Initial reactions toMagic: The Gathering’sLord of the Rings set pegged it as a low-power venture with ‘Core Set’ vibes, which bodes poorly for the set’s overall impact on various cube formats. Fortunately, it turns out this Universes Beyond set has more to offer than it seemed at first blush.
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The greatest outlier is the ‘Tempted by the Ring’ ability, a parasitic, flavor-forward mechanic that doesn’t translate well into cube environments. It’s a bit of a red herring though, since most of the cube-worthy cards from the set ignore the mechanic altogether. Instead, Tales of Middle-earth is a goldmine of efficient spells, intriguing card designs, and even some cards that are already up there with the best that Cube has to offer.
10Orcish Bowmasters
Of all the Lord of the Rings characters to appear in the Universes Beyond set, which would you expect to break the game wide open? Sauron, Gandalf, Frodo perhaps? How about a bunch of itty bitty orcs with bows?
Orcish Bowmasters took the most powerful formats by storm, and Cube is no exception. It’s X/1 hate that punishes excess card draw, plays at instant-speed, combos with wheel effects and sacrifice outlets, and has the floor of a card you’d already be happy to cast. It’s at the top-end of the best two-drops ever printed.
9The One Ring
The One Ring either needs support to make sense within a given environment, or shapes an entire meta around it. The latter is true of The One Ring’s presence in Constructed formats, but it’s not as straightforward for Cube.
The One Ring’s not going to impress in Cubes where aggro reigns supreme. But in a balanced Cube where archetypes are all equally viable, the Ring can single-handedly decide games. It’s near-impossible to die the turn after resolving it, and it’s difficult to remove, which gives you the set-up time you need to take advantage of your extra cards.
8Flowering Of The White Tree
Flowering of the White Tree is probably the best enchantment anthem effect ever printed. The baseline of two white mana for +1/+1 across the board is already a full mana cheaper than Glorious Anthem. Admittedly, that doesn’t make the cut in Cube anymore, but serves as a baseline for these sorts of effects.Related:Magic: The Gathering – The Best Anthem Spells
The legendary text is significant as well. Even if you construct a Cube without ever considering a"legendary matters" theme, you’ll probably incidentally include several legendary creatures by virtue of just how many good ones see print in modern Magic.
7Stern Scolding
Stern Scolding is to blue what Cut Down is to black. That is to say, it’s aone-mana spellthat keeps early-game threats off your back, though you shouldn’t expect it to deal with every creature imaginable. It doesn’t scale into the lategame too well, but it sets up early double-spell turns well enough.
Blue doesn’t have many viable one-mana counterspells, and Stern Scolding offers the color one that can trade up with two-drops and even a decent number of three-drops and above. It’s not a catch-all spell, but that’s not the expectation for one-mana interaction.
6Palantir Of Orthanc
Palantir of Orthanc is mechanically unique and interesting to parse out. This would be a hard pass as just a three-mana artifact with a free Scry 2 every turn. Thankfully there’s more text. So much more text.
Palantir forces your opponent into a dangerous mini-game, and Scry 2 ties into both halves of the dilemma. As a colorless card, this artifact is easy to slot into just about any deck and complements both aggro and control strategies alike.
5Forth Eorlingas!
Tales of Middle-earth delivered more cubable red/white cards than usual for a single set. There’s Eowyn, Fearless Knight from the main set, with Oath of Eorl and Riders of Rohan asCommander precon standouts. They’re all good, but Forth Eorlingas! is the best of the bunch.
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It’s a fireball, a mass token-generator, a mana sink, and even creates creatures with relevant types, all while providing a steady stream of card advantage if you can fend off incoming attacks. The monarch can be a polarizing mechanic in a one-on-one format, which is a barrier to entry for some cubes.
4Anduril, Flame Of The West
Equipment has a high bar to clear in high-powered Cubes. Removal in Cube is hyperefficient, and games are tight enough that having your creature blown out from under this five-mana investment might cost you an entire game.
Anduril justifies the risk by closing out games in an absolute hurry. +3/+1 and two additional 1/1 flyers on each attack is a fast clock, even if the tokens are on a delay. Sneak in one clean attack and Anduril leaves behind the bodies to pick the sword back up should the equipped creature die.
3Lorien Revealed
The landcyclers from Tales of Middle-earth do a fantastic job of smoothing out mana issues. However, the creatures in this cycle don’t quite stack up when you actually have to cast them in an environment full of juiced-up cards. Lorien Revealed is the exception.
These cyclers can replace a basic land during deck-building, but Lorien Revealed is actually impactful when you cast it. Most decks don’t need more ‘dies to Doom Blade’ targets, but every deck can use a draw-three. The five-mana version of this card isn’t an incredible rate, but the opportunity cost is almost nonexistent.
2Delighted Halfling
Delighted Halfling isn’t the best mana dork of all time, but it’s certainly knocking at the door. Even cubes without a central ‘legends matter’ theme have enough incidental legendary cards for the Halfling to work its magic.
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That’s bad news for blue decks, as Halfling adds yet another card to the anti-countermagic toolbox. Not unlike Allorsaurus Shepherd, Delighted Halfling can completely hose some counter-based strategies, but does so as secondary functionality on a card you’re already very happy to put in most green decks.
1Reprieve
Blue has retired as the undisputable best color in cube, so much so that white cards now have effects that were once exclusive to blue. Reprieve is functionally identical to Remand, save for some corner-case situations against uncounterable spells. That broadens white’s horizons at the expense of blue’s monopoly on countermagic.
Despite feeling natural forwhite’s core identity, most white counterspells were tied to Planar Chaos, the ‘what could have been’ set. Reprieve makes white stack interaction a reality. It’s as good as Remand in all the same control shells, but also excels in proactive decks.
