This is a big one folks, the most ambitious crossover since Infinity War of two absolutely beloved properties. I first read Lord of the Rings over 20 years ago, and I started playing Magic over 20 years ago, so getting to see the two blend is a real treat.

We've got prereleases this weekend and a full card list to parse, which means it's time for first impressions in the form of my love/hates! Note that these are not just static rankings. The point is to shed light on cards I think are being over or undervalued based on first impressions. The point of my Love/Hate article is not just to call cards good or bad, but to view cards based on the first impressions people have been having or are likely to have. The goal is to dispel undue hype or to draw attention to cards that are being overlooked.

Let's get started!

Love - Delighted Halfling

Thanks to the popularity of Commander, as well as the focus on story characters and the promotion of planeswalkers to legendary permanents, are a lot of good legends in Magic: The Gathering these days. Well, if you're looking to cast all of these busted legends ahead of schedule, there's no better card to do so than Delighted Halfling.

For Modern, Delighted Halfling has to stack up against Noble Hierarch, Arbor Elf, Birds of Paradise, and more, but does so with that all important second toughness. The ubiquity of Wrenn and Six has made mana creatures somewhat of a liability lately and Delighted Halfling helps to dodge that bullet, while also providing perfect fixing as well as an uncounterable clause that will be clutch in certain matchups.

However, while Delighted Halfling is exciting in Modern, in Historic it only has to complete with Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic, making it immediately one of the best mana dorks you can play and a major factor in the format. Even in decks not playing that many legends, the upside is huge.

Playing an uncounterable, turn two Teferi, Time Raveler or Crucias is going to be a major deal, and Delighted Halfling is likely to be one of the most played cards in the entire set when all is said and done.

Hate - Moria Marauder

Why oh why isn't Orcish Bowmaster a goblin?

It's The Lord of the Rings, we couldn't get a few good goblin cards?

What we did get is Moria Marauder, a sort of mash up of Warren Instigator and Rundvelt Hordemaster, but falling far more in line with the former than the latter in power level.

Like Warren Instigator, the body on Moria Marauder is embarrassing. Again we see the 1 toughness issue, a devastating feature in a format with Wrenn and Six and Fury, and Moria Marauder is a very difficult card to get immediate value off of. The turn you cast it you need to have good attacks and mana available to actually use the cards you get, which is a challenge in and of itself; but, the most damning feature is how low the ceiling is here. It's not like you can "draw" a half dozen cards off a big attack with Moria Marauder, as you will always be limited by your available mana in the turn.

A lot needs to go right for Moria Marauder to even do anything, and with a low ceiling alongside the low floor, it's hard to see Moria Marauder doing much of anything in powerful formats like Modern or Historic. Perhaps it would have had a small chance in lower powered formats like Standard or maybe Pioneer, but Moria Marauder will make nothing more than a whimper in the formats it will be legal in.

Love - Consul's Deliberation

When you've been playing Magic for a very long time, you get trained to look for certain things in cards that stand out as red flags. Of those two, "playing for free" and "graveyard" often jump off the textbox.

Council's Deliberation is a very simple card. Two mana to draw a card is obviously far below rate, but not the worst thing to ever happen. Two mana to draw two cards is excellent, as cards like Expressive Iteration and even Night's Whisper have been players in every format they've been legal in. As such, played straight up in a deck with a large amount of scry effects, Council's Deliberation is passable as a draw two and mostly will rely on how often one can scry.

But of course, the exciting part is being able to dump Council's Deliberation into the graveyard without casting it, and then firing off a scry for that free card's worth of value. Wizards of the Coast was careful enough to put the "you must control an island" clause on there, but Blue is the color most dense with scry effects anyway so having an island shouldn't be too tough.

It's unfortunate surveil is not scry because Dragon's Rage Channeler would be both the perfect enabler as well as payoff. It's not entirely clear where Council's Deliberation goes, but it's definitely a card to watch.

Hate - Flowering of the White Tree

A long time ago, creatures used to be awful. We're talking dreadful rate on cards like Jackal Pup and White Knight which were among the best creatures in their respective formats. As such, cards like Bad Moon or Glorious Anthem were often played in aggressive decks to help augment them into real threats. These sort of global pump effects were also played in token heavy decks as a way to maximize cards like Spectral Procession.

In a lot of ways, Flowering of the White Tree looks like an incredible variant on these Honor of the Pure-type pump effects, but there're two major problems here.

The first is that creatures and threats are so good these days that they rarely need extra help to make an impact, and this is especially true for legendary creatures. Rather than try to pump the creature you already have and risk having it killed or having no board, you can just choose another awesome creature or planeswalker to play because there's no shortage. Spending two mana to make your Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer into a 4/2 just isn't very exciting.

The second issue is that most go-wide strategies involve tokens and not legends, where Flowering of the White Tree is just a hard to cast Glorious Anthem effect that you can't double up on. You really want your deck packed full of legendary creatures when you play this card, but a deck full of legendary creatures doesn't really want this card.

It looks super sweet, but Flowering of the White Tree just isn't powerful enough to make a big impact on Modern or likely Historic.

Love - Generous Ent

Oh Jim, I see you're very excited for The Lord of the Rings draft?

Not so fast, we've got a Constructed staple here in Generous Ent!

It's hard to quantify how much better landcycling 1 is than landcycling 2, and while that still doesn't really get us there on rate in a normal deck, Generous Ent is a slam dunk four-of in one of the most popular archetypes in Modern.

Living End decks are in the market for large creatures with cycling 1, as well as ensuring their land drops to make sure they get to three on turn three every game. If that's all Generous Ent did it would likely have a place in the deck, but note also this is not basic landcycling but forestcycling. This means that Generous Ent can get dual lands and triomes, but also get a basic forest if you're locked under a Blood Moon! It even gains life in a pinch during a race.

That's a huge amount of value for a simple common!

There And Back Again

If you can't tell, I'm extremely excited for this set.

Like many of you, I'm a huge The Lord of the Rings fan, and I'm really enjoying this set's focus on flavor over complexity. I'm looking forward to playing with it at the Pro Tour next before that next week we've got my usual Ten New Brews!

Because this is a special set I'll be doing five Modern brews and five Historic brews and frankly I can't wait. Look for them on stream and YouTube next week, and my article next Friday right here on CoolStuffInc.com will break them all down for you.

I think it's about time for another adventure!