When I spoke with the principal game designer Annie Sardelis at MagicCon Amsterdam, she stated that "anytime we [WotC] made up a creature, we would just kind of look through the book for, like, what is a characteristic about that creature we can evoke." Following up on this, principal designer Gavin Verhey said: "If it's in The Hobbit, it's in the set somewhere." Based on the Hobbit cards we've seen so far, this certainly rings true
Graded copies from PSA or CGC eliminate authenticity risk entirely
I think of this card as a self-mill option that can sometimes give me a good value in a later stage
Transaction Rollback lets you reuse the effect of a Trap card in either players graveyard
Additionally, one of each character land, both Planeswalker and non-Planeswalker versions, are included in the Starter Collection