Magic: The Gathering May Have to Bite The Bullet With One Controversial Card

Magic: The Gathering recently ended up in the eye of the storm following four major Commander bans for some very valuable, ubiquitous cards that most decks used. Given the reach of the outrage, sparking petitions to revert the bans or remove the Commander Rules Committee and ending up with threats of violence against the CRC, the topic of banning cards in MTG may be a sore spot for the time being, even within Wizards of the Coast. Yet, there is one particularly problematic card in Magic: The Gathering at the moment, and the fact that it’s dominating the meta would warrant some kind of action.

Each format in Magic: The Gathering has its own committee dedicated to balancing the game when problematic cards are released and other past threats are past their prime time enough that they can be unbanned. Banning cards is not something internal or external committees do lightly, understandably so, after the issues the CRC faced. Cards can lose value when banned from one or multiple formats, which can affect several people’s livelihoods as a side effect. While these are all things to consider, WotC may need to take action against The One Ring.

Magic: The Gathering’s The One Ring is Risking a Ban or Nerf in Modern

How The One Ring Wins Games in Magic: The Gathering

The $2 million plus Magic: The Gathering card that was sold is indeed a copy of The One Ring, but the only one of its kind to reflect the lore of The Lord of the Rings. This doesn’t mean there were no other copies of The One Ring in the LotR set for MTG, but they were just not as valuable or unique, and they were meant to be played more than collected. That’s precisely what happened, as The One Ring is also a very powerful card that is pretty much an auto-include in every deck or format it’s available in.

This is affecting Magic: The Gathering‘s Modern format most of all, to the point that most competitive decks run three or four copies of The One Ring, and plan to win with it by drawing the entire deck. For those unaware, The One Ring is a 4 colorless mana artifact that is indestructible, gives players protection from everything when cast until the user’s next turn, and also allows players to draw cards by putting burden counters on the card that deal damage to them on their next turn. As a whole, The One Ring is already an extremely powerful card even in formats like Commander, where only one copy is permitted per deck.

However, where The One Ring can be played in multiple copies, it becomes the ultimate menace. The strategy involves using Magic: The Gathering‘s Legend Rule, which makes players sacrifice one of the copies of a given Legendary card under their control whenever two are in play. By doing this, players can use The One Ring’s ability two or three times, then play another copy of the card, gaining protection from everything in the meanwhile, and sacrifice the copy with burden counters on it to “reset” it.

Why The One Ring is Problematic in Magic: The Gathering’s Modern Format

The problem with this strategy is that it’s so oppressive that many Modern games end up being decided by whoever plays the first The One Ring. Not every deck plays it, but this could also be because of the steep price point of the card, which in turn is due to its popularity. As such, WotC may either have to ban it from Modern or at least release some kind of errata to limit its unlimited power. If the latter is the chosen option, there are two possible paths:

• Limit The One Ring to one copy per deck
• Make the burden counters go on players, rather than the card

This second option would also be flavorful considering The One Ring’s lore within The Lord of the Rings, but arguably so even limiting its use to one per deck would make sense. Rather than banning the card, which is a more definitive decision, an errata to make The One Ring not as prevailing would be a good call.

Magic The Gathering

Magic the Gathering is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield and released in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Players take on the role of a Planeswalker and use various cards to battle other players by casting spells, summoning creatures, or utilizing artifacts. It features two main rule categories, constructed or limited, and can be played by two or more players at a time.

Franchise

Magic: The Gathering

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Original Release Date

1993-00-00

Age Recommendation

13+

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