The holiday release for The Lord of the Rings, while incredibly flashy, isn’t actually introducing a lot of new cards. Aside from a small collection of Commander legal cards in the Scene boxes and a few new Jumpstart rares, all of the content for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth are things we’ve already seen before – with some new artwork.
That said, the new treatments for Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth may be rather rare. Only available in the new Special Edition Collector Boosters, while these cards are not individually rare in those boosters, the only place you can get them are in $32 Special Edition Collector Boosters.
For that reason, these new crazy variants have a surprising price tag! Let’s take a look at some surprising prices for the new Lord of the Rings cards and treatments!
A new $100 Ring
The new Poster art has some pretty insane secondary market spikes! The individual patterns in terms of price vary wildly by variant, but some of the new Poster Art cards are incredibly expensive.
Leading the charge is The One Ring. Despite the Ring not being quite as dominant in the Modern format as it used to be thanks to Up the Beanstalk being the superior value-based option at the moment, it is still rather popular in other decks, and remains a staple in Commander.
The One Ring’s cheapest variant continues to be the Bundle variant. Thanks to this card being a guaranteed pull in any MTG LOTR bundle, it only costs $35, despite its status as a Modern and Commander staple.
The new Poster variant of The One Ring, however, is currently retailing for over $100 in both non-foil and traditional foil variants. This variant of The One Ring is only available in Collector Booster packs, so a slight premium is understandable. This, however, may be more than some players expected, especially considering player complaints regarding the legibility of the Poster treatment.
The One Ring’s secondary market premium for the borderless poster treatment is an outlier, but there are some other cards that have a small premium. Anduril, Flame of the West‘s borderless Poster variant is currently selling for between $15 and $20. Even at the lower end of that price range, this copy of Anduril, Flame of the West is about five times as expensive as the cheapest variant, which currently sells for $3. Some other cards, like The Watcher in the Water, have some similar premiums.
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Legolas’s Quick Reflexes
Of the small number of new cards releasing with The Lord of the Rings’s second release, Legolas’s Quick Reflexes had the most excitement surrounding it. Legacy Infect players, in particular, are incredibly excited for it, as Legolas’s Quick Reflexes may be the best protection spell that Magic: the Gathering has ever seen.
The big gamechanger for Legolas’s Quick Reflexes is Split Second. Protection spells, especially in decks like Infect that just want to get one creature into the red zone, have always been exceedingly popular. That said, should an opponent have multiple pieces of interaction, your protection spell, historically, has only been good enough to blank one of those pieces. Legolas’s Quick Reflexes both blanks a piece of interaction and protects your creature for the rest of the turn!
As long as Split Second is on the stack, opponents cannot activate non-mana abilities or cast spells. This, generally, means that your opponent can’t do anything until Legolas’s Quick Reflexes resolves, ensuring your creature gets Hexproof and takes out an opposing threat.
Of course, Legolas’s Quick Reflexes doesn’t exactly solve non-targeting spells, but you generally won’t run into those at instant speed.
Either way, thanks to the deadly combination of Hexproof, Split Second, and removal, Legolas’s Quick Reflexes makes your Infect attackers very hard to deal with, as long as they’re big enough to clean up the game.
Thanks to all the excitement surrounding Legolas’s Quick Reflexes, prices have been skyrocketing! As of writing this article, Legolas’s Quick Reflexes is jumping to $27 per card! The rarer Surge Foil versions only found in Collector Booster packs are currently retailing for $40.
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Incredible Scenic Box Value!
Legolas’s Quick Reflexes creates a rather interesting opportunity for those interested in buying one. If the price tag attached to Legolas’s Quick Reflexes scares you away a bit, buying the Aragorn at Helm’s Deep bundle may be a way to make things a bit more affordable. This bundle only costs $35 currently which, considering that Legolas’s Quick Reflexes costs $27, means that, for an extra $8, you get three Set Boosters ($15.90) and five other new Lord of the Rings cards.
Otherwise, while a few of the other scene box exclusive cards have a little financial value, none of them come close to Legolas’s Quick Reflexes. That said, Galadriel’s Dismissal is an interesting card that doubles as both a way to blank a lethal board and as a unique piece of board wipe protection. This card goes for a little over $5 currently. Otherwise, Galadriel, Light of Valinor has some decent secondary market value.
Potential Price Drops?
Many MTG players are hoping that the second printing of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth will help to curb the prices of some of the more popular cards in the set. Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring, in particular, are incredibly expensive staples in multiple MTG formats. A lot of people want these and, with demand comes a price.
Fortunately, Orcish Bowmasters has been trending down since the release of the Holiday Release. The card has lost $5 in secondary market value over the weekend. Considering that its still difficult to find a copy of the Bowmasters for under $40, this is just a drop in the bucket. That said, there’s no telling how long this trend will continue.
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