Is The One Ring a New Modern Staple?

Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth is Magic’s newest set and first-ever Universes Beyond expansion. What makes this different from all other Universes Beyond products is that this is not only legal in Legacy and Vintage, but also Modern. Some have likened this set to Modern Horizons 3, but this analogy is inaccurate as LOTR simply is not on the same playing field of power as the Modern Horizons Sets. That is, except for The One Ring. LOTR is like a high power standard set, it has a couple of strong cards that help existing archetypes. While the average standard set will have 0-1 impactful cards, LOTR has 2-3 and a couple of cool role-players. In this article, we will delve into the play patterns of The One Ring as well as the other cards that are making an impact.

The One Ring

The One Ring has a lot of text and all of it is very relevant. First, it has Indestructible which makes it very hard to remove as it can’t be killed by Force of Vigor, Abrade, or Boseiju. Second, If you cast it you gain protection from everything until your next turn. Protection is often not fully understood as it has so much to it, but overall it means your opponent can’t really affect you. Specifically, you can’t be Damaged, Equipped, Enchanted, Fortified (haha), Blocked, or Targeted. Many of those things don’t happen to players but not being able to be dealt damage or targeted prevents you from being punished for tapping out for a 4-mana spell. Third, The One Ring reads:

At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life for each burden counter on The One Ring.

This doesn’t mean much right now but with the 4th and most powerful ability of:

Tap: Put a burden counter on The One Ring, then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring,

it makes sense. The One Ring is a card draw engine that essentially guarantees 3 cards for 1 life and if it makes it to the next turn will have drawn you 6 cards for 3 life. In a vacuum this is powerful, but due to the actual line of play in Modern, The One Ring is absolutely amazing. In the early turns so much occurs that by turn 4 both players are very low on resources. Other comparable card advantage engines like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, or Jace, the Mindsculptor are rarely played as they can be killed very easily. However The One Ring simply is not very killable and even gives you a turn that allows you to tap out for it which largely removes the major cost of playing such a card. Notably, though just drawing 3 cards off the one ring for 1 life, or 6 cards for 3 life will easily provide the resources to win a late game as no other decks really have a comparable amount of card advantage. With the sheer amount of card advantage provided by the ring, you will also find answers to threats and be able to protect your life total. Additionally, being legendary functions as an upside as once you draw 6 or 10 cards you will definitely have found another ring to reset the counters by Legend ruling it. The One Ring is going to be a Modern Staple and it already infesting all sorts of lists. In Modern Challenges and Preliminaries over the past 2 weekends, it has seen play in Tron, Amulet Titan, 4c Omnath, Scapeshift, Grinding Station combo, and many more. These are also not just 5-0s, these are high placements in Preliminaries and Challenges. The One Ring is quite literally ruling them all if “all” refers to like every single deck in Modern. 

Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee is not a modern powerhouse. However, it is still a key role player in a lot of food strategies and a potent combo piece. Samwise, Cauldron Familiar, and any Sac outlet (Like Viscera Seer or Perhaps Yawgmoth) create an infinite loop to deal infinite damage and gain infinite life. With Yawgmoth as the Sac outlet, it also draws you your whole deck but doesn’t gain infinite life. Samwise Gamgee has been seeing play in Food Shells with Academy Manufactor, Asmo, and the whole food package as well as an awesome Abzan Yawgmoth list Top 8’ed the NRG 10k that used both the typical Yawgmoth combo as well as Samwise and Cauldron Familiar. My overall opinion on this card is that until now food has been missing the density of powerful cards. Samwise Gamgee is not any Solitude but provides a level of consistency that now makes food a much more real deck. 

Orcish Bowmasters

Orcish Bowmasters is a very interesting card in Modern. In Legacy, it is a powerhouse due to the prevalence of Cantrips like Ponder and especially Brainstorm but in Modern, it is much more enigmatic there, and because it does not have any specific cards it is obviously powerful against I think it will be mid-tier playable card. It is better than other random options but not some incredible upgrade. For Example, Scam sometimes plays Bloodtithe Harvester and Bowmasters has been replacing that as just a better 2 drop but I do not think many modern players are as excited as Legacy players seem to be. With this card, it will just be a waiting game as to how prevalent the card is.

Delighted Halfling

Delighted Halfing is an amazing mana dork and likely one of the best of all time. A cavern of souls for legendary spells means cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Omnath, Grist, Yawgmoth, and The One Ring can all be ramped out and be uncounterable. This card will most definitely see play but will take some time to refine lists to ensure the Halfling is at its best. As is it can’t just slot into a lot of decks as the colorless mana isn’t good enough. In Yawgmoth playing a turn 2 Young Wolf and Strangeroot Geist is very good but Halfling doesn’t allow that so if a deck like Yawgmoth wants to play the Halfling it has to consider these costs.

The rest of these cards are cards that I think will see an occasional play or are just nice upgrades to decks. 

Mount Doom

Mount Doom is a cool legendary Rakdos land that has very little downside so playing just 1 often has very little cost. Pinging your opponent in a deck-like Scam where your hand is empty very quickly and your mana goes unused is pretty nice. Plus, in the late game a 1 sided board wipe is very strong though hard to do as the only Legendary artifact played frequently in the scam is The Filigree Sylex. 

Stone of Erech

Stone of Erech is a good efficient piece of graveyard hate but has to compete with all of the existing efficient graveyard hate. With so many different graveyard decks you want your hate to hit all of them. Grafdiggers Cage is amazing against Yawgmoth but terrible vs Living End so it sees no play. Stone of Erech costs 3 mana to exile a graveyard and I think that is just too much mana when a Soul-guide lantern and Nihil Spellbomb can do it for 1.

Stern Scolding

With how efficient and low to the ground modern is Stern Scolding is essentially a 1 mana Essence Scatter. It misses a few big creatures like Murktide, Endurance, and Fury but on the large, if you are casting a creature in Modern it now can likely be countered for 1 mana with this new Counterspell.

Land-Cyclers ( Oliphaunt, Generous Ent )

These new land-cyclers are pretty cool for one specific deck: Living End. Allowing you to trim on lands and power up your Living Ends makes these cards pretty awesome. If you don’t need them in your graveyard or need the lands they also act almost as colored-tapped lands that can be pitched to free spells like Endurance and Fury.