Legacy: The One Ring Paradox Combo - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Not only is it wreaking havoc on Modern, The One Ring has also shown its power on Legacy, and few decks can claim to abuse its power as much as the lists that combine its absurd draw ability with diverse untap artifact effects, like the Keys (Voltaic Key and Manifold Key) and, the one that breaks the whole thing, Paradox Engine.

Decks combining the absurd card generation potential of the Engine and Mystic Forge have been around the format, often using Echo of Eons to replenish, and Mesmeric Orb as the winning engine. Forget it, the new toy is now The One Ring, and it fits this deck like, well, a ring on a finger.

By adding The One Ring to this deck instead of combining Echo of Eons with Lion's Eye Diamond, the archetype gains much more consistency - you're not dependent on a two-card combination - and resilience – not only does the Ring not leave you exposed like the Diamond's, but the protection it offers when you cast it allows you to be very sure of not dying in the counterattack while preparing a big turn on the way back.

Starting your turn with the Ring active is a recipe for obscene card and mana generation, so much so that the deck can afford to forgo Mesmeric Orb and just use Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Walking Ballista coming from the sideboard by Karn, the Great Creator's ability to end the game.

Three Engines and Forges for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Eight Monoliths for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Eight Keys for Mortal Men doomed to die,

Four The One Ring for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

The plan A of this deck is to get The One Ring into play as soon as possible and from there generate mana and cards through Keys and Monoliths (Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith) until we cast Paradox Engine.

From there, every artifact played untaps all of your Keys, Monoliths, Moxes, and most importantly, the Ring. Then it's just a matter of making enough mana to run one of your win conditions.

Plan B is to basically do the same thing, but with Mystic Forge instead of the Ring. This path is more inconsistent and can have problems if you encounter an unlikely sequence of lands at the top, but even that can be solved by activating a Key.

If the Engine comes into play, the scheme is the same: spell, untap, generate a lot of mana, exile lands from the top to continue playing spells, which will untap everything... and that puts the deck on Plan A and everything goes faster.

And Plan C is Karn, the Great Creator, who can either find the Engine or the Mystic Forge to get you back on track, or simply snap a Mycosynth Lattice and end the game. There is a line against decks that don't put pressure on, which is to get the Lion's Eye Diamond on the first activation of Karn and on the next turn use your mana before activating the Planeswalker for the second time, which will find Lattice and lock your opponent.

Oh, and there's even plan D, known as Making Construct Tokens with Urza's Saga and Filling the board with Artifacts. Surprisingly, it's very effective, especially when Sol Lands are involved.

To protect this from your opponent's interference, the deck plays with 4 Defense Grid in the main deck. If one of them resolves, the path is open, but if you are without protection and need to decide between risking the Ring or the Mystic Forge, it is better to use the Forge as bait for counterspells.

Another key move to keep in mind is that casting a second Ring serves to reset the burden counters if you're in a high attrition game and its life loss is starting to take its toll.

While this is a combo deck, you don't need to have multiple combo pieces in hand - not least because one of them, Paradox Engine, isn't quick to fit without explosive mana.

The hands you look for with this deck are the ones with ways to make a lot of mana at once and at least one way to recoup your card investment – The One Ring, Mystic Forge or Karn, the Great Creator.

Defense Grid is also a card you want to see in your starting hand, even if you don't know what you're up against – there's a good chance it will carry over if you're paired against a deck with counterspells.

Examples of keepable hands, which have mana and action to do:

This one is great, playing the Ring on turn 1 with 2 backup Keys.

Here it is possible to cast Karn or The Ring on turn 1.

This hand makes Karn on turn 1, and is lockable with Mycosynth Lattice on turn 2.

Like other Karn, the Great Creator decks we covered earlier, almost all of its sideboard is taken up by cards that fuel the Planeswalker. Add to that the fact that the deck is virtually colorless, and the sideboard options are quite limited.

This brings us to a problem: there are 2 cards that are real bombs against our deck – Collector Ouphe and Null Rod. The Green Troll can be fought relatively easily with Dismember, but as for the artifact, there's not much you can do, as the main colorless cards that destroy artifacts (Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg, The Filigree Sylex) are stopped by the Rod.

Currently, this Artifact hasn't had a big presence on sideboards, sometimes appearing as 1 or 2 on lists like Red Prison or Death's Shadow, but if its quantity increases, we'll need to adapt the mana base and lose consistency/explosion to fight it, or simply spin the roulette wheel and hope not to face it.

As for Karn's cards, Mystic Forge and Paradox Engine are there to increase the redundancy of your combo, Mycosynth Lattice is Karn's better half, and Ensnaring Bridge serves to hold back hordes of opponents while you need time.

Lion's Eye Diamond was already mentioned above as a way to speed up your plays by 2 turns and eventually can be used as a 0-cost activator of Paradox Engine.

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is a removal for cards that can lock you down like the aforementioned Collector Ouphe or an opposing Karn.

Tormod's Crypt is very useful against graveyards and Walking Ballista is basically its finisher, but it can be used in other cases, since its size is scalable.

4 Leyline of the Void because it's one of the best turn 0 answers against the many decks that abuse graveyard interactions.

One important thing about this deck is that it basically doesn't side in against many decks because you don't want to dilute your list - unless absolutely necessary or when you take your Defense Grid out against decks that the card isn't useful against.

UR/Grixis Delver

You have Mox Opal and Lotus Petal, so by all that is holy in this world, avoid at all costs getting caught by a Daze.

Defense Grid is your best friend and The One Ring is basically a Time Walk if resolved against them.

Wasteland can get in the way, but you can usually force more mana than they can deny.

Post-side, be cautious not to hand your board over to Meltdown, try to invest just enough before your big explosive turn to not get obliterated by this red spell.

IN

Nothing.

OUT

Nothing.

Reanimator

Their discards can break your game long enough for their threats to kill you, but resolving The One Ring avoids an entire turn of discards and sets you up for the combo on your return.

Karn, the Great Creator, if resolved before they reanimate, seek Tormod's Crypt to avoid their main strategy and seek Ensnaring Bridge to lock the already reanimated ones.

If they bring Serra's Emissary for Artifact, your paths to victory run through Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: either you cast the Flying Spaghetti to Annihilate their board, or you go to the Karn's plan for Ensnaring Bridge and Mycosynth Lattice, eventually discarding the Eldrazi Titan so that your deck remains bigger than your opponent's.

Post-side, you should anticipate Serenity, always remembering that this Enchantment doesn't destroy the Ring.

Against Blue Versions

IN

OUT

Against Non-Blue Versions

IN

OUT

Blue White Control (UW, Bant, Jeskai, 4CC

Again, Defense Grid will load a truck in this game. You have to overwhelm them until one of your card winning engines gets past their defenses.

Fortunately, they cost 4 mana, which makes Prismatic Ending an awkward answer. Basically, it's a game where you have a Hammer and treat everything else like a Nail – if a hammer hits, congratulations!

IN

Nothing

OUT

Nothing

Painter

As long as you don't draw your only copy of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, you are immune to their combo in game 1 and their alternate path to victory with Urza's Saga tokens is delayed each time that you cast the Ring.

The most problematic card in this game is the Goblin Welder, which can exchange one of your key artifacts during the combo for a Lotus Petal from your graveyard, so be careful when sacrificing them.

After the first game, the dead Defense Grid leaves to make way for cards to deal with the Goblins.

IN

OUT

Stompy (Red Prison, RG, RW and W Initiative)

These are decks with a veritable arsenal of cards to stall your game, and Red Prison in particular is the most problematic of the bunch: Blood Moon kills your Urza's Saga and slows down your Sol Lands, Trinisphere cripples your entire game plan and Chalice of the Void for both 1 and 0 cripples most of your deck.

To make matters worse, Null Rod has been appearing more frequently. The White lists are less brutal, but still have things like Archon of Emeria.

You have 3 Dismember to go up against them instead of 4 Defense Grid. The fourth card can either be a Tormod's Crypt, which has no use for its ability but is a 0 cost Artifact to play in the cycle of Paradox Engine or Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, which is a bit slow to pull on Karn, but can yield some value when drawn naturally.

IN

OUT

Sneak n’ Show

Show and Tell on their part can be real Russian roulette: if you have the Ring, Engine or even a Defense Grid to put on for free, it can make your way to winning back a lot easier, so the most common thing is that they prefer the path via Sneak Attack to avoid surprises, which can buy you more time. Again, resolving a Defense Grid solves almost everything for you.

It's worth remembering that while the protection offered by the Ring prevents damage from their creatures and Archon of Cruelty's ability, it does not affect Emrakul, the Aeons Torn's Annihilator.

Post-side, watch out for Meltdown and the eventual Cast into the Fire (what a karmic way to destroy the Ring!).

IN

Nothing

OUT

Nothing

That's it, my friends, the One Ring has already begun to exert its influence on the Legacy.

A piece of advice I would give you is, if you have the opportunity to get a good deal on some Null Rod, go with faith, it's a card with a lot of potential for the future.

See you next time!