Hello, hello, everyone! Welcome back to the sequel to the fabled Ring Review, where I spew nonsense for a thousand words about Magic: the Gathering’s preferred method of magical merchandise. If you missed the first part (or want a refresher on how I’ll be breaking down the cards), check it out here! I won’t waste too much time with an intro, so let’s get back to judging jewelry.
Equipment and buffs for green don’t always go well together, but for the times it will I actually quite like this one. It provides evasion and some stat growth for a pretty low cost. Trample isn’t too scarce on a lot of artifacts, but getting counters as a bonus is always nice. I think this also is a sleeper fantastic pick in Omnath, Locus of Mana.
Rating: B. It’s nothing fantastic, but if you don’t have anti-artifact synergy evasion is always welcome.
What…in the world is that text. Like seriously everyone, please read this oracle text from Scryfall. This is the type of card that I completely get why it has the brick of rules explanation, especially since early Magic didn’t have as fleshed out rules written down for complicated stack interaction and players didn’t have as many rules resources. This card obviously doesn’t interact in Commander the way players may have used it back then, since you don’t have a sideboard. That being said, if you use this in a game against me you can put in Griselbrand for all I care. You deserve it.
Rating: D
Another card that would normally be in the category of “not bad, just overcosted” old Magic artifacts. The big “BUT” for this card is the random discard. Randomness is really scary when it comes to your hand, even in decks that want to discard. 5 mana to ditch your powerful cards sometimes is not a good feeling.
Rating: F, and that wasn’t even on my rating sheet.
Hmm…this one stumps me. On one hand that is expeeensive. On the other, its a 3 use unconditional tutor for colorless decks, and I think if you really want to find your big combo or Eldrazi, it’s a really useful way to do so. I think it’s even decent in hard control decks, although I believe it truly shines in Colorless. If you flicker it you can get the counters back too.
Rating: B, and if you can reduce the cost or cheat it in play it can really do some work.
Well, of this cycle I think this one is the weakest. If you really want some extra counters in mono white it isn’t bad per se, its just really not notable.
Rating: C, and truthfully that’s a bit generous.
I think this ring would be decent if it wasn’t for every other haste artifact providing more keywords. It’s also a bit of anti-synergy, giving haste but not providing stats until later. It’s not the worst in Valduk, Keeper of the Flame or other equipment spam red decks though.
Rating: C
The best of the cycle for sure. Paying to regenerate is super strong, especially in Mono-Black where you have tons of kill-on-sight Commanders. Protection is something most people don’t play enough of, and if you can frequently get the extra counters and make use of them by combat or other means, I think this one’s a home run.
Rating: A
TWO rings? The ring combo meal is pretty solid for…well…combo. If you have effects that you want to jam a whole bunch or even just try to push for infinite combos by duplicating effects, this one can be your jam. I feel like I see this card a lot less in decks and at tables than I used to, but I do think it holds up pretty well. That being said, I wouldn’t put this in a deck that I can’t abuse the heck out of it, especially not if my Commander doesn’t benefit from it.
Rating: B
This card is the pinnacle of “it’s aight” in modern Commander. It’s a perfectly fine ramp piece; in fact, I used to play this in Mono-Red dragons. That being said, plenty of cards do this but better, in fact this is effectively a worse Hedron Archive for all intents and purposes. I think it’s the type of card I’d never bash someone for running (especially since it’s not a bad option for budget decks that have a suuuper high curve), but in terms of min-maxing there are much better choices.
Rating: C, but even the most mediocre of ramp is still ramp.
Anything that needs to be said about this card has already been said. Hell, it’s going to be what the actual serialized rings in the Middle Earth set are. Although quite ironically, what is supposed to be the thing everyone across the land is vying for just happens to be something that nearly every deck includes.
Rating: S+++
We wrap up our list with a pretty fun one. You basically make a sort of “tether” to one player, where you each draw cards and gain life when the other one does during their turn. I think this is a super neat effect for group hug decks; while I’m usually not one to bite on group hug players trying to persuade me with their gifts and goodies, this one can potentially push you really far into the lead. Outside of group hug it provides a unique way to shut down players trying to combo off, which allows you to answer the player drawing a billion cards by…also drawing a billion cards. You need both the right deck and the right matchup for it to work, but it’s pretty hilarious when you pop off with it.
Rating: B
Well, that’s all we have for rings. I hope you enjoyed this mini-series, and be sure to stick around for when we get to play around with the actual rings of Middle Earth when they come out this summer!
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