The NecrobloomThe Necrobloom | Art by Igor Krstic

Magic: The Gathering's Commander format is going through a lot of metagame changes! There are a few shake-ups where trends are concerned, especially in the top-ranked commanders.

For instance, the topic of this article, The NecrobloomThe Necrobloom, has recently overtaken the partnered pair of Frodo, Adventurous HobbitFrodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal AttendantSam, Loyal Attendant. This has caused The Necrobloom to become the #1 top-ranked Abzan () commander in the format by popularity. This particular upswing may have some players curious about how it came to be. Fret not, and read on! We'll explain it below.

The Necrobloom - A Popular Dredging Field

At first glance, The Necrobloom clearly acts as an extremely scary commander. It's a Field of the DeadField of the Dead and more, and that's just its landfall ability. Its second key feature gives lands in your graveyard dredge 2. That is a potentially overwhelming ability for opponents to contend with on its own. Together with the landfall ability it possesses, The Necrobloom becomes an almost instantaneous threat once it hits the field.

Anecdotally, when Modern Horizons 3 first came out, a friend of mine warned me that if either of two commanders was pitted against him from the set, he'd forfeit instantly. One was Nadu, Winged WisdomNadu, Winged Wisdom, an obvious example that thankfully he no longer has to contend with. The other was The Necrobloom.

Many players in my local meta haven't really caught on to how powerful the big, stinky Plant really is. However, it seems likely that soon, it'll catch on like the meat-scented stench of a rafflesia to a housefly.

Concerning Hobbits

As for the two Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth commanders that are getting left by the wayside in second place, they'll largely be fine. The Necrobloom has 21,308 decks to its name on EDHREC, which is formidable by and large. However, Frodo, Adventurous HobbitFrodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal AttendantSam, Loyal Attendant are actually not far behind it. With 21,211 decks and fewer than 100 decks standing between them and the Plant, they could potentially reclaim their Abzan throne.

Why That Could Be a Lie

...Or, of course, the Hobbits might never reclaim their throne. In all seriousness, there are a few factors that could potentially keep Frodo and Sam from getting their spot back from The Necrobloom. For one, the Plant is a newer card. This means that more people are likely brewing it compared to Frodo and Sam.

Furthermore, the Plant is more ubiquitous and versatile in what it can do. Frodo and Sam are kind of locked into Food decks right now. Sure, there are probably a few outliers in EDHREC's databases, but for the most part, this remains true. Meanwhile, The Necrobloom's land-matters theme is so widely utilized in each of its colors that it has a glut of options when building for it.

A third major factor as to why Frodo and Sam are built less today is the Universes Beyond scarcity factor. Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth was a Universes Beyond set. Prior to Final Fantasy, it was the biggest one. However, the tricky issue with Universes Beyond is that, as of right now, it has a licensing issue that creates a pseudo-Reserved List. My own thoughts about the Reserved List aside, this much is clear. So, as a result of this, Frodo and Sam are cards that are harder to obtain due to the scarcity the licensing issues present.

Add to this the fact that they're a partnered pair of cards, and now you have double the trouble.

So, from various perspectives, it's actually less about why The Necrobloom only just now overtook the Hobbits, and more about why the Hobbits were such an obstacle in the first place.

Conclusion

Overall, this is an interesting case to examine for EDHREC. Over the course of the next month, it's also possible that a few other cards from 2025 will assume the mantle of being the most popular in their color identities. Teval, the Balanced ScaleTeval, the Balanced Scale, for one, might overcome The Wise MothmanThe Wise Mothman, of which I could cite similar reasoning to Frodo and Sam. And Hearthhull, the WorldseedHearthhull, the Worldseed could soon follow Teval, to many players' surprise, getting past Korvold, Fae-Cursed KingKorvold, Fae-Cursed King.

Is this a trend? Were black-green-plus commanders that much better in 2025? Or are people just now waking up to the idea that Golgari is just a great color core for Commander?

Let's talk about this, dear readers! What do you think about the above questions that I've posed? Sound off in the comments below!