Versions
Balin, Loremaster
AI draftAI-generated draft analysis — not yet human-reviewed. Treat with healthy skepticism.Limited summary
Balin is a solid 4/4 whose repeated whole-hand rummaging improves card quality, while an enduring story turns every Dwarf entry into potential direct damage. He is a strong RW Dwarves payoff, but only an average five-drop without enough Dwarves and Storied enablers.
Roles
Archetypes
Gameplay notes
Balin's ability is optional, so keep a strong hand rather than automatically cycling it. With multiple Dwarf-entry triggers, you may discard and redraw the newly drawn hand on every resolution; once the story is active, this also repeats the damage. Avoid sacrificing the artifacts needed for Storied before reaching three qualifying permanents, though the story remains active permanently once achieved.
Key synergies
Once you have an enduring story, Bifur doubles Balin's triggered abilities. Each Dwarf entry can therefore cycle your hand twice, with each resolution also dealing damage based on the cards discarded.
A nontoken Dwarf entering triggers both Balin and Fíli; Fíli then creates a Dwarf token, which triggers Balin again. With an enduring story, the two Balin triggers can repeatedly redraw a same-sized hand and deal damage twice.
Each Dwarf token created by At the Door separately triggers Balin, allowing repeated hand filtering and, with an enduring story, repeated damage to each opponent; the enchantment later pumps Balin and all those Dwarves.
The land repeatedly creates Dwarf tokens in the late game, supplying Balin triggers without spending cards from hand. Its activation also improves as the Equipment needed to establish an enduring story accumulates.
With an enduring story, Balin's hand-cycling trigger deals damage to each opponent equal to the cards discarded; the Master converts that damage into an equally large mill, pressuring both life totals and libraries.
Burn, Burn, Tree and Fern counts toward Balin's enduring story, enabling his Dwarf-triggered hand refreshes to also damage each opponent; the Saga's removal helps preserve the required board.
By temporarily making a creature an artifact, Stone by Sunlight can establish an enduring story when you are one qualifying permanent short, permanently enabling Balin's Dwarf-triggered damage rider.
The Saga contributes an early qualifying permanent toward Balin's enduring story, allowing his Dwarf-entry hand cycling to also damage each opponent once the threshold is reached.