Men of Esgaroth: Bard, King of Dale "Precon"

Hail, traveler, and welcome to the EDHLAB blog! In this limited series on The Hobbit, the staff have created several build-your-own The Hobbit “precon” decks, made entirely with cards available from Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and any other Middle-earth affiliated products, and none else. This is in lieu of receiving actual precons for the latest set, so we decided to challenge ourselves by identifying some themes in The Hobbit and building precon-esque decks around those themes. In this article, we’re going to cover white-blue Human Kindred. Let’s journey onward!

A Promontory of Rock

The Human creatures of The Hobbit are reminiscent of their predecessors in The Lord of the Rings. In the original Lord of the Rings set, the Human creature type is heavily featured in the Riders of Rohan precon, a Jeskai deck helmed by Éowyn, Shieldmaiden, which creates plenty of Human tokens to assemble a big army. While the white-blue Human creatures in The Hobbit take some notes from the aggressive approach of that deck, their theme here is a little more subtle, and more intentional deckbuilding choices will help achieve the aggressive gameplan. The recruit mechanic is the binding agent here; it starts out as a simple loot effect, but with the benefit of creating a token whenever you discard a nonland card to the recruit trigger. The goal of this deck is to keep a large hand for as long as possible so that you always have extra nonland cards as fodder for more tokens, which will inevitably swarm your opponents to take over the game.

Go Now and Speed Well

As with most of the other Kindred archetypes in this set, there are a few different options for commander for Humans. Bard, Heir of Girion is a fairly plain lord effect that buffs other creatures with a respectable statline: 4/4 for four mana, vigilance and reach, and he draws you a card on attack. This is a decent start for the theme this deck is aiming for, but it’s not a very synergistic enabler. 

Bard the Bowman is similar, he rewards your second card draw every turn by putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature and granting that creature lifelink. Though more specific, this payoff is not especially impressive in terms of value. 

The last option is Bard, King of Dale, with one of the most-anticipated ability combinations of the set; the King of Dale is a six-mana combination of Teferi’s Ageless Insight and Anointed Procession on the same pair of legs, and the most potent option to helm the defenders of Lake-town. 

Threat of Force

The goal of this deck is to recruit as often as possible to take advantage of both of Bard, King of Dale’s doubling abilities. Great Gilded Boat and Bard’s Company are both straightforward recruiters that trigger when you attack. Great Gilded Boat is a Vehicle with aggressive stats for its mana cost once crewed, and Bard’s Company is a simple lord effect that can flash itself in if you control a Human for some surprise buffing. Queen of Dale needs no introduction for those of us who followed The Hobbit’s spoiler season, since she has easily been one of the most-hyped creatures of the entire set. She recruits the first time an opponent casts a noncreature spell each turn, so assuming your opponents aren’t playing massive stacks of creatures, you should expect at least one or two recruit triggers per table rotation. 

Since you’ll be pitching cards frequently, either to hand size or to your recruit triggers, you’ll need a few ways to interact with your graveyard. Dearly Departed is a holdover from Riders of Rohan; as long as it’s in your graveyard, every Human that enters your battlefield enters with an extra +1/+1 counter. That’s free real estate just for putting this creature in your graveyard. The Mountain-king’s Return is a self-sufficient-ish graveyard recursion spell. This Saga starts off with a recruit trigger to get the Human-ball rolling, and at chapter two it reanimates a creature that costs three or less. The third chapter puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature as a treat, but that second chapter is what you should be looking to capitalize on the most. Lastly, Bilbo, Unexpected Adventurer is one of the most consistent reanimation engines in this decklist. As long as every nonland permanent you pitch costs three or less — and as long as Bilbo can get in for damage — you can recur one of those permanents every single combat step.

Every deck needs a splashy, swingy threat to apply immediate pressure. Beregond of the Guard does a gnarly impression of Cathars’ Crusade, providing a temporary +1/+1 and vigilance buff to each creature you control whenever a Human enters, turning your Increasing Devotion or Visions of Glory into a quasi-Overrun. Ravenhill Flock looks unassuming, but your opponents will feel the pressure when you’re drawing eight cards from Boon of the Wish-Giver, giving this Bird eight +1/+1 counters to dome someone with. Lastly, An Unexpected Party not only advances your board state with more tokens, though they are Dwarf tokens instead of Humans, but it also provides a solid +2/+2 anthem to a creature type of your choosing. If your board is as wide as it should be from your commander’s two-for-one token doubling, that buff will really amp up the pressure.

Like Silver in the Firelight

The King under the Mountain may have tried to deny the men of Esgaroth their share of the spoils of Smaug’s hoard, but there are plenty of treasures from Middle-earth to add to this deck.

Suggesting that The One Ring is a good upgrade for a deck is like declaring that water is wet. Still, it’s especially synergistic with Bard, as each burden counter on the Ring is twice as efficient for its cost of life. 

I hate to go for the low-hanging fruit twice in a row with another spoiler season banger, but Gleaming Splendor is technically even more synergistic with Bard. Not only does it create a token that gets doubled by Bard, but you can even build your own weird side-grade to Mind’s Eye: the enchantment’s activated ability has a net cost of one mana, since you create two Treasure tokens, and you get the double draw, so you essentially pay one mana for two cards as long as you don’t mind giving an opponent one extra draw per turn. 

Finally, a non-staple card to recommend. Bilbo, Thief in the Night fits perfectly in this deck, as the other options for casting spells out of your graveyard can be somewhat limited; Bilbo removes most of the concern about finding ways to make use of your graveyard by providing access to three card types at once, all while providing a nice discount.

The Bells Shall Ring in Gladness

From the cards available across various Middle-earth-original sets and products, I built this deck as a fun challenge to myself and the other writers, as well as to address the lack of Commander precons for The Hobbit. I hope that this deck serves you as well as the Black Arrow served Bard, and that it flies as straight and as true.