Fangorn, Tree Shepherd – LOTR: TALES OF MIDDLE-EARTH
Date Reviewed: July 11, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 2.00
Casual: 4.13
Limited: 3.63
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
There are some characters who are so iconic that they define an entire character type in an entire genre, and Lord of the Rings seems to have more than its proportional share of them. Treebeard (and the Ents) are among those, and while Tolkien originally drew parallels between them and folkloric giants, they’ve become the basis for an entire new class of creature, including Magic’s long-running treefolk. It’s conceptually fitting that Treebeard is a “lord” of sorts for his great-grandchildren, and mechanically fitting that he has a mana-doubling ability – treefolk creatures tend towards the expensive end of the mana curve, and a little extra help in casting them surely won’t go unappreciated (even if he’s expensive enough to need ramp spells on his own account). He also lets you hoard green mana from any source, not just his ability, so anybody who needs a duplicate Upwelling effect can consider him too.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
Fangorn is the proper name of the ent we’ve come to know as Treebeard, a sort of leader among the treefolk and one of the oldest beings in Middle-Earth. Fangorn here serves a decent top-end Treefolk, enabling you to have your masses of lumbering trees attack and defend at the same time (which is useful when paired with their generally high toughness values), and it also lets you carry over green mana in a similar mana to the first Omnath. While they’re definitely useful abilities, and Fangorn does enable you to immediately capitalize, he still costs seven mana (and a lot of green mana) and is only really protected by his ten toughness. While the Treefolk here in Tales From Mddle-Earth are green, there are a fair few Treefolk on white, black, and combinations, so you are giving up a bit to use Fangorn in Commander as your Commander. Still, he helps support an expensive tribe pretty nicely, and that’s not so bad.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 3.75 (can be very hard to break past)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
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