Cube inspired by the "Jump into Middle Earth" Arena event that ran Dec 2023 - Feb 2024 (lists: Jump Into Middle Earth).

This is a Jumpstart cube with both monocolored and bicolored half-decks designed for 1v1 play. Includes mostly cards from the "Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth" and "Commander: Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth" set.

Goals

The first aim of the cube is to port the arena lists to paper, rebalance them and improve playability. This is achieved by:

1. Improving mana bases
2. Replacing narrow/unfun cards
3. Strengthening deck themes and synergies

A secondary goal is to make the play experience more immersive by removing and replacing any cards and/or themes that do not fit the LOTR setting (no Phyrexians, thanks).

A final goal is to replace/rework weaker themes to add more variety.

I will take the event decks as a starting point and a guide, but I will not shy from making major changes whenever I see fit.

Half-decks and archetypes

v.1.4

Monocolor:
Breakfast - Food aggro
Rallying - Go-wide aggro
Insight - Draw/counters midrange
Tempted - TRTY* midrange
Sauron's - Amass aggro
Wraiths - TRTY* control
Moria - Ping midrange
Riders - Humans aggro
Shire - Food midrange
Treefolk - Ferocious Ramp

Bicolor:
Flying - flying control
Equipment -
equipment/treasures aggro
Amass- Amass control
Blighted -
spiders/recursion midrange
Wilds - Ferocious aggro
Wizard- Spellslinger
Tokens - Go-wide midrange
Foul - Sac midrange
Stalwart - TRTY* midrange
Elves - Scry midrange

* The Ring tempts you.

For an overlook on how the themes fit together, checkout the cube concept map.

How to put together a deck

The cube is designed to be played with bicolored decks. To ensure that, some restrictions have to be applied on half-deck selection. I have devised this procedure:

1. Put each-half deck in resealable pack labeled with the deck colors on one side. If you do not have reselable pack, arrange each deck with a basic (for monocolored) or dual land (for bicolored) on top.
2. Lay the decks on the table. all bicolored decks must be laid face-up (colors visible). Monocolored decks can be laid either face-down or face-up, depending on wether you want to pick randomly or not.
3. Players roll a dice for pick order.
4. In order, each player picks a monocolored deck.
   4.1 If monocolored decks were laid face-down, turn the remaining monocolored decks face-up, so that you can tell the color of each half-deck.
5. In reverse order, each player picks a compatible* monocolored or bicolored deck.

*a second-pick half-deck is compatible to the first-pick half-deck if it matches one of the following requirements:

1. If it is monocolored, it must not be of the same color of the first-pick half-deck.
2. If it is bicolored, it must share a color with the first-pick half-deck.

Example: Jim chooses Riders as his first pick. His second pick must be either a monocolored deck that is , , , or one of the following bicolored decks: , , , .

1v1 Play suggestions

some ideas on how to use the cube:

Quick tournament
quick BO1 tournament: the participants pick one deck and play eachother in a swiss-style tournament. Good for testing or to run multiple tournaments in a row. 2-8 players.

Heartstone-style
Each player picks two decks: a "main" deck and a "backup" deck. Participants play eachother in a BO3 swiss-style tournament. All players will play game 1 with their "main" deck. After each game of each round, the winner of that game must switch to his/her "backup" deck. Repeat until the round ends. 2-4 players.

Example: Jim is paired against Tom. Jim chose a deck as his main and a backup deck. Tom picked and . The first game is played: vs . Jim wins the first game, so he must play the rest of the match with his backup deck. The second game is played: vs . If Tom manages to equalize, it's hist turn to switch decks, so the tie-breaker will be vs .

Differences from the digital version

v.1.4

The current version implements the following half-decks from Arena: Jump Into Middle Earth with minor changes:
Breakfast, Rallying, Insight, Sauron's, Moria, Shire, Treefolk, Amass, Blighted, Wilds, Wizard, Tokens, Foul, Stalwart, Elves.

The following lists have been taken from Tales of Middle-earth Jumpstart Boosters (paper product):
Riders

The following lists are my own creation:
Wraiths, Flying, Equipment, Insight, Tempted

These Arena lists have been replaced and moved to the maybeboard for archival:
captain, humans