This is Aragorn son of Arathorn, you owe him your allegiance.

With the Lord of the Rings universe beyond released, I knew exactly which commander deck I wanted to pick up and it needed to be the Riders of Rohan Precon.

Not only does this deck contain so many iconic LOTR characters, it taps into my love of Rohan as a faction and it also allows me to use Aragorn King of Gondor as a commander and go mad with some Monarch shenanigans. I’ll be honest, when I picked up this deck I didn’t ever consider using Eowyn Shield Maiden as the commander, in fact I took the card straight out and replaced it with something else. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is an amazing card and can do some pretty broken things, but when I get to use the King of Gondor to smash face there was just no contest in who would be leading the deck. 

So lets take a look a the commander. Aragorn King of Gondor is a 4/4 with Vigilance and Life Link (it is also very appropriate given that Kings of Gondor have the power of healing). It’s a pretty good stat block for a commander and has some great key words that can pose a really threat. It has definitely made my opponents think twice about attacking into me when I have Aragorn on the battlefield. So he has a good stat block and some cool key words. However, the real meat of Aragorn’s power comes from his abilities and they come in two parts. 

First is When Aragorn, King of Gondor enters the battlefield, you become the monarch. This is a pretty cool ability, allowing for some extra card draw and it is nice and thematic for the LOTR’s lore.

Second is Whenever Aragorn attacks, up to one target creature can’t block this turn. If you are the monarch, creatures can’t block this turn. Now this ability is nuts! If you are the monarch and Aragorn attacks, you can pretty make sure that he doesn’t die due to powerful blockers and if you untap with Aragorn and the monarch you can swing out all of your creatures with no chance of them being blocked!

I have tried to keep the deck at LOTR themed as possible, but I have included some additions from outside of the set. Aswell as the Monarch, the deck also runs a human tribal sub theme and as such makes a lot of 1/1 and 2/2 tokens that can take advantage of Aragorns unblockable ability. Cards like Faramir Prince of Ithilien, Riders of the Mark, Prince Imrahil the Fair and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar are ideal for churning out tokens at a rapid pace.

In addition to this I need some cards that allow me to get the monarch back before my combat step so that I can maximise Aragorns ability and get my opponents out of nowhere. Court of Ire, Archon of Coronation and Champions of Minas Tirith are great for this.

I also included a few cards that protect me from taking damage in combat so that my opponents are not able to steal the Monarch from me. It is very frustrating to have a huge turn in mind, only to have it foiled by taking damage! The classic Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are brilliant pillowfort cards, however I have only included the two as I don’t want to be too stax heavy. Also Grand Abolisher is great for stopping my opponents from interacting with my plans.

Some stand out cards in this deck are Aurelia the Warleader, who is amazing when I need to take the Monarch from somebody and then swing out for an additional combat phase. She is also fantatic if I already have the Monarch and Aragorn of the field because she gives me two combat phases in which nothing can block! Another stand out has to be Odric, Lunarch Marshal which is an absolute power house. As Aragorn has so many key words, being able to grant these to my other creatures is fantastic.