MTG The Ring Tempts You explained: How it works

The Ring Tempts You often MTG’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth set. We’ll show you how to best wield the dark power of Mordor.

The Ring Tempts You is the signature mechanic of MTG’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth set. With such a heavy thematic link to LOTR, it is extremely unlikely for the mechanic to recur in other sets. All the better to get used to The Ring Tempts You now, while Tales of Middle Earth is experiencing overwhelming popularity.

How The Ring Tempts You works in MTG

WOTC/Anato Finnstark

When you play a card with The Ring Tempts You as an effect, you first get an Emblem called The Ring, provided you don’t already have one. Then, the emblem progresses to its next stage, one of four, and you choose a creature to either become your Ring-bearer or stay as your Ring-bearer if they are already in that role.

Nothing in MTG – short of removing a player from the game – can get rid of an Emblem, so once you have The Ring, you can be sure it’s sticking around.

The Ring’s abilities

The Ring Tempts You grants abilities with a heavy combat focus, providing bonuses for attacking with your ring-bearer such as evasion, card draw, destruction and finally burn damage.

Every subsequent time The Ring Tempts You activates, it provides extra abilities for your Ring-bearer. The progression through the ability stages is permanent; when a new creature becomes the Ring-bearer, it does not start again from the first stage.

The four effects are as follows:

• Your Ring-bearer is legendary and can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power.
• Whenever your Ring-bearer attacks, draw a card, then discard a card.
• Whenever your Ring-bearer becomes blocked by a creature, that creature’s controller sacrifices it at the end of combat.
• Whenever your Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player, each opponent loses 3 life.

Best uses of The Ring Tempts You

The Ring Tempts You’s final ability is extremely strong, dealing unblockable damage and wiping out a good chunk of the opponent’s life before blockers are even declared. But, while it is a useful ability overall, it is markedly, less potent in games with higher overall life totals like Commander.

There, it can be more useful to focus on the earlier evasion and card-draw elements, rather than burning through resources to reach the final stages as quickly as possible.