Magic: The Gathering's upcoming "The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth" set introduces Smaug the Magnificent, a powerful new dragon card that forms a devastating combo with a classic Dungeons & Dragons card. The synergy turns Smaug's treasure tokens into a continuous damage engine capable of ending games in a single turn.
Smaug the Magnificent, a 4/4 flying dragon with haste for 5 mana, enters the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the amount of mana spent to cast it. It also creates a number of Treasure tokens equal to its power whenever it deals combat damage to a player. Meanwhile, the D&D card "Sword of the Realms" (from the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set) equips for 2 and gives equipped creature +2/+0 and trample. When the equipped creature dies, Sword of the Realms returns to its owner's hand.
By combining these cards, players can swing with Smaug, generate massive treasures, then sacrifice Smaug to something like "Anger of the Gods" or block with it to trigger its death. The Sword returns to hand, allowing recasting of Smaug next turn with even more mana from treasures. The loop can quickly snowball into an unstoppable force.
This combo highlights the creative cross-set synergies that emerge between Magic's various universes. Players are already theorycrafting ways to maximize the interaction, with some calling it a potential game-ender in Commander and other formats.