The Most Powerful Commanders of The Lord of the Rings | Power Tier List | EDH | MTG

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

For those of you who might be wondering about certain Commanders that aren't in this video, this video contains every Commander from the main set, all 85 of them. The 36 Commanders from the Precons will be covered in another episode!

[@DavidSmith-mp6om]

I was worried about the absence of Lord of the Nazguls. Hahahaha. I am really hoping to actually do something with that one.

[@OwlbearArmchair]

I feel like you super underestimated especially Green's ability to Tempt You. Dunedain Rangers are fucking insane with Galadriel, and, in fact, go true infinite with Smeagol, Helpful Guide plus something that creates a creature token on a landfall trigger (Scute Swarm and Zendikar's Roil immediately come to mind) and a free sac outlet (Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Ashnod's Altar, etc) to mill your opponent's entire decks and get functionally infinite landfall and The Ring Tempts You triggers.

[@Mama_Yae]

Gimli and Legolas counter of kills should have partner

[@violeth2255]

But then you'd mess up their counts by having them both trigger for the same creature dying They're meant to be competing with each other for more kills.

[@bigtexas517]

@@violeth2255I think people want them as partners more because of the story and not about the abilities

[@jacksongabbard6059]

Im building one of these decks. Any good cheap suggestions ?

[@joshmc5882]

They should start sprinkling "partner" on a couple of legends in each set.

[@jacksongabbard6059]

Me and my friends give them “fellowship” allowing them to partner with other members

[@willstebbins5338]

Mitch, I have to say this. Take comfort in the fact that no matter how bad you butcher any of the Lord of the Rings characters names, you’ll never butcher them as badly as Seth from MTGGoldfish

[@eewweeppkk]

Watching these lotr set coverages + watching the warhammer coverage when it was coming around really just baffles me; how do these magic nerds not have ANY overlap with the other nerdy IPs? I'm not hugely upset, its just that I've seen 4 or more different channels covering them and not a single one of them ever gets it right, I'm simply confused as to how their job is essentially MtG, which is sold in the same place as all the other nerd stuff, and they don't know it at all!

[@DieJG]

@@eewweeppkk Because their job is not saying names.

[@eewweeppkk]

@@DieJG Its strange to me you'd comment that, as that really has nothing to do with my original point, and their jobs are actually much closer to "saying names" than the vast majority of other people on the planet. Literally every video Mitch specifically names every single card included in the video. His job is, in fact, to say names.

[@mitchellwilwand9523]

My favorite was Bill Friendly, Bree Swindler 😂

[@leoleo1035]

@@eewweeppkk His job is to theorycraft and share decks with us, and give his opinions on new cards. Nitpicking on the fact he pronounces some cards' names wrong seems like something childish and stupid.

[@bowmaster626]

You really slept on the Amass cards. Sauron the Dark Lord and Saruman the White Hand can go absolutely nuts creating and sacking armies every turn. Plus it’s not hard to give the army some kind of evasion in those colors

[@argonnas2]

Sauron the darklord is s tier

[@SHAshou30]

Pourquoi ? Tu le voit monter comment le deck autour ?

[@argonnas2]

Reanimating shell with control elements

[@ryansherwood5214]

100% agree. He is definitely in contention for strongest commander from the set.

[@Typher_]

Yeah I just decided to buy his precon cause of this

[@JustforKikX]

​@@Typher_wrong Sauron. The precon one is Lord of the Rings.

[@leoleo1035]

Just one small detail with Bilbo, the Retired Burglar. You can flicker him and he triggers 'the Ring tempts you' 3 times in total (1 more if he leaves again)

[@ZonarohGaming]

I feel like the majority of the cards in C Tier are actually good, the main problem is they aren’t COMMANDER good. Like they would be great supporting other commanders or cards in decks but there are better things in those colors to have as your Commander.

[@BR4IN1N4J4R]

I was about to say this. They're predominantly "Best in the 99" over being Commander

[@bigdeuce66]

Anyone else skip straight to the part in the video where he talks about the commander you like then get disappointed it ranked low lol

[@RvBnerd618]

I don't know where Haldir is, maybe he's unrankable

[@manwithnoname9580]

This man really just put Sauron in A Tier and not S. You can spawn token, sacrifice it for effects, then still resolve the amass to get a new token in the chain while your opponent casts a spell. effectively infinite sacrifice fodder

[@kephradavis6741]

Aragon company leader is at least a C if not a B with the second half of the ability. Rosie counts all tokens, including creature, treasure, clue, etc

[@ZonarohGaming]

Yea no Rosie is an absolute A-tier minimum, like how many ways can you use White to either make a ton of tokens or double the number of tokens you make? Like just build a massive army of Token creatures and put counters on everything you want to keep and just swing.

[@violeth2255]

Mauhûr and Uglûk may not be the best commanders, but they play very nicely with Sauron, the Dark Lord. Sauron's Amass trigger effectively doubles in potency with Mauhûr, while an instant speed sacrifice outlet lets Uglûk grow super quickly.

[@bebo3418]

I hope a Hobbit set comes out that would be sick add more dwarves, orcs, hobbits, trolls and stuff.

[@brandonberger89]

From the Hobbit? Hell yea, I want some good Smaug cards for dragon tribal. Or even do a set with prequel character from that new Amazon show.

[@bebo3418]

@@brandonberger89 that would be sick they have so many possibilities tbh

[@Adder6112]

Legendary 20 20 Smaug would be lit but you have to sacrifice 10 treasures to cast him

[@Adder6112]

​@@brandonberger89for now you can use there and back again to get a decent Smaug who makes 14 treasures when he dies

[@zacharyjoy8724]

I think Amass and Armies have potential, but there needs to be a support card(s) that says an Army can’t be blocked by just one creature if it has more than one counter. Basically, the number of counters on it determines how many blockers are needed to fend it off. Am I making sense?

[@KBgamer2010]

The Balrog, Durin's Bane You can in fact get him out turn 1 without the use of a sol ring You just need 3 cards in your opening hand to do so Any Black Fetch Land Dark Ritual Jeweled Lotus Sac Fetch Land for a Blood Crypt or a Swamp > Balrog's Cost is reduced by 1 Use the Swamp to cast Dark Ritual > Balrog's Cost is reduced by 1 with 3 black mana available Cast Jeweled Lotus and Sacrifice it > Balrog's Cost is reduced by 2 with 3 black and 3 red mana available

[@theGODofHellhounds]

And you still have mana to make people uncomfortable 😂 I personally think that Balrog, Durin's Bane should be S tier because of how easy it is to cast him, easy to reduce his cost, how he protects himself and even when dying, he takes something with him. It's just beautiful.

[@KBgamer2010]

@@theGODofHellhounds So a funny story, I had recently built a commander deck around This Balrog, and let me tell you (Granted there was a group hugs player in this game) Cavern-Hoard Dragon in play and I just drew into a Mycosynth Lattice, right after the hugs player dropped a Tempt with Vengeance X = 9 (Everyone took the offer) So I played the Lattice, attacked the hugs player with the Dragon (Got 55 treasure) and if anyone decided to kill my commander, I could just blow up ANYTHING on the board due to Lattice being in play I used the 55 treasure to drop a Torment of Hailfire for 53 mana (It was turn 4)

[@bradleypolhill7717]

I feel Rosie should have ranked higher. Its not quite food tribal but heavily token synergy. Granted Rosie would be more potent in a deck like Adeline or other token generator commanders. Most white deck run smothering tithe so that at least 3 counters per turn cycle. She is not very strong on her own but i think she should at least make it into C.

[@florianmaniak4184]

Came here to say that !

[@serenity3277]

I think people are sleeping on Theoden. You’ll be surprised just how easy it is to fill your board with creatures, pump them all and give all your creatures double strike every turn, all while slipping under the radar. Being in red makes this deck super bursty - and there are legions of cards to create and pump a massive humans battlefield and give everything haste. Just have to bide your time.

[@STS-qi1qy]

I'm surprised the fight Gimli made it to B tier. The fact it takes killing three of your creatures and is only once per turn seems very limiting to me. Sure the counters are nice but I don't think they're really strong enough on their own to build around.

[@pancakewhale]

Let´s go Mitch! Love the video :] I think you are spot on with the top 5, I hope Tom Bombadil will be good, because damn, Saga's are cool!

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

Thanks!

[@Controlqueen31]

The problem I see with Saruman, the Esper one, is that he needs you to build around him in a very strange way. For example, he loves cards that cost 3/4/5/6 maná but you can cast them without paying their mana cost, which a lot of them are quite expensive (Fow, Fon, Deadly Rollick, etc...) and that is to make him work every single turn. You can build him budget but is going to be hard, at least IMO

[@goldmamba49]

i built a deck around this Saruman, budgeted under $100 (excluding Saruman), its also the first Commander deck ive built from scratch so its probably not very well constructed. I focused on card draw, mills and interrupts. If your able to cast something like Cut Your Loses or a Kicked Maddening Cacophony and have half your opponent's library to work with, it was a lot of fun. Ive been blown out of games early, or just screwed my opponent out of their strat cause i milled it so early. Either way its a lot of fun

[@rokmonster2106]

@@goldmamba49 can you share the decklist? I would like to see it D

[@heatherrockwell9012]

As a Tolkien nerd, your inability to pronounce things is a source of both amusement and exasperation.

[@thomasnorman5453]

Heck yeah man! Awesome video!

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

Thank you!

[@doms.6701]

Frodo Baggins in a banding ramp is something I'm working on. It must block Frodo but him being in a band means i get to pick where damage goes. 😂

[@norrock1]

I think E tier should be created for Butterbur lol

[@murphyphillipsmusic]

Even though some of the legendaries might not be the most powerful, they absolutely nailed the flavor and storytelling of LOTR

[@jaymore97]

I would put sauron the dark lord in s, i made a deck using the orc legendaries and the evil legendary cards and trust me it just works

[@kerithwooldridge]

A lot of the not so highly ranked cards are still really good, just not so much AS the commander.

[@ZonarohGaming]

Couldn’t agree more I feel like most of the legendary creatures are just normal creatures made legendary because they’re characters from a book series, so although they work great to support other commanders or decks they aren’t good commanders in and of themselves

[@chrysmurphy3974]

Shagrat is actually better than he may seem at first as he can target opponents' equipment

[@danielnovella1472]

I didn't see Lord of the Nazgul up there?

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

That's a commander from the precons actually, it will be in the other video! Great commander though!

[@RenanCRFla]

Neither Gwaihir, greatest of the eagles

[@Karl_Dr0go]

I use Saruman the White Hand in my amass deck. So much fun

[@ClashMini-tu4ge]

Did you really put prince imrail in b and boromir in c?!?!?!?!?!

[@etiennepasini5548]

butterbur is more useful with token replacement effects that makes his food tokens transform into something else

[@ASoberBear]

C tier creatures I always think of “not my commander but good support towards a commander”

[@alexabney7913]

I think having Gandalf the white supporting Saruman the white hand would be fun to play

[@VincentJBruno]

doesn't Shagrat, loot bearer allow you to take equipment from your opponent when it attacks.

[@violeth2255]

Yes, but they still control the equipment. So they can just re-equip it to their creature on their turn.

[@Embxr]

Is this music just royalty free stuff? The music that starts close to the end of the hour is what they use for Hey Bear Baby Sensory videos lol. That music haunts me in my sleep (or lack thereof).

[@robyn9781]

Boromir, Watcher of the Tower isnt great but he scares me as someone who’s main two decks are Abbadon the Despoiler and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

[@Knightfall8]

Id put blue Gandalf at least B tier. Being able to cast sorceries at instant speed is absolutely bonkers, and lets you reset the board at instant speed with a ton of cards

[@OwlbearArmchair]

It also lets you respond to your opponents searching their decks or drawing cards by casting, oh, I dunno, Cut Your Losses

[@OwlbearArmchair]

Guess that depends on how mean you wanna be, though.

[@DragonMan5643]

See for me, I like to run Legolas, CoK as a fighting deck with deathtouch creatures everywhere.

[@safertobeanonymous2224]

That sphinx really doesn’t work well with most of the scry cards in this set as it’s a replacement effect. So “instead of s crying draw x cards) so very few of the scry effects would just not trigger.

[@olist-vier1715]

Awesome content bro!!!!!

[@camthehorrorfan]

As horrible as The Balrog. Flame of Udun is for commander, I do like how well his ability matches the lore (Him and Gandalf falling into the chasm)

[@norrock1]

Mono green Peregrin would go nicely in the Meria, Scholar of Antiquity deck I've been working on. It'll run Arcbound Ravager and Arcbound Crusher. So the the tokens etb will boost crusher then I can sack them to ravager to boost him lol

[@Adder6112]

Although Gimli mournful avenger is not the best, hes so fun to play, i made an elf/dwarf tribal and dang he can grow to insane sizes fast

[@88shwanerz]

I'm sad that the riders of rohan deck didnt receive a horsemanship commander.

[@mortenskands201]

i guarantee you that pippin, guard of the citadel is going to see lots of play in standard, its easilly a tier

[@Shadowlink4546]

Unfortunately, the set is not standard legal

[@poyo0000]

Unfortunately, the ranking is commander potential + the set is not standard legal

[@doctorprepper8106]

Can I have multiple legendaries of the same character but different cards in play at the same time? Like both the multicolored elwyn and the white one?

[@TheHumbledEgo]

Making an all lotr commander deck. I’m thinking spirits. What you guys think?

[@rags9771]

I'm sorry you're wrong about Rosie. She has a lot of infinites with green and paired with mirkwood bats, it's like You're staring down the barrel of a gun. I'm sorry B tier Rosie

[@violeth2255]

How are you running green or Mirkwood bats with Rosie as the commander? Because that's what the video is evaluating: the legendary creatures' power levels as commanders.

[@viniciussantos2857]

I think Gimli should be better, and his colours boros.

[@alexhoffmann4214]

Him saying leglas like he did killed me

[@samuelbezerra6764]

I'm trying to put together a Gimli Commander deck, but I'm not having any good ideas. He's my favorite character, and I really want to have a deck featuring him.

[@philipcoburn7599]

He goes great in a Magda deck, but sounds like you want him as your commander...

[@samuelbezerra6764]

@@philipcoburn7599 yeah, i want him as my commander, he is my favorite caracter from lotr

[@bigtexas517]

Elanor in D tier? Green commander with built in ramp? Feel like that should’ve been higher

[@ataoner404]

Right from the gate I got a question, Frodo Saurons Bane is a white legendary creature with an ability requires black mana, so in the case of being Frodo being the commander, how do you use that second ability, or since it's on the card can you use black cards as well 😅

[@ataoner404]

Orrrr do I include cards like shimmering Groto or fellwar stone to generate that off mana

[@JustforKikX]

Cards have 2 types of colour: colour identity and color. Colour IDENTITY is any colour that exists in a card's rules text, while colour is simply the colour of the card. Take Najeela for example, she's a red card, but her colour identity is all 5 colours. Commanders take ALL colours on the card into account. Frodo, Sauron's Bane isn' a white commander, he's Orzhov.

[@fernandoandrade-advogado13]

Am I crazy or did you not talk about the Gríma, Saruman's Footman

[@clearcannon4084]

I hope you will make a deck for sauron and gandalf plz!

[@Tylerbrave]

im gonna be putting in mistform creatures in my sauron, the dark lord deck as "army" is a creature type so my meme dream is coming true

[@Norgel91]

King of the Oathbreakers S tier when all the good spirits cards are blue?

[@jeffreybono4610]

Do an episode on Saruman of Many Colors please.

[@WeepingAndGnashingOfTeeth]

For gollum patient plotter, can you sacrifice him to his own ability to immediately return him to your hand?

[@Bradford621]

No. He must be in the graveyard for this ability to be activated.

[@bearhead9556]

After a year later I think samwise gamgee solid a+

[@andrewbowser9326]

I'd say Rosie is B since so many people mention her and Scurry Oak

[@thetom341]

Rosie is mono-white, you can't play Scurry Oak if she's the commander. This combo is relevant in modern, but in Commander only if they're both in the 99.

[@SaltySituations]

Looks like you missed Arwen Weaver of Hope

[@thevikingostrich3739]

Rosie is at least b tier. Rosie + secure the wastes, call the copper coats, mondrak, etc

[@Oogway3500]

I definitely thing Durin's Bane and Sauron, Dark Lord are both S teir. Besides that, good list.

[@SxlRxng]

really nice video❤

[@julialindgren190]

Nice vid

[@TheCommandersQuarters]

Thank you!

[@teenytinymaracas33]

Wouldn't Peregrine Took go infinite with Chatterfang?

[@dom6637]

Sadly not. Both of them are replacement effects and can only trigger once in an event of one or more tokens being generated, basically to prevent them from being infinite with almost any card. Make 3 tokens, you make that many plus one squirrel. Peregrin sees this event of these 4 tokens entering which from the game's perspective was just one event, not two separate ones and makes those 4 plus a food. Or whichever way round you wanna resolve it (end result is the same unless you had something else) but Chatterfang won't then trigger off of the food because Chatterfang has already triggered on this event of token generation and Peregrin won't trigger off of the extra squirrel token because that squirrel token is part of the same event. Same reason why Peregrin/Chatterfang doesn't go infinite with Academy Manufacturer bs or why Academy Manufacturer doesn't go infinite with a copy of itself. Extra value but not infinite.

[@damdaley8092]

Commander’s Quarters: The Movie

[@dasraupi2679]

Smeagol could be a very good mill commander. You got green so let everyone ramp and mill them. High risk high reward tho

[@stormer5519]

With the right build I believe he can be at least a B tier. I'm a little biased because I already built the deck. All I want is to sacrifice, get lands, then cast big creatures based on those lands. He's a sleeper for sure

[@dasraupi2679]

@@stormer5519 with the right deck he's A tier imo. He's B at least. He goes easily infinite with dunedain rangers, milling your enemies to death. Liquidmetal coating and splinter to remove all basic lands for faster milling. Before the enemies get the deck theme you could also bait them with cards like collective voyage. But this is more risky and might only work once. The major downside might be that ppl target you as you can go infinite quiet easily and fast And getting tempted frequently isn't that hard. So he's a ramping beast

[@stormer5519]

@@dasraupi2679 I can see how that would work. All you would need is Illicit Shipment to sac any ring bearer you might have to search for splinter and liquid metal. Then you just cast this and go to end step. The only thing stopping it at that point is a destroy target creature. it would only kill one player tho wouldn't it?

[@dasraupi2679]

@@stormer5519 Liquid metal and splinter can remove any kind of basic land from the enemies library. If you play against mono red for example you cast liquidmetal on his mountain and exile all mountains in his library with splinter The other combo is a bit weaker than I thought. You need a token generator like Scute swarm, something to sacrifice, Gollum and Dunedain Rangers. Then it goes like this: Play a land > get a token > make it the ring bearer with dunedain > Gollum trigger > respond and sacrifice the ring bearer. Gollum will give you a land and trigger everything again. You can cycle through the enemies until 1 dies which will end the combo. In your end step Gollum will trigger again, you can sacrifice the ring bearer in response and the combo goes off again. So you can take out at least 2 people. You also got the value from sacrificing. E.g 60 mana from ashnods or whatever you used to sacrifice and you could play cultivate or Tatyova for another land drop to trigger the combo 3 times in a round, milling 3 people. It's a 4 card combo instead of a 2 card combo so it's not as strong as I thought but still not bad

[@stormer5519]

@@dasraupi2679 yea but you’d only be able to exile one type of land from one opponent. It would be unfortunate if there was a mono color deck but it would make the mill more deadly for sure. But you’d still have basically a 4 card combo because you’d have to find a way to make the ring tempt you anyway

[@ezrealtheexplorer7719]

I nees a deck for the mono white frodo!

[@ajcreeper442]

I disappointed you didn’t put bill the pony in Ss tier

[@FelipeLundgreen]

Why don't include the precon legendaries?

[@NoahTakai]

He said in this video. Already had 85 Commander to go over which is more than a normal set already. Before the 36 from the boxes

[@0Vuuk0]

you just dont understand how much synergy amas orcs has.

[@camowarrior4230]

11:05 is it Manhûr (manure) or Manhûr (man whore)? Tolkien did not anticipate our dirty minds while writing his books

[@violeth2255]

The û is pronounced like the double "o" in "cool." So close, but not quite on the latter pronunciation. It'd be Man Hoor.

[@mathgeek3_14]

What happen to the mono black shelob?

[@violeth2255]

That's from the precons.

[@sythrin144]

Where is the partner commander of Frodo and Sam?

[@NipZippler]

Or merry and pippen. The fact that neither pair are partners is criminal

[@violeth2255]

The partner Sam and Frodo are from the precons. This video is for the main set.

[@prasica66]

He forgot saruman the white hand

[@violeth2255]

That's from the precons.

[@Kamtat]

After watching Prince Imrahil the Fair go to B tier I'm over this tier list. The two color Merry and Pippin cards are both similar power levels to the Prince and Frodo. This video is C Tier.

[@matthewdame6876]

How did Sauron the dark lord not make it to S tier wtf................

[@hewhoisnamed9050]

Really messed up with Rosie

[@ice_siberia1546]

Where is sauron lord of the rings? The amas orcs five one?

[@violeth2255]

That's from the precons. He said at the start that this video is for the main set.

[@hilldweller9898]

We need another breakdown of each tier separately. And any that should move tiers.

[@j_rad_]

Let’s go first to punch 🎉

[@bigspagheti4119]

No Lord of the Nazgul?

[@violeth2255]

That's from the precons.

[@octagram2955]

Rosie is all tokens

[@chrismehegan1020]

Hey. 1st time checking out one of ur videos. Was looking for fun lotr Commander's. Had a really hard time understanding you. Maybe talking too fast? Or maybe me. Either way thanks for video.

[@donbueker]

Lothlorien= Loth-Lore-ian

[@fixo5132]

Samwise Gamgee is not a B ? easy S...

[@brandonpulley5457]

Where is the lord of the nazgul?

[@violeth2255]

He says at the beginning that he isn't including legendary creatures from the precons in this video.

[@neverloveagain-c5l]

Loth-lore-ian

[@ASoberBear]

AaronGorn is black…

[@violeth2255]

...so? He was Native American in the original animated film adaptation. Dude is a descendant of the Numenoreans. He has an excuse to be a visibly different race from the rest of the Middle Earth humans.

[@grimmlygr]

Argh, it's so hard to understand you sometimes. Feels too rushed, you might wanna become a rapper.

[@gameswithbob9762]

Bro talk slower

[@dnaseb9214]

Liked it by accident, was thinking it was a BFME 2 tier list. F this trash set

[@carsonbee6881]

bro slow down lol

[@thiagobakargy2854]

For me , 99% of all those cards are D .

[@Uncontested388]

Jus another weak and boring set.