Me too. Every other video on these LOTR decks include massively changing them with lots of cards outside the main set and it kinda ruins the aesthetic. I do t want the deck stupidly powerful, I want it packed with flavor.
I immediately picked up all these LOTR scry elf cards after getting this commander deck. I don’t think I’m a big fan of all the voting mechanics, but i am a big fan of elves and digging into the deck. I also like that these cards are also in the LOTR set to keep the theme intact
Glad you liked it. I've found it's actually much harder to build a deck within theme than just slapping every power card that's been printed in there and calling it done.
Excellent ideas. There's room for other cuts in there to fit things like Fading Hope in, but I set a hard limit of 10 cards for this so I didn't trample on the flavor and themes of the precons too heavily and I wanted to get as much of the main set upgrades in as I could as well.
@@8bitflea Grey Havens is easy, just swap out a basic land. Fading Hope I'd likely swap out Trap the Tresspassers. I was already on the fence with that card, so it was up first for cuts for any additional add ins for me.
I bought this precon alongside the grixis one.....I totally agree about your cut of the whale 🐋 alongside some of your other cuts. Can't say I agree with removing Lignify though....in my commander pods lignify has always served me well. That's just me! I also agree that the face commander of this deck is not only not as synergistic with scrying but I also think she's fairly weak. Not worthy of being in the commanding position. I like your top commander choice, or I might try some of the other Galadriel versions in the commander spot. I have too much of a soft spot for Galadriels artwork for her not to be the commander but can totally agree with your pick for that position. Anyway, can't wait to see your cuts and adds for the grixis precon!!
I love updating these decks and keeping it within the set/theme! That’s what I’m doing with all 4 that way they keep the full lotr art and theme. Elesh norn sharing the field with the riders of Rohan kills it for me lol.
My playgroup agreed on buying the precons and create 100% LOTR decks to play each other. Hope that December's LOTR expansion brings more scry and +1/+1 cards since this is what I'm playing. Nother cards that woth the shoot are Lothlorien Lookout and Palantir of Orthhanc.
That sounds like a lot of fun. And thanks for the suggestions. I'm in the process of building up Historic Brawl lists where my choices are more limited so more ideas are welcome.
I played the deck with the face commander for a few games and then switched it to Elrond with a medium scry package. Elrond makes the deck run much smoother and gives you an actual direction while growing your threats over the course of the game.
Yeah, I don't know what the thought process was with this particular precon other than trying to get as many named Legends from LOTR into it as they could, but then none of them really do anything coherently with the rest of the deck other than some of them are Elves. I love the precons but this one was a major design miss for me.
@@twilightscallmtg Same. I love this set but its almost as if for every slam dunk there was an equal miss. Like why wasn’t Sauron an artifact deck? And you would expect one of the oldest and most powerful Elves to be do more than just draw you a card, maybe.
Elven Farsight might be a good one. For one mana cost(forest) "scry 3, then you may reveal the top card of your library. If its a creature card, draw a card."
@@twilightscallmtg whoops! My fault. I was focused on your last blue spell and happened to be listening while i was looking at green spells. Great video!
Bro! Thank you for this video. I will probably keep Plea for Power. I play with a group that over thinks and I was one vote away from getting an extra turn and they debated each other about it. However that is just my play group
You havn´t talked about the lands. Path of Ancestry and Castle Ventress will get you a lot additional scry. Even the Simic Temple with scrying will be playable.
Some of those would be good. But the thing with the LotR decks I did was to keep them on theme and I tried to not use cards that referred specifically to locations on other Magic planes, like Castle Vantress. But yes, without that restriction I self-imposed, those would all be great includes.
The elf deck is loaded with really good cards... that just don't play well with each other. Gandalf has literally no business being in the deck, and Radagast very clearly wants/needs to be a commander. If anything, Elrond should've been the face commander of this deck with Galadriel as the second, though truthfully Erestor of the Council and Cirdan, the Shipwright are the true commanders of the deck. They just play better with it and aren't reliant on an engine that's missing key cards to work. Edit: My assessment, of course, just a straight, out-of-the-box play before adjustments. Overall, there's just too much in this deck that is completely counter-intuitive to it's strategy and it just trips over its own feet, especially when compared to, say, Food and Fellowship, which is actually nerfed to keep it from being too powerful (imagine having your commanders be Merry, who creates a soldier when a Food token is created, and Sam, who creates a Food token every turn).
Fully agreed. This is the one precon where I wanted to remove every single commander that came with it. It wants to play as a 'scry/elves matters' deck, but then none of the commanders care about scrying or their elf support is non-existent. A deck full of elves? Let's put TWO commanders in there that care about 5+ Mana Value drops (most elves top out around 4) or drops that aren't even elves! The vote stuff seems kind of blah and you really can't build around them mechanically and those kind of decks tend to devolve into good stuff piles when you build them. The deck just seems like it's being pulled in too many directions to be very good out of the box compared to the other 3 precons.
'Army in a can' type creatures can be good, but yeah, I don't see why it's here. Why couldn't they have come up with an elf that did something similar so it fit the theme? It could have cost the same and had the same stats but swapped flying out for reach or something.
@@twilightscallmtg I can agree with that I mean even food and fellowship at the very least has its priorities straight with the inclusion of ensemble the entmoot at the very least you're getting reach out of it but if you really want that "army in a can" it can do it too 🤣
It's a matter of preference. Voting mechanics that are uncontrollable aren't my cup of tea, but they might be for you. I'd build around him as the commander in a different deck or slot him into a group hug build before trying him with the scry elf theme of this deck.
I also leaned into the Scry theme, but I went with the Galadriel who plays land off of scrying. It ramps so hard.
Loved the upgrade man! Kept the flavour and style
Me too. Every other video on these LOTR decks include massively changing them with lots of cards outside the main set and it kinda ruins the aesthetic. I do t want the deck stupidly powerful, I want it packed with flavor.
@@Hurricane1990Agreed. I really like this channel’s focus on upgrades with flavor.
I immediately picked up all these LOTR scry elf cards after getting this commander deck. I don’t think I’m a big fan of all the voting mechanics, but i am a big fan of elves and digging into the deck. I also like that these cards are also in the LOTR set to keep the theme intact
Thank you, always goods advices
I try. Glad the video could help.
Really like the you kept with the theme. Great video 😎
Glad you liked it. I've found it's actually much harder to build a deck within theme than just slapping every power card that's been printed in there and calling it done.
Very nice upgrade! I share a lot of your thoughts & I love the scry synergy of the new cards :) I would also add The Grey Havens & Fading Hope
Excellent ideas. There's room for other cuts in there to fit things like Fading Hope in, but I set a hard limit of 10 cards for this so I didn't trample on the flavor and themes of the precons too heavily and I wanted to get as much of the main set upgrades in as I could as well.
@@twilightscallmtg what cards would you cut to fit fading hope and grey havens?
@@8bitflea Grey Havens is easy, just swap out a basic land. Fading Hope I'd likely swap out Trap the Tresspassers. I was already on the fence with that card, so it was up first for cuts for any additional add ins for me.
Path of ancestry too.
I bought this precon alongside the grixis one.....I totally agree about your cut of the whale 🐋 alongside some of your other cuts. Can't say I agree with removing Lignify though....in my commander pods lignify has always served me well. That's just me!
I also agree that the face commander of this deck is not only not as synergistic with scrying but I also think she's fairly weak. Not worthy of being in the commanding position. I like your top commander choice, or I might try some of the other Galadriel versions in the commander spot. I have too much of a soft spot for Galadriels artwork for her not to be the commander but can totally agree with your pick for that position.
Anyway, can't wait to see your cuts and adds for the grixis precon!!
Leaned into plus one elf tribal myself. 😅
I love updating these decks and keeping it within the set/theme! That’s what I’m doing with all 4 that way they keep the full lotr art and theme. Elesh norn sharing the field with the riders of Rohan kills it for me lol.
My playgroup agreed on buying the precons and create 100% LOTR decks to play each other. Hope that December's LOTR expansion brings more scry and +1/+1 cards since this is what I'm playing. Nother cards that woth the shoot are Lothlorien Lookout and Palantir of Orthhanc.
That sounds like a lot of fun. And thanks for the suggestions. I'm in the process of building up Historic Brawl lists where my choices are more limited so more ideas are welcome.
My wife and I are buying all the decks and upgrading them with only LOTR cards! But I’m loving the videos of keeping everything on theme!
I played the deck with the face commander for a few games and then switched it to Elrond with a medium scry package. Elrond makes the deck run much smoother and gives you an actual direction while growing your threats over the course of the game.
Yeah, I don't know what the thought process was with this particular precon other than trying to get as many named Legends from LOTR into it as they could, but then none of them really do anything coherently with the rest of the deck other than some of them are Elves. I love the precons but this one was a major design miss for me.
@@twilightscallmtg Same. I love this set but its almost as if for every slam dunk there was an equal miss. Like why wasn’t Sauron an artifact deck? And you would expect one of the oldest and most powerful Elves to be do more than just draw you a card, maybe.
Elven Farsight might be a good one. For one mana cost(forest) "scry 3, then you may reveal the top card of your library. If its a creature card, draw a card."
A nice suggestion, however, it's in the main list. Had to double check to make sure I didn't cut it.
@@twilightscallmtg whoops! My fault. I was focused on your last blue spell and happened to be listening while i was looking at green spells. Great video!
Bro! Thank you for this video. I will probably keep Plea for Power. I play with a group that over thinks and I was one vote away from getting an extra turn and they debated each other about it. However that is just my play group
Yeah. I get that. My group is like 'Extra turn? Not happening!' and yet they'll never pay up for Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe...
@@twilightscallmtg Exactly. You can usually leverage it somehow. Maybe make a promise or two you won't go after someone at the table.
Yes for flavor!!
You havn´t talked about the lands. Path of Ancestry and Castle Ventress will get you a lot additional scry. Even the Simic Temple with scrying will be playable.
Some of those would be good. But the thing with the LotR decks I did was to keep them on theme and I tried to not use cards that referred specifically to locations on other Magic planes, like Castle Vantress. But yes, without that restriction I self-imposed, those would all be great includes.
@@twilightscallmtg I think at least the path would be on Theme. The Mines of Moria could be Seen as a path made by the Ancestors of Gimli.
The elf deck is loaded with really good cards... that just don't play well with each other.
Gandalf has literally no business being in the deck, and Radagast very clearly wants/needs to be a commander. If anything, Elrond should've been the face commander of this deck with Galadriel as the second, though truthfully Erestor of the Council and Cirdan, the Shipwright are the true commanders of the deck. They just play better with it and aren't reliant on an engine that's missing key cards to work.
Edit: My assessment, of course, just a straight, out-of-the-box play before adjustments. Overall, there's just too much in this deck that is completely counter-intuitive to it's strategy and it just trips over its own feet, especially when compared to, say, Food and Fellowship, which is actually nerfed to keep it from being too powerful (imagine having your commanders be Merry, who creates a soldier when a Food token is created, and Sam, who creates a Food token every turn).
Fully agreed. This is the one precon where I wanted to remove every single commander that came with it. It wants to play as a 'scry/elves matters' deck, but then none of the commanders care about scrying or their elf support is non-existent. A deck full of elves? Let's put TWO commanders in there that care about 5+ Mana Value drops (most elves top out around 4) or drops that aren't even elves!
The vote stuff seems kind of blah and you really can't build around them mechanically and those kind of decks tend to devolve into good stuff piles when you build them. The deck just seems like it's being pulled in too many directions to be very good out of the box compared to the other 3 precons.
nice
Boy Wizards is obsessed with putting Hornet Queens in every simic precon 😂
'Army in a can' type creatures can be good, but yeah, I don't see why it's here. Why couldn't they have come up with an elf that did something similar so it fit the theme? It could have cost the same and had the same stats but swapped flying out for reach or something.
@@twilightscallmtg I can agree with that I mean even food and fellowship at the very least has its priorities straight with the inclusion of ensemble the entmoot at the very least you're getting reach out of it but if you really want that "army in a can" it can do it too 🤣
stopped whaching when you took cirdan out. shameless
It's a matter of preference. Voting mechanics that are uncontrollable aren't my cup of tea, but they might be for you. I'd build around him as the commander in a different deck or slot him into a group hug build before trying him with the scry elf theme of this deck.