As the Chronicles of Middle-earth expansion arrives on June 23, 2023, Wizards of the Coast teams have agreed to reveal a legendary character card to LInternaute.com: “Lotho, corrupted shirriff”.
Before discovering in detail who is Lotho, the 213th card of the expansion The Lord of the Rings: Chronicles of Middle-earth, let’s take a look at what’s new with this new Magic: The Gathering card set.
For the tenth expansion of the infinite universe (a format using third-party licenses, outside of the Magic multiverse), the creative teams at Wizards of the Coast have decided to make an impression. Indeed, this extension welcomes the most emblematic saga of fantasy: The Lord of the Rings.
Whether you are a fiery warrior alongside Aragorn, Frodo and Gandalf or your heart leans towards the forces of chaos and you dream of embodying one of the nine Nazgûl, this expansion will take you to the farthest reaches of the world imagined by the big JRR Tolkien. The author himself presents The Hobbit as “the story of a round trip”. And these are many round trips that will take you to the Shire, to Lorien, to Rohan, to Imladris (Fondcombe) or to the foot of the mountain of Destiny in the dark Mordor…
The ultimate edition for collectors?
The publisher decided to turn all players into potential Gollum, because there is a unique version of the Ring card. Will its price dethrone the famous Black Lotus ($540,000 at auction in March 2023)?
The publisher has also provided variants of the 3 solar rings (Elves, Dwarf and Human, one type per race), also in very limited editions…
A new game mechanic : the Ring tempts you
As in the fantasy saga, the ring’s power attracts and corrupts. A large part of the cards in this extension have the mention “the Ring tempts you”.
Each time the Ring tempts you, if you have a creature in play it becomes the ring bearer. If you have multiple creatures, then you can choose which will be the ring bearer.
In addition, the gradation of temptation increases each time, giving it a bonus ability at each level (from 1 to 4). There doesn’t need to be a wearer for the temptation to level up.
But what stood out to us the most at L’Internaute is the addition of borderless scenic maps. Several cards, placed side by side, thus form an iconic scene from the book.
Now for a look at some of the Scenes which are painted across multiple Magic cards, in this case, six cards which show Bilbo’s birthday.
: Livia Prima#MTGxLOTR pic.twitter.com/otiDbGH38V— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) May 30, 2023
Lotho, the corrupted shirriff
Lotho is a shirriff, or “constable” in the French translation of the book. Constables serve as law enforcement within the Shire. All fans remember the end of the book, a part left untreated in Peter Jackson’s adaptation in which Saruman corrupted the Shire. The magician establishes a totalitarian movement to ensure regular entries of pipe weed for his consumption and that of his army. Having become chief of the police-militia of the Shire, Lotho, one of the nephews of Bilbo (but on the disagreeable and sadly materialistic side of the Baggins of Baggins), is highly corrupt. This is why the teams of Wizards of the Coast have ingeniously decided to use this corruption on a mechanism of exchange of value where the player, by losing a point of life, gains a token of mana. This only when the opponent casts their second spell, each turn.
You don’t have long to wait to explore the many territories of Tolkien’s universe, indeed, Magic: The Lord of the Rings expansion releases Friday, June 23, 2023. Start building your weapons now!