Ascension: Lord of the Rings kicks off crowdfunding in July

Justin Gary, a former Magic: The Gathering pro who created the deckbuilding game Ascension in 2011, is taking the game into Middle-earth. After 17 sets in Ascension’s original world of Vigil, Stoneblade Entertainment will launch a licensed Lord of the Rings set that will crowdfund on Gamefound starting in July.

Magic: The Gathering’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth was the first full Universes Beyond set. Gary mapped Ascension’s four factions—Lifebound, Enlightened, Void and Mechana—to elves, hobbits, humans and dwarves, and players will still recruit heroes and defeat monsters from a shared center row.

An older mechanic returns in which defeating certain monsters awards a trophy to reflect the friendly competition between Legolas and Gimli. The designers are leaning into corruption as a theme: the Eye of Sauron raises a player’s corruption, which subtracts points at the end of the game, while some cards tempt players with benefits for increasing their corruption.

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