It's time to go on an adventure and rank the cards from Magic's newest set, The Hobbit (HOB), for low-power cube. If you're a cube designer who is interested in high fantasy and exciting gameplay, the lower power level cards from the set have some incredible value to offer. The Recruit mechanic looks like an instant classic, Landfall is getting some fascinating new support, and Ferocious is looking better than ever.

Every Cube is different and every designer prioritizes unique objectives when they design a Cube. These are the 15 cards that you should take a closer look at if you want to add some cards from The Hobbit to your unpowered cube.

15 Hobbit Cards Worth Using in Your Unpowered Cube

1. Reverent Howl
2. Giant' Boulder
3. Silvan Reveler
4. Gandalf, Spark Starter
5. Patient Instructor
6. Warg Tactics
7. Troop of Ponies
8. Iron Hills Blacksmith
9. Mirkwood Nurturer
10. The Mountain-king's Return
11. Nasty Little Rabbit
12. Plunder the Trollshaws
13. Lake-town Lookout
14. Wargling
15. Bothersome Noisemaker

15. Reverent Howl

Power creep comes in all shapes and sizes, and the design behind Reverant Howl is no exception. A simple upgrade to the formula found on Blood Pact , this card provides flexibility to the decks who need it most. Lifelink is a divisive mechanic in lower powered environments due to its tendency to draw out games, but one time life gain in the form of a combat trick is usually the exception to that rule. Meaning this card can help you stay alive in the late game or churn through your life in the early game to draw more cards.

14. Giant's Boulder

Third time is the charm with Giant's Boulder . Wizards of the Coast has tried to crack the formula on a one mana Artifact that lets you pay to destroy a permanent three times, and they have finally added enough lines of text to make it playable. Filtering mana is situationally useful, but the real star of the show is the ability to Scry, meaning that the opportunity cost of adding this card to your deck is very reasonable. If you're playing it alongside cards that care about controlling Artifacts or sacrificing them, it starts to get some real value.

13. Silvan Reveler

Landfall is the quintessential archetype for Simic decks looking to draw every card, play every Land, and win in spectacular fashion. A lower power levels there are very few good options that function as archetype signposts, to let your drafters know this is a direction they should take their deck.

Silvan Reveler provides a fascinating new way to play through the familiar archetype, in a way that is appropriate for your lower powered cubes. In the right deck it will always discard a Land making its first ability pure up side, and its ability to come back from the graveyard offers great flood protection for the times you draw all Lands and no gas.

12. Gandalf, Spark Starter

A card's price is not always a good indicator of its power. In budget cubes that tend towards lower power levels, Inferno Titan is a bit of a trap with its 25 cent price tag. However, as anyone who has played it in a cube can tell you, it still hits just as hard as it did in 2011. Gandalf, Spark Starter makes the list today because it provides the same top end impact to your Red decks looking to go big, but with an effect that is more appropriately scaled for low power environments.

11. Patient Instructor

Recruit is the new mechanic from The Hobbit, and one of the best mechanics printed in recent memory. What makes it particularly exciting for cube designers is that it plays great at all power levels without being absolutely backbreaking. Patient Instructor is the perfect example of its utility in less powerful environments. 2/2 vigilance for three mana is a decent rate, but the guaranteed loot and potential 1/1 token make it incredibly valuable. Azorius is the perfect color pair to let you blink this card for extra value or discard a spell with flashback.

10. Warg Tactics

Fliers are particularly potent in lower power level environments where games are decided through Creature combat. Green decks suffer from this more than most with big Creatures that don't block fliers and very limited options for removal. Warg Tactics solves both of these problems by providing a flexible spell that kills fliers and protects your most valuable Creatures. Halfway between Snakeskin Veil and Plummet , this card is a main-deckable option for any draft deck in Green.

9. Troop of Ponies

Troop of Ponies is more than just a Cultivate with legs. It's a Cultivate with adorable, floofy legs. Jokes aside, Troop of Ponies offers a lot of value to a lot of different decks. Color fixing and ramp is usually restricted to Green cards and mana rocks.

This colorless Creature can go in any deck, sacrifices itself for cards, and is even small enough to be reanimated with cards like Helping Hand . This flexibility and generic usefulness make it an easy inclusion in any cube that wants to provide more ramp and fixing to its players.

8. Iron Hills Blacksmith

At lower power levels the balancing act of locating all the parts of a synergistic deck can be challenging. Iron Hills Blacksmith solves that problem. It provides Equipment decks with the Equipment you need, and the Creature you want to equip. A 1/1 with Double Strike is the perfect threat for lower powered environments. While the Axe token is not the most exciting Equipment, developing your board and getting an Artifact can be incredibly important alongside cards like Toolcraft Examplar , Dispatch , and Ensoul Artifact .

7. Mirkwood Nurturer

Mirkwood Nurturer will be a three mana 4/3 in the vast majority of circumstances. It promises to play like Nurturing Pixie , with more versatility due to its ability to return any permanent to your hand. Whether you are picking up a Land and guaranteeing your next landfall trigger, bouncing Reclamation Sage to destroy a problematic permanent, or simply resetting your Cryogen Relic this card has serious potential.

6. The Mountain-king's Return

The Recruit mechanic makes its appearance on this list with a Saga that synergizes with itself, and the effects printed on The Mountain-king's Return are incredibly fun. Without much effort you will be able to loot away a small Creature, reanimate it and make it larger.

It plays incredibly well in the early game when you want to develop and the late game where there are likely Creatures in your graveyard. In White weenie and hatebear style decks this card will be the glue holding things together, giving you extra reach and redundancy in a deck that usually lacks both.

5. Nasty Little Rabbit

Nasty Little Rabbit is more likely to go down in history as "Terrifying Big Monster." Triggering Ferocious in Green is a trivial matter which means this rabbit will feel less like Experiment One and more like a Tarmogoyf with fur that scales dangerously well into the late game. Notably this card triggers off of any Creature with power four or greater, which includes itself. Once it has eaten enough carrots and gotten its third counter it will continue to grow on its own.

4. Plunder the Trollshaws

Say goodbye to Think Twice and hello to Think Thrice. Plunder the Trollshaws is a slightly more powerful version of the spell slinging classic. While four mana is significantly more than two mana for flashback, the extra card draw cannot be overstated. Outside of a dedicated spell slinging deck, most cantrips that are purely card neutral range from okay to unplayable. Going up on cards and being able to do so at Instant speed makes Plunder the Trollshaws a real consideration for practically any cube.

3. Lake-town Lookout

Lake-town Lookout is the much more interesting cousin of the ever-popular Doomed Traveler . While it doesn't give you a guaranteed body, it does give you options and card advantage, which is highly valuable in Creature decks. In more combo focused decks like Aristocrats, this mighty 1/1 helps smooth your draws and find your combo pieces more reliably. In almost all circumstances the guaranteed body is less important than card draw.

2. Wargling

Wargling takes the second spot on this list, because it is fair, decently costed, and is going to kill a lot of people who don't take the time to read it. At first glance, this Grizzly Bears clone is an unexciting wolf that gets a little bigger and gains Trample when you have Ferocious.

However, Wargling actually gives Trample to all of your Creatures. This is particularly potent in lower powered cubes where big Green Creatures are a dime a dozen, but many of them like Somberwald Stag don't innately have Trample to keep them balanced. This becomes even more terrifying when you give Trample to a large Creature that already has Deathtouch.

1. Bothersome Noisemaker

Wizards of the Coast responded to the question Magic players have been asking for years, "What if Young Pyromancer was a funny little guy?" Bothersome Noisemaker is an interesting take on the classic style of card that lets you go tall instead of wide.

This tiny adjustment makes blocking a nightmare because the Goblin Army can grow in the middle of combat with every Instant you cast. It is a card worth including in cubes of any power level, but it takes the top of today's list because it truly shines in lower powered environments where the goblin bard is a must kill threat.

Conclusion

For being the follow up to 2023's very popular The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, early appraisals seem to indicate that The Hobbit will certainly live up to the hype. Where the first set suffered from many obnoxiously pushed cards like The One Ring and some unfortunately parasitic mechanics like the "Ring Tempts You", The Hobbit seems to strike a middle ground. The set keeps all of the flavor of the franchise while also doing away with many of the mechanical balancing issues.