Decks, Cubes, and Other Lists

Gandalf, Party Guest

A wizard is never late, nor is he early. A wizard typal that is very Gandalf-themed. Gandalf, Party Guest commander, although Gandalf of the Secret Fire would probably be better suited.

Belladonna Took

This mono-white precon is packed full of value as we do our best to make three tokens on our turn (and, if we're lucky, some opponents' turns too!) to get maximum value from Belladonna. This deck aims to increase precon card draw efficiency and decrease mana curve a bit while still being friendly to new players. Pretty much, you make tokens, see what triggers, and win by pumping the team and overrunning the board, as Markard Garwater intended. I took special care to include cards originally printed in precons and cards that would be reasonable (from a pricing and power level perspective) for a precon reprint. I also wanted to ensure the market price was in line with the Command Zone average reprint value from the Secrets of Strixhaven precons. Enjoy!

The Great Goblin

Gandalf, Party Guest

The Queen of Dale

A recursion/token deck utilizing The Queen of Dale’s recruit mechanic that aims to make a wide board. The deck features protection for the board, recursion spells/creatures, plenty of wide board payoffs, and a small lifegain sub-theme.

Tom, Bert, and William

A big creature sacrifice/reanimator precon headed by either Tom, Bert and William or The Chief Warg (if we allow the alternative commander to be from outside the set, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord is a better option)

Gandalf, Party Guest

A wizard should know better! Mess with your opponent, cast big spells, and but don't get tempted by the ring in Bilbo's pocket!

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Deck is build around group-slugging, by both tempting people with treasures and punishing them to use their original version, which has a bunch of infinites and tutor effects, but this version is more grounded around the commander with a bunch of pet cards that can be replaced.

Thranduil, the Elvenking

Chief of the Wilds

Tried to make it in the spirit of a precon with room for upgrades, and not in the color identity of the 3 already made by TCC. The Chief of the Wilds is certainly a beast of a commander, and I hope you enjoy!

Balin, Loremaster

This deck is built to use Balin, Loremaster's discard ability! By including lots of mechanics like madness, flashback, and jump-start, we're making good use of each time we discard our hand. Combine that with loads of dwarves, equipment, and damage doublers, and this mono-red discard deck comes out swinging harder than a Balrog. I excluded the very flavorful Balin's Tomb (Ancient Tomb) for price reasons—it's a precon after all! Built for the Tolarian Community College challenge.

Bilbo, Fellow Conspirator

Bard, King of Dale

Lake-town Recruits. Aggro Azorius. Build token army to defend the survivors of Lake-town. Flying/Bird sub-theme.

Smaug, Wicked Worm

This is a commander deck made for the TCC - Hobbit - challenge. The Helm of our deck is smaug, the wicked worm. The wincon of the deck is using a combination of ping effects, huge beaters boosted by the treasures we create and last but not least an enourmously big Fireball from Smaug himself obliterating our opponents. Gameplan (short): Start: Try and ramp into smaug while accumulating treasures. Even if you play against 3 mono green decks there are a few options to hand out some artifacts aswell, to help create a good smaug etb. Midgame: Start gathering treasures with various cards and start slapping your opponents with the treasure synergy (cranial ram, hellkite igniter) an bring your opponents lifetotal down with pings (mirkwood bats, reckless fireweaver) or do some abusing of the treasures (PFB, ruthless technomancer, kellog) late: Try to win with earthquake or a fireball, hitting someone with vertibert or cranial ram can do the trick and for the ones loving alternative wincons we go with revel in riches because it just fits perfectly in this kind of deck. I built a Precon with still many options left to upgrade the deck and optimize the strategy. Hope you like the Idea

Gollum, Riddle Master

Beorn the Fierce

Spiders To Bears, Oh My! I love playing spiders in every format, so why not get the value of playing great spiders and turning them into bears! this is a high-power, high-velocity engine that shifts gears from a defensive web into an explosive card-draw loop, culminating in an instant-win infinite combo or an overwhelming tribal stomp. Because Beorn the Fierce transforms creatures into Bears in addition to their other types, my spiders retain their native reach and deathtouch while gaining lethal bear synergies, trample counters, and massive stat boosts. You play like a defensive Spider/Token deck in the early game, pivot into an explosive Card-Draw engine in the mid-game, and finish like a brutal Bear/Stompy deck in the late game.

Chief of the Wilds

A fast go-wide wolf tribal deck. Wargs are one of the 5 armies battling at the foot of the Misty Mountain. The Wargs fight as a tireless pack: fast, relentless, and overwhelming. Grow the pack, trigger their powers, and keep attacking. Deck tries to get creatures to 4 power to trigger abilities which doubles with the commander. Deck also includes auras that grant triggered ability to synergize with the commander further. Also added a battle that would need to be renamed to match deck flavor. All creatures are wolves. Win con is combat damage, finish by buffing and giving menace to a wide board. Can also deal a lot of commander damage with trample and menace. Can survive board wipes with mass resurrection. Interactions are mostly creature and combat based for flavor. Slightly above budget but concordant crossroads needs a reprints to bring the price down.

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

Gandalf, Party Guest

This is a precon-style Jeskai deck built around Gandalf, Party Guest, and his knack for surprising the table at the worst possible moment. The story is simple: Gandalf shows up uninvited, lights off a few fireworks, and leaves everyone else scrambling to catch up. That means a spells-matter deck packed with cheap cantrips, efficient counterspells, and wizards lots of them to help Gandalf turning "just a cheap spell" into a snowballing engine of card draw and burn. It leans on Gandalf's card theme as a precon running different versions of him. I also tried to stay budget-conscious, without pricey combo pieces or fast mana beyond signets and a classic "precon" Sol Ring.

Chief of the Wilds

Chief of the Wilds is a wolf kindred deck built around creating Wolf token and trigger effects to try to overwhelm the table into a win. The deck's early game is about ramping and establishing a board of wolves, with cards like Urza's Incubator, Herald's Horn, Cryptolith Rite, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, and Rampant Growth to help accelerate the game plan. Cards like Parallel Lives, Second Harvest, Wolfcaller's Howl, Kessig Cagebreakers, Hollowhenge Overlord, and Kindred Summons help with clogging up things with wolf tokens. The deck generates value by having its creatures work together. Vanquisher's Banner, Patchwork Banner, Beastmaster Ascension, Arlinn, Voice of the Pack, and other effects turn a wide board into a much more dangerous one, while Druids' Repository and Cryptolith Rite allow creatures to generate the mana needed to keep the engine running. The deck also has several ways to find or protect its most important creatures, including Green Sun's Zenith, Finale of Devastation, For the Ancestors, and Asceticism. Removal such as Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Beast Within, Dictate of Erebos, and Kindred Dominance helps keep opposing boards under control. The primary way to close out games is through combat. Build a large board state, make the wolves bigger, and overwhelm the table with a massive attack. Triumph of the Hordes provides an especially brutal finisher when the board is sufficiently developed.

Chief of the Wilds

Witch-king of Angmar

Radagast of Rhosgobel

Wanted to include as many bears as possible, and build around Radagast. May not be a very competitive deck, but it was fun to make

Gandalf, Party Guest

Beorn the Fierce

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

Forge your legend. Build your army. Unleash the mountain. Lead Thorin and his Company into battle with a Dwarf-focused Equipment deck that turns weapons, Treasure, and legendary heroes into overwhelming power. Equip your Dwarves for massive combat damage, build your hoard of Treasure, and use the riches of the mountain to fuel explosive plays. From Thorin Oakenshield and Dáin Ironfoot to Balin, Dwalin, Fíli, Kíli, and the rest of Thorin’s Company, every card helps bring the story of the journey to Erebor to life. Gather the Company, reclaim the treasures of the Lonely Mountain, and forge powerful Equipment worthy of the Dwarves of Middle-earth. But the mountain holds even greater treasures for those willing to seek them. The Sideboard contains eight optional upgrades that can be added to the deck to further strengthen its Dwarf and Treasure synergies. Powerful additions such as Smaug the Magnificent, Goldspan Dragon, Xorn, and Thorin, Company's Leader allow you to expand your hoard and push the deck's strategy even further. Whether you play the deck straight out of the box or invest in the treasures hidden in the Sideboard, the mountain is yours to reclaim. Gather the Company. Forge the weapons. Claim the hoard.

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

this is the first deck i've ever built like this idk what i'm doing. an interaction i've been playing is running freya crescent as my commander with sting and hawkeye's bow so i wanted to apply it here by having the dwarves adopt a new teammate like they did with bilbo but with a cool archer lady, especially since a bow is what took down the evil dragon! GOAL: step 1 is find hawkeye, find her equips (anything really, just make the power go up high), make her a dwarf (amorphous axe or maskwood), bruenor or thorin boost her power super high. step 2: get STING and HAWKEYE'S BOW and equip it to one of the creatures that can tap! The actual power of this tapping creature (i.e. freya, hangar scrounger, warchanter skald, or paradise mantle equipped on anyone) doesn't matter unless you find burning anger with all the draw and put it on hawkeye herself. Full Throttle or Seize the Day will give you extra combats and taps! Phelia and Firion is a fun combo to blink in an equipment each combat and with Taj-nar you can move around it AND its copy at instant speed meaning you could even move everything over to another creature to tap again and then back using puresteel paladin's cost reduction. Koll lets you keep your attackers and not worry about sending them to their doom for that wonderful trigger with teleportation circle letting you redo ETBs. Hypothetically you can end the game pretty quick if you find everything and even faster if you slot in some rituals and, like, fated firepower. Again, I'm new to this so any notes are appreciated; I'd love to learn! Also hopefully this is fun and interesting?

Bard, King of Dale

Gandalf, Party Guest

Legendary wizards typal with very big spells :)

Gollum, Riddle Master

Gollum tries to horde as many treasures as he can, without the other creatures stealing them from him. Can he find the ring and keep it? Or will the ring wraiths find him and take it for themselves? Deck Tech: Basically doing Voltron/ring-tempting shenanigans with Gollum, to help him stick around. Kuldotha Forgemaster, Vexing Puzzlebox, and Transmutation Font are all there to find My Precious (Moonsilver Key should tutor for Vexing Puzzlebox). PS - I definitely went over-budget but I think a lot of that could be shaved down by removing the most expensive cards in favor of more Voltron equipment/protection (and the land base could also be simplified by swapping out the expensive stuff for basics).

Gandalf, Party Guest

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

Chief of the Wilds

Summon wolves - Hunt threats - Bite down, Chief of the Wilds leads a powerful and synergistic Wolf kindred "precon". Double up the triggers of your best wolves as the Chief grows tall and your board goes wide with a variety of ways to make wolf tokens. While you do so, be prepared to hunt down your enemies' biggest threats with removal and bite down for the win! Notable cards include: - Both Garruks (Cursed Huntsman / Relentless): Grow an army of wolf tokens while picking off enemy creatures and pumping your board to the extreme. - Cover of darkness and Wolfrider's saddle: Two strong cards that can make your wolf army nigh unblockable. Saddle is especially good with Chief. - Bloodline Bidding and Kindred dominance: Powerful top-end sorceries that benefit you from your kindred strategy. - Hollowhenge overlord: With Chief out, you're quadrupling your wolves every turn!

Tom, Bert, and William

Precon (budget) version of Trolls' Feast

Thorin, King of Durin's Folk

More fluff than competitive

Chief of the Wilds

Bard, King of Dale

I was going to build a The Hobbit deck. Then I realized I could build a deck about the post-war economic recovery of Dale. So now I'm running: Political card draw. Token production. Population growth. Infrastructure development. Military expansion. An unstable financial system. And one Laboratory Maniac. Just in case the economy crashes.

Smaug the Impenetrable

i also have one that is more optimized but is on a higher bracket. tested this against b3, 2 times it almost won being the last player against another then running out of gas, tweaked it a bit, and it finally won

Gríma, Saruman's Footman

I was challenged to make a commander deck with Gríma by gemini.twins.magic who I actually had the pleasure to meet at prerelease! (Thank you to Lindsey for making my prerelease a truly fantastic experience.) This deck is lead by Gríma, Saruman's Footman, with the sub-commander as Lord of the Nazgûl. My goal with this precon was to make an easy-to-follow, beginner-friendly deck with one major theme; adventures! The deck does function fairly well with either commander in the pilot seat. The deck only contains cards that really fit the aesthetic of the LOTR (apart from a select few cards that I included purely to help the deck function, just imagine they are reskinned to fit the deck) and contains cards from both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings sets. I also wanted to include multiple reprints of cards with some value while keeping the overall cost of the deck at least under $150, and create the deck in the same way I envisioned WOTC would create a precon. -Kevin

Belladonna Took

Use Belladonna Took and create a bunch of tokens in bursts to make the best use of her triggered ability: pump the board + draw + tiny lifegain. Overwhelm your opponents with help from Bilbo's mommy!!!

Radagast of Rhosgobel

Following along with the professors precons, this thematic "typal" deck follows a "race" across the story of the Hobbit, only this time it's all the forgotten nature surrounding Tolkien's story. Radagast will let us cast cheap big beasts at flash speed, meaning who needs anything but creatures? Creatures can be our interaction, our ramp, our card draw... Radagast doesn't play when it comes to the animals of Middle Earth! With Beorn as an alt commander, thanks to the high number of bears the deck runs, you can also focus more on trampling with big creatures and drawing cards from all your bears! Built like a classic precon, with a few key reprints as well as some precon staples and 38 lands, this perfect Bracket 2 simple deck would be great for any new player, or as an easy base to upgrade for more experienced players!

Elrond, Moon-Reader

The idea for this deck came from the scene in Rivendell where Elrond holds Thrór's Map up to the moonlight and discovers the hidden entrance to Erebor. I wanted the deck to feel like that moment mechanically. Most of the creatures are readers, scouts, birds, sailors, and other travelers with activated abilities. By using those abilities during each player's turn, Elrond keeps revealing more of the journey, one card at a time. Cards such as Thrór's Map, Key to the Side-Door, Uncover the Moon-Letters, Roll-Roll-Roll-Roll, and Gone Fishing help tell the story of the expedition. Elrond can also blink creatures and Sagas, letting you reuse them as though he were going back over different parts of the tale. My favorite part of the deck is its hidden win condition: Triskaidekaphile. If you begin your upkeep with exactly thirteen cards in hand, you win, representing Thorin and the twelve Dwarves setting out together.

Chief of the Wilds

This precon-style Golgari Wolf typal deck aims to build a large pack of Wolves and generate extra value with Chief of the Wilds, which doubles the triggered abilities of your other Wolves and, the type we miss and love, Battles. The Chief Warg is our secondary commander if Chief of the Wilds remains to expensive, which turns the deck into a more grindy deck with additional draw each turn. The game plan is to ramp early, create Wolf tokens, and attack Battles for additional value. In the late game, anthem effects and trample turns the pack into a lethal army, while Chief of the Wilds grows into a major threat of its own. In my opinion, a precon is a great place to reprint some cards, especially lands. There are a few staples, like Heroic Intervention and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth for the reprint value but also more on theme reprints like Beastmaster Ascension. Hope you like the list!

Smaug, Wicked Worm

Chief of the Wilds

Tom, Bert, and William

Gollum, Riddle Master

This is an interactive Mono-Black Control precon built around Gollum, Riddle Master. Designed to mirror the atmospheric psychological warfare of Gollum’s cavernous home beneath the Misty Mountains, this deck forgoes traditional linear creature strategies in favor of forcing opponents into tough choices, resource attrition, and constant mind games. Gollum lands early on turn two, forcing opponents to play around your odd/even guesses every time they cast a spell. To maximize Gollum’s triggers, the deck runs a suite of cheap protection and recursion spells, like Undying Malice, Feign Death, Not Dead After All. When Gollum is targeted or sacrificed, you bring him back to reset his choices and keep drawing cards, draining life, and pumping his stats. Instead of letting opponents build wide armies, you police the board with forced-sacrifice edicts (Plaguecrafter, Fleshbag Marauder, Witch-king, Bringer of Ruin) and tactical sweepers (Toxic Deluge). As opponents attempt to draw their way out of your riddles, Orcish Bowmasters and Mirkwood Bats passively ping their life totals and build your board, while Painful Quandary and Call of the Ring apply relentless turn-over-turn pressure. Once the board is locked down, slip Gollum or the Witch-king past enemy defenses unblocked using The Black Gate or Key to the Side-Door to finish off remaining opponents.

Smaug the Impenetrable

Smaug the Impenetrable treasure horde Tried to make cheap an to use treasure like a dragons horde but dragons be expensive. Hope you like the theme

Dwalin, Weaponmaster