By now, you've probably heard about the One of One Ring, a one-of-a-kind Magic: The Gathering card representing the One Ring to rule them all, find them all, and etcetera them all. It's out there in a Collector Booster somewhere like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's factory and already worth a million dollars. That's one attention-grabbing gimmick, but the Magic: The Gathering/Lord of the Rings crossover set Tales of Middle-earth is full of thematically appropriate touches. My favorite is a less flashy example. It's Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.
The relative who hastily assumes Bilbo is dead so she can auction off his cutlery, Lobelia appears in Tales of Middle-earth alongside more immediately impressive creations of Tolkien's like Shelob or Tom Bombadil. Her effect on the game is low-key. If you play Lobelia the same turn one of your opponent's cards gets discarded into their graveyard, you score a number of treasure tokens equal to the discard's power. Basically, Lobelia shows up after someone's funeral and grabs all their silverware. It's a flavorful use of Magic's mechanics to bring one of Tolkien's minor characters to life, and that kind of reverent attention to detail is obvious all the way through this set.
