Still very early, but black is really performing pretty well for me. There are some really strong and synergistic commons in black. Most notably, [[Mirkwood Bats]] and [[Mordor Trebuchet]] paired with any goblin or amass/orc enablers is just absolutely devastating.
Black has the cleanest and strongest removal, and a lot if is also at common. [[Bitter Downfall]] (Uncommon) and [[Claim the Precious]] are both great, [[Lash of the Balrog]] is not difficult to run.
Other commons like [[Dunland Crebain]] are performing well. [[Gollum’s Bite]] hits a lot of targets. And there are a few really efficient combat tricks that effectively double as removal in [[Orcish Medicine]] and the slightly worse [[Shelob’s Ambush]].
I think it can be beneficial to take some of these commons early imo but I’m curious what anyone else’s thoughts are.
- Mirkwood Bats - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Mordor Trebuchet - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Bitter Downfall - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Claim the Precious - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Lash of the Balrog - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Dunland Crebain - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Gollum’s Bite - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Orcish Medicine - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Shelob’s Ambush - (G) (SF) (txt)
[[card name]] to call
Just played sealed the other day, I played a Grixis spellslinger deck, but it had trouble getting rolling, but if i could get [[Bilbo, Retired Burglar]] out I could ramp pretty well into my late game with [[Gandalf the Grey]] and [[Lorien revealed]]. My buddy pulled a lot of really strong black cards, [[Call of the Ring]] felt especially brutal. Simic elves made an appearance and were especially brutal, the scry payoff between [[Galadriel of lothlorien]], [[Elrond lord of Rivendell]], and [[Elrond, master of healing]] is insane. Other pieces of the pie definitely have some pretty brutal synergies. I think black feels especially strong because some pretty strong synergies, like Mirkwood Bats and Mordor trebuchet, are in common, and claim the precious is a very strong removal spell in this set.
- Bilbo, Retired Burglar - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Gandalf the Grey - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Lórien Revealed - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Call of the Ring - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Galadriel of Lothlórien - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Elrond, Lord of Rivendell - (G) (SF) (txt)
- Elrond, Master of Healing - (G) (SF) (txt)
[[card name]] to call
It kinda baffles me that there’s not a LoTR set constructed format on Arena.
And yeah, Crebain is a remarkable card.
