Hello awesome folks and happiest of Fridays to you! What are the best cards from Tales of Middle Earth (TOME)? How about for kitchen table play like Commander, Five Color, multiplayer, Type Four, Cube, Highlander and more. This is a deep set with strong playables. Last week we looked at my Top Ten and three Honorable Mentions, which you can find here.

Ready for my second list?

Honorable Mention #1 (#26 Overall). Last March of the Ents

Ah yes, the mono-Green mythic sorcery. This fun 8-cost cannot be countered. You draw cards equal to your highest toughness. Then put any number of dorks from your hand to the battlefield. Card flow and free dorks on one card? Even if it costs you 8, this will win the game. The ability to not be countered means it cannot be answered with counters, and if you have haste, then sorcery speed mass removal cannot be done either, people will just die now. Note that Green is the color of ramp.

This grows with a high toughness Commander in Green, but even a 5/5 Commander should draw you 5 and dump your hand. This is the strongest card in the set for type 4 with infinite mana but one spell per turn. You open yourself up to sorcery speed stuff to counters but not here. This can win the game the next turn on the second turn after dropping a typical sized dork like a 6/6 dragon such as Rith the Awakener or a 10/10 Gigantosaurus. Ready for this thing's power to begin? Now let's turn to a Commander I already built a deck around!

Honorable Mention #2 (#25 Overall). The Balrog, Durin's Bane

With a 7-power with haste on a Rakdos dork, this will kill in three Commander Damage hits, one of which happens right now. Then you drop its cost and recost with Commander Tax with sacrifices of anybody with anything. It cannot be blocked save by legendary dorks, which is very strong, and when it dies you get a free removal spell. There are a few shells you could build around this - Treasure Matters that blows them out and sacrifices them to drop his cost and make mana; Aristocrats that make sacrifices on your team with self-recursive things like Gravecrawler and Reassembling Skeleton. Then we can use control with things like Innocent Blood and Barter in Blood to make everyone rack up sacrifices for a cheaper play, which I have built around. It's also strong in Type Four as a first turn play. Now let's turn to another Black legendary dork!

Honorable Mention #3 (#24 Overall). Grima Wormtongue

Our second legendary dork of the day is this mono-Black three-drop uncommon with a 1/4 body, a bit on the smaller side of life. Why is it here? First, you shut down all life gain from your foes! You'll also shut down things like lands that ETB with life gain. Getting all that in a Commander is quite strong. Then you can tap him, with no costs, to sacrifice a dork and a player loses a life and then if it was legendary, amass 2 Orcs. That means you'll make a 2/2 or add +2/+2 to an Army.

Card sacrifice engines for free in your Command Zone are also quite important and rare and this only requires a tap not mana. Note that the life loss is a win con just like Goblin Bombardment. I love this in a few Archetypes - Orzhov Tokens, Golgari +1/+1 counters with proliferate, Rakdos and Dimir and Golgari Aristocrats, Legendary-matters, and more.

Now let's leave behind Honorable Mentions and dive into the Top Ten with another legendary permanent next! But this time it's not a creature!

#10 (#23 Overall) - Anduril, Flame of the West

This costs three, equips for 2 and gives a nice sized +3/+1 boost. When the equipped dork attacks, you make two tapped 1/1 flying Spirit tokens that are White for color purposes. Nice! Then if it was legendary, they are tapped and attacking. Since Commanders are legendary, you should always have that option available in your decks in that format. Just equip, swing, and then get in two hits with flying, attacking Spirit tokens, and they stay in play, so you'll scale that quite fast. This is awesome with token doublers like Doubling Season and the Standard-legal Mondrak, Glory Dominus. Since it's colorless it can be played in any color Commander deck. It's great with tokens, Spirits, Aggro that wants the early pressure, or Equipment or Voltron deck that wants to win with a bigger sized Commander since it gives three extra power.

#9. (#22 Overall) - Fangorn, Tree Shepherd

Our final mono-Green card and last legendary in a row is Fangorn! He costs 7, is a Treefolk and a Treefolk lord giving them all vigilance, which is great in multiplayer since you can swing at open players without opening yourself too.

When you attack with Treefolk, you make twice that in Green mana and then it doesn't leave your mana pool and keeps it, just like mono-Green Commander powerhouse Omnath, Locus of Mana. Run that in this brew too, by the by, as a backup Fangorn. I also love him with toughness-matters since Treefolk tend to have high toughnesses, like the previous charting card or toughness dealing in combat instead of power like in a Doran, the Siege Tower deck. Strong stuff, and people love the toughness matters Commander brew, and it has 22,537 decks over at EDHREC. That's a Top 20 archetype. Then Treefolk have just 1,422 though, so that's a good opportunity for combining those into one deck. Good stuff Fangorn! And then next we have our first charting instant!

#8. (#21 Overall) - Press the Enemy

Our first instant and mono-Blue card is this four cost rare. You can return any spell or nonland permanent an opponent controls to their hand. Then you can cast an instant or sorcery equal to or less than its mana value for free. That's very strong in all of the right places, like with bouncing your foe's commander when it's on the stack or after resolution, or a key permanent in their machine like a Phyrexian Altar in an Aristocrats deck or a Doubling Season to bounce when a key thing is on the stack. It's very flexible and unlike most bounce effects, it's not card disadvantage since you can get a free cast for your trouble. See why I like this thing so much? I hope so too!

Also Press the Enemy wants to be in a deck dense with instants and sorceries, like Spellslinger that triggers things like Guttersnipe or Young Pyromancer for stuff. There's a cool trick here you might not see, let me show you:

You have a Counterspell or Negate in hand and this. Your foe casts a big spell you need to counter or stop. While it's on the stack, cast this, but don't bounce that spell to their hand. Instead bounce their Smothering Tithe or Rhystic Study or whatever. Then cast from your hand the Counterspell for free, and you counter what needed to be answered and bounced something for four mana, and they spent their mana on what was countered as well as what was bounced. See how good this is with cheap counters like Mana Drain or Negate that you don't need to bounce something pricey to get? Plus, you didn't lose a card, since you spent four mana only and got the Counterspell for free.

#7. (#20 Overall) - Fiery Inscription

On arrival to the battlefield, you get tempted by the Ring by this fun three-cost enchantment. Which is good, actually. Then when you cast an instant or a sorcery you shoot each foe for a pair of damage. Spellslinger is a beloved archetype with 49,910 decks, which is high enough for ninth, just ahead of another beloved archetype in Lands-Matter. This archetype is heavy in instants and sorceries and triggers cast things like this to win. It's commonly in Izzet or Jeskai. It's also very powerful with non-creature loving Commanders like Narset, Enlightened Master which will cast this for free from your deck when she attacks or her planeswalker version Narset Transcendent.

#6. (#19 Overall) - Glamdring

Our highest scoring artifact is this three-mana equipment. It gives your equipped dork first strike and a power boost equal to your instant and sorcery count in your graveyard. Nasty! And the first strike on that is very rough to force bad trades with non-first strike blockers. It loves dense instant and sorcery decks like Spellslinger or most modern decks that have been replacing Phyrexian Arena with Sign in Blood and Ravenous Chupacabra with Murder.

Also when it deals combat damage to a player you can cast an instant or sorcery from your hand equal to or less than the damage you deal. And that'll pump it up even more. I love this in a deck with Press the Enemy. In addition to Spellslinger, it's also strong in Cantrips (21,008 decks at 21st), Equipment with instants and sorcery heavy parts, Control like Mono-Black Control with spells like Exsanguinate and Profane Command, and more. We'll look at an equipment enabler next!

#5. (#18 Overall) - Forge Anew

This three-mana mono-White enchantment has three abilities that all help equipment decks, hence it being a great addition for them. When it ETBs, you return an equipment from your graveyard to the battlefield. Nice! Then if it's your turn, your equips are at instant speed, so you can attack, and then move equipment around based on blocks. For example, suppose you have a "combat damage to a player" trigger like Quietus Spike, but none of your dorks are evasive, or they have flying or reach for yours. Attack with your team and then move it to the unblocked one. Nasty!

It's also good with Lightning Greaves giving your target shroud if someone tries to target on your turn. Then you can pay 0 the first time you equip on your turn, so that's saving you mana, and you can equip the Quietus Spike for free if it was your first equip you did that turn, and will save you mana for more equips or dropping more equipment. We've already talked about how popular the Equipment archetype is in the previous section at kitchen table and Commander play. This enchantment is awesome! It'll save you the three mana it cost in just one or two equips! Next up is another game changing sorcery that's a bit on the expensive side, just like our first card. This was our highest charting mono-White card!

#4. (#17 Overall) - Shadow of the Enemy

Hard to cast, but an awesome six-drop! You exile someone's creatures in their graveyard from the game. Considering how much graveyard abuse is in kitchen table play, that's nice. Then you can cast the spells that will were exiled, and you can use mana of any colors for it, so if you exiled Eternal Witness in a Dimir deck you can still cast it. That gives you massive card advantage over time as you cast those things.

Once you've done this on a foe, don't cast your stuff until you are done casting their stuff. Also note that this won't let you play lands since it says "cast." I also really like it with exiling your graveyard and casting those creatures again, and since you built your deck, you are likely to get good value there. Nicely done! Next is another gold card and our last White card. The top three have two creatures, three Blue spells, two legendaries and one instant. Ready?

#3. (#16 Overall) - Faramir, Prince of Ithilien

Our third-hitting card is this awesome four-drop 3/3. It's legendary for Command Zone purposes and a Human for that type. Then at your end step you choose another opponent. Did they attack you? Make a trio of 1/1 Humans. Did they not attack you? Draw a card! Either way you get the goods! If you want the card, just choose someone who is devoid of creatures. If you want the trio of dorks, just choose someone who has a dork to attack. Make friends to get what you want, this is very political. And that's multiplayer in a nutshell, politics. Now let's look at the instant!

#2. (#15 Overall) - Borne Upon a Wind

Our second-highest scoring card in our second-scoring list is this two-cost instant cantrip. This turn you can cast your spells with flash, and you only spent 2 to make that happen so you have most of your mana available. Unlike other flash enablers, your foes won't know this is coming ahead of time to plan around it, so they may walk into a bad set of blocks for them and your flashing dorks. You can flash out at the end of someone's turn a Wrath of God or Blasphemous Act and then untap and take your turn and be the first to cast spells on your turn. You can flash out an artifact or enchantment like a Land Tax that triggers in your upkeep that will now work. Flash out Nevinyrral's Disk and then untap it and you can use it anytime. You can flash out a planeswalker after your foes attacked so that they cannot attack them, saving them for a turn. This is just so good, and since it replaces itself, there is no reason not to run it in your decks from here on out!

Our top scoring card is a legendary Blue dork, but which?

#1. (#14 Overall) - Sharkey, Tyrant of the Shire

This is also a four-drop Blue (gold) dork, but with a less impressive 2/4 body. Then it has three abilities. The first is that your foes cannot use non-mana abilities of their lands, so tapping and using Volrath's Stronghold or Maze of Ith is no longer. Then Sharkey has those abilities, so he can tap with an Academy Ruins to reload an artifact with two mana or tap and sacrifice a fetchland or Strip Mine. And you can use any mana, so you can tap White for that Kor Haven. Nasty land shutter down, but just of your foes, which is pretty Donkey Kong Strong. Its eligibility for Commandering is also a thing worth considering. Love this thing loads in modern Commander.

And there we go! What did you think of my list? I hope that you enjoyed it!