The One Ring

[toctheyounger]

Firstly I want to know what deck you're using Song in. It's a pet card and I've never found a great home for it.

Secondly, that's a cool way to deal with the Ring. And there's plenty of others. You can turn it into a car, yeet it to the moon or make it a tree, Elk it, Ouphe it or Silence it or even show it how tragically arrogant it is.

I personally think it's pretty important to run a diverse array of removal options where possible, and there is a fair amount of answers for it about. That's neither here nor there in a banlist discussion, but knowing it will turn up commonly means it worth packing an answer or two.

[pokken]

It's too much value for sure, but we've been told by actions of the RC that value alone isn't, they'll ban cards that are unfun to play against and cards that win games in a unfun way.

This is simply not true. Prime time, tolarian academy, recurring nightmare, fastbond, library of Alexandria (questionable ban ofc), griselbrand and yawgs bargain are purely banned for being too fast strong or ubiquitous without some kinda negative impact on others. You can argue of those recurring nightmare has some play pattern issues but that's a stretch these days

Library is probably a pretty close example that is actually significantly weaker than the ring.

Recurring Nightmare is a laughable ban in the face of ring too in terms of value. But we knew that ban is only still around because of the reserved list.

[duducrash]

There are plenty of weird bans, and powerfull bans too but just do not happen anymore. The last time they banned a valud card was Golos, Tireless Pilgrim other than that they seem to value negative experience the most. They seem to be cultivating game that people want to play again and again more than checking power level, imho.

[yeti1069]

Rhystic, Remora, Sentinel, Necro, Ad Naus, Peer, Consecrated. Those are the pinnacle to me. I'm sure there's more but these are what come to mind, sorry red and green. And while I think Ring gets close, it's not even close for time efficiency. Sure, the first one or two are free, but unless you're untapping it with Seedborn or what have you it's gonna take you forever to get the sort of draw Rhystic will pull in. And that's like, really situational, if anyone is letting you keep this in play with an untapper that's on them, it's far from under the radar.

I think The One Ring is stronger than Remora and Sentinel in most situations, outside of coming down on turn 1 in a cEDH game, or at a lucky table with tons of early ramp/noncreature plays. Everyone else can play around them (which is itself a value, but varies from negligible to strong).

Ad Naus is good, but you have to build around it in a fundamental way; Peer is in kind of a similar boat. I'll note that I don't ever see anyone playing either of these outside of decks dedicated to using them as combo pieces. They aren't good stuff. I've played Ad Naus in an Edgar Markov deck that was very heavy on 1- and 2-drop vampires, but even there, it always felt like a debatable inclusion.

Consecrated is a stupid, stupid card, but can be removed before it does anything, at least some of the time.

Those are also all colored cards, that can't go everywhere.

The One Ring, I'd venture to place it in contention with Rhystic at some tables--if you play with people who pay they're taxes, it becomes a 3-mana Sphere of Resistance, basically, which is ok, but if you're not aiming to capitalize on that, may not do much besides make you archenemy. I've had plenty of games where Rhystic didn't net me 3 cards over two turns, let alone 10 cards over 4 turns. And compared with Necropotence, obviously the ability to draw as many cards as you have life to pay is ridiculous, but them coming at EOT, turning off your draw step, and exiling discards are real drawbacks, as is the cost. I'm considering replacing that in my Marchesa, the Black Rose deck with The One Ring--it doesn't give me the same level of control of my life total, but I've had games where I struggled to get the pips to cast Necro, and the protection on ETB is very strong.

I think, without dedicating any slots to support/abuse The Ring, it is one of the strongest draw engines available in EDH, and it has room for serious abuse.

The Fog effect it provides shouldn't be overlooked. I've used it to save my bacon in a couple of games already. The floor of the card is basically a 4-mana super-fog that draws you 3 cards at the cost of 1 life. In Historic Brawl on Arena (blech!), I've had a few games with my Tameshi deck where I've bounced/sacrificed and recurred/otherwise recycled The One Ring each turn for nearly permanent protection. EDH has waaaaaay more tools available for those kinds of shenanigans, and I think we'll see more of that in the future. It's like a Glacial Chasm that you can't remove when you're ready to alpha strike, because it was a trigger put on the stack on someone else's turn.

I'm not seeing it show up too often yet, so I haven't felt like it needs to get banned, but I definitely have felt like my not including it in nearly every deck has been a conscious decision to not make that upgrade in the same way that I don't run Mana Crypt in every deck, even though they would almost universally benefit from either of them.

[ISBPathfinder]

Firstly I want to know what deck you're using Song in. It's a pet card and I've never found a great home for it.

viewtopic.php?t=174162

The list is new and needs tuning yet. I started out thinking of an enchantress / hate on artifacts concept which rooted me in GW. Treasure has been a bit out of control in my meta lately but its more of a few individuals running rampant with it and I wanted to hate on them some. Contested Cliffs is like, everything I want to be doing in commander.

[pokken]

There is no world in which Rhystic Study is anywhere close to as strong as The One Ring in the broader CEDH metagame. Study gets worse and worse every year the more people learn to play around it correctly. It's a very strong stax effect that sometimes wins you the game off someone being dumb; the ring is good in every situation, and is truly bananapants busted in Voltaic Key / Unwinding Clock / Seedborn Muse decks.

lately, I have had good luck convincing the table to collude against Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora -- turning these cards into Divination is *hilarious*.

Rhystic Study is a card that gets *much* worse as the game progresses, being only particularly good in CEDH on turn 1 or 2. The ring is a great topdeck, it's good on curve, it's good ramped out. It's always fantastic.

[onering]

After two months I can say I absolutely hate this card. It's incredibly unfun to play against and immediately centralizes the game. Outside of cEDH the game just immediately becomes a quest for specific removal while everyone tries to kill the owner, and yet it's strong enough that it's still worth drawing all that heat.

Look, there are other strong draw cards, but this %$#% is colorless, 4 mana, and indestructible with an extremely negligible drawback and throws protection on top of it. This card is in Yawgmoth's Bargain and Grislebrand territory, and while it's a bit less explosive it's also 4 mana and colorless. Every single game I've seen it in was worse for it having shown up, %$#% this card.

And note the utter irony of my user name. I didn't want to hate this card.

[ISBPathfinder]

Three months from my original posting of this card being a ban worthy problem and I am higher on my stance that it needs to be banned. I had a game a few weeks ago where someone going first played a T2 mana rock into T3 One Ring. He then played the rest of the game just playing UW control / tempo removal 3 on 1 and it wasn't even close how badly we lost. He had multiple counterspells and spot removal and he just ran us down removing everything we did and countering our interaction for him. He went down to like 20 life essentially just from his own one ring but he also killed us all.

Its more efficient than way too many card draw cards to be colorless, cost as little as it does, and be as hard to remove as it is. You have a problem when running a colorless goodstuff draw card is still optimal in green, blue, and black.

[DirkGently]

I think it would be tolerable if it just wasn't indestructible. But there's so few viable artifact exile spells, and bounce is pretty counterproductive. I get why it's indestructible from a flavor perspective but from a gameplay perspective it kinda sucks.

[Igzex]

Also The One Ring needs a hard once per game on that ETB. It's not cards like Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Arcbound Reclaimer don't exist.

[Dunadain]

I feel vindicated

People were getting hyped up about bouncing and recasting the ring when it got spoiled and I said why would would want to spend mana every turn to draw LESS cards?!?! The card is more broken when used as intended!

Suffice to say, I have seen this card everywhere and only once did someone try to assemble some permanent-protection combo, and it wasn't good. 🙂

But yeah, card is busted when used to actually draw cards, get it out!

[RxPhantom]

This card can burn in banlist hell forever. Also, it seems like it's been a while since we had any bans or unbans. I think it's time for...something.

[onering]

Unfortunately I think that Wizards really screwed us making it the damn face card of the set. That puts a lot of pressure on the RC not to ban it despite it clearly being banworthy.

[Avacyn Believer]

One Ring and Paradox Engine could be banned for very similar reasons. Maybe once LotR is an older set and people forget about it.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think I have put it in literally every deck I have played since it has come out. Its hard to forget about the card when I see it every time I go to play either in my own deck or across the table. The worst are the decks that are chalked full of ramp as a T2-3 ring is just ridiculous. I am still very strongly for banning the card and I own 6x copies. Its unhealthy and it belongs most everywhere.

[onering]

Avacyn and ISB nail it here. It's very much like Paradox Engine, it provides a massive amount of value that doesn't immediately lead to a deterministic win yet greatly increases the chance the opponent wins, greatly increases the degree to which they can monopolize the game (less so with the Ring), can go in literally any deck (moreso for the Ring), and strongly harms the experience of opponents. It's the same kind of cancer.

[pokken]

I finally sleeved up my The One Ring so hopefully that's enough to trigger it getting banned

[RxPhantom]

I finally sleeved up my The One Ring so hopefully that's enough to trigger it getting banned

Now you are truly lost...

Welcome back, btw.

[Dunharrow]

One Ring and Paradox Engine could be banned for very similar reasons. Maybe once LotR is an older set and people forget about it.

I have a MTGA historic deck with The One Ring and Paradox Engine. Super fun.



If RC is under pressure to not ban this, there has to be an expiration on that pressure, right? Like once it is out of print what do they care?

[Avacyn Believer]

I have a MTGA historic deck with The One Ring and Paradox Engine. Super fun.

I bet its one of those decks where you have all the fun and the opponent doesn't

[ISBPathfinder]

If RC is under pressure to not ban this, there has to be an expiration on that pressure, right? Like once it is out of print what do they care?

In general the RC doesn't want to ban anything and it tends to feel like pulling teeth to convince them of a problem assuming its not something that just breaks due to how the format works. They also tend to have some reservations of banning expensive cards because of those who might have just bought them before the ban comes through but I don't know how much that figures in anymore but I know in the past they had mentioned that they didn't like leaving players out like that.

I have no idea how much the one ring has in casual groups. If you don't have copious ramp and a low curve the card is probably less broken

[duducrash]

I have a MTGA historic deck with The One Ring and Paradox Engine. Super fun.

I bet its one of those decks where you have all the fun and the opponent doesn't

I stg 75% of the time I play against paradox engine my opponent has a 10 minutes turn and pass not winning. I hate it so much

[benjameenbear]

I have a MTGA historic deck with The One Ring and Paradox Engine. Super fun.

I bet its one of those decks where you have all the fun and the opponent doesn't

I stg 75% of the time I play against paradox engine my opponent has a 10 minutes turn and pass not winning. I hate it so much

Sounds like your opponents need to git gud lol. I think my win rate with a resolved Paradox Engine was absurdly high and I always won. Always.

I think my new Christmasland scenario is having an Engine + One Ring now @Dunharrow. Dammit. Thanks for keeping me awake tonight...

[ISBPathfinder]

I think my new Christmasland scenario is having an Engine + One Ring now @Dunharrow. Dammit. Thanks for keeping me awake tonight...

Not quite that bad but I had someone play a Seedborn Muse with a One Ring this weekend. It..... did not go well for me.

[benjameenbear]

I think my new Christmasland scenario is having an Engine + One Ring now @Dunharrow. Dammit. Thanks for keeping me awake tonight...

Not quite that bad but I had someone play a Seedborn Muse with a One Ring this weekend. It..... did not go well for me.

Yeah, that's in my cEDH Thras + Tevesh list. From my own experience as well as cEDH games I've played, Muse + Ring almost always leads to a win. The sheer amount of card draw it produces is absurd and assembling a protected win con becomes almost trivial at that point.

You know what's actually a really well-positioned piece of interaction at the moment for cEDH? Oko, Thief of Crowns. Blanks One Rings and problem Commanders while also being able to mini-Drake things. It's Sun Titan-able and is just a bulky planeswalker. Tevesh is great protection for it with its Thrulls too, so it gets a LOT of mileage whenever it comes down.