We don’t have a lot of specifics about The Hobbit set yet, and that’s fine, since there’s still all of Marvel Super Heroes to get through. What we do know is enough to do some early preparations, and sometimes, forethought is all that’s needed to make some wonderful profits.
Let’s go through the categories, then some specific cards.
Borderless Classic Artist Cards
This set is already off to a great start, with reprints of original LOTR cards coming. We’re told of Tom Bombadil, Sauron, the Dark Lord, and of course, The One Ring. There will be 40 of these cards, and there’s nonfoil plus surge foil in the collector boosters, with traditional foils being in a special one-card Box Topper pack.
It’s important to note that these are not exclusive to the Box Toppers, as has been the case in the past. The Toppers are merely a bonus, something you get with Play Booster and Collector Booster boxes alike. If the special packs were the only way to get shiny cards, then we’d have some difficulties, but two foil versions means we can be reasonable about this.
We should expect most of the popular LOTR cards here: Bowmasters, Delighted Halfling, Mithril Coat, etc. I’ll be interested to see if there’s nine more Nazgul for us to collect, but mainly, I want to buy all of these when supply maxes out. Will it take another three years for us to get The Silmarillion and a third printing of these cards? Perhaps, but I surely bought enough Halflings at under $10 to resell at $25 to make me interested in maxing out known staples.
The One Ring having cribbed art, and admitted to it, is not going to affect the price all that much of this new version. It’ll be the cheapest. I expect older versions to go up in price some, since they are, by far, better looking. Even without Frazier having copy-flip-pasted the Ring itself, the background is dull and everything else is better. I’ll absolutely be buying these for later resell, but I’m under no illusions regarding the tiers of demand here.
Dwarven Language Cards
So far we know about Arcane Signet, and there will be four more. Your guess is as good as mine, Signet would not have been on my list as a card that “captures a moment from The Hobbit, such as this Arcane Signet which depicts the mark carved into the door of Bilbo’s home.”
We will get more of these, but I’m not fixated yet unless there’s a Dwarven Rhystic Study lurking.
Book Cover Cards
This is a lot cooler than the other covers we’ve seen, like the D&D module books and the like. These are legible, and it’s obvious what they are. I personally don’t like cards where they are pre-aged to look like the corners are already jacked up, but that’s just me. We’re only getting ten of these cards, with two of them known already.
Dragon Hoard Frame Cards
The detail of having the red version missing a scale is top-notch, the sort of thing they do very well in a lot of the Universes Beyond products. (Personal favorite: Shadowfax having the meaning of haste!)
We’re getting 25 of these cards, with three of them previewed, and this should be the sort of thing that performs well. Important to note that there’s both nonfoil and regular foil of these in Play Boosters, with the Collector Boosters getting the Surge Foil versions.
Glittering Gold Smaug
They didn’t serialize this card, but they announced that there will be ‘approximately’ 500 copies of this card. On one hand, I am deeply suspicious of this methodology. They were allowed to serialize lots of things three years ago, why not slap a number on here? Further than that, why didn’t we get an approximate number for the super-chase Sothera, the Supervoid, or the Headliner Turtles, or The Mind Stone, and so on?
And on the other hand, I feel like Smeagol looking at the Precious for the first time. I wants it, yes I do, and I’m aware that I’ll have to pay an exorbitant amount to get it. The TMNT Headliners are several grand, but with them publicizing the amount of Glittering Gold Smaug out there, the big collectors will be all over this and copies will not last long in the market. I’m doubtful that any will get sold on TCGPlayer, but we’ll see. My expectation is that this is $4k+ out of the gate and rises from there. I wish I was kidding.
Individual Cards
Smaug is a fantastic card, one that fits well into a wide range of decks but definitely amazing in those that are Treasure-focused. Imagine Smaug into Goldspan? Boom! I appreciate that he’s four power and hasty and low costed. I’m becoming resigned to not owning the Glittering version with each of these words.
Thorin is a perfect inclusion in every Equipment deck, giving a lot of mana for equipping, plus a big smack to a creature. Don’t forget that he can target himself too, so hopefully one of your equipment grants haste.
The Arkenstone and My Precious are solid cards that have good Adventure spells, but since the Adventures have colors, it restricts where these cards can go. A lot of decks would love the combo, though.
Bilbo, Thief in the Night is going to form some interesting combos. Mana reduction for the Commander is good, but from the yard, from exile, from foretell or even from Adventures is remarkably flexible. I don’t know what the endgame is for this card, but it’s got a great first ability and a very useful secondary, so there will indeed be some craziness.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the co-host of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at an event and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.






























