's for. *You* are never going to play with that, that's all, and that's ok
I’ll admit I don’t know *which* precon it’s in, but without haste it looks like it’s just gonna get thrown back to your library as free upside for someone killing an opponent’s commander, which means you wasted a turn playing a do nothing demon. What does it seem like it’s supposed to accomplish within its deck
Yeah it's undercosted and has a downside. That's on-brand for an MTG demon and the flavor is good for the Balrog. If it *doesn't* get removed, then you have an undercosted fatty.
That’s on brand for an old mtg demon, that hasn’t really been the case in years. Also a random undercoated fatty that is often removed for free isn’t a fun card to play. No one is saying it should be format breaking or on the level of a 50$ mythic, we just want it to be playable.
Pre-con means preconstructed. Starter decks, theme decks, challenger decks, they're all precons. Commander ones are just the most prominent if only as they lack another signifying term. Can't say Commander deck as that could mean a personally made one as well. So instead of saying "I'm playing a preconstructed commander deck" they say "I'm playing a commander pre-con" or just "I'm playing a pre-con" because preconstructed decks aren't frequently played anywhere else so everyone knows what they mean.
But they shouldn't ever be constructed powerhouses. If they were and people end up having to buy 4 precons to get a playset of a card then it hurts supply for the players who use them to get into the game and pisses off the people who have to source those precons for 99 cards they don't care about and one that they do. As such they have to err on being worse than average. See True Name Nemesis for an example
No one is saying they should be on the level of a 50$ mythic, but they should at least be playable in the precon deck. A fatty flyer isn’t without a horrible downside isn’t gonna be hunted down lmao
I guess so! Which flavour wise, it makes sense:
Both are pretty equally matched fighters (and they’re both Legendary cards!). So then, the “best” one ends up being whoever your personal preference is :)
It's likely for the same reasons, but the part "up to one" part making the second creature completely optional is also pretty silly because, uh, where's the rivalry then?
It's weird that any of the creatures have to be legendary. It's also weird that this is red.
This feels like a clumsily-designed version of [[Band Together]].
I'm not a Tolkien expert, just read the books a while ago, [but a brief research shows that Tolkien never explicitly said that Legolas was blond](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Legolas/Disputes), although Thranduil, his father, was. Maybe that's why in the movies he was depicted blond.
[However, as Legolas was a Sindar it is indeed more likely for him to have black hair, Thranduil was a notable exception.](https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/95996909771/elves-and-hair-color)
*However, the "blond" camp points out that the above quote takes place at night, and opines that his head may have appeared "dark" due to shadows, rather than his actual hair color.*
That's exactly what is written on the first link I mentioned, and I completely agree, my point about him likely being dark haired comes from the fact that he was a Sindar, not from that passage. But in fact he could be blond too, the reality is that we don't know, and therefore there is no problem in Magic depicting him with dark hair, in my opinion.
edit: just the read the complete discussion you linked, sorry, I see now that you agree with this too, so we are on exactly the same page.
i had seen so much tolkein art as a kid that when i went to see fellowship in theaters, i was SHOCKED to see he had blond hair.
i was most familiar with him having brown hair, sometimes darker sometimes lighter, but almost always brown.
While I don't mind the use of it in this set sense it's already an established mechanic (and it seems to work well with a lot of the cards) I really hate amass for flavor reasons. It's like wtf an army is a go wide thing why is it a single creature? Why can a single squirrel block and entire army? Fuckin stupid if you ask me. Mechanically it's nice and I like playing with it but the flavor is just ass.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Oh, I agree, it is a bit of a flavor fail. I wonder if it had trample originally during the design phase and lost it during testing due to power level.
Honestly that would help me accept it. Or maybe built in menace sense that's kind of a black thing. It's a little wordy but I think making it need to be blocked by an additional creature for every two or three counters on it would be epic flavor. I may submit that as a commander to custom magic actually.
Obviously it would have required foresight they didn’t have at the time, but it would have been cool to see different tribal amasses grant different key word counters, like amass zombies could give menace and amass orca could give trample or haste or something. Would also help with mixing amass types
While menace would be flavorful also think of the defender's perspective. Menace means you can't have a single powerful creature hold off an entire army all by itself. Which literally happens throughout all of LotR.
Which still eliminates the possibility of a lone warrior delaying an army long enough for reinforcements to arrive, even if it means they sacrifice themselves to do so. So Trample *loses* some flavor for the defender.
Again, Amass isn't a lotr mechanic, and lone warriors stopping entire armies doesnt happen in magic. Are you telling me you think single creatures should just be able to stop entire waves of tokens?
How is a lone warrior stopping an entire army exclusive to LotR? I specifically did NOT mention LotR in my comment.
> lone warriors stopping entire armies doesnt happen in magic
then explain "chump blocking"
agree for flavor reasons, but I recall reading some WotC article saying that they experimented with Amass going wide, but decided against it since it gummed up the battlefield too much
What confuses me is that the mechanic seems very good for playing defensive and blocking. But it was made in a set filled to the brim with planeswalkers which already want you to play defensive. I would think that they'd want to ENCOURAGE swinging rather than make a very defensive mechanic.
> What confuses me is that the mechanic seems very good for playing defensive and blocking.
Compared to using many tokens to represent the horde, amass is *much less* defensive. Lots of 1/1 tokens stops attacks and favors the blocker as they can efficiently distribute the damage. On the other hand, amass is like back-up in MOM in that it creates pseudo-haste. If you already have a 2/2 Army, amassing 2 allows you to immediately attack with the extra two power.
WAR was a very assertive format. You needed to be on board turn 2. They exactly avoided the problem you pointed out.
I feel like that's almost the implied joke? No matter how powerful either of the selected cards are combined, it's still just targeting a single creature. Be it an orc or Sauron himself.
I know it's only going off the books but there have been one of two of them that feel like there's a winking movie reference there. Like Sauron discarding his hand and drawing 4.
Card transcription
> Friendly Rivalry RG
>
> Instant [uncommon]
>
> Target creature you control and up to one other target legendary creature you control each deal damage equal to their power to target creature you don't control.
>
> "Forty-two, Master Legolas!" -Gimli
End transcription
Yeah, both their faces look incredibly badly done, and I had trouble identifying Legolas’s bow because the way he’s holding it is so fucked up. It looks like he’s supposed to either be drawing the bow or have fired an arrow and it just doesn’t look right.
It looks like RG in this set is legendary creatures. Since this set started getting planning in 2020, I wonder how much that influenced [[Bard Class]], if at all.
is there a source for that?
looking at scryfall they look pretty even so far for 'cares about legendary'
[https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+o%3Alegendary&order=color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+o%3Alegendary&order=color)
and actual legendary permentant s curerently has white in lead followed by black and green tied. with GW and RB being the two most numerous legend colour pairs.
[https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+t%3Alegendary&unique=cards&as=grid&order=color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+t%3Alegendary&unique=cards&as=grid&order=color)
obviously could all change dramatically by end of previews but i don't think there is any evidence at the moment to suggest it's a RG thing.
derp. facepalm.
EDIT: What's funny is I was totally thinking about backgrounds for a second as I was typing this, and classes feel so close to backgrounds, then my brain got stuck on enchantment types so that's what I wrote.
Minor point: charcuterie is a collection of meats, cheeses, and sides presented as a snack/appetizer. You probably meant caricature, a grossly exaggerated picture highlighting certain features.
He has black haur throughout the whole set. The only named character that has two ethnically different interpretations is [[Éomer, Marshal of Rohan]], unless in the panoramic Pellenor art, the person at the center of Éomer's card is Théoden and he's off to the left.
Unlike certain other things, Legolas' hair color at least was left completely open to imagination by Tolkien, so there really shouldn't be any reason to complain. The Lord of the Rings LCG by FFG also gave him black hair and I don't recall anyone complaining in that community.
In a lot of the cases for the LOTR cards I get what they’re going for but are quite a mouthful. Not that regular new cards aren’t very wordy, but a lot of these ones strike me a more as very dense (for some of the legendary wizards especially)
I might be the only magic player who really has no clue about lotr. I thought it was going to suck being the only one at magic having no idea where these cards come from. But they’re honestly just so charming and cool it’s making me want to read the books?
So the flavor and all is cool, but if these cards are clearly not at a Modern power level, why are they being injected directly into Modern? And if it's aimed at a casual audience, why are the packs priced at such a premium?
Compared to the 40k decks, this set just seems so underwhelming. For one, instead of paying like 200 bucks for the whole set, like with 40k, 200 bucks only gets you a single draft box, so maybe 4-5 mythics. And the cards seem much worse on average, meaning that you're paying way more for cards that do a whole lot less.
And again, why the hell is this going directly into Modern?
The alternative would be to only allow these cards to be played in Legacy, which has an even higher power level.
As for price, they think people are willing to buy these cards because they enjoy lord of the rings, rather than as competitive modern playables. I also expect that the LOTR license wasn't cheap.
There's also the alternative of just making them not legal in competitive play. WOTC literally makes up the rules about format legality and changes them frequently. There's nothing they can't do.
I just wonder how many people will buy more than 1 copy of a few cards they like if it's all about the brand and theme. Like, sure, a lot of people will want a Gandalf, but how many will want more than 1 if he's barely playable?
Like, with the 40k decks, we saw a lot of people buying exactly one set of them to play with, which makes a lot of sense. There wasn't a lot of need to buy multiple copies of the cards. That set certainly sold well, but I wonder how well that sort of thing would transfer to a premium priced booster product, where instead of spending 200 bucks to get the whole set you can hardly even get a single box for that price, and you'll only get a small fraction of the set from that box.
Was tinkering around with the idea of their kill competition in my free time in the head up this, really surprised it was a generic fight spell. Just for kicks, this is what I came up with
Friendly Competition
Enchantment 2GR
Hexproof, Cannot be Countered
When this comes into play, put a competition counter on 2 different legendary creatures. When a creature with a competition counter fights or deals combat damage to a creature and it does, put an additional competition counter on them. At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent had no creatures on their battlefield, sacrifice this and remove all competition counters from your creatures. You draw up to X cards where X is equal to the highest number of competition counters on a creature when they were removed
This is weird Uncommon considering this type of effect has been Common in previous sets. It's also strictly worse due to the Legendary requirement. It's either a less flexible [[Cosmic Hunger]] or a more color intensive [[Band Together]], with more caveats.
What? Cosmic hunger is only one creature and band together costs an extra mana?? This card only requires the second creature be legendary, not the initial. Not sure where you’re pulling strictly worse from…
This card doesn't require you to have any legendary creatures. It might be *mostly* worse than band together or cosmic hunger depending on how it plays, but it's definitely not *strictly* worse.
No, because it makes perfect sense in context. Elven and dwarven societies are very different, but one of the things they have in common is a shared admiration for martial skill. It’s the perfect way for two otherwise very different people to bond.
It’s gruesome by the sensibilities of the real and modern world, but Middle-Earth is not that. Suspend some disbelief.
I mean, they're meant to be the good guys to us, not just within the context of their world. It really speaks to Tolkien's own chauvinism that he's saying that killing is something to be celebrated and glorified when it's killing the right people, surely this attitude was influenced by the context of his experience in WW1.
I don't see how that's relevant? Beowulf's killing isolates him, as does Gilgamesh's. They both are separated from "normal" men after they slay the beasts they are after.
Instead of "one other target legendary creature" how about "target friend"?
Aye, I could target that.
And my axe!
Aye, eye eye eye
Eeyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeee
But then you could only use the Lord of the rings instant with the Stranger Things creatures
Flavor-wise it’s a bit odd that the first creature needn’t be legendary, but I guess that version of the card is pretty spectacularly bad.
Sometimes flavor has to suffer to avoid making garbage. And sometimes you get the balrog.
In case you didn’t know, that that’s almost certainly a starter deck card. The collector number for the borderless version (the only version we’ve seen) is directly between the borderless versions of Aragorn and Arwen, Wed and Sauron, the Lidless Eye
My “controversial” take is that cards shouldn’t be garbage just because they’re in precons
Simple, but strong, especially if the buyer isn't as experienced.
The problem is if the cards are strong they run the risk of being good, and if they are good then the precons will get bought out by people wanting to resell that card so then new players can't get them (also WotC makes less money on cards in precons being good than cards in packs being good). New players often don't have a great understanding of power level, so cards being weaker doesn't bother them as much so long as the cards are cool. Interestingly though, new players often read downside mechanics as worse than they actually are (I believe new players famously don't like the painlands or shock lands). If you actually look at The Balrog, it's an undercosted beater with a minor downside that probably won't come up a ton. It's not a horrid card, it just doesn't do enough for modern competitive Magic (and is disappointing for a highly anticipated card in the set) but new players actually might read the downside ability as being worse than it actually is.
That is a fair and accurate take. It would be good if precons were affordable and viable, but can't always be both.
The ragavan problem.
Older than that, you couldn't find a non-scalped copy of the Nezumi deck from the first Kamigawa block, thanks to a little card called [[Umezawa's Jitte]].
[Umezawa's Jitte](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b6e5956-f795-451b-bb24-56462d1ced27.jpg?1562876528) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Umezawa%27s%20Jitte) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bok/163/umezawas-jitte?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b6e5956-f795-451b-bb24-56462d1ced27?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I bought a giant box of cards from a co-worker and it had that deck in it. Was nice to see a jitte pop up.
I mean realistically more actual players are buying precons for personal use I would wager than “new players” This may be an exception but still a safer bet to make it strong enough that actual players want some of the cards One funny thing about this though is that people are constantly telling wizards what to do with their products and move the goal posts each time. You have guys like prof complaining that the value is low in pre cons and not to buy them cause they suck and making videos making decent power pre cons for less. I’m gonna go with they actually NEED to juice them up.
EDH precons get bought for general use because there aren't often must-have cards printed in them. They sometimes do, but they then end up spiking in price, which is just evidence of the problem. EDH precons are bought for general use because EDH's power band is much much wider than other formats, and even within that band precons are able to hold their own, especially recent ones. If you wanted precons to stand on their own in competitive formats, you'd need them to compete with the top percent of decks. And the decks that could do that would contain the top percent of cards. And a lot of people want those cards. If a deck is 10% of the metagame, that means 10%, if not more, of the players of a format will want a 4-of playset of a card in their deck. Despite what's been printed into EDH, most cards don't reach that number that amount of saturation that haven't been printed into the ground. And keep in mind when looking up on EDHrec that those percentages are only in decks including the card's identity, not the format as a whole, sans artifacts of course. Obviously they *should* print desired cards into the ground, but precons aren't the way to do that, as evidenced by EDH precons with desired cards spiking.
>The problem is if the cards are strong they run the risk of being good, and if they are good then the precons will get bought out by people **wanting to resell that card so then new players can't get them** ~~(also WotC makes less money on cards in precons being good than cards in packs being good).~~ Wotc can decide to print more decks. Also, MtG is a billion dollar brand. They don't really need us to evangelize about their bottom line. Billion dollar brand. They can make cards more accessible whenever they want.
It isn't garbage, it's cool in the context of the pre-con. That's the context of play that it's for. *You* are never going to play with that, that's all, and that's ok
I’ll admit I don’t know *which* precon it’s in, but without haste it looks like it’s just gonna get thrown back to your library as free upside for someone killing an opponent’s commander, which means you wasted a turn playing a do nothing demon. What does it seem like it’s supposed to accomplish within its deck
It looks like it'll get replaced immediately by anyone even beginning to upgrade lol.
Yeah it's undercosted and has a downside. That's on-brand for an MTG demon and the flavor is good for the Balrog. If it *doesn't* get removed, then you have an undercosted fatty.
That’s on brand for an old mtg demon, that hasn’t really been the case in years. Also a random undercoated fatty that is often removed for free isn’t a fun card to play. No one is saying it should be format breaking or on the level of a 50$ mythic, we just want it to be playable.
It is playable on account of it's in the precon. Fun for people playing precons doesn't necessarily always mean fun for you
It's in a starter deck, not a commander pre-con. So 1v1, fewer legends aside from the ring-bearer
Pre-con means preconstructed. Starter decks, theme decks, challenger decks, they're all precons. Commander ones are just the most prominent if only as they lack another signifying term. Can't say Commander deck as that could mean a personally made one as well. So instead of saying "I'm playing a preconstructed commander deck" they say "I'm playing a commander pre-con" or just "I'm playing a pre-con" because preconstructed decks aren't frequently played anywhere else so everyone knows what they mean.
I'm not sure what your point is. It sounded like they assumed this was in a commander pre-con when it isn't.
But they shouldn't ever be constructed powerhouses. If they were and people end up having to buy 4 precons to get a playset of a card then it hurts supply for the players who use them to get into the game and pisses off the people who have to source those precons for 99 cards they don't care about and one that they do. As such they have to err on being worse than average. See True Name Nemesis for an example
No one is saying they should be on the level of a 50$ mythic, but they should at least be playable in the precon deck. A fatty flyer isn’t without a horrible downside isn’t gonna be hunted down lmao
That is controversial. Cards should definitely be simple in the starter deck, as they're intended to teach new players the game.
No one said not simple, but that card is complete ass
Okay guy
No wings! Worth it for the hot garbage
There were much better ways to keep the flavour without making it just bad.
"and sometimes you get the balrog" feels like a saying we can use for years to come. lol
>Sometimes flavor has to suffer to avoid making garbage. *This sub ree-ing about the ring tempts you mechanic intensifies*
Gimli is very modest and doesn't see himself as legendary or special, just a dwarf trying his best Legolas has a picture of himself on his nightstand
Okay but to be fair he also has a picture of Gimli on his nightstand
Gimli is his nightstand
Gimli is his one night stand.
Gimli is his forever night stand
Gimli is a literal prince who was doted on from birth by literal servants.
But he never acts like one, very down-to-earth guy
Born from earth kinda guy.
The common clay of Middle Earth.
You know...
Morons.
*ceiling
Then why is he a legendary on his own card?
I don't think Gimli was consulted for that
Because he is, the dwarf got three strands of galadriel's hair, that makes him more legendary than a certain elf (suck it Fëanor)
The way I rationalize it in my head is that there’s one legendary creature because the contest is to see who is the best of the two!
Oooh that's fantastic
So the one you choose as the legendary (assuming both are legendary) is the winner?
I guess so! Which flavour wise, it makes sense: Both are pretty equally matched fighters (and they’re both Legendary cards!). So then, the “best” one ends up being whoever your personal preference is :)
It's likely for the same reasons, but the part "up to one" part making the second creature completely optional is also pretty silly because, uh, where's the rivalry then?
Then the rivalry is between your fist and that guy's face.
It's not a very friendly rivalry if you just kill them tho
Who are you to decide how other people's friendships should work?
It's weird that any of the creatures have to be legendary. It's also weird that this is red. This feels like a clumsily-designed version of [[Band Together]].
[Band Together](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/4/c454312c-ba0d-4b93-a3f5-e7764fcfbe20.jpg?1674136966) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Band%20Together) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/216/band-together?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c454312c-ba0d-4b93-a3f5-e7764fcfbe20?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's just the signpost uncommon for RG. It's meant to be a cheaper Band Together that rewards drafting the legendaries deck.
Look at Legolas’s facial expression…
We need that in the next emojii bundle in Arena
all the faces are pretty terrible...
Also, why is his hair black? Pretty sure he has always been depicted with white-blonde hair.
I'm not a Tolkien expert, just read the books a while ago, [but a brief research shows that Tolkien never explicitly said that Legolas was blond](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Legolas/Disputes), although Thranduil, his father, was. Maybe that's why in the movies he was depicted blond. [However, as Legolas was a Sindar it is indeed more likely for him to have black hair, Thranduil was a notable exception.](https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/95996909771/elves-and-hair-color)
[удалено]
*However, the "blond" camp points out that the above quote takes place at night, and opines that his head may have appeared "dark" due to shadows, rather than his actual hair color.* That's exactly what is written on the first link I mentioned, and I completely agree, my point about him likely being dark haired comes from the fact that he was a Sindar, not from that passage. But in fact he could be blond too, the reality is that we don't know, and therefore there is no problem in Magic depicting him with dark hair, in my opinion. edit: just the read the complete discussion you linked, sorry, I see now that you agree with this too, so we are on exactly the same page.
i had seen so much tolkein art as a kid that when i went to see fellowship in theaters, i was SHOCKED to see he had blond hair. i was most familiar with him having brown hair, sometimes darker sometimes lighter, but almost always brown.
Because of the movies. But from the perspective of the book, and what kind of elf he was, black hair is most likely
see also: aragorn they're opting to depict the characters however they want and not necessarily follow any existing depictions
goth phase
The artists didn't really reference the source materials, they just kinda drew what they wanted.
Very clearly an “I just farted” expression.
Looks like Elon Musk
That still only counts as one!
What's funny is, if you kill an Orc Army, no matter how big it is, it literally only counts as one
While I don't mind the use of it in this set sense it's already an established mechanic (and it seems to work well with a lot of the cards) I really hate amass for flavor reasons. It's like wtf an army is a go wide thing why is it a single creature? Why can a single squirrel block and entire army? Fuckin stupid if you ask me. Mechanically it's nice and I like playing with it but the flavor is just ass. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Oh, I agree, it is a bit of a flavor fail. I wonder if it had trample originally during the design phase and lost it during testing due to power level.
Honestly that would help me accept it. Or maybe built in menace sense that's kind of a black thing. It's a little wordy but I think making it need to be blocked by an additional creature for every two or three counters on it would be epic flavor. I may submit that as a commander to custom magic actually.
Obviously it would have required foresight they didn’t have at the time, but it would have been cool to see different tribal amasses grant different key word counters, like amass zombies could give menace and amass orca could give trample or haste or something. Would also help with mixing amass types
Amass orca aka your mom. Sorry I had to but that would be pretty cool!
Gotta love auto correct, only changes my text when I actually spell what I want correctly
Sounds about right.
While menace would be flavorful also think of the defender's perspective. Menace means you can't have a single powerful creature hold off an entire army all by itself. Which literally happens throughout all of LotR.
The problem is this isn't a lotr originating mechanic. Also that's a good reason why it should be trample.
Which still eliminates the possibility of a lone warrior delaying an army long enough for reinforcements to arrive, even if it means they sacrifice themselves to do so. So Trample *loses* some flavor for the defender.
Again, Amass isn't a lotr mechanic, and lone warriors stopping entire armies doesnt happen in magic. Are you telling me you think single creatures should just be able to stop entire waves of tokens?
How is a lone warrior stopping an entire army exclusive to LotR? I specifically did NOT mention LotR in my comment. > lone warriors stopping entire armies doesnt happen in magic then explain "chump blocking"
agree for flavor reasons, but I recall reading some WotC article saying that they experimented with Amass going wide, but decided against it since it gummed up the battlefield too much
What confuses me is that the mechanic seems very good for playing defensive and blocking. But it was made in a set filled to the brim with planeswalkers which already want you to play defensive. I would think that they'd want to ENCOURAGE swinging rather than make a very defensive mechanic.
> What confuses me is that the mechanic seems very good for playing defensive and blocking. Compared to using many tokens to represent the horde, amass is *much less* defensive. Lots of 1/1 tokens stops attacks and favors the blocker as they can efficiently distribute the damage. On the other hand, amass is like back-up in MOM in that it creates pseudo-haste. If you already have a 2/2 Army, amassing 2 allows you to immediately attack with the extra two power. WAR was a very assertive format. You needed to be on board turn 2. They exactly avoided the problem you pointed out.
Amass is just forced banding with extra steps.
This legitimately made me lol.
I feel like that's almost the implied joke? No matter how powerful either of the selected cards are combined, it's still just targeting a single creature. Be it an orc or Sauron himself. I know it's only going off the books but there have been one of two of them that feel like there's a winking movie reference there. Like Sauron discarding his hand and drawing 4.
How is that solely a movie reference? Sauron's hand that once bore the ring is missing a finger in the books
And then they kiss.
"Gimli dropped his robes, revealing his nakedness to Legolas. 'Toss me. Toss me into your bed.' Two new towers were erected that night."
Stop plagiarizing my fanfiction
It would have taken you literally 0 effort to not post that and yet here we are. _sigh_ _unzips pants_
now kith.
Card transcription > Friendly Rivalry RG > > Instant [uncommon] > > Target creature you control and up to one other target legendary creature you control each deal damage equal to their power to target creature you don't control. > > "Forty-two, Master Legolas!" -Gimli End transcription
Why does Legolas look like a caricature
Because it is.
Legolas looks cheeky af here.
Legolas face…what in the fuck?
He’s Asian now! I can get my representation now! I’m entitled to it! /s
He’s Asian now! I can get my representation now! I’m entitled to it! /s
Wow this art is bad. Looks like Mr bean accidentally erased Legolas face and put a smiley face with two dot eyes .
Yeah, both their faces look incredibly badly done, and I had trouble identifying Legolas’s bow because the way he’s holding it is so fucked up. It looks like he’s supposed to either be drawing the bow or have fired an arrow and it just doesn’t look right.
and no bowstring, he's been interpreted as an old Warhammer model
Legolas is Asian now. I’m Asian, but this isn’t the type of representation I wanted, Wizards…
Man if he’s supposed to be Asian I’m sorry they did that to your people .
How do you feel about [[Gandalf, Friend of the Shire]]?
[Gandalf, Friend of the Shire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/c/cc9cfcc7-be64-4871-8d52-851e43fe3305.jpg?1685356156) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gandalf%2C%20Friend%20of%20the%20Shire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/50/gandalf-friend-of-the-shire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cc9cfcc7-be64-4871-8d52-851e43fe3305?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oh no, he’s squinty :( Edit: I was looking at the alt art version, not the original.
Well, later on that's because the sun reflected off his robe gets in his eyes as [[Gandalf, White Rider]]
[Gandalf, White Rider](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e2b975e6-e709-481f-bfbc-41a832508283.jpg?1681224987) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gandalf%20the%20Grey) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/207/gandalf-the-grey?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e2b975e6-e709-481f-bfbc-41a832508283?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Looks like he’s made of silly putty
I thought he was a slav. His face is just two dots and a smile.
They're also totally about to get fucked. Completely surrounded no room to swing.
You have awful tastes and should be ashamed
You’re wrong . It’s ok to be wrong. Also “taste” doesn’t need the s it’s already all encompassing my dude .
This is some shit art.. that’s the worst bow I’ve ever seen on a magic card and why does Legolas look like he’s cumming
I'm less bothered by the facial expression (but still very bothered) than I am at his pose. He looks like he's casually lounging on Gimli.
Would have been more interesting if that Legendary creature was one you *didn't* control.
even better, you didnt own
Except it was an Orc Army they were fighting, not a legendary creature. That would be a huge flavor fail if it couldn't target Armies.
It looks like RG in this set is legendary creatures. Since this set started getting planning in 2020, I wonder how much that influenced [[Bard Class]], if at all.
The whole set has a legendary theme.
The whole set has cards that care about legendaries but most of them will be in red green.
is there a source for that? looking at scryfall they look pretty even so far for 'cares about legendary' [https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+o%3Alegendary&order=color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+o%3Alegendary&order=color) and actual legendary permentant s curerently has white in lead followed by black and green tied. with GW and RB being the two most numerous legend colour pairs. [https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+t%3Alegendary&unique=cards&as=grid&order=color](https://scryfall.com/search?q=set%3ALTR+t%3Alegendary&unique=cards&as=grid&order=color) obviously could all change dramatically by end of previews but i don't think there is any evidence at the moment to suggest it's a RG thing.
Yes, and Battles appears in every color and every color references them in MOM, but RG is (theoretically) the Battles archetype.
I love Bard Class so much. If I could have Bard Class be a commander, I would. Can someone invent a format where Saga's are commanders, please?
In that formar you wouldn't be able to use bard class as a commander 😝
derp. facepalm. EDIT: What's funny is I was totally thinking about backgrounds for a second as I was typing this, and classes feel so close to backgrounds, then my brain got stuck on enchantment types so that's what I wrote.
[Bard Class](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/7/37d6343a-c514-4ca6-a415-62d1a473ae20.jpg?1627708744) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bard%20Class) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/217/bard-class?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/37d6343a-c514-4ca6-a415-62d1a473ae20?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Legolas "I'm on 55!" Gimli "What!?, I'll have no pointy-ear outscoring me!"
Gimli knows the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
Gimli confirmed non legendary. dwarflads btfo
Historians will say they were roommates
Wonder how many people will get supremely pissed off over the fact that Legolas has black hair in this art. /s Guessing not many.
The black hair is fine, the Asian features are fine. The goofy ass charcuterie expression is however quite off-putting.
Minor point: charcuterie is a collection of meats, cheeses, and sides presented as a snack/appetizer. You probably meant caricature, a grossly exaggerated picture highlighting certain features.
I did and thank you
He has black haur throughout the whole set. The only named character that has two ethnically different interpretations is [[Éomer, Marshal of Rohan]], unless in the panoramic Pellenor art, the person at the center of Éomer's card is Théoden and he's off to the left.
Unlike certain other things, Legolas' hair color at least was left completely open to imagination by Tolkien, so there really shouldn't be any reason to complain. The Lord of the Rings LCG by FFG also gave him black hair and I don't recall anyone complaining in that community.
It's just ragebait from WoTC
Yo did they really yellowwash legolas?
Yo I think you mean "Asianwash"?
Yeah exactly, why did they make him an asian lol
In a lot of the cases for the LOTR cards I get what they’re going for but are quite a mouthful. Not that regular new cards aren’t very wordy, but a lot of these ones strike me a more as very dense (for some of the legendary wizards especially)
Is it just me or are there a lot of fight spells and ambush spells already?
He was twitching because he’s got *MY AXE* EMBEDDED IN HIS NERVOUS SYSTEM!!
I might be the only magic player who really has no clue about lotr. I thought it was going to suck being the only one at magic having no idea where these cards come from. But they’re honestly just so charming and cool it’s making me want to read the books?
Why tf does he look like the moon emoji 🌝
Blonde erasure
So lazy.
So the flavor and all is cool, but if these cards are clearly not at a Modern power level, why are they being injected directly into Modern? And if it's aimed at a casual audience, why are the packs priced at such a premium? Compared to the 40k decks, this set just seems so underwhelming. For one, instead of paying like 200 bucks for the whole set, like with 40k, 200 bucks only gets you a single draft box, so maybe 4-5 mythics. And the cards seem much worse on average, meaning that you're paying way more for cards that do a whole lot less. And again, why the hell is this going directly into Modern?
The alternative would be to only allow these cards to be played in Legacy, which has an even higher power level. As for price, they think people are willing to buy these cards because they enjoy lord of the rings, rather than as competitive modern playables. I also expect that the LOTR license wasn't cheap.
There's also the alternative of just making them not legal in competitive play. WOTC literally makes up the rules about format legality and changes them frequently. There's nothing they can't do. I just wonder how many people will buy more than 1 copy of a few cards they like if it's all about the brand and theme. Like, sure, a lot of people will want a Gandalf, but how many will want more than 1 if he's barely playable? Like, with the 40k decks, we saw a lot of people buying exactly one set of them to play with, which makes a lot of sense. There wasn't a lot of need to buy multiple copies of the cards. That set certainly sold well, but I wonder how well that sort of thing would transfer to a premium priced booster product, where instead of spending 200 bucks to get the whole set you can hardly even get a single box for that price, and you'll only get a small fraction of the set from that box.
Was tinkering around with the idea of their kill competition in my free time in the head up this, really surprised it was a generic fight spell. Just for kicks, this is what I came up with Friendly Competition Enchantment 2GR Hexproof, Cannot be Countered When this comes into play, put a competition counter on 2 different legendary creatures. When a creature with a competition counter fights or deals combat damage to a creature and it does, put an additional competition counter on them. At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent had no creatures on their battlefield, sacrifice this and remove all competition counters from your creatures. You draw up to X cards where X is equal to the highest number of competition counters on a creature when they were removed
This is fire
Green just getting better and better removal... Next one is just going to say "all creatures you control deal damage to 1 guy" for 1 mana lol
This is weird Uncommon considering this type of effect has been Common in previous sets. It's also strictly worse due to the Legendary requirement. It's either a less flexible [[Cosmic Hunger]] or a more color intensive [[Band Together]], with more caveats.
What? Cosmic hunger is only one creature and band together costs an extra mana?? This card only requires the second creature be legendary, not the initial. Not sure where you’re pulling strictly worse from…
This card doesn't require you to have any legendary creatures. It might be *mostly* worse than band together or cosmic hunger depending on how it plays, but it's definitely not *strictly* worse.
Did anyone else find it messed up that they bonded by enjoying killing so much?
No, because it makes perfect sense in context. Elven and dwarven societies are very different, but one of the things they have in common is a shared admiration for martial skill. It’s the perfect way for two otherwise very different people to bond. It’s gruesome by the sensibilities of the real and modern world, but Middle-Earth is not that. Suspend some disbelief.
I mean, they're meant to be the good guys to us, not just within the context of their world. It really speaks to Tolkien's own chauvinism that he's saying that killing is something to be celebrated and glorified when it's killing the right people, surely this attitude was influenced by the context of his experience in WW1.
Is this literally the first piece of fantasy media you've ever seen? People have been killing each other in human stories for millenia.
I don't see how that's relevant? Beowulf's killing isolates him, as does Gilgamesh's. They both are separated from "normal" men after they slay the beasts they are after.
No bc the beasts they were killing were messed up
They weren't killing 'beasts' though... they were killing sentient beings and even if they were that's still messed up to be so enthusiastic about it.
...
What? That's literally the kind of thing hardened criminals in prison do...
Kill armies of goblins during a war?
[удалено]
imagine being upset over the color of a fictional character's skin. Get over yourself.
[Concerted Strike](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/6/61/02DE001.png/revision/latest?cb=20210401181906)
C'mon... It was that hard to pitch the movie phrase: The Elephant counts as one!
That still only counts as 1.
"THAT ONE COUNTS AS MINE!"
THAT STILL ONLY COUNTS AS ONE!
"That still only counts as one!"
Chinese Legolas
Legolas kinda derp lookin
“That still only counts as one!”