MTG Food and Fellowship Commanders May be a Trap!

Finally, the long wait is over, and we get to check out the fully revealed Lord of the Rings Commander decks. Let’s take a look at the white, black and green shard for Food and Fellowship, featuring Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit Partner with Sam, Loyal Attendant
Vigilance
Whenever Frodo attacks, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, the Ring tempts you. Then if Frodo is your Ring-bearer and the Ring has tempted you two or more times this game, draw a card. and Sam, Loyal Attendant Sam, Loyal Attendant Partner with Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit (When this creature enters, target player may put Frodo into their hand from their library, then shuffle.)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
Activated abilities of Foods you control cost {1} less to activate. as the default partner commanders. Let’s start out with where this deck took a wrong turn in Mordor.

Default Partners are a Trap

What is Food and Fellowship‘s plan? Cards like [tooltip]Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant[/tooltips], Treebeard, Gracious Host Treebeard, Gracious Host Trample, ward {2}
When Treebeard enters, create two Food tokens.
Whenever you gain life, put that many +1/+1 counters on target Halfling or Treefolk. , Field-Tested Frying Pan Field-Tested Frying Pan When this Equipment enters, create a Food token, then create a 1/1 white Halfling creature token and attach this Equipment to it.
Equipped creature has "Whenever you gain life, this creature gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the amount of life you gained."
Equip {2} and of course Sanguine Bond Sanguine Bond Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life. really want you to gain life. Additionally, there are many other cards that do synergistic things with Food Food {2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life. . With that in mind, Sam, Loyal Attendant Sam, Loyal Attendant Partner with Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit (When this creature enters, target player may put Frodo into their hand from their library, then shuffle.)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
Activated abilities of Foods you control cost {1} less to activate. sure looks like the card is perfect for the deck, and, it is! But now, let’s look at Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit Partner with Sam, Loyal Attendant
Vigilance
Whenever Frodo attacks, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, the Ring tempts you. Then if Frodo is your Ring-bearer and the Ring has tempted you two or more times this game, draw a card. .

Well, if you gained three or more life you get tempted by the ring, and if it’s the second time or more you’ve been tempted you can draw a card. Or, wait, that’s not quite right. It’s buried in an attack trigger clause. For all the hoops you jump through, you get one card and you must attack to do so. Sure, you cannot be blocked by anything with power greater than one if you make Frodo the ringbearer but you’re not Unblockable. This is not very much value. But what about the other commander pairing?

Enter the true heroes of the story, Pippin, Warden of Isengard Pippin, Warden of Isengard Partner with Merry, Warden of Isengard (When this creature enters, target player may put Merry into their hand from their library, then shuffle.)
{1}, {T}: Create a Food token.
{T}, Sacrifice four Foods: Other creatures you control get +3/+3 and gain haste until end of turn. Activate only as a sorcery. , and Merry, Warden of Isengard Merry, Warden of Isengard Partner with Pippin, Warden of Isengard (When this creature enters, target player may put Pippin into their hand from their library, then shuffle.)
Whenever one or more artifacts you control enter, create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token with lifelink. This ability triggers only once each turn. . If you can turn one a mana producer, turn two Pippin, and turn three Merry, you have successfully achieved huge value. From now on, anytime you play virtually anything, you get an additional 1/1 with Lifelink, thanks to Merry. As long as you have just one more mana, you can generate a Food Food {2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life. during an opponent’s turn and get another 1/1 with Lifelink. Effectively it’s the choice between generating two Creatures and two Food per round versus one Food and one additional card drawn per round.

The thing is, the two Creatures you are generating have Lifelink. That’s ultra-relevant considering the large number of cards in the deck that care about life gain. Furthermore, after just a couple of turns, Pippin’s alternate activated ability comes online. Giving all your Creatures +3/+3 and until end of turn is good but you will now have multiple 4/4 Lifelink Soldiers that are ready to gain you even more life. Plus there are other cards in the deck like Motivated Pony Motivated Pony Trample, haste
Whenever this creature attacks, attacking creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn. If a Food entered the battlefield under your control this turn, untap those creatures and they get an additional +2/+2 until end of turn. that obviously want wider boards full of tokens. Finally, if you do happen to activate Bilbo and get all your Creatures into play, the Haste from Pippin is a game ender.

The deck scales exponentially with these two at the helm and has a way bigger payoff. They seem like a much better choice over getting a few extra cards. Furthermore, the deck has card draw from Mentor of the Meek Mentor of the Meek Whenever another creature you control with power 2 or less enters, you may pay {1}. If you do, draw a card. which works incredibly well with Merry and Pippin, or simply Well of Lost Dreams Well of Lost Dreams Whenever you gain life, you may pay {X}, where X is less than or equal to the amount of life you gained. If you do, draw X cards. .

Strongest Card by a Mile

Do you enjoy playing Arvinox, the Mind Flail Arvinox, the Mind Flail Arvinox isn't a creature unless you control three or more permanents you don't own.
At the beginning of your end step, exile the bottom card of each opponent's library face down. For as long as those cards remain exiled, you may look at them, you may cast permanent spells from among them, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells. , or Xanathar, Guild Kingpin Xanathar, Guild Kingpin At the beginning of your upkeep, choose target opponent. Until end of turn, that player can't cast spells, you may look at the top card of their library any time, you may play the top card of their library, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast spells this way. ? What if they cost three mana? I’m not sure why [tooltip]Lobelia, Defender of Bag End[/tooltips], is in this deck, but I’m glad it is! This card in a different deck with flicker or reanimation effects would be extremely powerful. Interacting with not one but up to three other decks is massive value because you are taking cards away from your opponents while also choosing the absolute best from them to play for yourself. The fact that you get to play the card for free is wild, and you cannot blank as you can play Lands too. Sure, you need to tap Lobelia and sacrifice an Artifact for that payment, but it’s now easier than ever to make free Artifacts. Three relatively free cards is great value.

In this deck, Lobelia has a secondary mode where she drains the table. It might be relevant especially if you need a life gain trigger but her first ability is way, way better, and it’s much more likely to have a massively larger impact than the life drain mode.

Read More: Jeskai Lord of the Rings Commander Deck Threatens Multiple Combat Steps!

Other Notable Cards

I have a feeling that The Gaffer The Gaffer At the beginning of each end step, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, draw a card. will turn out to be a lot less powerful when I play it than when other people do. Alongside Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles Flying
Whenever Gwaihir attacks, target attacking creature gains flying until end of turn.
At the beginning of each end step, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, create a 3/3 white Bird creature token with flying and "Whenever this token attacks, target attacking creature gains flying until end of turn." that three life per turn threshold is incredibly important to meet to gain advantage. While Food and Fellowship suggests the best way to do that is through generating Food and paying mana, there are a variety of cards throughout Magic’s history that can give you that extra bit of life gain on every turn like Sun Droplet Sun Droplet Whenever you're dealt damage, put that many charge counters on this artifact.
At the beginning of each upkeep, you may remove a charge counter from this artifact. If you do, you gain 1 life. or Zuran Orb Zuran Orb Sacrifice a land: You gain 2 life. in a pinch.

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Rating Food and Fellowship

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a very strong deck all told. There are several cards that are redundant but not powerful, at all. For example, look at Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper At the beginning of your end step, if you don't control a Food, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.") . This guy is effectively a hard to cast Hill Giant Hill Giant if you have even one Food in play and this deck certainly will. If that card was at the end of each turn, fine, that’s an alright card. But here it’s just extremely low value, particularly if you do choose to use Frodo and Sam.

Toxic Deluge Toxic Deluge As an additional cost to cast this spell, pay X life.
All creatures get -X/-X until end of turn. is a very strong card in Commander, certainly better than Fumigate Fumigate Destroy all creatures. You gain 1 life for each creature destroyed this way. . But it has anti-synergy with the life gain theme of the deck and is a weird include from a thematic perspective alongside Fumigate which works with the deck.

It’s also a little disappointing that Samwise Gamgee Samwise Gamgee Whenever another nontoken creature you control enters, create a Food token. (It's an artifact with "{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: You gain 3 life.")
Sacrifice three Foods: Return target historic card from your graveyard to your hand. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.) is not in this deck as it has incredibly high synergy and is, frankly, the better Sam. However, at least you can quite easily add him to the deck and he would allow you to get back your Lobelia over and over again to generate massive card advantage. The deck plays a Pristine Talisman Pristine Talisman {T}: Add {C}. You gain 1 life. but should also have an Altar of the Pantheon Altar of the Pantheon Your devotion to each color and each combination of colors is increased by one.
{T}: Add one mana of any color. If you control a God, a Demigod, or a legendary enchantment, you gain 1 life. .

There are a lot of little things that would have simply made more sense, had more synergy and even fit the theme of the deck better, but they are lacking or fragmented. That being said, it will be an awesome victory anytime you can celebrate Bilbo’s 111th birthday by winning the game.

What I see, more than anything, is a deck that has an interesting enough skeleton that is not quite fleshed out right. However, there are plenty of cards that are incredibly thematic and also synergistic to mod out the deck. With a pinch of this and a dash of that every player will prepare Food and Fellowship just the way they like it.

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