Decks & lists

Chief of the Wilds

Hunt with Ferocious Wargs. The deck focuses on the wolf tribal, as well as "Ferocious" and abilities akin to it. The primary commander is "Chief of the Wilds" and the secondary commander is "The Chief Warg." CotW works thematically for the tribal theme, TCW works thematically for the "Ferocious" theme, so both should be interchangeable based on your personal preference. The deck was constructed with the same 150$ average budget in mind. Though price can and will fluctuate after publishing this deck, it will hopefully even out as the Chief of the Wilds becomes more widely available with "Battle of the Five Armies" release.

Elrond, Master of Healing & Thranduil, Sindarin Liege // Silvan Rally

Manipulate the top of your library to play lands on each of your turns. Let the Scry lead to landfall

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

This deck is an attempt to combine my three favorite themes of the Hobbit: Dwarves, their military devices, and their treasure. My thoughts were to get out all those cool Dwarves we love to see, make lots of treasures to beef them up and cast the important stuff, and give them equipment to keep them alive. Hope you enjoy

Bilbo, Thief in the Night

Draw cards and put artifacts in the graveyard (map out the plan) then buff Bilbo with counters (build up his courage)then make him unblockable (turn him invisible) and attack to trigger his ability and cast artifacts from the graveyard (get the treasure and get out). I also added a couple extra win cons with twenty toed toad and cyberdrive awakener.

Smaug, Wicked Worm

This "Precon" "Smaug's Treasure Hoard" aims to be a thematic, straightforward and fun precon level deck. _________________________________________________ The deck is mainly separated between ramp/utility artifacts (Smaug's hoard) and payoffs/snowballing engines (like Smaug himself, one of the other large dragons/creatures, or a table destroying threat such as mirkwood bats). Minor side themes that support the main plan without getting in the way are goading enemy creatures and gifting artifacts to opponents, which is both a fun minigame and helps you even more when Smaug hits the table. _________________________________________________ Cards I would have liked to add if they weren't as expensive would be: [Smaug the Impenetrable] or [Smaug the Magnificent] [Revel in riches] [Descent into Avernus] [Curse of Opulence] As they are all both very entertaining to play, but also support the deck on a gameplay and thematic level _________________________________________________ Some of the cards I would have had new hobbit art made for would be: [Hoard Hauler] (make it a dwarf mining cart or something) [Annihilating Glare](smaug glaring towards where bilbo is hiding) [Faithless Looting] (smaug entering the mountain and driving the dwarves out) [Disrupt Decorum] (Elves and Dwarves fighting over gold) [Coveted Jewel] (showing either Bilbo or Thoren reaching for the Arkenstone) _________________________________________________ For gameplay I tried to keep it straightforward and not overly powerful while still having some complexity and fun big bombs that have a "cool" factor. It can constantly drop a big cool dragon or Balrog on turn 6 which I feel is reasonable for a precon, while also having some fun "advanced" synergies like some of the curse mirror tech options. Also I kept the land count lower than I would personally run because that tends to be the precon way. _________________________________________________ If you were willing to read through all of that thank you! I formatted this text kinda weird cause it wouldn't let me space things out and I wanted to make it somewhat easier to read lol :/ Would love to hear what you think of my "precon" build! :D

Bard, Heir of Girion

An Azorius deck based around The Hobbit’s Recruit mechanic. Go wide with tokens by discarding cards with flashback, then pump them up with anthems! Wield either Bard as your commander, play the Heir of Girion to smooth out your early game or the King of Dale to double the value of your recruitments.

Bilbo, Unexpected Adventurer

Mono-white reanimator where the commander has built in evasion. Self-sac artifacts for card draw and creatures for protection/removal. Bounce lands and catch-up ramp to get out the big three - Hammer, Akroma, and Colossus (if you don't get them out the graveyard somehow). The utility land base can also generate counters and more draw. Cute little tutor package to get you used to shuffling-Oswald feels really good. Cutting out the 10 most expensive cards (lookin at you Queen of Dale) can get the price well below 100USD. On the other hand, easily upgraded with things like Altar of dementia, Grinding Station, Extraplanar lens, even Bilbo's ring. Win-cons are commander/combat damage and removing your opponents permanents until they submit.

Bard, King of Dale

The Notary Hobbits

Smother your friends to death by overwhelming them with notaries! This deck aims to make as many copies of the commander as possible with populate or token doubling effects and includes some secret surprises win-cons in hurricanes and sands of delirium. This precon level deck includes some necessary reprints that would certainly get people buying and remains balanced enough for a bracket 2-3 pod. Enjoy!

Smaug the Impenetrable

Treasures Beyond Measure

The Master of Lake-town

Helga, Skittish Seer

Beorn the Fierce

The Great Goblin

Chief of the Wilds

Bilbo, Luckwearer // Burglar's Plot

Play as the titular character of the set and fulfill his job as the thief of the party. Swap your weaker permanents other players' shiny things and continually bounce your permanents back to hand for repeated value.

The Chief Warg

Inspire your weaker creatures with the new Ferocious ability

Thranduil, Sindarin Liege // Silvan Rally

Thranduil, Sindarin Liege // Silvan Rally

Elves are cool! Boats are also cool! heck what if they wanted the Arkenstone to combine the boats into their very own Voltron robot?? That's pretty cool! Think of Mechatitan Core as the Arkenstone. Thranduil is out here making elves to help crew all these boats to get in for damage and ideally make something else on the side. Eventually we'll get the Core out and create a robot so cool every weeb will cry out to build the model! The goal of the deck was to ideally not just make an elf-typal "go wide and swing" deck. Granted this deck does do that...quite a bit! But I promise it's so they can keep crewing the boats!!!! Who's going to carry the boats Professor???

The Lord of the Eagles

The idea behind this deck was that every card expect for lands and artifacts had either a bird, drake, or bird headed creature in the artwork. This deck isn't the greatest thing I've ever built but it's a pretty solid mono blue flyers and value deck. Using cards like Gravitational Shift to reduce opposing creatures power you can fly to victory, while Coastal Piracy keeps your hand full

Bilbo, Thief in the Night

Dáin of the Ancient Halls

Built initially based on cards I got in the Hobbit set, then expanded on with other cards I had…THEN completely focused towards answering the question: can I make the dwarves fly?

Beorn the Fierce

Gandalf, Goblins' Bane // Flameshape

Chief of the Wilds

Chief of the Wilds

Ferocious Wargs assemble! Overrun your opponents with fierce wolves (and a few human friends) using this four-power or more themed deck.

Chief of the Wilds

Bilbo, Thief in the Night

This deck is a journey through The Hobbit from Bilbo's perspective, capturing Bilbo’s adventure alongside his companions, his discoveries, and dangers he encounters along the way. The gameplay is intentionally simple and kept at precon-level. The goal is to get Bilbo through while filling the graveyard to boost your options. I hope that by playing this deck, you will have your own adventure.. and what an adventure it will be! With clever tricks, narrow escapes, and unlikely treasures perhaps you will sneakily win the day.

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Who says tyrants can't be generous? - At the helm of your deck, a sleeping Smaug, with 13 dwarves inside that are sure to wake the wicked worm. Gift artifacts to your opponents and build your treasure horde when Smaug comes to collect.

The Notary Hobbits

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

I created this deck for the Tolarian Community College Hobbit Pre-con Competition. My main goals I had in mind while creating this deck were, I wanted to keep it at a pre-con bracket level, I wanted it to have cards that were flavourful for the theme, and I wanted it to be as affordable as I could make it. I originally had gone through all the Middle Earth Sets to find cards that would work well in this deck. I spent a lot of time narrowing it down to a few mechanics. I originally had some Smaug and dragon synergy cards in the deck, but decided to remove those cards, because they would make more sense in a Smaug pre-con. I really wanted to focus on a dwarves and building up an army theme, to give the sense of this leading up to the ultimate Battle of Five Armies at the finale of the book. I chose "Thorin, King of Durin's Folk" as the commander, mainly because he is more affordable. "Thorin, Company's Leader" and "Dain of the Ancient Halls" are probably better commanders for a Battle of Five Armies dwarf themed deck; but right now, they are prohibitively expensive. I included the "Arkenstone to tutor for a legendary dwarf. Along with the themed card of "Thror's Map," I included "Expedition Map" to tutor for one of the key lands in this deck, such as "The Lonely Mountain" or "The Mines of Moria." I kept the dwarves to just the dwarves from the hobbit sets, and I tried to choose cards that sounds like descriptions of battle. The key descriptors that would be on the box, I guess could be; "Assemble Dwarves", "Gather Treasure", "Equip Your Company" I was able to keep the price around the $100 range. I hope you enjoy.

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

This deck celebrates the dwarves from the hobbit set reinforced by on-theme, in-universe options that still fall within a precon budget. Pump out dwarven threats and set up an arsenal of equipment to pressure the board. Thorin, King of Durin's Folk rallies our board in the mid-game; sending power stat-lines through the roof to hammer down opponents' life totals.

The Great Goblin

The Great Goblin deals non-combat player damage every time you Amass. Then you sacrifice the Army to deal more damage, gain health, draw cards, and mill your opponents. It’s “OOPS! Just Goblins (… orcs and zombies), no Storm.” It’s Pain & Gain. You know the drill. "We're the Aristocrats!" You also might be saying, I don’t know… seems expensive. Fair, then replace Palantir and Bowmasters with a Sulfurous Springs and a Skirk Prospector and call it a day, you fiscally responsible beaut. P.S. - today is my birthday. Does that count for extra points? No? Alright, just checking.

The Master of Lake-town

You know what your friends will hate more than getting killed by your creatures? Getting killed by THEIR creatures! This mono-black precon is helmed by a devastating mill threat in the command zone and backed up by other mill staple cards. It features every reanimate-your-friend's-creatures cards I could find throughout Magic's history. This is sure to be a hilarious (for you) and interactive deck to pilot. Will you win? No idea, but it will be fun! Mill them, take them, swing them - No graveyard is safe when the Master is in Town!

Balin, Loremaster

Play Dwarves, discard and draw tons of cards, and trigger powerful draw and discard abilities along the way. Make your creatures bigger, burn your opponents, and keep the pressure on. Then restock your hand with “wheel” effects and fuel the raw, aggressive chaos all over again.

The Lord of the Eagles

Beorn the Fierce

I resisted putting some cards in to keep in mostly on theme- and obviously opted out of some great ones to keep it budget friendly. Roaming throne for example and the one ring would be nice additions. Could swap out some of the bears- It’s fun to turn some of the creatures into bears. Enjoy!

Radagast of Rhosgobel

This deck was designed with the requirements of a precon in mind. It features 11 new cards from the set, equivalent to the number of new cards introduced in an average precon. The gameplan is straightforward for new players, while still leaning into the new commander's strengths. You flash in creatures and destroy your opponent's permanents, while building up a meaty board of your own. Deathtouch creatures act as de-facto creature removal, while ETBs target enchantments and artifacts. A hefty draw package ensures you never run out of cards, and trample enablers help you end the game. Adventures, which feature heavily in the main Hobbit set, also make a minor appearance within this deck as a way to introduce new players to the mechanic. Beorn can act as a backup commander for those who want a simpler gameplan of just slamming big creatures down and swinging in. 14 pieces of 2-3 mana ramp and a healthy smattering of bears in the list ensure that Beorn can hit the ground running, while assisting Radagast's primary gameplan. Finally, the price is, in theory, somewhat affordable; while the deck is listed at $85 at the time of posting (still too high!), the majority of this cost is due to the cards from the Hobbit set itself. I've playtested it with friends, and had a blast. I hope you enjoy it too!

Dwalin, Weaponmaster

Bard, Heir of Girion

This deck showcases the army of men and its main mechanic—"recruit". The only cards included are from the Hobbit products including The Hobbit Secret Lairs, as well as more lands from The Lord of the Rings: Tale of Middle-earth.

Bard, King of Dale

This deck was designed to fill your hand while utilizing lifegainers to scale your life total with the oppressive board state you create. Keeping this deck as cheap as possible was particularly challenging and that added restriction created a very rewarding experience. This was a blast to build and play-test with my friends.

Gollum, Riddle Master

I have put together what I consider to be the most logical choice for a hobbit related commander deck, from the perspective of WOTC executives. Let me explain: The hobbit lends itself to 5 commander decks based on the battle of the 5 armies. WOTC execs decided they could potentially make more money releasing this as a standalone product, so they are no longer viable commander deck options. This really leaves 2 main options - a deck built around Bilbo, or a deck built around Gollum. A deck built around Bilbo would be too similar to the hobbit precon from the main LOTR set, so Gollum it is. "I heard that there is a Gollum movie coming out", says one WOTC exec, "this will tie in nicely. But how do we make sure this deck sells?" After much discussion they realise that customers loved to collect the 9 different Nazgul artworks. A reprint of a fresh set of 9 Nazgul in the old hobbit art style would make this a must-buy for any fan! With these prompts, the deck was put together based on normal precon considerations - mythic rare commander, a few higher value reprints, and an otherwise serviceable deck. Thematically this deck ties in with the upcoming 'Hunt for Gollum' movie by playing Gollum, getting value from each of his abilities, then sacrificing him to get some other benefit. But as we know Gollum is difficult to kill, which is why there are so many supernatural stamina-like effects. These have the added benefit of resetting Gollum to use all his abilities again. The remainder of the deck is largely aristocrats staples, with preference given to thematically appropriate card names.

Tom, Bert, and William

The main wincon is to slowly drain your opponents through token sacrificing. However, if you get to draw the big guy "Craterhoof Behemoth", then you should win next turn.

Dwalin, Weaponmaster

Follow Dwalin into the smithy, and watch as he hones usually lackluster equipment into unstoppable killing machines. Use many useful cheap equipment, before buffing them up through Dwalin's hone ability, and proliferate to further increase their effectiveness. Equipment with counter synergies are chosen to further increase the impact of this proliferation. With incremental card draw through equipment payoffs and a wide board of boardwipe-dodging equipment, this deck is both fast and resilient. While Dwalin's first strike and commander damage makes him a prime equip target, don't be too hasty loading all of the equipment onto him and giving your opponents an easy removal target. This deck has a very low mana curve, so prioritize setting up draw engines above all else, with having as many equipment on the field being the next most important objective. Winning: Commander damage obviously works, but other notable win conditions involve giggling skitterspike, soul immolation, and chandra's ignition which all turn 1 big creature into a game-ender. This deck also very easily deals damage over time to players with their defenses down, and chipping opponents down is a viable strategy to help finishing them off in the endgame. Other notes: Sheltered by ghosts and curse of opulence are generally good cards, but are primarily here to be legal search targets for Axgard armory, which finds an equipment and aura at the same time. There are multiple obvious upgrades to this deck with expensive equipment and equipment payoffs, but this deck was already pushing the price of what a precon's singles cost when announced, which is how I interpreted "decks that are about the price of a precon"

Chief of the Wilds

Assemble the hounds and invade some of the most famous planes in the Magic: The Gathering mythos with this commander precon! This deck is full of wolves and battles with triggered abilities to copy and out-value your opponents with. Also included is a small human subtheme supported by cards such as Torgal, A Fine Hound and Master of the Wild Hunt. But don't worry, you won't need to track day and night with this deck as werewolf cards have been excluded for streamlined gameplay.

Sauron, the Dark Lord

Kíli the Resourceful

Bard, King of Dale

The deck was inspired from the Great Gilded Boat card to draw, create tokens, and crew vehicles.

Beorn the Fierce

The Chief Warg

The idea of the deck is to keep a big body so you can draw extra cards each turn