It could easily be said that the Lord of the Rings setting is the most enchanting fantasy setting ever published (sorryMagic: The Gathering). However, whether or not this statement carries over to the mechanics of Magic’s Lord of the Rings enchantment cards is another story entirely.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Saltiest Black Cards In Commander
While typically a lesser-used card type in traditional one on one games of Magic, enchantments see tons of play in Commander thanks to their ability to provide value turn after turn against multiple opponents. Let’s see which ones from the Lord of the Rings release you should consider adding to your very own brews.
8One Ring To Rule Them All
This is a bit of a strangeboard wipewith some added upside. However, it can be put to great use as a one-sided board wipe in decks containing only legendary creatures.
Furthermore, there’s definitely an argument for including this enchantment in some mill decks as an alternative win condition.
It would actually fit quite well in a Rogue mill deck as Rogues are notorious for their ability to both pressure opponents' life totals and libraries simultaneously. All of that being said, the board wipe part of this saga is what makes it playable. Everything else is really just icing.
7Elven Chorus
Many creature-based decks already contain a handful of these kinds of effects so why not add one more? The real value here comes from Chorus' last line of text turning all of your creatures into mana dorks in a pinch.
This synergizes quite well with casting creature spells from the top of your library as each creature cast provides you with additional mana to cast more creatures on the following turn. If you happen to have some way to give your creatures haste, you can even make use of them as mana dorks as they come down.
6War Of The Last Alliance
Tutor effects are great in a format like Commander where you’ve only got one copy of every card in your deck. War allows you totutor your decktwo times making it a great card for finding combo pieces, specific answers, and your very best threats.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Best Two-Mana White Spells
Of course, the caveat here is that the cards you’re tutoring for need to be legendary creatures. However, this isn’t much of a drawback considering how many legendary creatures there are in the game.
The double strike trigger on the back half of the saga is a nice boon that can make for a powerful combat step should you have a fair amount of creatures on the battlefield. Lastly, the ring’s tempting trigger is both great flavor and a potentially powerful bonus if you happen to have previously been tempted by the ring.
5Flowering Of The White Tree
This is an incredibly cheap price for a static anthem on your board. However, the real sauce here is the bonus that this enchantment provides you legendary creatures specifically. +2/+1 is a huge stat bonus that will make even your 1/1s into a threatening force.
Add ward one on top of this power and toughness boost and you’re beginning to make interacting with your board very difficult for opponents outside of casting board wipes. The sad thing here is that Flowering can easily be picked off by opposing enchantment removal.
Even in these cases though, the fact that it’s only a two white mana value investment means that you will get significant value out of this enchantment if you manage to go to combat with it just once.
4Scroll Of Isildur
Thepopularity of artifactsin Commander is difficult to understate. Cards like Sol Ring are unanimous across many decks as access to fast mana is one of the easiest ways to leverage an advantage over the other players.
Consequently, Scroll is a very good Saga as it allows you to both take one of your opponents' artifacts away from them temporarily and use its benefits for yourself. A ring tempt trigger is also welcome news here.
Tapping two creatures and putting stun counters on them is an effect that typically costs four mana on its own so this is some great value on the second lore counter. Lastly, Scroll’s final lore counter synergizes quite well with the previous one while forcing opponents to halt their attack lest they allow you to draw even more cards.
3Dawn Of A New Age
This card is cheap, nearly guaranteed to replace itself, and potentially provides a stream of card advantage all for pretty much no deck-building cost aside from having a fair number of creatures. While you could stack this enchantment with a ton of hope counters by going wide on your board, chances are it’s going to be removed before you see all of that value.
RELATED:Magic: The Gathering - The Best Zombie Commanders
As a result, casting Dawn with somewhere between two to four creatures on your side of the field is really as good as you can expect to get. Thankfully, most decks accomplish this feat without even trying.
The potential life gain found here also offsets the tempo loss of playing this card in the first place. This is a high-value enchantment that barely requires any setup. Plain and simple.
2Spiteful Banditry
Although Banditry turns out to be on the more expensive side as far as board wipes are concerned, the benefit you gain from having this enchantment in play is not to be underestimated.
Treasure tokens are one of the best sources of mana ramp currently available in the game. If you have any doubt about this, please refer to Dockside Extortionist.
Banditry creates a treasure token the same turn you play it as long as you manage to kill one creature. Then, it has the potential to spit out an additional treasure token every single turn as long as a creature an opponent controls dies.
This is a repeatable source of mana advantage that rewards you for doing something you want to do anyways: removing your opponent’s threats. If your opponents fail to deal with this enchantment shortly after it hits the battlefield, you’ll be swimming in enough mana to cause some real problems.
1There And Back Again
Speaking of the power of treasure tokens There and Back Again puts them on full display. While the first two lore counters of this enchantment are nothing special, the 6/6 haste, flying Dragon token Smaug that the last counter provides is an absolute beating.
This is thanks to the fact that when Smaug dies, it creates fourteen treasure tokens: one for each Dwarf that assaulted his lair. Incredible flavor aside, this is an absurd amount of colored mana for any player to unlock.
In a dedicated ramp deck, it’s easy enough to play There And Back Again as early as turn three. In this case, by turn five you’ve summoned and attacked with a powerful, evasive threat that must be dealt with if other players don’t want to lose the game.
Once Smaug dies, you then get to cast just about any spell in the game now that you’ve got access to 14+ colored mana sources.
The legendary worth of a Dragon’s hoard has been spoken of in all kinds of myths and legends, but this much treasure is potentially game-breaking.
