Modern: Is it time to Ban The One Ring?

The Modern Metagame is going through a new phase - With Boros Energy solidifying itself as the best deck in the format and starting to enter the first houses of Tier 0 and the rise of other archetypes post-ban of Nadu, Winged Wisdom, such as Dimir Murktide, Mono Blue Belcher and Ruby Storm.

A lot can be said about the representation of Boros Energy and its variant with splash for black. Together, these two decks already occupy a little over 35% of the Modern Metagame - worrying numbers when we consider the overall scope, similar to the level of representation of Rakdos Evoke before the ban on Fury - but there is another subject that brings even more concern to players and makes them question the format's health: The One Ring.

At the time of writing this article, The One Ring reached the title of most played card in the Modern Metagame with 56%. It is above any other card in the format, including lands - Arid Mesa, the second most played, has 50%.

In this article, I will make a slightly different proposal than usual and try to evaluate the situation based on the pros and cons of The One Ring in Modern and how beneficial its presence in the format is.

A mix of Metagame circumstances with the fact that the card virtually combines the effect of two Power 9 pieces: Ancestral Recall and Time Walk.

The One Ring offers protection from everything. This means that the player cannot take damage or be targeted by any spell or ability from their opponent until the next turn. For practical purposes, this trigger functions almost like an “extra turn” in most games, the exception being those where a player can win without targeting or damaging the opponent (Thassa’s Oracle being the main example).

In addition to this ability, the artifact can be activated to place a counter and draw cards equal to the number of counters on it. Assuming a player has used it once when casting it and once after the “extra turn”, they have drawn three cards over the course of two turns with one resource, essentially turning it into an Ancestral Recall which, if not resolved and/or the game is not won, turns into an Ancient Craving.

However, The One Ring has several ways of being reused: when playing another copy, we can sacrifice the one with counters to keep the new one on the board. Cards like Teferi, Time Raveler can return it to its owner's hand and play it again to reset the counters, decks like Grinding Breach can use Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Grinding Station to loop with The One Ring until they win the game.

The other point that matters in this discussion is the context of the Metagame: The One Ring is an important answer in strategies that only need to find the right pieces.

The fact that it “turns off” combat for a turn already guarantees an extra breath for players against Aggro, but it also deals with the same problem when we mention Grapeshot or other combos that require damage and targets to work.

One turn and three draws is all some decks need to win. Do you need to find a Through the Breach to play Emrakul, the Aeons’ Torn? You will. Need an extra land drop for Karn, the Great Creator to get the piece you need to answer your opponent? The One Ring assures you. Have to hold your opponent off for a few more turns to find the sweeper that will win the game? Play The One Ring and try to bounce it with Teferi, Time Raveler to guarantee two extra turns and seven more draws.

The One Ring represents card advantage in Modern, being its main and - for many decks - only possible option. This puts it both in the privileged space of being present in more than 50% of the Metagame and presents some risk factors.

This popularity is mainly reflected in the fact that The One Ring costs . Being colorless fits it into almost any deck, and few archetypes really lose anything by using it.

In my previous analysis, after the results of Pro Tour MH3 where the artifact had a 46% of the Metagame share, I mentioned that it helped to keep certain archetypes viable - especially Big Mana and archetypes that require a less interactive setup, which needs to hold Aggro for one or more turns.

This changed from the moment that the best Aggro in Modern today, Boros Energy, started running The One Ring in more than 90% of its lists.

Now, not only is the artifact the most played card, but it is also a staple of the best deck in the format - the one that starts climbing the first steps of Tier 0. Boros Energy has also proven to be the best option against The One Ring lists, but we'll leave that detail for a little further down.

Today, of the strategies that make up Tiers 1 and 1.5, only four do not resort to the artifact.

What they have in common is that they don't gain anything from The One Ring. Dimir Murktide is more concerned with combating the Metagame with cheap spells, while Living End, Ruby Storm and Domain Zoo have more linear game plans that don't allow them to play a four-mana artifact that “does nothing” of what they want.

It is possible to play without the Ring in Modern and still get results. All of these decks are consistently at the top of Challenges and other format events, but they all also need an answer and are starting to show signs of a card-centric Metagame.

Consign to Memory is the most common of these answers and seems almost designed to deal with The One Ring, despite its design being designed to deal with casting triggers and Eldrazi with a single card. Being the ideal answer also means being the second most played spell in the format, with 38% share, and the most common Sideboard piece among Tiers 1 and 2.

Among the options, there is Fear, Fire, Foes! as a cheap answer that removes the damage prevention from protection - a tactic that harks back to the times when Legacy Delver decks ran Wild Slash to deal with True-Name Nemesis in combat - and Commandeer to take control of the artifact and, at least, control half of its Power 9, in some cases the most relevant half.

Answering an important piece of the Metagame is no surprise, especially in Modern. For years, Chalice of the Void has been used to deal with certain strategies, just like Engineered Explosives, or Deafening Silence and similar effects to hold Storm, or Force of Vigor for unwanted artifacts and enchantments, not to mention Pithing Needle for a dozen permanents and even Illness in the Ranks was a Sideboard staple at some point to deal with the Splinter Twin combo. It's part of the game.

During the process of writing this article, I tried to find a straightforward answer to this question, and the conclusion I came to is that it is not easy and depends on many factors.

On the one hand, The One Ring has an absurd representation in Modern, and this reflects a problematic pattern where games are won or lost by the artifact entering the board at the right time. Again, drawing three cards and gaining an extra turn is all that some strategies need to turn the tide of a matchup.

I can't imagine strategies like Eldrazi Ramp or Grinding Breach surviving against Boros Energy or Domain Zoo without the possibility of holding the game for a few turns, and the importance of The One Ring to these archetypes is what keeps them standing against a significant portion of the Metagame.

Of course, answers like Oblivion Stone for Eldrazi decks or cheaper sweepers would theoretically solve the problem against Aggro, but these are more conditional.

Another problem is the card advantage: The One Ring has rendered most Planeswalkers and other cards obsolete - again, another double-edged sword since, on the one hand, it universalizes sources for every strategy that needs it, while on the other, it forces decks to over-adapt against it and has made it the only viable option in its category. There is no reason to consider Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria or Karn, the Great Creator in its place.

We also need to consider what strategies are being challenged by the artifact. Do they really have any chance of succeeding in the absence of the card, or would they be held back by other archetypes? Would an explosive aggro like Burn have any chance in games against Boros Energy and other popular strategies without the artifact in the Metagame? Would other decks be able to rise in its absence and make the competitive scene more diverse?

The dilemma surrounding The One Ring can be reflected as an example of cards like Brainstorm, Force of Will or Wasteland in Legacy - they all have over 50% share in the format, but their function is to enable certain strategies and interactions that make up the format's ecosystem or prevent things from getting out of hand.

Is it necessary to ban these cards from Legacy because they have too high a presence rate? Of course not! The format would be worse without them! But can the same be said for The One Ring? What Wasteland and Force of Will have in common is that they are answers to troublesome things from Legacy, while the artifact is a mere value bomb that replicates effects from two of the most powerful cards in Magic history.

Wouldn't there be healthier options for decks that rely on it to stay afloat? Or is it for Modern what Legacy's pillars are to Legacy and help keep more strategies viable?

Personally, it won't be a surprise if the Ring is banned in Modern in December because it features some patterns that are notoriously problematic and has a history in Magic: The Gathering. It would be a surprise, however, if it is the only card banned.

Boros Energy is the best deck in Modern today and I don't see anything changing in the coming months. In this regard, it is "good" in this category because it doesn't try to do anything inherently unfair or make games unfun - after all, it is an Aggro deck that has one of the best attrition and range plans the format has ever seen.

Its presence, however, is only growing. In the last 14 days, Energy variants have more than 30% of the Metagame and some of the archetypes that rely on The One Ring have serious problems if they don't draw a copy of it against Boros Energy. Its absence could only exacerbate this problem even more, not to mention that this is also the best Goblin Bombardment archetype in Modern today - a card that has grown in popularity due to how it mitigates some inherent weaknesses in this strategy.

Among the possible pieces that could be banned in December, I believe that Ocelot Pride is the most viable: its interaction with Guide of Souls and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah is one of the pillars that makes Energy the best deck in Modern today, and the archetype can still survive without this card, just with fewer explosive interactions.

In addition, since it is almost a Modern Horizons 3 typal, it is difficult to imagine Wizards banning Guide of Souls because it is part of the heart of the Energy strategy that they promoted with the set and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah is an iconic character in Magic lore that has other interactions with cards like Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd.

Amped Raptor would be another surgical and less “financially offensive” option. Its removal would take away the deck’s potential to cheat on mana costs and would remove one of the main payoffs of the Energy archetype. This could be replaced by other cards, but they would require a third color - Whirler Virtuoso is the first one that comes to mind and interacts directly with what the current iteration of Energy wants, but it doesn’t compensate for Raptor’s lack of immediate card advantage.

I don't really have the answer on whether The One Ring should be banned. I think Modern is in a weird spot right now and might just remain the way it is for a while longer. Maybe, Wizards will decide not to interfere and wait until the next Universes Beyond sets (Final Fantasy and Marvel) does its thing and shapes up the format a bit more - I wonder, however, whether the players are willing to wait so long with a Metagame that has two growing warning signs right now.

It's definitely not a Nadu situation, but with the upcoming Pro Tour seasons being both on Standard and Modern, it's difficult to imagine players thrilled to play RCQs if, for some reason, they deem The One Ring and Boros Energy as too unhealthy.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!