Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit Prerelease Guide: Top Cards, Archetypes and Mechanics

The prerelease for Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit is on our doorstep as I write this piece, with August 7th being the first opportunity to start cracking packs from the latest stop within the Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond product line. 

Bilbo’s adventure that sets the stage for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy shares some characteristics with The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, but brings an exciting and unique feel to create a merry limited environment (or at least this is my prediction!) Ready to dive into what to expect when cracking prerelease packs this weekend? 

The Hobbit: Mechanics

Within those 6 play boosters there are both old and new mechanics that will be important to understand when evaluating the power level of each card. 

Amass

Amass is a mechanic that appeared in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. Though we are used to amassing Orc Armies, Amass can also create Goblin Army Tokens, as the mechanic is tied to any type of Army creature. To start you must identify whether you already control an Army creature, if not put one onto the battlefield. Then, put a number of +1/+1 counters on your Army equal to the Amass number as stated on the card. If you happen to control more than one Army, choose one to add the counters to. 

Amass is a mechanic that I have always liked when playing either black or red as a way to go wide with multiple creatures. Amass is a mechanic that is nice in a deck that wants to generate lots of Goblins, and pairs nicely with spot removal spells to clear away large blockers the opponent might have on the other side of the battlefield. 

Adventures

We have seen the Adventure subtype in multiple prior sets. An Adventure card has two parts, one is a permanent, and the other is an instant or sorcery with the subtype Adventure. If the Adventure is cast before the creature part now you put the spell into exile, and can later cast the creature part of the card. Alternatively, the other choice is not casting the Adventure part, and skipping straight to playing the creature, therefore foregoing the Adventure part of the card. Both parts have their own associated mana cost which must be paid to cast them. 

Cards with Adventure generally feel like nice value if you are able to make use of both parts of the card. Adventure cards can be card advantage, as a form of a "2 for 1" and play nicely as a way to generate an advantage in the mid and lategame. 

Storied

If you control a permanent with the Storied ability and three or more artifacts, legendary creatures, and/or Sagas (essentially cards that are historic), you will get an enduring story for the rest of the game. This story is similar to an emblem, in that it will be yours for the rest of the game regardless of what else happens, and there are cards that provide bonuses for having obtained an enduring story. 

Building a deck around obtaining an enduring story seems like the right direction when playing with Storied. Be thinking about how many artifacts, legendary creatures, and/or Sagas are in your deck or card pool, and make decisions that lean towards including lots of these card types of obtaining an enduring story is an important part of your deck. 

Hone Counters

Hone counters are a specific type of counter that can be put on equipment, and an equipment gets +1/+0  for each hone counter put onto it. Having an equipment specific way to make use of counters is pretty cool, but compared to some of the other mechanics I think this won’t have quite the same impact. There aren’t as many cards that give hone counters when compared to cards that Amass or Recruit for instance. 

Recruit

Recruit is an ability that has the potential to create lots of 1/1 white Human Soldier creature tokens. Each time you Recruit, it means drawing and discarding a card, otherwise known as “looting.” If the discarded card isn’t a land, you will also create a 1/1 white Human Soldier creature token. 

Looting is a way to create interesting limited games, and help protect against mana problems. Decks that are able to make use of an extra Soldier token or two will be extra happy to Recruit, though there will be lots of situations where it will be correct to discard a land as nonland cards tend to be more valuable than lands past the first few turns. 

The Hobbit: Top Rares and Mythics

What are the cards you are most hoping to open? There are a number of very interesting rares and mythics in Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit. Many of them read to me as clearly better than any of the uncommons, but not necessarily game breaking either. 

The multicolored rares such as The Great Goblin really work well in focused decks built to abuse them properly. In other cases, cards like Gollum, Riddle Master and The Queen of Dale are very above rate for what you would expect to get for paying two mana for a creature, and will be very good as long as you can cast them. 

The Hobbit: Top Uncommons

When looking for the best uncommons, thinking about general counting stats - like paying three mana for a 3/3 isn’t exciting but three mana for a 4/4 is very good - is important. For example, looking at Mirkwood Pathmaker, even on turn three it is acceptable, but it can very easily be three mana for a 6/6 too. 

In the case of Adventure uncommons like Bilbo, Luckwearer and Great Ugly-Looking Goblin I’m looking for one part that is mostly good enough to play even if you took one part away. Bilbo Luckwearer is good enough on its own as an unlockable two drop that looks, so Burglar’s Plot becomes more of a bonus, increasing the power level of the card. 

The Hobbit: Top Commons

When looking for the top commons, especially in a new format sealed deck format like a Prerelease, it’s hard to go wrong with good removal spells. Bilbo’s Deadly Slice plays the “Murder” role here, and this type of removal spell is simply always good. Mirkwood Nurturer I think will also be quite nice when paired with other creatures with enter the battlefield effects or as a way to re-use a creature that has Adventure. 

The Hobbit: Archetypes and Color Pairs

I’m going to highlight the five two-color combinations, and what to prioritize when looking for specific synergies to enhance these pairs. 

Rakdos Goblins

The Rakdos color combination is going to be focused around Amass and sacrificing your cheap creatures for additional value. I have a strong feeling that Snowslope Hunter will be a key piece here, as a way to churn through your deck, and it shouldn’t be too hard to have a Goblin lying around to sacrifice when needed. I don’t expect this to be a purely aggressive deck, but using cards like Bolg of the North profitably can create a pretty big advantage for this color pair. 

Azorius Recruit

I would not be surprised if the Azorius Recruit deck ends up being the strongest archetype when everything comes together. The Soldier token can be used as blockers, while a card like Plunder the Trollshaws works to ensure you aren’t really ever running out of things to do with your mana. Plunder the Trollshaws is actually the perfect card to discard to a Recruit effect. Finsing the right balance between ways to Recruit and cards that rely on drawing extra cards like Lakeshore Apothecary will be important here. 

Boros Dwarfs

The Boros Dwarfs deck will be the most aggressive strategy, and will also look to focus heavily on Storied. The key here will be getting lots of quality legendary creatures, though artifacts like equipment will also play a role in helping achieve an enduring story. If the enduring story happens relatively early in the game, it will likely lead to a very explosive draw from the Boros Dwarfs deck. This will be a fun deck to play with but also isn’t one that can be forced as without enough legendary creatures the deck can fall apart. 

Simic Elves

The card that I think really will make this deck tick is Woodland Weavemaster. Thisis definitely the type of card that needs to be in a heavily focused Elf deck, but in that deck it will be absolutely amazing. There are plenty of ways to make use of extra mana in this color combination, and Mirkwood Nurturer can will be a way to get ahead later in the game alongside a high impact permanent that benefits from being returned to your hand. 

Golgari Ferocious

This deck wants to focus on having plenty of creatures that can become four power, or already have four power when entering play. The ferocious payoffs are significant, as The Chief Warg looks like one of the best uncommons in the set if you can trigger it consistently. The Golgari deck isn’t quite as synergy focused as some of the other pairs, so you can most play your best black and green cards while trying to incidentally trigger ferocious with cards like Desolation Prowler. This is going to be a heavily played color combination as there are lots of routes to building a solid deck using the golgari color pair.

Wrapping Up

I hope this framework helps with upcoming prerelease preparation. Magic: The Gathering | The Hobbit looks like it will be a fun limited environment, and I expect it to focus around the five color pairs I have outlined. Make sure to properly sleeve up your deck with Cortex or Katana’s, and bring your Xenoskin Zipfolio to pop those rares and mythics in after battling!