Food and Fellowship is one of four new Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth precons and is led by a couple of iconic hobbits, Sam and Frodo. This deck is all about lifegain in the form of tokens and we’re taking a look at how to upgrade this precon as well as what new cards this precon has to offer right out of the box.

When it comes to friendship, there’s no doubt that Samwise Gangee and Frodo Baggins make excellent poster boys, having been through thick and thin together. In the precon of Food and Fellowship, these two are partnering up for some serious token generation and utility using food and well, fellowship. Let’s first dive into what new cards this Universes Beyond precon brings to the table.

NEW CARDS

The face commanders of Food and Fellowship are Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal Attendant, two Legendary Creatures that combine for an Abzan color identity and feature Partner with one another. This means you can either cast them both from the command zone, or have them in the 99 and have one put the other into your hand from your library. 

Sam, Loyal Attendant not only generates Food tokens at the beginning of combat on your turn, but also lets you activate abilities of your Food tokens for one mana less. This ability encourages you to create as many Food tokens as possible and use that life gain to eat your way to victory. 

Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit features Vigilance as a keyword and also encourages you to gain life. If you gain three or more life, the Ring will tempt you when Frodo attacks. If the Ring has tempted you enough times and Frodo is your Ring-Bearer, his attacks become a source of card draw, something we love to see. 

As the Ring tempts you with Frodo as your Ring-Bearer, the first instance will make him unblockable by most creatures that could take him out. The second instance will give you even more card filtering on attack in addition to his own draw ability, and the third will force sacrifice to your opponents’ creatures when Frodo is blocked, making taking him out in combat an even trickier proposition. The last instance of the Ring’s emblem will begin to drain your opponents, meaning you’ll definitely want to see plenty of gain and drain cards in this deck.

Another choice of commander in Food and Fellowship is Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant, who boosts any instance of life gain by 1. Bilbo’s second ability is one that I look forward to using to cheat out giant stompy creatures. For 2WBG, you may exile Bilbo (or put him in the command zone if he’s your commander) and search your library for any number of creature cards and put them onto the battlefield. This can only be activated if you have 111 or more life, which with Bilbo on the board, is a fairly achievable goal.

Generous Ent is a 5/7 Treefolk with Reach and generates a Food token upon entering the battlefield, and Feasting Hobbit uses Devour to accrue +1/+1 counters according to how many Food tokens you sacrifice when he ETBs. Feasting Hobbit will gain three times the amount of counters to Foods sacrificed, giving you the opportunity to make one big body.

Gollum, Obsessed Stalker and Mirkwood Bats are two cards in Food and Fellowship that will be sure to see plenty of Commander play. Both cards lean into the gain and drain theme. Gollum has the potential to drain widely as each opponent dealt combat damage by the evasive Halfing Horror will lose life on your end step based on the amount you’ve gained.

Mirkwood Bats is a 2/3 Flyer that encourages you to create and sacrifice lots of tokens, something you’ll surely be doing with all the Food token generation. When you do, each opponent will lose one life, adding to the drain portion of this deck’s theme. This card will be a great addition to any treasure-themed deck with black and will surely do some serious damage to your opponents when combined with a Dockside Extortionist.

Prize Pig is a new card with the potential to go infinite on mana as it will continue to untap if you can trigger infinite life gain. This pairs well with the Extort mechanic as you can pay the one using the pig to gain life and add another counter, potentially untapping your Prize Pig again.  Revive the Shire is a card that makes for excellent graveyard recovery as it allows you to target a permanent in your graveyard and put it into your hand, similar to Regrowth, but Revive the Shire also creates a Food token. Both cards will certainly see plenty of play in any lifegain theme deck.

REPRINTS

Food and Fellowship also includes reprints of cards featuring stunning new styles, such as Birds of Paradise, one of the best mana dorks in Commander. Another mana producer seeing a reprint is Chromatic Lantern, a card of great value in any deck with three or more colors in its identity. This card is also especially useful against cards like Blood Moon in which an opponent may try to lock you out from tapping your lands for any color other than red. 

One of my absolute favorite cards in Commander is Essence Warden, and I’m very excited to see this get a reprint. This card is one that goes well in any creature token deck and has saved me from the brink of death many times. Seeing this get the Lord of the Rings treatment is pretty special, but the card of arguably highest value in Food and Fellowship is Toxic Deluge. Toxic Deluge has consistently been a great board wipe choice in any black deck, and it’s quite nice to see a card with a relatively expensive price tag get reprinted. Now, having talked about new cards and reprints, let’s get into how we can upgrade this precon to really get this gain and drain engine roaring.

UPGRADES

In upgrading Food and Fellowship, we’re trying to stay relatively budget-friendly, so while a budgetless deck would  include Anointed Procession or Doubling Season, an alternative is Mondrak, Glory Dominus from Phyrexia: All Will Be One as it’s a card with a slightly cheaper price tag. Much like the aforementioned cards, Mondrak will help you produce twice the tokens but has the benefit of a little protection in his second ability.

Tireless Tracker is a great way to draw cards as this Human Scout not only creates Clue tokens, but has the potential to grow quite large as she accrues +1/+1 counters each time you sacrifice a Clue. In conjunction with Mirkwood Bats triggering on each token sacrifice, this will also help you generate life and drain your opponents.

Along with Tireless Tracker, Academy Manufactor is a great inclusion to any deck that generates Clue, Food, or Treasure as it helps you generate all three. This card can quickly get out of hand, so running some protection like Heroic Intervention or Teferi’s Protection are good options. Veil of Summer is also a more-budget friendly option and really gets to those darn blue control players.

Back to token generation, Old Gnawbone is an excellent Treasure-generator as she garners you Treasure whenever a creature you control deals combat damage. This can be a great combination with Frodo as your Ring-bearer as the Ring continues to tempt you, as he progressively makes it harder for opponents to block. Old Gnawbone is also a 7/7 with Flying and triggers off any creature you control including herself, giving you seven Treasures each time she deals combat damage.

Aside from token generation, we’ll need more card draw. Bennie Bracks, Zoologist from Streets of New Capenna is a fantastic inclusion in a token theme deck as he’ll let you draw on each end step if you created a token that turn. That’s each turn, including your opponents’ end steps. Bonus is that Bennie also happens to have Convoke, letting you tap creatures to help cast him to your board.

If you have the room in your budget, Archangel of Thune is one solid investment as this 3/4 Angel supports your life gain theme by giving each of the creatures you control a +1/+1 counter whenever you gain life. Like Old Gnawbone, Archangel of Thune is a flyer, making it more likely that her evasion in the air will hit your opponent and trigger her l ifelink. Adding +1/+1 to each of your creatures is especially great if you have Frodo on the board as making him beefier will help his Ring-bearer abilities trigger and also help him deal greater commander damage in combat. 

Alhammaret’s Archive is a Legendary Artifact that is solid in any life gain deck as it helps you gain twice as much life and draw twice as many cards per each trigger. This card is especially great in conjunction with Aetherflux Reservoir, which can be used to drain an opponent using your own life as a resource.

In Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, we have the ability of Sanguine Bond, an enchantment that is also included in this deck. Vito will help deplete your opponents’ life each time you trigger life gain and also give your creatures lifelink, per his second ability. This pairs nicely with a multitude of cards in this deck, including Archangel of Thune and Alhammaret’s Archive as mentioned above.

While the Food and Fellowship precon does include a couple of board wipes including Toxic Deluge, The Meathook Massacre from Midnight Hunt is not only a board wipe, but an enchantment that will stay on your board and continue to trigger life gain and drain. This card is one I especially love in a deck with green in its identity as paying heaps for X in its CMC cost is a feat that green can accomplish quite consistently. Fell the Mighty and Fumigate will also trigger nicely with Meathook Massacre on your board and give you loads of additional life gain, potentially making for a lovely finale and win condition.

END STEP

Whichever Hobbit you choose to lead Food and Fellowship, be it Sam, Frodo, or even Bilbo, this deck features plenty of Food token generation and life-gain support. With the added benefit of black in its identity, Abzan gives you access to those pain cards, making your win conditions fairly clear-cut as you face off against your opponents. With lovely reprint art and brand new cards, this is certainly a well supported and beautiful deck to man at the table with room to add a little spice that hopefully you found here. Cheers, fellow adventurers and have some fun making food with your  Legendary Hobbit friends.

The following cards have been removed to make room for upgrades and the upgraded deck on Moxfield can be found here

• Cultivate
• Dusk/ Dawn
• Generous Ent
• Eagles of the North
• Orchard Strider
• Motivated Pony
• Path of Ancestry
• Evolving Wilds
• Hithlain Rope
• Commander’s Sphere