The Hobbit: set guide, mechanics and best cards
Last updated: October 22, 2026
The Hobbit (set code HOB) came out on August 14, 2026. It tells Bilbo's journey from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain as a Magic: The Gathering set. It comes with a companion, The Hobbit Eternal (HOC), a smaller set of cards legal in Commander, Legacy and Vintage.
The mechanics
- Recruit. Draw a card, then discard a card; if you discarded a nonland card, create a 1/1 white Human Soldier token. Card filtering with a body attached.
- Storied. If you control three or more artifacts, legendaries and/or Sagas, you have an "enduring story" for the rest of the game, and cards with storied get better once you do. Thorin Oakenshield gives your artifacts and creatures ward 1; Óin the Brave gets +1/+0 and haste.
- Amass Goblins. Put +1/+1 counters on your Army token, making a 0/0 Goblin Army first if you have none.
- Treasure and Equipment run through the whole set: dragons sit on hoards, and the dwarves carry the weapons.
Cards worth a look for Commander
- Smaug the Magnificent: Four mana, flying and haste. Makes a Treasure every upkeep, and whenever it attacks it deals damage equal to your Treasures to any target.
- The Reaver Cleaver: Equipment that gives trample and makes Treasure equal to the combat damage the creature deals to a player or planeswalker.
- Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver: +2/+2 and trample; on combat damage, name a creature type and make a Treasure for each creature of that type you control. Strong in any tribal deck.
- Elven Chorus: Look at the top card of your library any time, cast creatures from the top, and every creature you control taps for mana of any colour.
- Bilbo, Fellow Conspirator: Every Food you create comes with a Treasure.
- Belladonna Took: Rewards making tokens each turn: life on the first, a card on the second, +1/+1 counters on everything on the third.
- Kíli the Resourceful: Draws a card when a Dwarf or Equipment enters, and once storied, makes your first equip each turn free.
- Inside Information: Exile the top X cards of an opponent's library and play them this turn, paying life instead of mana for spells.
- Bilbo's Gambit: Two mana: return a spell to its owner's hand, and if you gifted a Treasure, nobody can cast spells for the rest of the turn.
- Desolation of Smaug: 3 damage to every non-Dragon creature, plus four mana to spend on Dragons. A one-sided sweeper in a dragon deck (see budget dragons).
The Hobbit Eternal reprints
The Eternal set reprints several Middle-earth favourites for Commander, including The Black Gate, Mount Doom and Minas Tirith, alongside new cards like Elven Chorus and The Reaver Cleaver.
Special treatments and the headliner
The set's alternate versions include Dragon hoard frames, book cover cards, scene cards, extended art, 40 borderless Middle-earth classic artist cards, journey basic lands, and five mythic rares printed in Dwarvish, The Reaver Cleaver among them. The headline card is a gleaming gold Smaug the Magnificent with art by Ted Nasmith, about 500 printed, found only in Collector Boosters. Every Collector and Play Booster box also includes a box topper with a foil Middle-earth classic artist card. The Collector vs Play Booster guide breaks down each booster.
Where to start
For a deck, buy the singles directly: every Hobbit single we stock is on one page, and The Hobbit Eternal has its own. For the treatments and the gold Smaug, we stock the Hobbit Collector Booster pack and box, with the rest of our sealed product.
Cards from this guide, in stock
