Sets were released regularly, starting from just before the release of The Fellowship of the Ring movie in 2001 to July 2007 with the release of Age's End (and the expiration of Decipher's license). For the Movie years, a 365-card “base” set was released each November to coincide with the movie it was named after, followed by 122-card expansions released at four month intervals. Each base set and the following two expansions formed a “block” named for that base set. Reflections was an exception, being released in between the two expansion set of King block, as a special 52-card all-foil set that focused on individual ”Legendary” characters and concepts.

In November 2004 the new base set, Shadows, ushered in numerous changes to the game. From that point on all sets would contain 60 common, 60 uncommon, and 60 rare cards, in addition to new starter-only cards and a limited rare-foil set of 18 cards. Expanded Middle-Earth, The Wraith Collection, and Age's End were sets similar in content and intention to Reflections.