(Sauron, Lord of the Rings | Art by Alex Brock)

Hello friends! And welcome back to EDHREC for another Scrap Trawlers Precon Upgrade Guide. Today we’re digging into the Hosts of Mordor precon from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, and seeing what kind of jabs and insults we can hurl at it to make it pick up the pace.

In my Precon Primer, we saw that the deck has an insufficient mana suite for casting our eight-mana commander and other high mana value cards in the deck. So with this upgrade guide we’re cutting some high-MV cards to lower our curve, and we’re adding more ramp so we can get our big creatures on the battlefield more quickly. We’re also throwing in some cards to make sure we Amass more often. And, since we’re the Scrap Trawlers, we’re gonna do it cheaply!

But if you’ve been dreaming of having Sauron lead your deck ever since they announced the Lord of the Rings crossover, and you wanna toss a bit of extra money at it, make sure to stick around till the end.

As Long and Slow as Our Arts in the Great Tower Can Contrive

Leading this great host is Sauron, Lord of the Rings, a 9/9 Avatar Horror with trample. When you cast him, you Amass Orcs 5, mill five cards, and then bring a creature from your grave to the battlefield. Then whenever an opponent’s commander dies, the Ring tempts you.

Although Saruman, the White Hand is more efficient, I’m too excited to play the big bad Sauron as my commander. So we’re keeping him in charge, despite his massive cost. One reason why I’m not too worried about that is that his biggest effect is a cast trigger, like the Eldrazi of old. So even if he gets countered, or killed on sight, we still get to make an Orc Army and reanimate a creature. We’ll just have to wait a couple more turns to swing him at our opponents.

Here’s the original deck list:

Surety You Crave! Sauron Gives None.

The precon’s biggest flaw is its mana. The average mana value is 4.16, which is too high for any deck that isn’t built specifically to be high-cost. So our first job with our upgrades is to beef up our ramp. In the primer I mentioned rituals, which are instants and sorceries that give you a one-time surge of mana. We’ll start there, by adding the original ritual, Dark Ritual, as well as Seething Song and Mana Geyser.

To help smooth out the three colors a bit better, I’m also adding Fellwar Stone and Exotic Orchard. And because we worked so hard to get him, Swiftfoot Boots is jumping in to protect Sauron.

Since the deck is functioning best when we’re pumping up our tokens, the rest of the additions are here to help with that, starting with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. This guy is beyond fun in this deck. Want to turn your Army into a treasure? Done. Want to turn it into a Myr so you can make another Army next time you Amass? Go for it. Brudiclad is going to turn our one-Orc Army into a multitude of tokens (just don’t turn a Myr into a 0/0 Orc Army; that doesn’t work so much). Roar of Resistance is also joining the deck to make our attackers more powerful.

Dreadhorde Invasion will ensure that we always have an Army (that lifelink ain’t looking so bad either). And March from the Black Gate, from the main LOTR set, punches up our Army every time it attacks.

Mauhur, Uruk-hai Captain increases the counters we add when we Amass. Honor the God-Pharaoh gives us some card draw while Amassing, and Lazotep Plating gives our stuff some protection.

That’s 13 cards upgraded, all for under $6!

Go Back to the Shadow

Cards go in, cards come out. We’ve added 13 cards to the deck and we need to get back down to 100 cards (or else the CAG will get us). 

The first cuts follow a small sub-theme in the deck of casting instants and sorceries. The problem with these cards is that there aren't enough instants and sorceries in the deck to make them valuable. I get that they’re supposed to work with Saruman, but he triggers off any noncreature spell, which includes artifacts and enchantments. So out comes Guttersnipe and Fiery Inscription.

A few cards were cut to lower the average mana value of the deck. Voracious Fell Beast, Subjugate the Hobbits, In the Darkness Bind Them, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Monstrosity of the Lake, and Extract from Darkness were all fattening up the high end of the mana curve, while not providing enough support to the deck’s main themes.

With Brudiclad and Roar of Resistance entering the deck, Anger feels like it doesn’t do enough, so it’s gone. Hostage Taker is neither Orc nor Goblin, and only feels like expensive removal, so he’s getting left behind.

Revenge of Ravens is a great card for life gain decks, but that is definitely not what we’re doing. And our last cut is one Swamp, to make way for Exotic Orchard.

With these changes, we’re down to an average mana value of a much more manageable 3.79, and we’re more reliably making giant Army tokens.

Lord of the Bling

Alright, so maybe you’re not as budget conscious as us Scrap Trawlers. No problem. Here’s some more precious goodies for the deck.

Keeping Sauron on the board is much easier to do if we’ve got some money to spend. Command Beacon frees us from the burden of commander tax one time if we sacrifice it, Lightning Greaves can boot Sauron up the turn he comes out (no extra mana needed), and Cavern of Souls prevents him from getting countered.

The talk of the town from this set, aside from the Wonka-esque hunt for the One of One Ring, is Orcish Bowmasters. Most people are excited to throw it into decks with wheels, but here it’s just further improving our Amass capabilities.

Curiosity Crafter loves for us to punch face with tokens, which is exactly what our deck does.

Sauron, the Dark Lord, from the main set, Amasses all over the place, and is a perfect addition to the deck. But you know what’s even more perfect? He wants it, yes precious. The One Ring. He must have it.

All the Hosts of Mordor Trembled

Here’s the final upgraded decklist:

We sped the deck up, and pumped up our Army’s capabilities. While Sauron might still have a hard time staying out, with our improved ramp package, we’re definitely going to be seeing a lot more of him.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but that’s where you come in. What would you add to this deck to ensure that Mordor’s armies cover the face of Middle-earth? Sound off below.

Don’t forget to check out our other precon guides as well! We’ll see you again for Commander Masters. Until then, take care. And remember to budget…before you buy it.