MagicField guides

Mechanics

The set’s mechanics with worked examples, then every word on the cards.

Official mechanics ↗·Release notes ↗

The Ring tempts you

Advance your Ring emblem by one level, then choose a creature you control as Ring-bearer. Your progress lasts all game, even if that creature dies.

How it works

  1. First temptation: your bearer is legendary and cannot be blocked by creatures with greater power.
  2. Second: when your bearer attacks, draw a card, then discard a card. This happens before blockers.
  3. Third: when a creature blocks your bearer, that creature’s controller sacrifices it at end of combat.
  4. Fourth: when your bearer deals combat damage to a player, each opponent loses three life.
  5. Keep all earlier abilities. Future temptations still let you choose a bearer and trigger rewards, even at level four.

On the card

Birthday Escape
Birthday Escape
Common · Sorcery · At the table

Birthday Escape can give your bearer the second ability. Attack to draw and discard before blocks; Prince Imrahil makes a Soldier if that is your second draw this turn.

Prince Imrahil the Fair

Watch out

  • Choosing a bearer does not target. You must choose one if you control a creature.
  • With no creature you still advance the Ring. You choose a bearer only when tempted, not automatically when a creature later enters.
  • A high-power bearer is easier to block with smaller creatures. It does not become unblockable.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Amass Orcs

24 in Cards →

Add the stated number of +1/+1 counters to one Army. If you have no Army, first make a 0/0 black Orc Army token.

How it works

  1. Check whether you already control an Army.
  2. If not, create the token. Put the counters on the Army you choose.
  3. The chosen Army becomes an Orc as well as its other types.

On the card

Dunland Crebain
Dunland Crebain
Common · Creature — Bird Horror · At the table

Dunland Crebain makes a 2/2 Army when you have none. A second Crebain normally grows it to 4/4 instead of making another Army.

Watch out

  • Amass does not normally make a separate token each time.
  • If you somehow have multiple Armies, choose one to receive the counters.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Food

23 in Cards →

A Food token is an artifact you can use for life: pay two mana, tap it and sacrifice it to gain three life. Other cards offer different ways to spend Food.

How it works

  1. Create the token; this does not immediately gain life.
  2. Choose the ability you want to pay for.
  3. Pay that ability’s costs; the same Food cannot pay two different costs.

On the card

Peregrin Took
Peregrin Took
Uncommon · Legendary Creature — Halfling Citizen · At the table

Peregrin Took can sacrifice three Foods to draw a card without paying the Food tokens’ own two-mana costs. You do not also gain nine life.

Bill the Pony

Watch out

  • Food is not Treasure and cannot make mana by itself.
  • Lembas is a Food card. A Food token and a nontoken Food are not interchangeable for a cost that specifically requires a token.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Landcycling

Discard this card and pay its landcycling cost to search for a land with the stated basic land type, reveal it and put it into your hand. Then shuffle.

How it works

  1. Pay the cycling cost, including discarding the card.
  2. Find the correct land type in your library.
  3. Put it in your hand, not onto the battlefield.

On the card

Troll of Khazad-dûm
Troll of Khazad-dûm
Common · Creature — Troll · At the table

Troll of Khazad-dûm can find a Swamp for one mana early. Later, Rise of the Witch-king can return the discarded Troll to the battlefield.

Rise of the Witch-king

Watch out

  • Cycling is an ability, not casting the card.
  • Finding a land does not give you an extra land play.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Scry

30 in Cards →

Look at that many cards from the top of your library. Put any on the bottom and the rest back on top in the order you choose.

How it works

  1. Look at the stated number.
  2. Decide which cards you want to draw soon.
  3. Move unwanted cards to the bottom; keep the others on top.

On the card

Grey Havens Navigator
Grey Havens Navigator
Common · Creature — Elf Pilot · At the table

Grey Havens Navigator scries two. Arwen triggers once and adds one counter, because this was one scry event.

Arwen Undómiel

Watch out

  • Scry does not draw or put a card into your hand.
  • Scry two is not two separate scries.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Legendary creatures and the legend rule

Legendary is a card supertype. If you control two legendary permanents with the same name, choose one to keep and put the other into your graveyard.

How it works

  1. Check exact names, not the character’s first name.
  2. Only permanents you control are compared.
  3. Your Ring-bearer is also legendary while it remains the bearer.

On the card

Errand-Rider of Gondor
Errand-Rider of Gondor
Common · Creature — Human Soldier · At the table

Errand-Rider of Gondor can let you keep its drawn card when you control a Ring-bearer, even if that creature was not originally legendary.

Watch out

  • Two different Frodo cards can coexist if their full names differ.
  • The legend rule is not destruction and cannot be stopped by indestructible.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Drawing your second card

These rewards count the second individual card you draw in a turn. Your ordinary draw at the start of your own turn counts.

How it works

  1. Count actual draws; putting a card into your hand by searching is not drawing.
  2. Trigger the reward when the second draw occurs.
  3. Reset the count for the next turn.

On the card

Lembas
Lembas
Common · Artifact — Food · At the table

On your turn, play Lembas after your normal draw. Its card draw triggers Prince Imrahil once.

Prince Imrahil the Fair

Watch out

  • Drawing a third card does not trigger a second-card reward again.
  • On an opponent’s turn you usually need two extra draws, because you have no normal draw step there.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Sacrificing creatures and tokens

59 in Cards →

To sacrifice, move a permanent you control to its owner’s graveyard. It can pay a cost or happen because an effect tells you to.

How it works

  1. Read exactly what can be sacrificed.
  2. If it is a cost, pay it before anyone can respond.
  3. A sacrificed creature dies, even if it is a token; the token then ceases to exist.

On the card

Improvised Club
Improvised Club
Common · Instant · At the table

Improvised Club can sacrifice a Food or a creature. Old Man Willow can sacrifice another creature or any token, but not a nontoken Lembas.

Old Man Willow

Watch out

  • You cannot sacrifice the same permanent for two costs.
  • Indestructible does not prevent sacrifice.
Rules detail & sourcesMatt Tabak · LOTR mechanics · Eric Levine · LOTR release notes

Distinctions that prevent mistakes

4

Wordings that look familiar and are not. Read them before your first game.

Treasure

Tap and sacrifice a Treasure token to make one mana of any color. It is a one-time resource.

Create the Treasure.

When you need mana, tap and sacrifice it.

Choose one color; spend it on a legal spell or ability.

At the table. Swarming of Moria makes a Treasure that can help cast an off-color spell once. You still need more fixing for repeated splash cards.

A single Treasure does not make an entire extra color reliable.

Swarming of Moria

Landfall

Landfall is an ability word highlighting a trigger when a land enters under your control. The card tells you the actual reward.

A land enters under your control.

Put the landfall trigger on the stack and choose any targets.

Resolve the printed effect.

At the table. Play a land before combat with Strider out. The target gets +1/+1, then gains first strike if its power is at least four.

A land put into your hand does not trigger landfall.

Strider, Ranger of the North

Double strike

The creature deals combat damage in both the first-strike damage step and the regular damage step.

Resolve first-strike damage.

Remove creatures that die; players may act again.

Surviving double-strike creatures deal damage again.

At the table. Théoden can give an attacker double strike when another Human enters. Two triggers on the same creature do not create a third damage step.

A blocked attacker without trample does not hit the player just because its blocker died in the first damage step.

Théoden, King of Rohan

Mill

Move that many cards from the top of a library to its owner’s graveyard. This does not draw or discard them.

Identify whose library the effect names.

Move the specified cards to that player’s graveyard.

Check any effect that counts cards there.

At the table. The Mouth of Sauron mills its chosen player (which can be you), then counts their instant and sorcery cards in the graveyard to determine how much to amass.

An empty library does not immediately lose the game; trying to draw from it does.

The Mouth of Sauron

Glossary

Every word on the cards and in the deck plans, defined once. Find a term, read its wording, then see it on a card.

48 terms · A–ZComprehensive Rules effective Sep 25 · checked Oct 29

Symbols

A

B

C

Crew

Keyword ability

Tap other untapped creatures you control with enough total power to turn this Vehicle into an artifact creature until the turn ends.

Watch out: The crew creatures do not become the Vehicle’s attackers. A newly played Vehicle still needs haste to attack that turn.

Grond, the GatebreakerIn Cards →
CR 702.122 ↗·

Curve

Strategy

A mix of costs that lets you play early and keep using your mana.

D

E

F

G

Goad

Card mechanic

Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks a player other than you if able. In a two-player game it can still attack you. Goad does not untap it or let a newly cast creature attack without haste.

Glóin, Dwarf EmissaryIn Cards →
Release notes ↗·

H

I

K

Keyword counters

Counter

A keyword counter grants its named ability, such as trample, to the object it is on.

Watch out: A trample counter is not a +1/+1 counter. The named ability and the creature’s size are separate.

Arwen, Mortal QueenIn Cards →
CR 122.1b ↗·

L

M

R

Ring-bearer

Strategy

Your chosen creature, made legendary by your Ring emblem.

S

Signal

Strategy · Draft

Useful cards arriving late can suggest a color is open; one card is weak evidence.

Synergy

Strategy

Cards helping each other perform a useful job.

T

Tap and untap

Keyword action

Tap means turn a permanent sideways; untap means return it upright. A tap symbol in a cost means you must tap that permanent to pay.

Watch out: Being tapped by another effect does not activate an ability or produce mana. Creatures normally cannot pay their own tap-symbol costs until you have controlled them since your turn began.

Andúril, Flame of the WestBanish from EdorasBarad-dûrAll 85 in Cards →
CR 701.26 ↗·

Typecycling & landcycling

Keyword ability

From your hand, pay the listed cost and discard the card. Search your library for the named kind of card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.

Watch out: Basic landcycling finds a basic land. Mountaincycling finds a Mountain card; Halflingcycling finds a Halfling card. This does not put the found card onto the battlefield.

Eagles of the NorthGenerous EntLórien RevealedAll 5 in Cards →
CR 702.29e · CR 702.29f ↗·

V

W

Terms shared across sets: Learn glossary →