CUT #23 Finals - Aragorn vs Merry and Pippin

We have gone there and back again, now we have a set of finalists. Looking at the votes this time around, it was a very close round! Let's take a look at the results:

Looks like Christian and Alejandro made it through to the finals! Congratulations, you guys! A big thank you for K. Mason for your submission, and I hope to see you on CUT again. The challenges that our finalists faced are as follows:

• Must use a creature from the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Commander set (LTC) as your commander
• Must have 3 out of: Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Merry, Pinpin, Sam, Frodo, Boromir, Gandalf
• 20 Cards in your 99 must be legendary
• Must play five cards with the word "Ring" in the name

First up is Alejandro! He did speak to me about a rule zero Commander combination. I felt it was a good flavor reason, so I allowed it.

The Fellowship Unites

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Commander (2) 1 Aragorn, King of Gondor 1 The Prismatic Piper Creatures (24) 1 Beastcaller Savant 1 Boromir, Gondor's Hope 1 Boromir, Warden of the Tower 1 Captain Sisay 1 Delighted Halfling 1 Faramir, Steward of Gondor 1 Frodo Baggins 1 Gandalf the White 1 Gimli of the Glittering Caves 1 Harabaz Druid 1 Hero of Goma Fada 1 Jwari Shapeshifter 1 Legolas Greenleaf 1 Merry, Esquire of Rohan 1 Mirror Entity 1 Munda, Ambush Leader 1 Pippin, Guard of the Citadel 1 Realmwalker 1 Samwise Gamgee 1 Samwise the Stouthearted 1 Sea Gate Loremaster 1 Turntimber Ranger 1 Éomer, Marshal of Rohan 1 Éowyn, Fearless Knight Artifacts (14) 1 Arcane Signet 1 Azorius Signet 1 Chromatic Lantern 1 Coat of Arms 1 Door of Destinies 1 Fellwar Stone 1 Gruul Signet 1 Herald's Horn 1 Maskwood Nexus 1 Selesnya Signet 1 Sol Ring 1 The One Ring 1 Urza's Incubator 1 Vanquisher's Banner Enchantments (7) 1 Arcane Adaptation 1 Flowering of the White Tree 1 Kindred Discovery 1 Reflections of Littjara 1 Shared Animosity 1 Sterling Grove 1 Xenograft Instants (3) 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Path to Exile 1 Swords to Plowshares Sorceries (12) 1 Austere Command 1 Blasphemous Act 1 Cultivate 1 Distant Melody 1 Fabricate 1 Farseek 1 Idyllic Tutor 1 Kindred Charge 1 Kodama's Reach 1 Rampant Growth 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Three Visits Lands (38) 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Boseiju, Who Endures 1 Breeding Pool 1 Canopy Vista 1 Command Tower 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire 4 Forest 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Inspiring Vantage 4 Island 1 Meandering River 1 Minas Tirith 1 Mines of Moria 4 Mountain 1 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Plains 1 Rejuvenating Springs 1 Rivendell 1 Sacred Foundry 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance 1 Spara's Headquarters 1 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 1 Temple Garden 1 The Shire 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

When looking at the deck restrictions for this challenge, the primary one seemed to be the inclusion of at least three of the fellowship members. Immediately, my inclination to overdo everything took over, and I decided that I needed to run all nine. It's not like Sauron could've been defeated by one third of the group, so if we want to take down Sauron, the Dark Lord, we're going to need every member. (Partially because we'll need sac fodder for that ward ability, but don't think about that). Unfortunately, these guys don't synergize great with each other, but almost every one of them has a version that cares about legends in some way, and that's a good starting place for the deck.

Anyways, the first problem we face is that none of the generals from the Commander set can actually contain all nine. If we take one of the Abzan legends, we can't include Gimli in the deck, and if we take a Jeskai one, we lose Legolas. Obviously, this is unacceptable, so I'm going to Rule Zero The Prismatic Piper as Aragorn, King of Gondor's partner. If I didn't have to comply with the rules of Cut, I would just run Aragorn, the Uniter, but as it is, the other ranger makes a fine general.

Now, from here, we could just go with a pretty typical legends deck, but that sounds like a whole lot of boring. Instead, I'm going to use an idea that I had a few weeks ago, when I used a bunch of conspiracy effects to make the Reaper King trigger when Praetors entered the battlefield. Turns out, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a much better card than Scuttlemutt. We can use the same strategy here, uniting our nine fellows under one creature type. But what type? We could make them all Elves, but thematically, that's a bit strange, and anyways, Elves don't need some weird twist to be extremely powerful. So let's take a somewhat underused creature type with powerful typal abilities and a strong sense of unity: Allies. Every Ally triggers when another enters the battlefield, making them exponentially stronger as you play more of them, and if it wasn't for the many friends that the fellowship made along the way, they would've never succeeded. Turntimber Ranger is there to represent the wargs that aided the fellas, and Munda, Ambush Leader's beard sort of resembles the facial hair of Saruman, who never once let the heroic group down. Yup. Perfectly on theme. There's still a minor legends theme, with Captain Sisay playing the role of... um... Arwen, I guess, and Flowering of the White Tree representing that time when the White Tree flowered.

As for the five cards with the word Ring in them, we've got Otawara, Soaring City, Inspiring Vantage, Rejuvenating Springs, Meandering River, and of course, The One Ring. I think that's close enough to the rings that the elven smiths forged.

With that, the deck's done. It's a sort of fun pile of cards that is somewhat functional, but more importantly, flavorful. If you can get the entire fellowship on the board at once, you might as well have won, and even if it doesn't win games with its unnecessary jankiness, hopefully it puts a smile on someone's face.

Last up, we have Christian! Let's see what Christian brought to the final battle!

Merry and Pippin

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Commander (2) 1 Merry, Warden of Isengard 1 Pippin, Warden of Isengard Lands (36) 1 Access Tunnel 1 Ash Barrens 1 Barad-dûr 1 Brushland 1 Canopy Vista 1 Command Tower 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Exotic Orchard 6 Forest 1 Graypelt Refuge 1 Great Hall of the Citadel 1 Isolated Chapel 1 Minas Tirith 1 Murmuring Bosk 1 Path of Ancestry 4 Plains 1 Rogue's Passage 1 Sandsteppe Citadel 1 Scattered Groves 1 Scoured Barrens 1 Shire Terrace 1 Sunpetal Grove 4 Swamp 1 The Shire 1 Woodland Cemetery Instants (6) 1 Anguished Unmaking 1 Heroic Intervention 1 Mortify 1 Path to Exile 1 Reprieve 1 Swords to Plowshares Creatures (32) 1 Aragorn and Arwen, Wed 1 Banquet Guests 1 Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant 1 Bill the Pony 1 Boromir, Warden of the Tower 1 Delighted Halfling 1 Elanor Gardner 1 Farmer Cotton 1 Feasting Hobbit 1 Gandalf the White 1 Gilded Goose 1 Gollum, Obsessed Stalker 1 Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles 1 Lobelia, Defender of Bag End 1 Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff 1 Meriadoc Brandybuck 1 Mirkwood Bats 1 Motivated Pony 1 Peregrin Took 1 Prize Pig 1 Prosperous Innkeeper 1 Rapacious Guest 1 Rosie Cotton of South Lane 1 Sam, Loyal Attendant 1 Samwise Gamgee 1 Samwise the Stouthearted 1 Saradoc, Master of Buckland 1 Savvy Hunter 1 Sméagol, Helpful Guide 1 The Gaffer 1 Tireless Provisioner 1 Treebeard, Gracious Host Artifacts (9) 1 Arcane Signet 1 Bilbo's Ring 1 Field-Tested Frying Pan 1 Mithril Coat 1 Sol Ring 1 Sting, the Glinting Dagger 1 Sword of the Animist 1 The One Ring 1 Well of Lost Dreams Enchantments (5) 1 Call for Unity 1 Dawn of a New Age 1 Elven Chorus 1 Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit 1 Sanguine Bond Sorceries (10) 1 Cultivate 1 Farseek 1 Fell the Mighty 1 Fumigate 1 Many Partings 1 Overwhelming Stampede 1 Rampant Growth 1 Revive the Shire 1 The Battle of Bywater 1 The Ring Goes South

Howdy, all! Glad I could join for the next round of CUT! I actually preordered all four of the Lord of the Rings Commander decks, and one spoke to me more than any of the others; Food and Fellowship.

I myself have two hobbits named Merry and Pippin (seen above), and decided to make a deck fitting their appetite for constant food and additional meals throughout the day. Luckily, the preconstructed deck is actually VERY voracious and successful right out of the box.

As I'm sure many of you know, it was also pretty easy to further upgrade the preconstructed deck simply with cards from the set itself. In fact, there is only one non-LTC/LTR creature I chose to include: Tireless Provisioner. This is a massively useful card that will turn all of our land drops into Treasure, if we need mana, or Food, if we want to further our appetites for tokens. The flexibility of making either makes this a great addition that changes its uses depending on the board state! As for the conditions of this round of CUT!, four of the five ring cards were fairly easy to choose: Sol Ring, The One Ring, Ring of Barahir, and Bilbo's Ring. These all are simply great options for any Commander deck (I mean, come on, Sol Ring is right there!). As for my fifth, I decided on The Ring Goes South. Considering I'm using so many legendary creatures, it should be very easy to hit several lands at most points in the game! Speaking of those more than 20 legendary creatures, I did try to have a healthy representation of the fellowship in addition to my commanders, with one Aragorn, one Boromir, one Gandalf, and THREE Sams! Notably, I didn't feel that any of the Frodos were great fits considering my focus on Halflings and Food rather than tempting the ring, and I couldn't find any Legolas or Gimli cards that felt like they would support the deck either.

All in all, this deck was really a fun and easy build for me. I didn't have to stray too far from the preconstructed deck, and even then, mostly was able to use cards I opened from the set itself! I plan to have Merry and Pippin altered like my cats at some point, and perhaps the Gandalf as me. For now, I hope you all enjoy this particular build, and I hope it stands up to my opponents!

The fellowship is gathered and the decks are presented. Make sure you look them over before you vote. A big thank you to our finalists for being a part of this Lord of the Rings edition of CUT, really couldn't have done it without you. I do hope that you have enjoyed reading this edition of CUT! Until next time, remember, if you don't love it, CUT it!

If you or a friend would like to participate in a future CUT article feel free to email me at the.only.travis.stanley@gmail.com or reach out to me on my socials!