Honestly the Boros and Mardu Energy decks are so braindead with the one ring. Turn 1 Guide of souls. Turn 2 aether hub Into Anped Raptor Into The one ring.
Modern right now is just: resolve ToR vs counter ToR. That’s it. It’s the “best card” only because it’s a 4-mana sorcery-speed spell with ZERO punishment to cast… and the next ToR solves the life-loss of the first.
Regardless of formats, cards like the one ring, mana crypt, dockside, jeweled lotus, etc. they need to truly reprint cards. Give people the ability to test and find ways to counteract cards or play them. Game pieces need to be accessible and not just reprint in extra slots
The biggest problem in my view is that the drawback of the card is totally useless because the card is so good ppl go 3-4 copies and the frist finds the next to mitigate the drawback. Had they made burden counter something like energy or experience tied to the player, the card would not be so broken. Or maybe put a clause that you only can have one one ring in your deck, but that would not sell good so...
I’m a big fan of this excerpt from the Wizards site: Lurrus's play rate (31% in Magic Online League decks that started with four wins) points to a card that is contributing to the homogenization of the Modern play experience. There is not a significant enough deck-building cost to incorporate it into a wide variety of strategies. Lurrus was 32% when banned. Is ToR different?
@@GodzillaFreakyes, like the one ring. But lurus at least had restrictions tied to it. The one ring goes into most decks. I know i play some jank decks that would not win that much if i didn't have 4 one rings. It's broken i half, the fact that the drawback is almost negligeble since the first one ring will find the next one that will reset the burden count. If they made the burden like energy (tied to players, not cards) or they put up a relentless rats type thing of "you can only have one The one ring in your deck" maybe it would be balanced. As it is it's worse than lurus by miles. Also they banned twin for the same reason, it was too present. I think the modern ban list needs a revision. Maybe not banning, but unbanning cards would shake up the format a bit.
@@pablopandolfo8446 I’d argue it’s worse to have a card that completely changes how you make your deck than to have a card that just fits in your existing deck.
Imagine if the one ring was 2$. Like sooo many more people would be testing it in things like burn and such imo. And I bet itd be soo much more oppressive.
I feel like the ring doesnt have enough good answers, because of the fact that it does 2 massive things. Its a teferis protection that cycles And its also a draw engine. Both of these things are answerable but neither is blankable by one card. Something like Pick Your Poison can most of the time deal with it as a draw engine, but it still cycles and teferi p's. And something like a stifle also deals with the teferi's p part but it still draws a tooon of cards. Stuff like teferi's protection usually isnt good enough in 1v1 eternal formats, but it has always been a strong effect with things like Phyrexian Unlife seeing insanely rare, but very understandable play in certain metas. (But in the combos then it gets good but ya know.) Consign is really the only clean answer, and thats since the one thing the one ring doesnt have is "this spell cannot be countered" lol.
@@isambo400Its great in Hardened Scales and that deck runs 1 and 2 mana spells exclusively otherwise too. Burn can definetely benefit from getting more gas and throwing cards at their opponent at a pace few other decks can match.
Burn tested the card when it was new. The consensus was, while you do win almost every game that you resolve and untap with it over sevwral turns, it slows down your clock meaning you lose games against combo decks that should've been a free W. If burn isn't fast, it isn't burn.
I think the issue a lot of people have with the one ring is that it's really difficult to answer for 1 mana. You can counter it with consign or annul, but once it's resolved it becomes much harder to interact with. The only answer (I could find) that exists at 1 mana is pick your poison, which isn't surefire and is also sorcery speed. This wouldn't be an issue if the card didn't provide more than 2 mana worth of value coming down. You get pseudo-hexproof for an entire turn cycle and draw a card, which is pretty good for a card that costs 2 or more to answer most of the time. The whole point of interaction with permanents is that you're playing a card that only does 1 (with exceptions) thing but it is more mana efficient than your opponent's card most of the time. When your opponent gets the same amount of value you do *before* you've answered the card and even more if you don't, that's when a card starts to become unbalanced. That's pretty much why oko is so good, since there aren't really any answers to planeswalkers that cost less than 3 mana (excluding combat) so you get whatever loyalty ability you want and then your opponent has to spend the same amount of mana as you to take him out, lest he activate again next turn. Edit: I kinda forgot to mention that not all 3 mana planeswalkers are good because of this, but oko gains loyalty on multiple abilities that provide value while most other planeswalkers have only one incrementing loyalty ability and it usually doesn't provide a lot of value.
@@Martin-qb2mwHaywire Mite is 2 mana. 1 to play, one green to activate. And if you hope to use Urzas Saga to answer TOR reliably - well you've usually already lost by the time you've let them draw 1+2+3 cards until Saga Chapter 3 resolves. Also terrible against currently very common hate thats even run mainboard like Blood Moon/Harbinger of the Seas.
It's a plague and needs to go. Soon most decks will head to the same archetype. It goes against one of WOTC core principals i.e. makes the game not fun. So sick of seeing it. But I would be more than happy if it were restricted. Players should not be forced to account for it in every match up. This is not a One ring problem it's a flavor of the week problem. Should be a standing 33% of the field and your out policy on all cards(barring format defining cards i.e. Thoughtseize, lightning bolt, noble, path to exile, snapcaster etc). Make players think outside the box and come up different decks. Cards won't rise so high in value due to everyone suspecting that there to popular and will get banned soon enough.
I've said it before the burden counters should have been something put on the player and not on the ring. That way playing another copy wouldn't be a way around the drawback of the card and it makes sense with lore as using the Ring puts burden on it's user until it completely corrupts you - aka you die of damage.
@@ettoreozzy9932 id say so, probably compounded by the fact he saw the awfulness in the world at its fullest extent. No love interest like sam. I mean i feel like frodo even without the one ring lol
@@ettoreozzy9932 the ring never tempted frodo without the presence of saurons henchmen (mainly the nazgul). Besides that the ring was only put on by accident and then at the end of the journey after hes been through all hell.
Of course Restricting it is the obvious way that would make the One Ring not that Oppresive (it will still be but it would not be that major of a issue since you will never be able to reset the Burden Counter sans by Blinking it) and would fit lorewise since there's only one Ring. But, the best way to deal with the One Ring IS by making a Errata so the Burden Counters are given directly to the Player instead of the Artifact and also recieve a Burden Counter when it enters the Battlefield in addition the Protection itself. That way, you're basically taking the Mental Burden of bearing the One Ring and the more you carry it and use it, the more exposed you will be from Sauron's Taint (represented by the Burden Counters and the damage you will be taking). Of course, this means that there will have to be a card to help you remove those Counters (which also makes sense in the lore since it will represent the Purifiying Magic of the Valar that was used to purify Frodo and Bilbo from Sauron's Taint, which is the reason why they left for the Undying Lands of Valinor after the Destruction of the One Ring since the Dark Magic of Sauron would never fade completely otherwise since he was a Maiar (and thus a immortal being, which remained alive even after the Destruction of the Ring (although would never be able to gain Corporeal Form or Influence Middle Earth ever again since a big chunk of its essence was destroyed along with the One Ring)))
While I think there are enough answers for the One Ring, the problem is that those answers don't really answer anything else. It homogenizes answers, and means the hot tech slots in your deck are all card that exile an artifact, with backups in the sideboard. Even though those do hit other cards, it's less tempting to hit those because "what if they play the ring afterwards?" Since everyone techs against the ring, no one plays their hot tech cards anymore
In control games ANY form of card advantage you can stick will win the game, it breaks the 1for1 trades if you can simply draw more. What makes the Ring so much better is that it gives you also protection, so you get to untap , draw 3 in total for that cycle and find the next answer. 5 mana Teferi kinda did that for UW as untapping 2 lands was enough to have counterspells and removal, but funny enough the colorless ring simply outshines all the other card draw engines. Blue especially SHOULD be the best at drawing cards, but the ring just does it better. So if anything, the big problem is its too efficient at 4 mana and the alternatives that cost colored mana are simply worse. Lets say the Ring would cost UUWW , then it would be a perfectly acceptable UW card, and it would fit in that deck specifically, for the manacost alone, as UW control decks are the decks that should naturally want to play cards like the one ring in a control package. That other decks get access to it is simply a problem of making it too efficient AND colorless, very common design mistake when colorless gets too efficient, it undermines the entire color-pie, which is so fundamental to what Magic is all about, that each color feels unique in what it does. To balance artifacts, they NEED to cost at least a bit more, so they are somewhat inefficient, or require specific shells like Tron to get colorless mana easier. For that experiment just assume the ring would cost 6 mana. That would still be powerful and decks like Tron might still run it, but the speed of the format might just fly under it, so it cant be that much of a threat. Making it "indestructible" on top of all of that just made it even less interactive , as specific cards that all exile needed to be printed and powercreeped the format, making basically anything that just destroys almost unplayable.
I know it's not a popular idea because changing text on a card in paper sucks but I think changing the one ring to said you can only have one copy is both flavorful for the card and will solve the problems with needing so many hate pieces print the new version in whatever set for modern they have coming up and the prices will crash although with how crazy some people got with the commander bannings maybe that not a good thing
To be fair it was also the first time the rc had taken action against $100+ cards. Edh never got hit with a big ban, and after 3+ years of the cards being legal and them saying no changes the fall out was expected minus the threats and such. Modern players are used to the bans, while edh was getting more and more popular and more and more new players, who don't know any better than buying those $100+ cards that they can be hit and get told this $100 card would improve your deck
I hate the “once per turn” restriction. I’d rather the cost to trigger/activate be harder, or the effect be weaker. Probably because I focus on what you *can’t* do instead of what you *can.*
Pausing on the question of if there's enough answers to the ring. I think the answer depends. On the stack, there's more than enough good counterspells and even Reprieve. In play... Eh. Stuff like bowmasters is imo good against it... On the turn after you get protection. As far as removal goes, there's Pick Your Poison, Leyline Binding, Cast into the Fire, Chain to the Rocks, and Static Prision. But the socery speed stuff isn't that amazing against it as they can draw in response (still good). The biggest problem is most of the answers to the ring either isn't in the current top decks or is in the sideboard
What about blood moon? Am i the only one that doesn't think the one ring is an issue. The other cards on the initial list are almost solely in energy, that isn't an issue?
you are correct but TOR is needed to counter all the bullsh1t that other straight-to-modern sets have brought us. Baning the answer and leaving the threats in play is not a good idea.
Using price to balance a format is unhealthy. But the fact the One Ring is $100+ is ridiculous, for a different reason. It was a guaranteed card in the bundles and who knows how many were printed in packs. Any other card like this would be $200+ easily but for the amount the OR was printed it should be the $40 it used to be. It’s that it’s becoming more and more warping for modern which is driving its price and not as much because of its rarity. But needing 4 copies doesn’t help it
The One Ring allows more decks to exist, that is the weird power of it. There are decks in modern that are so close to being decent and it pushes them to get there. Is it the best card in Modern? No, because the real answer will always be fetchlands. The One Ring slows down the format, compared to something like Treasure Cruise. The real problem is that there are answers to The One Ring, but it is better to tailor your gameplan against it, rather than answer it. It is similar to how we used to play against Jace, the Mind Sculpture. It warps the format for better or for worse. This is nothing new to modern, but it has been a while since something like this has happened. Orcish Bowmaster, Wrenn & Six, Splinter Twin and Lightning Bolt has all warped the format in different ways.
If The One Ring is needed so aggro doesn't just one shot everyone, then maybe there needs to be a lot more bans than just The One Ring. If its needed for the format this much, its still an unhealthy format. There is literally no argument to keep The One Ring, its 50%! of the metagame, 50%!!!!!!!!. Phlage is 38% which is higher than hogaak! There needs to be at LEAST another 4+ cards banned minimum.
That’s the problem. They don’t wanna ban more cards right now, even if they find the right ones to target. This is the problem with power creep basically. They’ll slowly ban out the issues over the next year after milking it because they don’t wanna upset the other half of the player base after the EDH scandals this week. Just print more busted cards and cycle them around. That’s the best bet at this point. Don’t ban the One Ring. What if fucking Bolt or FoN became 40/50% of the metagame? Don’t ban them, they’re what’s needed to survive in the game. Your assessment is correct in that Aggro decks are just too busted and basically force you into a Ring deck. Or start unbanning shit. Cards like Twin and Pod or Pfire are easily safe to bring off the bad kid list and let them reintegrate into society. They wouldn’t even be playable with today’s bullshit.
If The One Ring got errataed with "You can only play 1 The One Ring in your deck" I think it would be perfectly fine. It would be more complicated, but "you can't cast spells named 'The One Ring'" would work too
My main issue with The One Ring is that it's incredibly overplayed and ultimately is hurting deck diversity. There's the meme in Commander where you start your deck with Sol Ring; that meme has come to modern with 4 The One Rings, whether that means 4 straight up or 3 in the main 1 in the side it doesn't matter. There are very few decks that don't want it in any capacity.
If MTG wanted a staple universal card, it should not be an outside IP. There's a difference between all the neat art that has been made from a real magic IP card like Sol Ring, compared to the very limited number of things a LoTR object could be.
Not being that entrenched in modern myself, I feel like any time the primary deck list choice in modern is: “do I play [x] or do I play to defeat [x]”, a ban consideration can’t be far off (see [[Lurrus]])
Non ring decks would see a huge boost. Which could be fine. I'd be sad to see amulet and tron nuked, but not sad to see energy nuked. As far as why the one ring is so good, assuming it sticks around for 2 turns, it's 4 mana and 1 life for 3 cards and protection for 1 turn. That's very good in many decks. Also, the one ring is a fantastic filler card. Ran out of gas or didn't get your combo piece? One ring. It makes up for bad mulligans and decks that aren't consistent enough on their own. To me the only problem with the one ring right now is price. That could change. But I think the price tag attached to modern is nuts. Standard decks are 400 dollars right now. Magic pricing is just crazy right now.
ToR isn’t a price issue it’s a power level issue. It allows decks that are aggro or combo too much game vs late game control. The moment a ring resolves, the opportunity to answer it is very scares. Outside of this I believe modern is in an overall healthy state. I don’t mind an aggro deck being top tier and tempo a close second. Also my personal gripe is Tron. It has CA, a wish board, sol lands, land hate, ramp, once upon a time, instant speed super charged preordain with ramp gy hate and removal all in one. These Eldrazi decks are actually busted
Constructed formats should be allowed to use 4 of each common, 3 uncommon, 2 rare, and 1 of each mythic. Of course this will bring down the prices, and demand for full playsets of chase rares/mythics so it will never be done. It solves so many issues, and I've been talking about it for years.
hey mill guy love your takes. you're moving up my power rankings. I played mill a ton too actually hate playing against it. figuring out the outs against mill can be tricky but it usually comes down to the crypt incursion and trying to somehow not lose to it
The real issue is the lack of creativity, not so much on the card itself. Restricting it down to 1 to tie into the lore makes the most sense. A ban would be absolutely terrible.
Honestly, I would be curious to see how the Metagame would shift if the ring was restricted. I know restricting is purely a vintage thing at this point, but one of the biggest problems with the ring imo is being able to clear burden counters by having 3 other copies of it. The loop of landing a ring, getting value off of it and then looping it with all the card draw it gives you makes out valuing the card super difficult for traditional non ring decks.
I see the problems with The One Ring being the fact that it is in more than 35% of decks which kills format diversity, it is ridiculously expensive, it is incredibly powerful, and it doesn't provide enough of a negative to play as it gives you too many options... I stopped playing modern after modern horizons 2 came out as it just rotated the format without adding anything that was being released in the standard sets(other than the companions). If blocks came back, 2 sets instead of 3 as a block, I would hope for those standard sets to be a lot more well put-together than what's being released currently and that there would be options for modern. Those are the days that I miss *sigh*😮💨
Put it to one so its harder to abuse. resetting the already small punishment by playing another one while reaping the benefits again seems stupid. its also not part of an interesting engine or a combo its just good in some decks and better in others but if every single modern deck would play it it would probably work in all of them.
In my opinion, availability is not the problem, it is how common it is. Just like sol ring in commander, it should probably go, and sol ring is 1 in 100 (3 in 100 if you count all opponents), not 4 in 60
The fact that every blue deck is playing 4 consign to memory to answer the ring is enough to show that this card is an issue. If a one ring resolves against a deck like frogtide, you are screwed. In many cases it is time walk and ancestral recall for 4 mana and one life combined into one card and that is the issue. If it would just draw one card each turn, it would be still good but getting 3 or 4 cards is basically game over. Combined with life gain from plage or GoS, you dont care much about the life loss. If other decks would have access to efficient strong life gain to, every deck would play ToR
God I am so glad I've never pulled on of these broken ass cards in sealed product I have. The only card I've pulled that is anywhere at risk of getting banned is smothering tithe and I'm confident it will never get banned.
(1) (Generic) Power crept Pithing Needle Artifact Indestructible, Hexproof When * enters, name a nonland card, that card’s activated abilities cannot be activated.
To be honest, I'm fine with the one ring, it kind of slows down the format which has gotten very fast, there are tons of answers to it within the format, and I really believe that if it was single digits it would be perfectly fine.
50% of decks is a lot.... however modern feels pretty diverse as a format. I personally have no issues with the one ring, it's not oppressive just good. Maybe the costco bundle will help bring the price back down.
I have my copies of the one ring and I'm so tired of playing with and against it. The play patterns are unbelievably dreadful and seem to come up in most of the time i play. Would I be bummed about losing money if it got banned? Yea sure. However every b&r that goes by I become more surprised and more confused that it's still around.
There isn't a The One Ring specific deck that is terrorizing modern because it goes in ALL DECKS. It is a problem. 1 card is featured in 50% of all modern decks??? That is insane.
Maybe expensive? Idk I’ve chucked money at it and also traded for it as well so I guess it’s ok? But the one ring is basically a premium fog that really protects you and it’s improving many deck archetypes and not a one sided deck boosting so I guess it’s ok? I never had problem seeing the ring left and right.
if energy deck wouldn't be so played (and powerful) maybe there will be no extremely big necessity of a turn of fog. I think that the efficiency of the so said tier one makes the one ring a necessity
So The One Ring is 50% most playable card in modern, it is the top most played card in the format and in the top 10 of the most played cards there are 4 or 5 (kinda with Force of Negation) that are counters to it? Oh Yeah that card seems completely fine and healthy for the format... Not at all that it is warping the format around it
No, we have answers, and we have a lot of them but, the problem is. most of them are sb cards. G1 is decided by who gets more value from the ring the majority of the time. The problem is, if the card resolves you just get swamped in card draw for 2 life you imo the one ring isn't so oppressive and broken, without it control becomes mediocre. It's literally 2 things, we don't have a good green deck that can pay the best answers to the card, and it's indestructible. Orcish bowmaster being an answer isn't really an answer more or less a deterrent. I'd pay 4 to draw 4 anytime, especially if I draw 4 and wipe my opponents board after drawing
i only use the one ring in my full lotr deck for commander. Card is just to good and this is what i hate about MTG at times. Staples ruin deck building.
There is not enough answers in the format generally for all decks to be able to counter it efficiently. You are forced to play Blue for consigned memory. I own four copies and I think that it should be banned, creates unhealthy play patterns for any kind of combat deck. But that's my personal opinion
I don’t care what the price point is it’s too available in any deck and basically makes control or mid range strategies without it completely unviable. It makes things too inevitable if you’re not playing aggro or combo once a one ring comes down it’s just too strong add that it’s colorless and it should definitely be banned
I think the one ring is expense be at 1 because i feel like if you think about it. If it as one i feel like if you if the one ring is at one i feel it well be better.
I believe the ring should be banned for 3 reasons. 1) look me in the eye and tell me its a fair card, 2) because it slots into any deck that needs to draw cards, decks that are even slightly weaker or less consistant are going to get shoved out. And 3) if you.bam the ring today, jeskai control amd mardu energy are still the best decks in the format. Tron gets weaker, but i think their new toys from mh3 are good enough. The biggest change post ban would be there are more A tier decks that can actually stack up against the heavy hitters
There will always be a 'best deck' but that doesn't address the fact that a card is being played in 50% of decks at like a 3.7card rate. You can disagree about that being a problem as a matter of intuition, but I personally would not trust your judgement🤷♂️
@@Mobius_ll if you ban the ring many of those archtypes are just going to die and everyone will migrate to boros energy instead. is that a good meta according to you?
The artifact is good, that’s why it’s being played. It makes no sense to be banned, since it still costs 4 mana to cast it. It does have a slight downside as well. Yes, the upside of the artifact is WAY better than its downside but nonetheless, it is not broken by any means. Any damn card that is “expensive” seems to always become a target for spotlight of ppl wanting it banned. Just like rhystic 😂 I think it’s become a pathetic topic as of late. Just play the damn cards if you draw into them or tutor for them.
An idea for a ToR hate: Arrogance of Intuitios - U/B G/B - enchantment Whenever a player draws a card, if it's not the first card he/she has drawn this turn, he/she gets a Poison counter. BB: Each player exiles a card from his/her hand. Each player who hasn't exiled a card this way exiles one card from the top of his/her deck. Each player who has exiled a card in either of these ways draws a card.
nah, staple cards like force of will and wasteland are at around those playrates in eternal formats and they make them better. wasteland not so much in legacy but definitely in vintage. everyone playing a card is not a reason to ban it.
@@Martin-qb2mw Legacy doesn't count (for some reason). Wasteland and Force are often necessary evils. The Ring is not. 50% play rate is a figure that is full stop unacceptable in literally every other constructed format.
