Now that The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set has been out for a bit, people have had some time to dig into the cards and find a few interesting combos and synergies. While these combos might not fit into every deck, they’re certainly a fun way to close out a game that’s gone on for a bit too long, or one you’re a turn away from losing.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse + The One Ring
Turns out the downside of The One Ring—losing life equal to the number of burden counters on it—doesn’t mean anything if you’re netting life from drawing those cards. Tapping The One Ring adds a burden counter to it and draws you cards equal to the number of those counters. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse gains you two life whenever you draw a card.
There are a few other cards that have similar effects, like Horizon Chimera, which has a net zero effect. Perhaps the best single card to add to this sequence is Queza, Augur of Agonies, which drains an opponent of one life whenever you draw a card. You won’t lose any life this way while slowly reducing your opponent’s life total with every activation.
Rosie Cotton Of South Lane + Scurry Oak
A two-card combo that can slot into any Green and White deck, Rosie Cotton of South Lane and Scurry Oak generate an infinitely large creature as well as infinite Squirrel tokens, giving you two avenues to kill your opponents with.
The way this combo works is exceptionally easy, you need Scurry Oak out first and then play Rosie Cotton. That’s literally it. Rosie comes into play making a Food token, triggering her ability to put +1/+1 on another creature when you make a token of any kind. Putting that counter on Scurry Oak creates a Squirrel token, which triggers Rosie again, creating an infinite loop until you choose to give a different creature that last +1/+1 counter.
Samwise Gamgee + Cauldron Familiar + Viscera Seer
This combo is already making waves in Modern and has potential in Historic on Magic: The Gathering Arena. All you need are three very cheap creatures: Samwise Gamgee, Cauldron Familiar, and Viscera Seer.
With Samwise Gamgee out, anytime you have a nontoken creature enter the battlefield under your control, you make a Food token. Since Samwise is out, you cast your Cauldron Familiar, or at least have one out with a Food token in play. Then, you need a free sacrifice outlet, like Viscera Seer but any other similar effects will work, you sacrifice your Cauldron Familiar. Bringing Cauldron Familiar back to the battlefield will trigger Samwise, creating another Food token, letting you continue the loop.
With all three out you’ll have a highly efficient combo to drain your opponents with as well as many Scry 1 activations you want. Your opponents can disrupt it by removing Samwise or Viscera Seer, but with all your scry triggers you can dig to find duplicates.
There And Back Again + Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
This cute little combo can generate infinite Treasure tokens, giving you access to infinite mana as well as tons of death triggers and artifact sacrifice triggers. Once the last chapter of There and Back Again triggers, you get a Smaug token that creates thirteen Treasure tokens when it dies.
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage has an activated ability that costs four mana to populate. If you pick Smaug to make a copy of, one Smaug token will die since Smaug is legendary, creating thirteen Treasures. Keep repeating this cycle over and over again and you’ll have more Treasures than all the Dwarves in Erebor.
The combo is a bit obvious if you have both There and Back Again and the Guildmage on board at the same time, so it’s best to wait until you have your Smaug token before casting it. Since the Guildmage doesn’t have a tap effect to active, you can keep sacrificing Treasures to pay for it and populating up your Smaugs.
Mind Over Matter + The One Ring
After 29 years, Magic players have finally broken Mind Over Matter, an immensely powerful enchantment that untaps any artifact, creature, or land at the cost of discarding a single card. The combo is fairly self-explanatory: you tap The One Ring, put a counter on it, and drawing cards equal to those counters. Then you just discard a card to untap it, repeating it until you find the card you’re looking for or you deck yourself.
If you’re worried about decking yourself without finding an answer, you can always stop drawing cards whenever you want, and with most of your deck in your hand, you’ll more likely than not have an answer or two to your situation. You’ll want a healthy amount of mana going into this combo so you can cast all those cards you’ve just drawn as well as a few cards in hand to give you good discard options at the start of the combo.
The best part of this sequence is that you can activate it the turn The One Ring comes out, keeping you protected with its enter the battlefield effect while you draw your deck.