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Lord Of The Rings: Tales Of Middle-Earth is one of the most successful Magic products of all time, with plenty of value within the set. There are multiple art treatments and foils, giving collectors a lot of cards to chase in booster packs, alongside tactfully tapping into the mythos of Tolkein’s world. Our list of the most expensive Lord of the Rings cards in MTG will not include serialized pulls, as their value is too inconsistent to put a number on, though they will always be worth more than a regular printing. Instead, we’ve only decided to include consumer-friendly cards.
The 1 of 1 Ring to Rule Them All
The most expensive Magic card ever sold was “The 1 of 1 Ring,” which Post Malone purchased for $2m. While this is the most expensive MTG LotR card ever, we’ve not listed it as one of the options you can buy, unless you know Post Malone personally.
13. Aragorn, The Uniter (Showcase Surge Foil) – $12.70
Aragorn, The Uniter is one of the very few commanders to boast four colors for its commander identity. It benefits the best when playing cards from all over the color pie, especially hybrid mana cards and multi-colored spells as it will trigger multiple Aragorn, The Uniter effects for just one spell.
12. Witch-King Of Angmar (Borderless Poster) – $12.81
One of the many Lord of the Rings cards with a Borderless Poster treatment (only found in the Holiday Release booster packs), the Witch-King Of Angmar is one that holds a lot of value. It’s a free discard outlet, and forces opponents to sacrifice creatures if they ever successfully deal combat damage to you.
This particular print puts a heavy metal spin on Sauron’s most powerful thrall, and it sits comfortably on the list of rare and valuable LotR cards.
11. Saruman Of Many Colors (Borderless Poster) – $12.82
Saruman Of Many Colors has various cheap printings, though the Borderless Poster version is one of the most valuable by far. Saruman is all about casting your opponents’ spells from their graveyard, something that can be set up with its ward cards. Its ward is rather specific, making it harder to remove through traditional means. Where the Witch King card was inspired by metal music, Saruman’s instead evokes psychedelic mania.
10. Gandalf The White (Borderless Poster) – $17.53
Gandalf The White is a card that supports decks that utilizes a ton of legendary spells. Cards that cause effects to trigger twice are great, especially since Gandalf The White doubles triggers off legendary permanents both entering and leaving play to get even more out of it on the battlefield.
9. Palantir Of Orthanc (Borderless Poster) – $18.17
Controlling the top cards of your library is always great, and Palantir Of Orthanc is a way to do that and either draw cards or deal a ton of burn damage to your opponent if they have you mill the cards instead. It only costs three mana as well, letting it start gaining counters for its effect early on in the game.
8. Aragorn and Arwen, Wed (Extended Art) – $19.84
Aragorn and Arwen, Wed is one of the faces of the Starter Decks released for Lord Of The Rings. While the original printing isn’t too valuable, the Extended Art variant is worth a lot more. It’s a quick way to spread +1/+1 counters, but most of its value comes from the iconic pairing of characters.
7. Nazgul (Showcase Scroll) – $9 – $22.20
Nazgul is unique in that there are nine different arts for the card, just like the Nine Riders from the original text. They are each valuable individually, and are instead put into one entry rather than having separate ones for each version. The card’s various arts are what make it so collectible, especially since you can play nine different Nazgul cards in your deck (including in Commander).
6. Mount Doom (Borderless Poster) – $27.29
Mount Doom is a great land, able to generate red or black mana, and can be turned into a board wipe if you have a legendary artifa ct to sacrifice as well. It can even be used as a one-damage burn once a turn if you have nothing else to do with your mana. It’s a legendary land, but since it can eventually sacrifice itself you can bring a replacement down in non-singleton formats.
5. Last March of the Ents (Borderless Poster) – $28.71
Last March Of The Ents holds a lot of value in all its versions, but the Borderless Poster variation is the most expensive one, almost double the price of the next cheapest copy. Its a lot of mana to invest in casting, but if it resolves, you can draw a ton of cards and get multiple creatures onto the battlefield.
4. Tom Bombadil (Borderless Poster) – $45.75
Five-color commanders are quite rare, and Tom Bombadil gives a unique spin on it. If you want to play with every Saga card, Tom Bombadil is great to use as it constantly replaces Sagas when their final chapters resolve. Regular versions of Tom Bombadil aren’t worth much, the Borderless Poster variant holds a decent bit of value.
3. Orcish Bowmasters (Showcase Scroll) – $65
Orcish Bowmasters immediately made a meta-impact in just about every format it was legal in. Due to its meta-importance, the value of all Orcish Bowmasters is quite high, with the Showcase Scroll version being the most expensive. Orcish Bowmasters is the ultimate punish for someone drawing cards, especially in formats with a lot of Brainstorm usage.
2. Sauron, The Dark Lord (Borderless Poster) – $95
Sauron, The Dark Lord is one of the most popular commanders from the Lord of the Rings set, so the most fancy version is the most valuable one. It’s very hard to remove due to its unique ward cost, making its higher mana value worth going casting as you won’t have to be wary of removal spells.
1. The One Ring (Borderless Poster) – $160.37
Technically, the most expensive version of The One Ring is the 1/1 variant that was sold for two million dollars. However, since only one of those exist in the world, the next best thing is The One Ring’s Borderless Poster version. The One Ring is a menace of a card, and improves almost every deck it finds itself in. Every single version of The One Ring is worth more than every other card on this list, so if you open a copy from a booster pack you got the best card you could have opened.
That concludes our list of the most expensive MTG Lord of the Rings cards, though beyond the consumer friendly ones there’s plenty of expensive serialized cards costing anywhere between four to five figures. The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth is one of the most beloved Universes Beyond sets, and while it’s brought plenty of valuable cards with it, the recent MTG Fallout collaboration has ushered in extremely competitive prices to match.
Expensive MTG LotR cards – FAQs
Is it worth investing in Lord of the Rings MTG cards?
As far as MTG investments go, all of the Universes Beyond collaborations are worth considering. The longer since the sets release, the more the prices rise. Add on the fact it’s one of the most beloved and well-known franchises out there, you can imagine that demand for rare MTG Lord of the Rings cards will only increase.
Why is the One Ring card so expensive?
The One Ring card is the most expensive Magic card ever thanks to the fact that, as the name suggests, it’s a 1 of 1 card. There are variants of the card that don’t cost anywhere near as much, though the serialized 1 of 1 edition has its flavour written entirely in the Black Speech (Sauron’s tongue of Mordor) that Tolkein created for Middle Earth.
