Óin the BraveÓin the Brave | Art by Colin Boyer

The Hobbit, the beloved prequel to the massive Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a much smaller tale in comparison to the world-spanning trip to Mount Doom. Thorin's Company, the group of travelers that The Hobbit follows, might be a larger group of individuals, but has a fraction of the depth and identity compared to the future Fellowship of the Ring years later. The Hobbit is the little brother to the giant that is The Lord of the Rings, and this set along, with its mechanics, feels like it. Yet that's exactly as it should be, as The Hobbit was meant to be a much smaller and more condensed story, and this story is a perfect on-ramp for more players to get into Magic: The Gathering.

So let's dive into the nice introductory mechanics of this small set that's sure to give the perfect Hobbit vibes to all who wander!

Storied

Storied is one of the cooler and more flavorful mechanics =we've seen among any of the Universes Beyond sets! When you play a card with storied, it continues to check your board looking for three or more artifacts, legendary permanents and/or Sagas. Once it's confirmed that you have three of these in any combination, you as the player gain an enduring story for the rest of the game.

Once you have an enduring story, you never lose it, much like the city's blessing mechanic from Ixalan. If you stop having three artifacts, legendaries or Sagas out, you will still have an enduring story once you earn it once, and the legendary creatures with the storied mechanic like Thorin Oakenshield can be the first page to that story, since he's legendary himself.

There are nine cards with the storied mechanic, and each of them are also all of the enduring story cards as well, so just get Balin, LoremasterBalin, Loremaster, Ori, Keeper of SongsOri, Keeper of Songs and Thorin OakenshieldThorin Oakenshield out at the same time and you'll earn storied plus three different enduring story abilities.

This is the general mechanic for the Dwarves in this set, who are the creature type in the most need of support amongst all of the ones included in The Hobbit set, but that's not to say that's not the only support they're getting.

Hone Counters

Hone counters are only referenced on two cards in this set, but they could speak to a very exciting mechanic in the future. Hone counters are placed on Equipment and give the equipped creature +1/+0 on top of whatever other bonuses the equipped creature is getting. This is a super cool counter that can change the general view on Equipment throughout all of Magic, since they have long been mired by the "two for one" conundrum. These counters stay on the Equipment themselves, so even if the creature they are attached to gets removed, they still keep the Hone counters. Very much like ChainsawChainsaw from Duskmourn, Equipment will turn into one-shots as long as they stay on the field, just waiting for someone worthy to pick them up.

Recruit

Speaking of creature support, Humans are a big part of the Lord of the Rings franchise and The Hobbit is no different, although they do take a bit of a backseat this time around. However, the Humans that do show up here give a home to the recruit mechanic which, when triggered, has you draw a card, then discard a card, and if that discarded card is a nonland card, make a 1/1 Human Soldier. This sounds a mighty lot like connive from sets as recently as Marvel Super Heroes, and it's still amazing here!

Blue and white are in their second draw matters era right now and this mechanic shows that. There are a myriad of commanders that care about players drawing a second card, like my take on King T'ChallaKing T'Challa that you can find here, and a ton more in the EDHREC Draw Matters category here. Drawing for an additional time will already trigger enough things throughout Magic but let's not forget how discarding select cards can be just as helpful too. Discard a nonland card and you earn a token with two very powerful creature types in the form of Human and Soldier, long supported archetypes both in and outside of the Magic Multiverse.

Recruit is quite a strong ability and it has some powerful legs to stand on with Queen of Dale being as cheap as she is for such a powerful effect.

Returning Mechanics:

Now the above were all of the new mechanics for The Hobbit, but we do have two returning ones that are pretty perfect for the story and also some more connective tissue with the previous set.

Adventure

Adventure has been around for a long time, so we'll do a quick refresher here. Cards with Adventure have two halves, a permanent and an instant or sorcery side. The card is just about always treated as its creature side when referring to library searching or hand discarding and so on, and once the card is physically on the battlefield, you're always just looking at the effects on the permanent half.

However, when you're able to cast spells at the appropriate time, Adventure cards can be cast for the noncreature side instead, following all of the same rules for casting instants and sorceries. The change here is that once the card resolves, instead of going to the graveyard, you instead place it into exile. From exile, you may only cast it again for the permanent side, completing the adventure that the card went on.

I mean I truly cannot imagine a more fitting mechanic for The Hobbit being the wonderful tale of adventure that it is. Cast Gandalf, Goblins' BaneGandalf, Goblins' Bane on the Flameshape side for some added card options, then cast him on the creature side to take advantage of those cards too. Perfection!

Amass

Amass is the last of the mechanics for The Hobbit and this one is very specifically a love letter to all of the Sauron, the Dark LordSauron, the Dark Lord decks out there. Amass is the mechanic for the forces of evil in the Tolkien world, as it allows you to make a bigger and bigger creature token that helps you take over the battlefield. Whenever you are told to amass, if you have not already, you create a 0/0 army token with whatever creature type is described on the card, then you add X +1/+1 counters into that token equal to the amass amount.

What makes this mechanic even more interesting is that if you already have an Army token created, you don't make a new one, you just add the appropriate counters onto the one that's out there. You won't regularly have multiple armies out at once, usually just the one you've made and so you keep on putting counters on that one token over and over again for free, which ends up being a problem for your opponent to deal with while you keep doing whatever your deck does on top of that.

Amass the armies of the Dark Lord and stride forth!

Conclusion

There we have it, short and sweet, much like The Hobbit is. A few very cool and interesting mechanics for a nice introductory set that keeps players excited for the Lord of the Rings world being in Magic: The Gathering. From deck upgrades for older decks, to brand new builds for your favorite characters, this set is for the Halfling in all of us! Tune in next time for our dive into the mechanics of Reality Fracture!