Frodo Baggins – LOTR: TALES OF MIDDLE-EARTH
Date Reviewed: June 26, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
It’s fitting that a character as iconic as Frodo plays a unique role in Tales of Middle-Earth‘s gameplay. He’s the bridge between the legendary theme and the “Ring tempts you” theme, and he actually provides a signpost in formats beyond that for anybody who wants their legend deck to have a theme beyond playing lots of named and/or storyline-relevant characters. His low power pairs well with the Ring emblem’s first ability, although he’ll sometimes be just as effective when you hold him back, use your other legends to ramp up the emblem’s powers, and attack with another one you might find more advantageous. Which, if you think about it, is very true to the source material: the Fellowship and its success were very much a team effort!
Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
The improbable protagonist of The Lord of the Rings, it is ultimately Frodo Baggins, a hobbit, who is tasked with carrying The One Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it. This card seems to capture the little hobbit early in his epic journey, wide-eyed and full of optimism.
The main attraction of Frodo Baggins is that he’s efficient at triggering the temptation of the Ring; he triggers it very readily, especially on top of all of the legendary creatures running around Middle-Earth. He also has an interesting interaction with being the ring-bearer: the first effect of “the Ring tempts you” is to become unblockable by creatures with greater power, meaning Frodo will usually force a small creature in front of him…and the third temptation forces the blocking creature to die, so Frodo Baggins can actually punch abve his weight against low-power, high-toughness creatures.
I feel like he’s nothing special, but his skillset is pretty reasonable for getting incremental advantage aplenty. His meager body isn’t too egregious though dying to Lightning Bolt is hardly ideal; still, for what he does, he can serve you pretty well. I do think that “the Ring tempts you” is new enough to be a hard mechanic to value, but we’ll find out how good it is before too long.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 4 (pretty easy to get the Ring all loaded up, and he carries it well enough)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 3.25
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