The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

Tales of Middle-earth was first announced February 21, 2023, and was developed by Wizards of the Coast in close cooperation with Middle-earth Enterprises. It featured 451 new cards referencing a vast amount of content from Tolkien's legendarium, with brand new art commissioned for each card. The art style for Tales of Middle-earth was developed specifically for the set and did not generally refer to other adaptations of the stories.

In addition to the usual promotional card styles and printings, the set featured a series of very rare special versions of the "Sol Ring" card, a popular and commonly used card in the multi-player Commander format. For the set, Sol Ring was reprinted with new art, representing the Rings of Power, complete with stylizing all of the text in the Tengwar font. Three different limited-edition versions of this special Sol Ring were printed in this way, with the numbers printed to represent the respective number of Rings distributed to the various races: :

• 3,000 normal and 300 serialized foils with art featuring an Elven ring (representing the Three Rings)
• 7,000 normal and 700 serialized foils with art featuring a Dwarven ring (representing the Seven Rings)
• 9,000 normal and 900 serialized foils with art featuring a ring of Men (representing the Nine Rings)

The Hunt for the One Ring

Notably, a new card representing The One Ring was introduced in the set, however Wizards of the Coast printed a special, serialized gold foil version of it, with only one to ever be printed. It was included in one English language Collector Booster pack, which kicked off a significant amount of excitement as fans began, much like Sauron, to hunt for the One Ring, causing after-market prices of Collector Boosters to increase dramatically. The "One of One" One Ring was found on June 30, 2023 by a customer at MAXimum Cards & Collectibles in Whitby, Ontario . The finder of the ring was later identified as Brook Trafton, who would proceed to sell it to Post Malone, a celebrity musician and Magic enthusiast for $2,000,000.

Tales of Middle-earth introduced one brand new mechanic to Magic: "The Ring Tempts You", which was intended to model the power the One Ring could bestow on its bearer. When Tempted, players were forced to choose a Ring-bearer and as they were tempted more and more, their power would increase. However, unlike the One Ring in other adaptations, there is no downside to choosing a ring-bearer. This resulted in some consternation from some players as they felt there was a disconnect in the flavor that the set had otherwise done well at recreating mechanically. Magic Lead Designer Mark Rosewater responded to these concerns, commenting that during testing they found that players would not engage with the mechanic if there were any downside whatsoever, regardless of the flavor implications.

Returning mechanics featured in the expansion include:

• Amass, modified it to specify the creature type to "Orc" allowing players to slowly build their own orcish army
• Food tokens being utilized in many cards, especially those representing Hobbits
• Basic landcycling, representing long adventures over terrain
• Historic, referencing the ancient history behind many characters and locations

The Senior Art director for the expansion was Ovidio Cartagena. They specifically wanted the art direction for the set to be fresh and new, intentionally avoiding pulling inspiration from any previous films, illustrations or adaptations, and instead to simply focus on what's described in the texts.

Card Frames

As with other Magic expansions, Tales of Middle-earth featured new set-specific card frames, available in different products:

Scene Cards

There are special versions of many cards from the set that have art drawn from a much larger scene in which those characters/objects appear, portraying a specific moment from Lord of the Rings. For example this scene depicting the destruction of the One Ring:

The other ten scenes featured are:

• Battle of the Pelennor Fields
• Bilbo's Birthday Party
• The Flight from Khazad-dûm
• The Ent's Taking Isengard
• Scouring of The Shire
• Departure to the Grey Havens
• Battle of Helm's Deep
• The Might of Galadriel
• Gandalf in the Pelennor Fields
• Flight of the Witch-king

Illustrators

Full list of every illustrator whose art appeared in either the main expansion or the Commander product (all versions of cards):

Every major character and event has at least one card portraying it in the set, with the more critcial elements receiving upwards of five or more cards, showing that character or event at different stages of the story. For a complete index of which cards represent which characters, objects and events, see the accompanying article.

Preconstructed decks:

• Starter Kit
• Commander decks

Booster packs:

• Jumpstart boosters
• Prerelease Pack
• Draft Booster Box
• Set Booster Box
• Collector Booster Box

Other products:

• Bundle
• Gift Bundle

• Prerelease: June 16, 2023
• MTG Arena Release: June 20, 2023
• Tabletop Release: June 23, 2023
• Holiday Release: November 3, 2023

1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 30/05/2026.