The Elven Kingdom Will Endure: Thranduil, the Elvenking "Precon"

Welcome to EDHLAB's The Hobbit preconstructed deck series! The writers at the EDHLAB Blog challenged each other to make Hobbit precon-level decks entirely out of "in-universe" cards from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth cards. Let's see what Thranduil, the Elvenking can do with an all-Middle-earth cast!

Deathless Legends

Thranduil, the Elvenking makes great use of his allies, whether alive or dead, as long as they are Elves. He has a Necrotic Ooze-style ability for all Elf cards in your graveyard. With the full spectrum of the Magic backlog, including graveyard tutors and an endless well of self-mill cards in Sultai, he's a one-turn infinite combo machine. But, as a precon-level deck, we won't be building him that way. Instead, we'll focus on the strength of his second ability to draw and loot cards when another legendary Elf enters under your control, his respectable 5/6 statline, and all the new Landfall staples printed in The Hobbit.

A new card from The Hobbit, Elrond, Moon-Reader is a mono-blue Elf Noble legend with an incredibly easy-to-trigger card draw ability. Activating abilities at least once per turn cycle, if not several times, is an easy task for Elf decks. Once you reach seven mana, he has his own activated ability to flicker two other nonland permanents you control. This won't be an oft-used ability, but in the late game you may find an opportunity to use it as instant-speed protection for your other creatures while drawing you a card as an added bonus.

Arwen, Weaver of Hope and Haldir, Lórien Lieutenant support this deck's go-wide strategy of casting lots of Elf creatures, creating Elf tokens, and buffing them all either as they enter or, in Haldir's case, as an activated ability to enable an alpha strike.

Notable exclusions from the selection of legendary creatures are Tales of Middle-earth Commander Elves that enable voting and voting synergies. They're left out for two very good reasons: firstly, Thranduil is a king and not a fan of voting, and second, the voting cards are all very, very, very underwhelming. Unless we're talking about Expropriate-ing other peoples' cards and turns, Thranduil just isn't interested in hearing what his opponents have to say on any matter.

Scry Like You Mean It

The Elves of The Lord of the Ring set feature many scry synergies, and they're included in this deck as a subtheme to help buff your creatures while optimizing your draws. Elrond, Master of Healing can buff multiple creatures when you scry two off of your Preordain, and is a great card to trigger as often as possible to power up your board.

Arwen Undómiel and Elvish Mariner are solid sources of repeatable scrying. Arwen's ability isn't cheap, but it triggers Elrond, Moon-Reader's draw ability and, should she find herself in the graveyard, Thranduil will be able to execute a perfect imitation of her ability to see two cards deep into the library. Elvish Mariner, along with Lothlórien Lookout, are good sources of scrying early in the game to help smooth out your draws, and a way to trigger your various scry payoffs in the late-game such as Galadriel of Lothlórien and Chance-Met Elves.

The King's Bountiful Lands

These new inclusions from The Hobbit bring landfall and Elfball strategies into the same cozy textbox. Elf strategies are generally focused entirely on creatures generating mana, but now they can benefit from lands entering, too.

Thranduil, Sindarin Liege does it all. The attached Adventure spell, Silvan Rally, has you mill four cards and keep up to two lands from among them. Once on the battlefield, he creates a 1/1 Elf whenever a land you control enters, and gives your other Elves a static +1/+1 anthem, turning your tokens from minor nuisances into bear-sized threats.

Down in the Valley has the same 1/1 generating ability once you reach chapter two, after which you have one more turn to try and take advantage of it as much as possible through fetchlands and land ramp such as Farseek and Rampant Growth. Thranduil's Company grants you a second land drop on each of your turns, and bestows vigilance and two +1/+1 counters to a creature you control until end of turn whenever a land you control enters. With these three cards, simply by playing and fetching lands you can go wide with tokens, and go tall with anthems and single-creature buffs.

Not every resident of the Elvenking's lands is an Elf. Dancing from Dark to Dawn is a landfall payoff and a creature buff that is hard to pass up in a deck with so much focus on landfall and creature spells. When you cast a creature spell, it grants a number of +1/+1 counters to a single creature equal to that spell's casting cost, and the landfall ability creates a friendly 2/2 Bear token. They won't take advantage of any Elf-centric anthem effects, but there are plenty of other effects that can buff these Bears to better protect the Elvenking's lands. They're great as passive blockers, but given enough time they'll make a formidable offensive force on their own.

Tapping into the dark side of Elven magic, the black mana in Thranduil's color identity means you get access to one of the most hyped cards of The Hobbit. Inside Information is a mono-colored Villainous Wealth as long as you have the life to pay for what you cast. Depending on what you find and how much life you're willing or able to pay, you can pull far ahead after casting this spell and casting some of your opponents' spells for free.

The Elves' Decisive Strike

Incremental advantage is nice, but decks that win through combat damage need a few cards that decisively turn the math in their favor. Galadhrim Brigade, with a good investment of mana, provides a massive board presence and anthem for Elves already on the battlefield. Door of Destinies builds slowly, so play it as early as you can. After just three or four Elf creature spells, your creatures will be formidable even if they started out as 1/1s. Finally, Overwhelming Stampede is a sorcery that can put a sudden end to a game where you have the lead. With your commander in play, this will give at least +5/+5 and trample to all your creatures.

Craterhoof Behemoths don't roam the lands of Middle-earth, but the Elves can make the ground quake all on their own.

A King's Ransom

These cards aren't included in the decklist, but are great high-budget (or digital-only) inclusions.

These two landfall payoffs work great in this deck, but are unfortunately only found in The Hobbit Collector boosters at the moment, until the release of the Battle of the Five Armies Co-op Kit sometime in 2027. As such, they command a hefty price tag — especially Thranduil the Strategist.

Who says Elves can't host a good party? Any deck with 38 creatures and access to green is begging for a copy of The Party Tree (also known as The Great Henge on other planes). With your commander in play, casting the most overpowered artifact not on the game changer list will only cost 2GG, and will immediately rebate you GG when you tap it for mana. And gain you two life. And any nontoken creature entering under your control will draw you a card. And the creature you that entered gets a +1/+1 counter. This relic of an era of Magic design where the words "drawback" and "downside" were temporarily lost to ancient history comes in a Lord of the Rings flavor, although that version costs even more than the already-steep $58 base printing.

The Silvan Host

Here's Deathless Legends, the EDHLAB homebrew precon for The Hobbit, ready to flood the battlefield with lands, Elves, Elf tokens, and maybe a couple of Bears:

Try it against our other The Hobbit precons in a multiplayer lobby, or in our playtester!

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