What do you all think about "The Ring Tempts You" mechanic?
What do you all think about "The Ring Tempts You" mechanic?
I think it's pretty neat, at least from a commander perspective. Making non-legendary creatures into legendary creatures can add some cool synergies with cards like Ratadrabik of Urborg.
It does cool things, but it's definitely a "Mark Rosewater designs a perpetual card that stays on the side" design. Like dungeons, attractions, day/night, etc.
The complete lack of any negative aspect to the ring tempting you is just too much of a flavour fail. Maro says that players would not have wanted to use the temptation mechanic if it came with a downside, then they really should have scrapped it and tried something else. Even including some punisher cards that thematically could have introduced a lose condition from being excessively tempted would have been something. But honestly, given how baked in the concept of "undercosted spells or abilities with a downside" are to Magic, I refuse to believe that a free effect of the ring tempting you and giving you a benefit but also a malus would have been unused. There's whole deck archetypes built around that..
I think not being able to move it between creatures without paying mana or life would be flavorful enough of a downside without really being a downside. The idea being that whoever has the ring isn't going to want to let it go.
I think the thing with people not wanting to play with it when it had downsides is more some people don't like playing it with downsides. Especially newer players who are scared of things like shocklands, having not yet learned that life is a resource. And this set will have a lot of people who haven't played before who are interested because it is Lord of the Rings.
I mostly dislike it for requiring outside game pieces to function, making it overly complicated, all for trying to fit the lore into the mechanics too hard. Similar to the problem I have with dungeons and initiative.
I think it's fine, powers up the ring bearer but the lack of downside is a little annoying.
I also read the mechanic incorrectly when it came out and thought that you HAD to move it to a different creature whenever you were tempted. Thought that was a good flavor for it cause it showcases how other creatures would covet the ring and try to take it. But I was wrong you can just choose the same creature every time.
If you had to move it every time my suggestion for downside was pay mana or life to keep it on the ring bearer. Or for no penalty pick a different ring bearer. Still a neat mechanic though.
Overall I think it's a wonderful way to tie in LoTR with the game mechanics. Outside of that, I think it's odd to just have cards with abilities that tempt you, and it's also odd that tempting you doesn't also always come with life loss or some other negative ability. That's like the fundamental concept of the entire Lord of the Rings story and I feel like that should have been preserved.
My take on it would be something like:
Draw 1 card and lose 2 life whenever the ring tempts youas a general mechanic. Such that, drawing a card and losing 2 life happens to whomever gets tempted and whenever they get tempted. That way you could actually lose the game if you get tempted too many times.I think it should be something like this: As the ring tempts you, draw a card and you should choose a creature as ring bearer, else, lose 2 life; On the first turn the ring bearer has shroud and can't be blocked; the next turn the ring bearer still has those abilitties, but it takes -1/-1 , the next turn it has the ring -2/-2 and so on.
This way the player would have to try get as many "the ring tempts you" to draw cards and to choose another creature or lose that creature as the turns pass.
I like this a lot. Very on point with the lore too.
I ranted about it a bit in this post. But I do think the idea of promoting random creatures to legendary is pretty funny. Imagine countering [[Cast Down]] with, like, [[Sauron's Ransom]].
You raise some good points. I can't find the article but Maro actually did address why the ring tempting you doesn't have a drawback. Apparently it's because players wouldn't want to engage with the mechanic or find it as fun to use if it's a major drawback.
While I don't love the reason, since one path could have been to make cards that tempt you inherently stronger to compensate for having a downside, I guess it does make sense. Still a bit of a flavour fail though.
A good way to make the ability both more flavorful and more mechanically interesting would be if the emblem worked more like the monarch, with only one player able to have it active at a time. There's only one ring, after all, so if your ringbearer dies then your opponent gets the ring and their emblem turns on while yours turns off. Having the ring would also require having a creature to hold it.
And every time you're tempted while you have the ring, your ringbearer gets a burden counter (as used on the one ring card) and once you hit the final level of temptation you have to pay life equal to your ringbearer's burden counters each turn, or they're sacrificed and your opponent gets the ring and a wraith creature token which becomes their ringbearer.For commander I'm a little underwhelmed, both by its effect and by the cards that tempt. I don't see it getting much use at all outside of the commanders that tempt or care about tempting themselves
