Warning!

The decks you are about to see are mostly untested first drafts! They were played Wednesday and Thursday on stream on the release days for Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth on MTG Arena and Magic Online and are my first stabs at the new Lord of the Rings Historic and Modern formats. Most are brews jam packed with Lord of the Rings cards, while there are also a few updates to previously established archetypes, but it's important to note that these are the first steps and not finished products! Use them as stepping stones for your own deck brewing process, but play them card for card at your own risk!

"Straight to Modern."

Like both Modern Horzions sets before it, The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle Earth is the third set ever with the distinction of being printed directly to Modern, skipping Standard and Pioneer and the usual path that sets take. Being in a group with Modern Horizons 1 and Modern Horizons 2 is some dubious company, as both those sets have had massive impacts on Modern and changed the format forever (for better or worse, depending on who you ask).

So, what does Tales of Middle Earth have to offer?

While there aren't quite as many Modern playable cards as the Modern Horizons sets, there are a number of very powerful cards that will definitely be making an impact on Modern, especially on Pro Tour Lord of the Rings next month. So, as with all new sets, it's time to get brewing!

Today we are going to go over the second five of the ten decks I played as part of my Ten New Brews on YouTube and stream, briefly going over each list and my thoughts on how it was, giving it a letter grade, and talking about what kind of potential it has going forward. Last week I went over the five Historic decks I played, and today I will be going over the five Modern decks, as well as giving some general thoughts on the format. I played three matches with each deck in best of three so the deck's record will also be included, but do note that these matches were played in leagues and not during any sort of Early Access event.

Let's go!

Esquire For Hire | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
• 1 Frodo, Sauron's Bane
• 1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
• 1 Squee, Dubious Monarch
• 1 Zurgo Bellstriker
• 2 Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
• 2 Boromir, Warden of the Tower
• 2 Fury
• 2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
• 3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
• 3 Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 3 Solitude
• 4 Merry, Esquire of Rohan
• 4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Gideon Blackblade

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Urza's Ruinous Blast

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Flowering of the White Tree

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Mox Amber

• Lands (22)
• 1 Plains
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Minas Tirith
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Plaza of Heroes
• 4 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Eiganjo Castle
• 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Sanctifier en-Vec
• 2 Drannith Magistrate
• 1 Urza's Ruinous Blast
• 1 Fury
• 2 Loran of the Third Path
• 1 Eowyn, Fearless Knight
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 2 Kataki, War's Wage
• 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

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Deck's Record: 2-1

Deck's Grade: B+

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Standout Card: Merry, Esquire of Rohan

Legends are a huge deal in Magic these days, so when there's a card that cares about legends it is wise to take notice.

Flowering of the White Tree is a bit awkward because it is legendary itself, making it difficult to play more than one or two copies, but is a very reasonable anthem effect if you are able to make some tokens alongside your legends to properly go wide. With Adeline, Respelndent Cathar, Kari Zev, Skyship Raider, and more available this is very doable. However, the real prize is Merry, Esquire of Rohan. Merry is a very exciting 2-drop. As a 2/2 haste for two, the rate is certainly reasonable, but once you realize the quality of one-drop legends in the format, things really start to cook.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is obviously one of the best cards in the format and doesn't need any synergy to excel, but when you add synergy on top of raw rate you've got something quite nice. Skrelv, Defector Mite is a great way to protect your other legends than can attack in a pinch for Merry, and Kytheon, Hero of Akros and the other legendary 1-drops are all perfectly reasonable in the context of a legends deck. Any one of these on turn one will allow you to immediately draw a card on turn two with Merry, which is an excellent start.

And what's one to do with all these extra cards you're drawing, as well as the potential redundant legends you may end up with? How about two of the literal best cards in the format in Solitude and Fury. These provide you with raw power, removal, and actual creature threats, while also slotting into the deck very nicely.

Throw in some other great legendary enablers and payoffs like Mox Amber, Plaza of Heroes[/card,] and the other legendary lands, and the wonderful one-sided [card]Urza's Ruinous Blast, and you've got yourself a really nice aggressive synergy deck!

Orcish Inquiry | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (20)
• 4 Bloodbraid Marauder
• 4 Grief
• 4 Architects of Will
• 4 Hollow One
• 4 Orcish Bowmasters

• Instants (4)
• 2 Dead // Gone
• 2 Dismember

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Burning Inquiry
• 4 Wheel of Fate

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
• 4 Waste Not

• Lands (21)
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Blood Crypt
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Tourach, Dread Cantor
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Blood Moon
• 1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 3 Fury
• 3 Ancient Grudge

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Deck's Record: 0-3

Deck's Grade: D

Deck Potential: Low

Standout Card: Orcish Bowmasters

Sometimes Ten New Brews isn't always about a totally new brew, but adding a tool to an older brew that wasn't quite there.

A while back on stream I played a deck built around Waste Not and mass draw/discard effects like Wheel of Fate and Burning Inquiry. The idea was that these cards gave you a bunch of draw and discard triggers at a very low cost, triggering Waste Not a bunch of times for a somewhat bizarre combo feel. However, it wasn't quite there.

Enter Orcish Bowmasters.

Orcish Bowmasters is already a great card on rate, but forcing your opponent to draw and discard a bunch of cards with an Orcish Bowmasters and or a Waste Not in play does some pretty wild things. However, the issues here were numerous.

The deck is built around enabling delirium to have Bloodbraid Marauder always cascade into Burning Inquiry or more importantly Wheel of Fate. While this is powerful and less restrictive than the three-mana cascade spells, not being able to play 1-drops is still a pretty big ask. There was a whole lot of setup, but the end result wasn't always consistently a kill, making the juice not really worth the squeeze.

There's something really fun and exciting here if you like spinning the wheel, but for competitive play this isn't really it.

The Witch-King Rises | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (23)
• 3 Archon of Cruelty
• 4 Delighted Halfling
• 4 Orcish Bowmasters
• 4 Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 4 Satyr Wayfinder
• 4 Stitcher's Supplier

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 2 Grist, the Hunger Tide
• 4 Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Bone Shards
• 4 Rise of the Witch-king

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 Smuggler's Copter

• Lands (22)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Nurturing Peatland
• 1 Pendelhaven
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Darkbore Pathway // Slitherbore Pathway
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 4 Verdant Catacombs

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 2 Fatal Push
• 3 Force of Vigor
• 2 Endurance
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 2 Chalice of the Void

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Deck's Record: 1-2

Deck's Grade: C

Deck Potential: Medium

Standout Card: Orcish Bowmasters

There's no doubt that Orcish Bowmasters is an awesome card, but what's not to be overlooked is how good of a material/fodder card it is.

It's two mana for two bodies, which can be excellent when you need sacrifice fodder for things like Priest of Forgotten Gods, or the brand-new Rise of the Witch-King, which is a pretty awesome reanimation spell. The ability to synergize with these sorts of sacrifice cards, as well as Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler, is a huge bonus on top of the raw rate of the card.

This deck is looking to fill the graveyard up with fodder creatures like Stitcher's Supplier and Satyr Wayfinder, which can both help find good things for Tyvar to do, as well as bin Archon of Cruelty for reanimation with Rise of the Witch-King. Smuggler's Copter and Bone Shards can help discard Archon if you draw it.

The issues however are multifaceted.

There aren't enough good graveyard hits to justify playing Stitcher's Supplier and friends, because most of the cards you are putting in the graveyard just don't do much. Smuggler's Copter underperformed because the deck isn't really aggressive enough to take advantage of the damage, and all and all it was just too difficult to put it all together.

There are some cool ideas here but it would need a serious rework.

Sneak Friend & Enter | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (21)
• 3 Archon of Cruelty
• 3 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
• 3 Fury
• 4 Arbor Elf
• 4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 4 Seasoned Pyromancer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Wrenn and Six

• Instants (4)
• 4 Through the Breach

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
• 4 Utopia Sprawl

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Doors of Durin

• Lands (21)
• 3 Forest
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Mutavault
• 4 Stomping Ground
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Windswept Heath
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Fury
• 2 Veil of Summer
• 2 Endurance
• 3 Blood Moon
• 4 Force of Vigor
• 2 Blightsteel Colossus
• 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

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Deck's Record: 2-1

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Low

Standout Card: Through the Breach

Doors of Durin is a wild Magic card.

In a lot of ways Doors of Durin is like Sneak Attack, but it does so without needing a card in your hand and generating card advantage. Of course, there are caveats, as you must have a safe attacking creature as well as a big creature in the top three cards of your library.

This of course, was also the downfall of the card.

While we did well in this league overall, we also whiffed on maybe three or four Doors of Durin triggers, which just isn't an acceptable fail rate. While Fury does stand in as another good hit that's not uncastable, the reality is that you need to have a very high density of good hits to make the card work, which is challenging to do when you need to also build a deck that can resolve a five mana artifact and also have successful attackers available the turn you cast it.

It's quite the deck-building puzzle honestly as the card is extremely powerful, but it will be a challenge to fully unlock it.

Oops, All Wraiths | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (34)
• 1 Hoarding Broodlord
• 1 Sundering Titan
• 3 Valiant Changeling
• 4 Changeling Outcast
• 4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
• 4 Mothdust Changeling
• 4 Universal Automaton
• 4 Unsettled Mariner
• 9 Nazgul

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Grist, the Hunger Tide

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Portal to Phyrexia
• 4 Aether Vial

• Lands (19)
• 3 City of Brass
• 4 Ancient Ziggurat
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Mana Confluence
• 4 Secluded Courtyard

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Realmwalker
• 2 Masked Vandal
• 3 Chalice of the Void
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Warping Wail
• 2 Dismember

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Deck's Record: 2-1

Deck's Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Surprising?

Standout Card: Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Uh, what!?

I like to go off the deep end for at least one or two brews each set, and this deck was the deep end deck. However, we had a winning record? That's crazy!

The core of this deck is the changelings. There are a dozen crappy 1-drop changelings in the deck to help enable your other cards, with the best of the bunch being Mothdust Changeling due to how it interacts with Magda, Brazen Outlaw, one of the two big payoffs for the deck. Every changeling is of course a dwarf, which means that accruing the five treasures necessary to get a dragon or artifact from your deck is comically easy, but more on that in a moment. There's also Valiant Changeling, which is a 2-drop 3/3 double strike as long as you have another changeling out.

Your big artifacts are heavy hitters, with Sundering Titan to decimate your opponent's mana base, Portal to Phyrexia to sweep their board and put an unbeatable engine in play, and the interesting Hoarding Broodlord to give you a big flier and tutor effect. What's sweet is that because of convoke the Hoarding Broodlord is also very castable in the deck.

But where are the The Lord of the Rings cards?

Well, there are nine of them! The Nazgul are surprisingly powerful, providing a similar effect to having a bunch of lords, but it's important to note that they pump up all wraith creatures, which of course includes all of your changelings. Each Nazgul will pump the team up, but will also see each other Nazgul, meaning the first one gives your team +1/+1, the second +2/+2, and so on. Things get out of hand pretty fast, giving this deck a more normal aggressive draw too.

Is this deck going to win Pro Tour Lord of the Rings? Probably not, but it's an absolute blast to play with a decent chance to win too!

The One Ring And More

It's going to be very exciting to see how Tales of Middle-Earth effects Pro Tour Lord of the Rings next month and I can only hope the team can break it!

While I didn't use it in any of the Modern Brews, The One Ring is currently the hot topic card that is causing much concern, and we'll get to find out if it really lives up to the hype. It will also be awesome to see if there's any card currently flying under the radar that makes some serious moves.

It's going to be quite an event because, I mean really, who wouldn't want to be Pro Tour Lord of the Rings Champion?