Diabolic Intent gets the perfect LOTR art

Early on in The Hobbit, Thorin’s Company narrowly avoids getting eaten by a trio of trolls by allowing them to argue so long that they turn to stone in the sunlight. Then they raid the trolls’ treasure. That’s when Bilbo Baggins gets Sting, the shortsword that glows when orcs are near. Gandalf claims Glamdring and Thorin picks up Orcrist. When the group is captured in chapter 4 by goblins, however, the Great Goblin flies into a rage upon seeing Orcrist. Gandalf, who had kept himself hidden, suddenly extinguishes all the light in the chamber and slays the Goblin King in a single blow.

“It burned with a rage that made it gleam if goblins were about,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote of Glamdring at that moment, “now it was bright as blue flame for delight in the killing of the great lord of the cave.”

This major moment is depicted in epic new art by Septian Fajrianto on a Magic: The Gathering reprint of Diabolic Intent. Fajrianto illustrated an entire Secret Lair Drop for The Hobbit‘s Bonus Sheet called “Desolation,” which is part of a larger Secret Drop dubbed “A Marvelous Mathoms.”

“Desolation” is all about dark moments, often of violence, drawn in black and white. Diabolic Intent shows the aforementioned scene in which Gandalf stabs the Goblin King, but the impact itself is obscured by a flash of light. Of all the cards in the Superdrop, Diabolic Intent boasts the greatest reprint value of at least $16. The vast majority of the other cards in The Hobbit‘s Superdrop offer around $7 or less in reprint value, with Imp’s Mischief as the next most-expensive card.

The very first Diabolic Intent was originally printed in 2001’s Planeshift set. It’s a two-cost (one colorless and one black) sorcery that allows you to search your library for a card and put it into your hand — a mechanical process often referred to as “tutoring” — but as an additional cost here, you also have to sacrifice a creature. It’s decidedly worse than Demonic Tutor, which is functionally the same card without the sacrifice cost, but that’s also why Demonic Tutor is banned or restricted in just about every play format.

Any tutor in Magic, however, is a huge boon. As such, prices remain on the higher side. Among the most expensive is exclusive to The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Collector Boosters and depicts Saruman gazing at the Palantir. That’s priced at about $95.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

What makes it such a good card? Particularly in Commander, where you’ve only got one copy of each card in your deck, it’s a lot harder to draw what you’re looking for. Being able to pull anything — as opposed to just a creature or merely a land — is also an important nuance here. Sure, sacrificing a creature is a loss, but in aristocrat strategies that incentivize sacrificing creatures for some other kind of benefit. It’s perfect. In fact, black decks often have graveyard recursion anyway, so you probably have ways to bring that creature back.

A Marvelous Mathoms is available now on the Secret Lair website while supplies last.