Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth is a direct-to-Modern set. It isn’t meant to have quite the impact that Modern Horizons or its sequel had, but it still has several cards that will upgrade certain archetypes. Frank Karsten already covered some of them in a previous article earlier in the spoiler season. Now that the full spoiler is revealed, I will cover the cards in the rest of the set that have the potential for modern play.
After we saw “taking the initiative” run amok in Legacy and Pauper, it would be foolish to dismiss “the Ring tempts you” as a purely casual mechanic. It certainly is not as powerful as the initiative, but the Ring tempts you has some applications in Modern. The Ring mechanic encourages you to play small creatures and attack with them. The first creature that jumps to mind is Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Making Ragavan your Ring-bearer will make it much easier to connect with the Monkey Pirate.
The cards that I like the most are Boromir, which Frank already discussed, and the Dimir cards, Sauron’s Ransom and Ringsight. Blue and black are colors that play well with Ragavan and other good creatures to make your Ring-bearer. They also give you some nice card selection, which is something that has been powerful in Modern. Memory Deluge sees play, and that card is a little expensive for the format. If you can build your deck to include black mana, Sauron’s Ransom can be a more efficient upgrade.
Eli started playing in Innistrad, but got into the competitive side of Magic a year later when Return to Ravnica rolled around. His first Standard decks were various red and white aggro decks. He still tries to play White Weenie if it's even slightly playable.
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