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.
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
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.
The opposite. As a LoTR themed set, they need to have the ring involved somehow.
“Tempts” is probably the wrong word. Maybe “You resonate with The Ring”, for example. Just choosing a random different word.
The problem I have with this is that the whole concept of the ring is that it’s fundamentally a corruptive force. Without the ring having some kind of outcome where you fall to its corruption, it’s not The One Ring, it’s just another gimmicky mechanic.
The One Ring should give you bonuses. That’s fine - its power is what tempts. But if the ring in the books worked like it does in the game, Frodo should have just power walked into Mordor, slam dunked the ring into Mount Doom, and moonwalked back to the shire, flipping Sauron the bird the whole way home.
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.
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 you as 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.
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.
