I'm going to prepare myself to dive behind the couch as I say this out loud.

I don't actually know that much about The Lord of the Rings.

It seems like there is a bit of a nerd culture crossover here that I never... crossed over. I tried reading The Hobbit once, and couldn't make it past the first chapter. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring in theaters, and I think I caught a bit of The Two Towers on cable one time. My interests have always leaned more sci-fi than fantasy, and for whatever reason, these characters and this story never particularly interested me.

In some ways, I think this makes me ill-equipped to look at any of the new Creatures from the latest Worlds Beyond set. I know almost nothing about them, and my ability to construct any sort of flavorful deck around any of them is going to be limited to Wikipedia and guessing based on how they're drawn.

In other ways, however, this is freeing. See, I don't have any idea who they are - which means I'm free to build to their mechanics without any pesky thoughts in my head about not honoring the characters or the legacy or J.R.R. Tolkien or whatever. If you want a flavor-win deck based on any of these Legendary Creatures, the search bar awaits, because I'm certain others (with far more background in the lore and love for the story than I have) have done exactly that. Me? I'm going to build around a mechanic.

(Now, if they ever do a Matrix Worlds Beyond? I'm your flavor go-to! Please let me build around Trinity and Agent Smith!)

Here we have a 4/5, five-mana, Mono-White, Avatar Wizard with Flash. We're pretty severely color-limited, but I think we can make up for that, because the rest of the text gives us the ability to use Legendary spells and Artifacts at Instant speed, and when something triggers when they enter the Battlefield or leave it, it triggers twice.

From a purely mechanical standpoint, there are a few directions we could go with this, but I had just one idea: Artifacts only.

Artifacts Only! | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Gandalf the White

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Angel of the Ruins
• 1 Canoptek Scarab Swarm
• 1 Canoptek Spyder
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Combat Thresher
• 1 Thran Spider
• 1 Filigree Familiar
• 1 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Jhoira's Familiar
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Phyrexian Revoker
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 1 Skyscanner
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Treasure Keeper
• 1 Workshop Assistant
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Artifacts (37)
• 1 Alchemist's Vial
• 1 Archaeomancer's Map
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Eye of Vecna
• 1 Forsaken Monument
• 1 Glass Casket
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Implement of Improvement
• 1 Lembas
• 1 Liquimetal Torque
• 1 Mace of the Valiant
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mirrorworks
• 1 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1 Mystic Forge
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Portable Hole
• 1 Portal to Phyrexia
• 1 Predator, Flagship
• 1 Prized Statue
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Slagstone Refinery
• 1 Sleeper Dart
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spear of Heliod
• 1 Spine of Ish Sah
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Summoning Station
• 1 Terrarion
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Unwinding Clock
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Wedding Invitation
• 1 Wizard's Rockets
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (40)
• 30 Plains
• 1 Ancient Den
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Phyrexia's Core
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 The Grey Havens
• 1 The Mycosynth Gardens
• 1 War Room

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We have 40 Lands and several ways to ramp our mana. It would be nice to cast Gandalf early, because we're sort of stuck without him, so we have a few which tap for . Because we have some ways to get Artifacts back from the Graveyard, we've also got some of the rocks that sacrifice themselves for cards. Note Mind Stone (and its ilk) doesn't have a triggered ability, but an activated one: you'll only draw the one card when you sac it. (Mycosynth Wellspring, on the other hand, has a triggered ability and will get you two Lands both when it enters and when it goes away.) Wayfarer's Bauble possibly should be Burnished Hart, but one-mana Artifacts are at a premium in this deck, so it stays in. We also have a few of the cost-reduction Creatures like Foundry Inspector, which can make a pretty big difference either in the early game or when a combo randomly comes together.

There are a ton of Artifacts which draw cards when they enter or leave the Battlefield, and we have a bunch of them. Wizard's Rockets is hilarious here, because it actually sacrifices itself for zero mana and draws us two cards. Sleeper Dart draws us two for and might actually matter by locking something down for a turn - same with Alchemist's Vial. Eye of Vecna can hurt a bit, but it's worth it to keep us drawing. Filigree Familiar and Solemn Simulacrum both draw us two when they die, and Skyscanner and Combat Thresher both draw us two when they enter.

We're a bit limited with answers. Our two big ones are Predator, Flagship and Spear of Heliod, both of which serve as rattlesnakes, but also can be Flashed in as expensive kill spells. (I like the idea of someone attacking us with something, then we Flash in Spear of Heliod and activate it, immediately killing that thing.) Predator, Flagship is a bit slow and clunky, but we take what we can get. There's Spine of Ish Sah and Meteor Golem, which are also expensive but quite effective, and both can be part of an infinite combo to wipe away much of the board. We also have a couple things like Portable Hole and Glass Coffin, but for the most part we're in some trouble. If you're not as rigid about all-Artifacts as I am, Dispatch would be great here, as would any/all of the Oblivion Ring family. There's certainly an argument for Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone, and both would fit the criteria, but I want to live on the edge with this deck. Adjust as you wish.

The fun thing about this, though, is we get to play with all sorts of nonsense. We can play a Myr Battlesphere and get eight tokens. We can trick Summoning Station into making two 2/2 Pinchers (just tap the Station again with the second untap on the stack). Archaeomancer's Map gets us four Plains. Canoptek Scarab Swarm exiles two Graveyards. Spine of Ish Sah destroys two permanents, and Portal to Phyrexia forces everyone else to sacrifice six Creatures. Wurmcoil Engine leaves behind four Wurm tokens.

There are ways to go infinite, most of them involving either Wurmcoil Engine or Myr Battlesphere, Ashnod's Altar, one of the Junk Divers, and Scrap Trawler. I was able to generate infinite tokens and mana that way, which allowed me to completely destroy everyone's boards with Spine of Ish Sah, then demonstrate Commander damage death with Mace of the Valiant. There's also probably something with Trading Post and Staff of Domination with one of the token makers (or a Treasure maker, for that matter), and it seems to me Unwinding Clock could be used for all sorts of shenanigans, even if it's not infinite.

But really? The point of this deck isn't to win. It can, sure, and it should be able to do it definitively enough that everyone will scoop when it does. But the point is to do something completely outrageous, without being oppressive, and possibly to make serious The Lord of the Rings fans mad that your deck has absolutely nothing to do with Gandalf in any of his outfits (apparently his grey one is actually Red and Blue). You could lean this more into combo, spread a bit and run some actual non-Artifact spells, or even play some Legendary spells (I can see a world in which Urza's Ruinous Blast does good work in a Gandalf deck). But me? I want to run this goofy concoction and not worry too much. Draw a bunch of cards, and if people complain about how long I'm taking, I'll point out that my turns are actually really short - it's whoever's right before me whose turns are so long!

Thanks for reading.