Magic: The Gathering: How to use the one ring mechanic

Planned for Magic: The Gathering, The Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle-earth is tasked with transforming the almighty One Ring into deck form. Gamepur recently had a chance to see how the One Ring works during a preview event for the game. Many of the cards in the new set have ways to summon Sauron’s mightiest creation.

it is important, that Distinguish between the One Ring artifact and The Ring Seduces You mechanic. Keyword. Oddly enough, the artifact version doesn’t use The Ring Tempts You. Instead, it’s an indestructible artifact that drains one life per turn and turns it into a burden meter. When the player taps The One Ring, they place another burden counter on top and draw a card for each counter.

Related: Preview – LOTR Magic: The Gathering Commanders revealed

What the one ring mechanic does in Magic: The Gathering

There are cards in The Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle-earth set that have the keyword The Ring Seduces You. Sometimes the keyword activates when the card is played, while others only take effect when certain conditions are met, such as when a Rohirim Lancer creature dies.

When The Ring Lures You activates for the first time, you choose a creature on your side of the field to be the Ring-bearer. If there is no creature on your side of the field, no one is declared Ring-bearer until The Ring Lures You is activated again. Once a Ring-bearer has been chosen, they are given a one-ring emblem that disappears when they are. When The Ring Lures Thee activates again, the player can switch ring bearers if they wish, but don’t have to.

Each time The Ring Seduces You activates, the power it bestows on the Ring-bearer increases by one level, up to a maximum of four levels. As it increases in stages, all previous effects remain activeSo if The Ring Seduces You is at level 3, the Ring-bearer also has the effects of levels 1 and 2. The One Ring’s effect remains at its current level until the end of the game, even if the Ring-bearer is killed . These effects are:

• Level 1 – The Ringbearer is now a legendary creature and cannot be blocked by creatures with a higher power value.
• Level 2 – When Ring-bearer attacks, its controller draws and discards a card. Note that this effect is only triggered by the attack. So it doesn’t matter if the movement is blocked, if the hit goes through, or if the Ring-bearer is killed during the attack.
• Level 3 – If an enemy creature blocks the Ring-bearer and it survives combat, its controller sacrifices it at the end of combat.
• Level 4 – Whenever Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player, all opponents lose 3 life.

While The Lord of the Rings made it a point that there was only one ring, Magic: The Gathering does not. If all players use cards from The Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle-earth set, Multiple One Rings can be floating aroundone for each opponent on the field.

All Magic: The Gathering The Lord of the Ring: Tales from Middle-earth cards that use the one ring mechanic

Many cards in The Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle-earth set have abilities related to the mechanics of The Ring Seduces You or Ringbearer. This does not include The One Ring artifact card, which is a separate item. The face-up cards associated with the new mechanic are:

• Aragorn, company boss
• Bilbo, retired burglar
• birthday escape
• The black breath
• Bombadil’s Song
• Boromir, Guardian of the Tower
• break the fellowship
• call of the ring
• Claim the precious
• Terrible as the storm
• Dunedain Rangers
• Elrond, Lord of Rivendell
• Angry Huorn
• Faramir, field commander
• Fiery inscription
• Frodo Baggins
• Frodo, adventurous hobbit
• Frodo, Sauron’s Curse
• Galadriel Elf Queen
• Galadriel of Lothlorien
• Gandalf, friend of the Shire
• glorious storm
• Gollum’s bite
• Gollum, patient plotter
• Horses of the Bruins
• Inherited Envelope
• Mirrormere Guardian
• Nazgul
• Now comes anger, now doom!
• One ring to rule them all
• Ranger’s Immolation
• Rangers of Ithilien
• Relentless Rohirrim
• The ring goes south
• ring view
• ringwraiths
• Rohirrim Lancer
• Sam’s desperate rescue
• Samwise the brave
• Sauron, the Dark Lord
• Sauron, Lord of the Rings
• Sauron the necromancer
• Sauron’s ransom
• Scroll of Isildur
• Shortcut to mushrooms
• Slip into the ring
• Smeagol, helpful guide
• Smoothing Smeagol
• There and back again
• Took Reaper
• Uruk Hai Berserker
• War of the Last Alliance
• Witch-king of Angmar

Best cards that use the One Ring in Magic: The Gathering

The remarkable thing about the One Ring and its mechanics in Magic: The Gathering is this Only one card uses it as an alternate win condition: Frodo, Bane of Sauron. To do this, you must have all four stages of The Ring Lures You active, summon Frodo for one white mana, upgrade him for two white or black mana, then upgrade him again for three black mana, and then deal him a point let the battle damage. If this happens, the player hit loses the game.

Frodo, Bane of Sauron has incredible potential as a commander, as players have access to it throughout the game in the command zone and can focus on refilling mana and boosting the ring effect before invoking him. The fact that the Ring-bearer’s powers make it impossible for creatures of greater power to block Frodo may also be game-changing here.

To increase the Ringbearer’s power quickly, there are some cheap options, such as: Rohirrim Lancer (a cheap 1 red mana creature that activates “The Ring Lures You” upon death), Slip into the ring (2 mana to exile/return a creature), birthday escape (Draw a card + The ring seduces you for 1 blue mana), Scroll of Isildur (a powerful blue saga card that can take out the enemy), call of the ring (free The Ring Seduces You effects at the start of the upkeep phase), Claim the precious (free kill + the ring seduces you), Nazgul (great support monsters with deathtouch that get stronger with the One Ring) and Bombadil’s song (an instant that grants hexproof, +1/+1, and The Ring Lures Thee.)

Related: Bringing the Lord of the Rings to Magic: The Gathering – Interview with Ovidio Cartagena

Magic: The Gathering’s version of the One Ring isn’t quite the world-changing weapon it’s portrayed as in The Lord of the Rings, but it’s still a powerful weapon that should be included in every player’s arsenal. The fact that his power stays boosted throughout the game and doesn’t reset on the Ring-bearer’s death is one of his best qualities, allowing him to stay relevant throughout the game.