Achievement Unlocked - What Creatures Make the Best Ring-Bearers?
July 20, 2023 by
Benjamin Nicol 
(Call of the Ring | Art by Anato Finnstark)
Have You Been Tempted by The Ring?
Have you ever made a Commander bucket list? Welcome to Achievement Unlocked, where we take a look at the cool and unique things you can do in this format other than just winning.
The Ring tempts you is one of the most unique mechanics in all of Magic. I admire how a mechanic so complicated has thus far played out so smoothly. Monarch and Initiative warped a variety of 60-card formats in a way that the Ring doesn't appear to do. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of power packed into this mechanic, however. Much like the aforementioned mechanics, the Ring provides a ton of free value. Birthday Escape already has a desirable effect and value is tacked on top. The biggest difference is that this mechanic doesn't feed into itself. It requires multiple cards with the effect and it takes building around it to see the full impact. So today I'm setting out to do just that.
A Ring to Rule (and Tempt) Them All
Your Ring-bearer is legendary and can't be blocked by creatures with greater power.
For the purposes of the Limited format (where these cards have seen the most play so far), this text isn't the most impactful aspect of this mechanic outside of cards like Nasty End and making your creatures a little easier to push through in combat.
Let's focus on the legendary aspect first. WoTC continues to push legendary-matters cards and mechanics, so we're not short on options to take advantage of this part of the ability. However, the Skulk-esque ability that this mechanic provides means cards that boost power go significantly down in value. Arvad the Cursed relies on us having many legends, and we'll only have one Ring-bearer. Blackblade Reforged can push damage, but makes it way less likely that our creature gets through to trigger some of the later abilities of the Ring's tempt. We can look at cards that rely on having one or two legends rather than an entire board full of them. Arwen's Gift does a very solid Read the Bones impression, and Relic of Legends only needs a few legends to create a ton of extra mana each turn.
The second half of this ability is also very interesting. In Limited, it leads to creatures with low power and high toughness being higher picks than usual. In Commander, we have access to way more creatures that fit that mold and far more deadly. Master of Cruelties is the most significant that comes to mind. The Ring makes it incredibly hard to block, and it can quickly and discreetly take out opponents. The benefits of this ability don't stop there. There are a variety of creatures that can cast spells from graveyards for free when they get through, but they have low power and are fragile in combat. Dreadhorde Arcanist and former Commander powerhouse Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge can sneak through with low toughness to turn around and cast spells for free.
Whenever your Ring-bearer attacks, draw a card, then discard a card.
This is one of the highlights of this set's Limited format. Looting each turn allows for better selection potential and is powerful on its own, but with a little building around we can take better advantage of it. The obvious build-around is using cards like Reanimate or Animate Dead to bring back the big creatures that can get stuck in our hand if we draw them early. We can even stay on The Lord of the Rings theme and use Sauron, Lord of the Rings to try to end the game by bringing back our biggest threat.
I've talked at length about my love of graveyard mechanics like Madness or flashback, and this deck can utilize them to their full effect. The loot ability gives us a free discard outlet, making Dark Withering or Terminal Agony become easier to facilitate. Flashback can be an even stronger bet as it doesn't require the immediate cast. And we can stow away Deep Analysis or Faithless Looting for later when we need to see some new cards.
Some creatures care about either drawing a second card or the act of discarding a card. Conspiracy Theorist lets us play cards we discard that turn, has low power and an attack trigger, making it a pretty decent Ring-bearer itself. Lazotep Chancellor lets us use extra mana to turn these discarded cards into creatures. One of my favorite over performers in this category is Irencrag Pyromancer. The Pyromancer has no power, meaning it'll get through on most battlefields to trigger Ring abilities, the second of which will trigger the creature's ability to deal three damage to any target.
Whenever your Ring-bearer becomes blocked by a creature, that creature's controller sacrifices it at the end of combat.
This is probably the least exciting and least relevant ability of the Ring. It works somewhat like deathtouch, but it's important to note that it happens post-combat, which means it doesn't have the same interaction with first strike. It does mean that our 1 or less power creatures can kill multiple creatures if they're blocked by more than one blocker. This makes menace a really good keyword for our Ring-bearers. It not only makes them harder to block, but it also makes the cost of blocking them more punishing.
Whenever your Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player, each opponent loses 3 life.
Unlike the attack trigger that is the second Ring ability, this is a combat trigger, so our creature must get through. This is mostly a downside, but it does let us take advantage of double strike to trigger twice per turn. Efreet Flamepainter not only has double strike, but it also has the ability to cast spells from our graveyard. Its low power is meant to hold it back, but with this mechanic it excels.
This ability has a unique interaction with first strike. If a creature with first strike is our Ring-bearer and deals damage, we can respond with an instant-speed tempt card like Soothing of Sméagol to change our Ring-bearer and get the ability again when the new Ring-bearer deals regular combat damage. This will come up infrequently, but is still an important interaction.
We can also utilize damage/life-loss doublers to increase the damage we dole out each turn. Wound Reflection and Warlock Class can both get this done. However, I would personally suggest avoiding this route. The impact isn't big enough to justify these cards, and the final stage of the Ring is not always guaranteed.
Enabling the Ring
Unlike Monarch and Dungeons, we need more than one The Ring tempts cards get the ball rolling. When our Ring-bearer dies, we lose these abilities and can't regain them without another trigger. These cards have diminishing returns once we reach the final level, but most of them have a desirable effect on their own. Additionally, we can change our Ring-bearer as needed once we reach the final level with more cards.
Glorious Gale, Inherited Envelope and Sam's Desperate Rescue are all effects that are too underpowered to see significant play in the format, but with tempt tacked on, these become desirable replacements for the usual staples in our deck.
Some of the higher rarity cards with this effect are strong on their own. Call of the Ring is a strong card draw engine and Fiery Inscription gives us an ability we can build around to close out a game.
Unfortunately, we can't really skimp on this portion of the deck. We need enough of these cards to continually trigger this ability so that we always have a Ring-bearer. If we aren't, we just have a bunch of underpowered cards in our deck for no good reason. Luckily, we can also pick a commander that helps us enable the ability.
The Commander of the Rings
So who will lead this deck? For me, it's a simple choice. Sauron, the Dark Lord is popular for a ton of valid reasons. He's very powerful on his own, and he also does so much of what the set is built around: Tempt and Amassing Orc Armies. He's the perfect fit for this deck. He does a great job of giving us a consistent flow of creatures and tempt triggers as well as creatures to sacrifice for value. He also has an amazing card draw ability that synergies perfectly with the graveyard package that fits our deck so well.
Conclusion
This new mechanic is complicated and has so many layers, but this makes it so much more fun to build around. Which cards did I leave out that would be great for this deck? Let me know in the comments, and check out the full deck list below!
One Ring to Rule Them All
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Benjamin Nicol
Ben is a Michigan native who fell in love with Magic just a few years ago in 2019. He loves making big splashy plays in Commander as well as crunching the number to optimize his decks. Outside of Magic, he works in marketing and loves a great cup of coffee to start each morning… maybe with a splash of hot chocolate for his sweet tooth.
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