Decks & lists

Gandalf, Party Guest

Gandalf throws a rager of a house party with plenty to eat and too much careless spellcasting. It gets awkward when Saruman shows up with uninvited orcs. And who let that peasant crash? An overwhelmed doorman tries to keep track of all the other guests: "Who do you know here?" -Volo, Itinerant Scholar

The Great Goblin

The deck capitalizes on putting counters on creatures to constantly burn and gain card advantage.

Beorn the Fierce

DAA Bears

Gandalf, Goblins' Bane // Flameshape

Gandalf, Goblins' Bane envisages the mighty Maia holding off an amassed goblin hoard in defense of his companions. Individually no goblin can hope to match the powerful wizard, so Gandalf's focus is on casting flurries of smaller spells to inflicting multiple instances of burn. Gandalf is assisted by a party of wizards/shamans and archers, designed to inflict an ever increasing amount of long range damage. And for close quarters combat, a party of dwarves is more than ready to trample over their natural goblin foes. With each spell powering up Gandalf's wrath, it is perhaps the goblins who should begin to be dreadfully afraid

Beorn the Fierce

Smaug the Impenetrable

Smaug the Magnificent

Chief of the Wilds

Get the wolf pack going. Helmed by Chief of the Wilds

Chief of the Wilds

Bard, King of Dale

This is a soldier tribal deck with Bard, King of Dale at the helm. The goal of the deck is to go wide and pump up your soldiers with anthem effects. There is a subtheme of drawing extra cards for payoffs to cycle through and find the tokens and their enablers for a wide board. Recruit is the obvious overlap of the two strategies, while there isn't a lot of these in the set they should always feel like a good payoff in either theme. Bard, King of Dale doubles all card draw and token creation to help go wide, while the backup commander Bard, Heir of Girion pumps up the wider board and provides consistent card draw for a brave army that swings every turn. This deck leaves room for growth as players can choose to enhance the tribal strategies or lean away for better "go-wide" strategies not restricted to the soldier archetype. They may even synergize better with card draw mechanics in the process.

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

Join the Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarven company under Thorin Oakenshield in their journey to reclaim what's rightfully theirs from the dragon Smaug.

Bard, Heir of Girion

Bilbo, Thief in the Night

Billlllbooooo bagginsssss Mayhem! Flashback! Retrace! Foretell! Disturb! Cast from Exile! Cast From Library! Bilbo is here with his bag of tricks to get close to being an affinity pile but retaining some of that classic hobbit charm. Stock your graveyard with tolarian winds and use all of your spells twice (or more!) to beat down your foes. Set up value engines early and finish big with cards like wurmcoil engine and portal to phyrexia, or just stab them with a big bilbo. Swap with the backup commander Emry to change things up! Upgrade this deck with mdfc lands, fast mana like lotus petal, and storm payoffs like aetherflux to go all the way there and back again. The deck mulligans incredibly well, and is quite consistent on getting up and running. Targeted hate gets rough as the deck can't support a traditional counterspell package, but the deck can interact at instant speed.

Smaug the Magnificent

The Great Goblin

This deck is helmed by the Great Goblin. Put various counters on your goblins/orcs/army to burn your opponents while utilizing his second ability as an impulse draw engine. Whether it be with an army to bash them or by using Tarrian's Soulcleaver/Blade of the Bloodchief to beat them with your commander or another threatening goblin. Then when your'e all finished with your big goblin/army/orc, Fling it, Soul Immolate it or even fight it with Brash Taunter for some extra damage. If all that goes askew you can use cards like Skirk Prospector to build up mana and build storm with the Great Goblins card advantage engine to finish them with a big storm Empty the Warrens finish! Enjoy!

Belladonna Took

Belladonna Took knows that the more company comes to the table, the merrier the celebration. Fill it with Humans, Hobbits, unexpected guests, and even a few spirits that seem to have tagged along with Andúril. Create tokens, draw cards, gain life, and strengthen your growing company until your humble gathering becomes an overwhelming force. This list embraces the spirit of a Hobbit precon, built as a Bracket 2 deck around a go-wide token strategy that rewards building a growing board and playing to the table. It leaves plenty of room for future upgrades while keeping the card selection rooted in Tolkien’s universe, avoiding cards from other intellectual properties or creature types that might feel out of place in the world of Middle-earth.

Smaug the Impenetrable

The dwarves have no use for it now, and Smaug has use for all of it. A deck that uses treasure tokens to whip up a little storm so that Smaug reminds opponents why you should never laugh at live dragons.

Smaug the Impenetrable

This is an aggressive Rakdos deck whose gameplan is to use treasure tokens to either bring out the Stupendous himself much earlier than usual or to burn the opposing players to ash with token ETB and LTB effects and more targeted damaging spells. This deck intentionally excludes non-Hobbit / LoTR Universes Beyond and keeps some stronger and more optimized cards out to be in-line with precons WotC has produced in the past.

Thorin, Company's Leader

There are 2 relevant things in a dwarfs mind: Battles & Treasures. This deck combines both sides into a pile of many angry dwarfes, who seek their glory in battle, equipped with legendary equipment and one common goal: create Treasures to create more Treasures. In order to achieve our goal the decks focus is on a tempo gameplan around our commander thorin. We want to play some dwarfes and when thorin enters the battlefield we slam our forces at our enemies to generate our precious treasure tokens to play more dwarfes and create more treasure tokens. But what would be an army of dwarfes without any finely crafted weapons of war. So get out your artifacts and equip your dwarfes, your enemies wont wait for you. (The focus of this deck was mainly to create a flavorful bracket 2 precon style deck instead of a pure powerhouse of good cards. As a result not every card was picked, because it was optimal, but to keep the flavor in line with the rest of the deck. Hope you like it ^^)

Tom, Bert, and William

Dáin of the Ancient Halls

Gollum, Riddle Master

Halana and Alena, Partners

The Queen of Dale

Hi this is a The Queen of Dale token/reanimator deck. Primary source for the tokens and discard is the commander The Queen of Dale. With the token synergies we have elesh norn, moonshaker cavalry and Dion (when they flip) buffing them and other cards like Divine Visitation changing our tokens in big flying angels. On the reanimation side we basically want to be returning our big baddies such as Elesh Norn, Silverwing Squadron, Geist-honored Monk and others. Fun note Silverwing and Geist-honored both benefit from the amount of tokens we will be generating and adding to the tokens. Our main win cons are to hopefully get a lot of tokens and do one of the cool things like moonshaker overrun, Dion flipping into bahamut, Practiced offense or even The Eagles are Coming! we either want to buff our tokens to extremes or trade them in for big flying tokens like angels or eagles. We do have a snow land theme just for one card mainly and that is search for glory. Search for glory tutors for a legend, saga or snow card. We don't need snow lands to make it work but gaining the life from casting it with snow mana is nice and also if we are hurting for a land we can always tutor one up worse case. We also have a tiny desert theme for one specific creature Sand Scout. Sand Scout acts as typical white ramp getting us a desert if an opponent has more lands than us, however if any lands end up in our graveyard from anywhere Sand Scout makes us a 1/1 red, green, white sand warrior token. This may only happen once a turn, but thats fine especially if we have multiple opponents triggering our commander. In summary we want to win by going wide and hoping to reanimate a finisher to blow our opponents out

Blech, Loafing Pest

The Chief Warg

Gandalf, Wandering Wizard

Build mana, acumulate knowledge, protect Gandalf, then turn Gandalf's ability into a crazy-draw engine.

The Sackville-Bagginses

A grimly extravagant Aristocrats/Treasure sacrifice deck where nothing goes to waste not creatures, not artifacts, and certainly not your opponents. The Sackville-Bagginses turn every sacrifice into an opportunity to drain life, create Treasures, and trigger a cascade of painful death effects. With Academy Manufactor, Pitiless Plunderer, Krark-Clan Ironworks, Marionette Master, Marionette Apprentice, Nadier's Nightblade, and Mirkwood Bats, your humble Treasures quickly become an engine of destruction. The game plan is simple: make things, sacrifice things, make more things, and make everyone regret letting you have a Treasure token. It's a deck about resource conversion taken to its most ridiculous extreme your creatures become cards, your artifacts become mana, your mana becomes Treasures, and your Treasures eventually become lethal damage. Flavor: The Sackville-Bagginses finally got their hands on Bag End. Unfortunately for everyone else, they also got very good at turning inherited wealth into murder.

The Great Goblin

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Strong Bracket 3 deck that is only a couple of upgrades away from competing in Bracket 4. The deck prioritizes making Treasure tokens early and ramping into a turn 3-4 casting of Smaug, Wicked Worm. From there, Smaug's ability to churn through the deck combined with five tutors in the deck give consistent access to a deterministic combo line (as well as a few non-deterministic lines/alternate win condition) that target a turn 6-7 play for the win. The decklist also contains a healthy amount of removal, protection, and recursion to ensure that the combo lines can go through while also preventing an opponent from running away with the game too quickly. At a low cost of $150 to build, this deck is an incredible amount of fun that can easily be cranked up to 11 with some simple upgrades (i.e. Dualcaster Mage shenanigans). I hope you enjoy my take on Smaug, Wicked Worm! Combos Include: A creature/enchantment that burns the table with Treasure token generation combined with either: Fury Storm + Storm-Kiln Artist + 4 mana + any instant/sorcery activation, Magda, Brazen Outlaw + either 10 Treasure tokens or Clock of Omens + Liquimetal Torque, Clock of Omens + Coin of Mastery + either Academy Manufacturer or Xorn. These lines will allow for infinite Treasure token generation that will burn each player for the win. Another combo line includes Scourge of Valkas + either: Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink + 9 mana, or Devastating Onslaught + 11 mana to burn each player for the win. Magda, Brazen Outlaw + 25 Treasure tokens can also bring Hellkite Tyrant out from deck at instant speed to allow for the alternate win condition to be achieved.

Smaug the Impenetrable

Smaug has taken over the treasure troves. This Hobbit themed deck has you on an unexpected adventure of gathering dwarves, using treasures, and doling out damage. The deck is inspired where all cards that are not Hobbit or LOTR designs already, could be redrawn for the realms. Ping your commander and opponents at the same time with creatures and spells to keep the game rolling. As you approach end game, save up those treasures to cast large finale type spells or Revel in (your) Riches. The deck is designed with upgradeability in mind, while still being a blast to play. Expect to search for further win conditions, game changers, and upgrading the land base a little further if you want to turn this from a preconstructed deck to an epic journey.

Bard the Bowman

The deck's objective is to grow Bard with cantrips and keep it on board with protection spells. Magecraft synergies will allow us to draw multiple cards on our opponents' turns, a few looters will also do the job and for that we have some low-power synergies like mentor of the meek and welcoming vampire. The interaction is at a minimum considering our main way of dealing with creatures will be to force unexpected blocks by untaping our commander at instant speed. Finally the endgame contains some lifegain synergies considering our commander will gain us life pretty consistently.

Galadriel, Elven-Queen

Started with the LOTR precon and added a few cards from Hobbit pre-release and others / Sideboard is for cards I want to add to the deck in time

Smaug, Wicked Worm

I wanted to write out and describe some of the flavor and mechanical ideas behind the design choices in my submission to the Hobbit precon challenge, “Thieves! Fire! Murder!”, headed by Smaug, Wicked Worm. I tried to design this “precon” around recreating one of my favorite moments from The Hobbit, the moment Smaug realizes his incredibly vast hoard is missing a single golden cup. (My actual favorite moment is when Bilbo reveals himself to the dwarf camp after escaping the Misty Mountains, but I found that slightly more difficult to recreate through a Commander deck.) The idea of thieves encroaching on a dragon’s hoard, followed by the dragon awakening and unleashing fire and murder upon its intrusive guests, is the core of this deck’s identity. I wanted the deck to punish the other players for their greed, while Smaug’s own avarice remains almost impossible to eclipse. I also tried to keep the deck within a reasonable precon budget, at least before the inevitable devaluation caused by reprints, and like actual precons, leave some clear and easy areas for potential upgrades both from within the set and from Magic at large. -Upgrades: There were several cards I considered because of how naturally they fit the deck, but ultimately did not include because the aggregate price of the deck was threatening to become unrealistic for a true “precon.” That said, actual precons often seem very aware of the cards that could be great inclusions without putting every one of them in the deck. It gives players obvious upgrade paths, encourages them to interact with the larger Magic community, and naturally encourages them to buy more sealed products from WOTC. -Better Treasure Generation- Goldspan Dragon Cavern Hoard Dragon Professional Face Breaker Rain of Riches Xorn Dragon Cursed Halls Smaug the Magnificent Ancient Copper Dragon The Reaver Cleaver -High Synergy Upgrades- Academy Manufactor Grim Hireling Alchemist’s Talent Warren Soultrader Bottle Cap Blast Dragon’s Desire Mycosynth Lattice -Better Win Conditions- Torment of Hailfire Bolas’s Citadel Revel in Riches -And truly, there are many more.- - Gameplay- At its core, the deck seeks to generate Treasure tokens quickly, sacrifice them for more value than our opponents, and then amplify both sides of that equation through Smaug. Once Smaug enters the picture, the deck can begin overwhelming the table through the enormous amounts of mana and card advantage that our Treasure engine provides. There are a few different pieces working together to make that happen. -Building Our Own Hoard- Some cards simply generate Treasures independently of our commander, giving us the resources necessary to start building Smaug’s hoard before he ever arrives. Lobelia Sackville Baggins is one example. There are plenty of other Treasure generators throughout the deck as well, making sure we are rarely completely dependent on Smaug to get started. -Giving Our Opponents Treasure- Other cards deliberately give our opponents artifacts in order to further push the value we gain from playing Smaug. One of my favorite things about this interaction is that giving each player one Treasure can, in theory, mean three Treasures for us in a typical four player Commander game. -Cards that play into this include: Bloodvial Purveyor Descent into Avernus Marching Duodrone Normally, giving our opponents free resources would be dangerous. Here, though, that generosity is temporary. We are inviting them to become greedy so Smaug can punish them for it later. -Punishing Greed- Some cards seek to damage our opponents either when we use our Treasures or simply because our opponents have been foolish enough to accumulate Treasures of their own. -Cards such as:- Generous Plunderer Weftstalker Ardent Mirkwood Bats The Sackville Bagginses These slowly chip away at the table while reinforcing the flavor of the deck. Everyone wants a piece of the hoard, but possessing it comes with consequences. - Rewarding Us for Spending the Hoard- Still other cards simply reward us for using and sacrificing our Treasures. -Examples include: Crime Novelist Moriok Rigger Shard of the Void Dragon Together, these cards make sacrificing Treasure feel like more than simply producing mana. Each Treasure can trigger several different pieces of the deck at once, turning the act of spending Smaug’s hoard into another engine of value. - Removal and Card Advantage- The deck also includes card draw and removal that take advantage of our large number of artifacts and Treasure tokens. Cards like Battle at the Bridge, Starstorm, and Monumental Corruption help convert the hoard we have built into removal, cards, or other forms of advantage. -I also love Wildfire in this deck.- Because we are so heavily invested in Treasure generation, destroying lands is generally going to hurt our opponents much more than it hurts us. Even after the battlefield burns, Smaug is still sitting on a mountain of gold. -Which feels appropriate.- -Winning the Game- Eventually, all of this Treasure generation, sacrifice value, and incidental damage has to actually kill someone. Sometimes that means simply flying overhead with dragons such as Freejam Regent, after our Treasure production has allowed us to deploy threats much faster than normal. Sometimes it means winning outright with Hellkite Tyrant if our hoard has grown large enough. Other times, the deck threatens lethal by constantly pinging away at the table until everyone’s life total collapses under the combined pressure of cards like Mirkwood Bats, and Descent into Avernus. The end result should feel less like assembling one specific combo and more like Smaug finally waking up. The table has spent the game stealing, hoarding, and getting greedy. Eventually the dragon notices. -Flavorful Choices and Art Opportunities- My favorite part of precons is seeing new art for old cards that completely reshapes how you see them. I love when just a slight twist in perspective, combined with inspired artwork, can completely recontextualize an old card or familiar staple. Likewise, I love inclusions that do not necessarily receive new artwork but still give a knowing nod to the audience and make it obvious that the designers were very aware of the source material. -Here are some of my favorite opportunities in this deck. -Clearwater Goblet- I imagine Clearwater Goblet as a representation of the cup whose disappearance enrages Smaug and causes him to awaken. It even has some mechanical synergy through Sunburst, since our Treasure tokens can help provide the different colors of mana necessary to maximize it. It can then help us regain some of the life lost through our commander and other symmetrical effects. -Commander’s Sphere- This is my attempt at having a cheaper simulacrum of the Arkenstone within the precon. The actual mechanics are fairly simple, but it seems like a perfect opportunity for alternate artwork showing the great jewel of the Mountain. -Battle at the Bridge- The image painted of Lake town during Smaug’s attack has always left me appreciative of the idea of scuttling the bridge so Smaug cannot easily land and attack the town. Because of that, Battle at the Bridge felt like a fitting inclusion. It also happens to carry Improvise, giving it some nice mechanical synergy with all of the artifacts and Treasure tokens the deck is producing. - Fabled Passage- I think Fabled Passage offers another great opportunity for alternate art. I imagine it depicting the secret passage into Smaug’s lair shown on Thrór’s map, the hidden door revealed by the setting sun on Durin’s Day. Thieves! Fire! Murder! Many of the remaining cards fall directly into the three titular categories. -Thieves or Thieving- Al Bhed Salvagers Generous Plunderer Greedy Freebooter Hoard Robber Prosperous Bandit Wanted Scoundrels Spiteful Repossession Prying Blade -Fire- Banefire Fireball Wildfire And to be honest, I would include basically every dragon in the deck in this category as well. - Murder- Murder Grim Bounty Battle at the Bridge -The Rest of Smaug’s Hoard- The other artifacts included in the deck, while not necessarily direct references to known objects within Smaug’s treasure hoard, are meant to represent the kinds of strange riches one might find accumulated inside such an impossibly vast collection of wealth. Several of them also reinforce the idea that greed itself can be dangerous. I particularly like the trio of Jinxed artifacts for this reason. They capture the idea of greed biting back at whoever possesses them, while also synergizing with our commander and introducing an interesting political angle at the table. You can take the treasure. You just might regret it.

Chief of the Wilds

For the record, the official deck name is "Yes, They Were Actually the 5th Army, Read the Book". I wanted to really stick to building a deck as close to the current batch of precons as I could. This deck focuses mainly on Wolf Typal, but also has +1/+1 counter synergies, token creation to go wide, a small Battle subtheme, and a Ferocious subtheme, as it is prevalent on many of the Hobbit warg cards. I tried to make things balanced, while still leaving room for powerful cards for those rare big ticket reprints. This deck can obviously be upgraded with more powerful cards, which I think is perfectly in line with the precon design philosophy. Sarulf, Realm Eater, and The Chief Warg act as lieutenants/alternate commanders for the deck.

Tom, Bert, and William

Roast them, mince them, squash them

Bard, King of Dale

Tom, Bert, and William

Help Tom, Bert and William draw through to find all their troll friends by sacrificing all your undercosted creatures. Sacrifice strategically in the early game to avoid downsides, convert bad creatures into good stats in the mid game with Skullspore Nexus and Dina, Essence Brewer; then close out with board buffs on your trampling trolls thanks to your large hand size like Become the Avalanche and Inner Calm. Golgari sacrifice deck with troll and food subthemes, containing several new Hobbit cards. Even some artifact animation to keep your commander safe through multiple removal pieces. Use Radagast of Rhosgobel and Part in Friendship to replace your board at instant speed and produce huge blockers in the middle of opponent combats.

Thorin Oakenshield

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

The Sackville-Bagginses

A precon focused on creating both creature & non-creature tokens and sacrificing them for value or ping/drain effects.

Tom, Bert, and William

Azog, Moria's Ruin

Try to cheat big guys on to the battlefield and get a big army and draw cards with Azog :)

Bard, King of Dale

This is a mostly in-universe precon design, with a couple of bombs that Bard only makes better. It centers mostly on token creation, whether that comes from the new Recruit mechanic, or various other outlets. The bombs and large token generation mostly come from outside the various Lord of the Rings products, but I think it gives enough options that you will (hopefully) hit at least one big bomb, or have one giant threat after the numerous board wipes that will be heading your way.

Beorn the Fierce

oops all bears

Thranduil, Sindarin Liege // Silvan Rally

Gandalf, Party Guest

Assemble your party of Legendary Wizards and combine their power to cast devastating spells! Plenty of room for upgrades and a good source of beefy spells / legendary creatures for other decks.

Aragorn, the Uniter

Aragorn Brings his A-Game its also really hard to keep on theme and budget, obviously we could go basic lands but unfortunately theres no language where any basic starts with an a :(

Beorn the Fierce

Bilbo, Unexpected Adventurer

Bilbo voltron powered by self-mill recursion