The One Ring in Magic: The Gathering

In Magic: The Gathering’s The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Universe Beyond expansion, a special and unique card was printed. The One Ring appeared in MTG in 2023 and was found by Brook Trafton—who sold it. This legendary card now belongs to the rapper Post Malone.

The Forging (Printing) of The One Ring in MTG

In addition to the serialized 1:1 The One Ring in MTG, many lesser versions were printed—as were a few thousand Sol Rings created in the likeness of the Rings of Power given to the elves, dwarves, and humans in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium.

However, that 1:1 (meaning that only one of this card was ever printed) The One Ring card was found by a Canadian named Brook Trafton in June 2023 (more on that later).

How to Get Your Hands on The One Ring

If you’re still searching for other versions of The One Ring, fear not! You can still pull it from a pack. Specifically, you can find The One Ring in MTG from the following The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth products:

• Draft & Set Boosters: Main Set Version-only (in some packs)
• Bundle: Main Set Version (in some packs), Bundle Alt-Art Promo Version (one in every box)
• Gift Bundle: Main Set Version (in some packs), Bundle Alt-Art Promo Version (one in every box and in some packs), Extended Art Version (in some packs)
• Collector Boosters: Main Set Version (in some packs), Bundle Alt-Art Promo Version (in some packs), Extended Art Version (in some packs)

The One Ring in MTG Has Been Found

On July 31st, 2023, Brook Trafton posted a video of his (appropriately) quivering hand holding The One Ring. He found the legendary artifact in a 15-card The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Collector Booster pack sometime in June 2023 but didn’t immediately mention it online for security reasons.

Obviously, the value of the one-of-a-kind card caused Trafton to be very cautious about how he told the world that he had found it. He took Gandalf’s advice in the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and decided to “Keep it secret, keep it safe.” At least, for a time…

As you could expect, word of this discovery went viral. Millions of views and thousands of comments across a plethora of websites and social media platforms illuminated the internet brighter than the Phial of Galadriel banishing the shadows in Shelob’s cave.

The Grading of The One Ring and Why It’s Not a 10/10

After Trafton pulled The One Ring, he had it graded by Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to verify its value. On PSA’s grading scale (10 being the highest rank), the 1:1 The One Ring was rated as a 9.

Why not a 10/10? Short answer: foil card curling. Despite Trafton never using the card in a game and caring for it as best he could, foil cards are highly prone to curling. Curling is when a card—as you probably guessed—curls to either give the card a concave or convex curve instead of being perfectly flat.

Brand-new foil cards curl despite being pulled from fresh packs due to the humidity being different from where they were packaged. If the humidity of a location where a pack is opened is either much higher or much lower than the Wizards of the Coast facility where the pack was sealed, the foil card will inevitably curl unless it’s flattened, humidity-adjusted, or comic-pressed.

The humidity affects the back of the foil card—which is made of cardboard. However, the front of a foil card is covered in mylar: a substance less affected by humidity. Since cardboard (a paper product originally made from water-susceptible wood) expands and contracts when exposed to varying degrees of moisture, one of two things can happen:

• If the location is too humid, the cardboard back of the foil card expands, creating a concave curl
• If the location isn’t humid enough, the cardboard back of the foil card contracts, creating a convex curl

It’s a bit ironic that one would not want a ring to be curled; alas, being a collector is tough.

The One Ring Was Sold to Post Malone

A few months after The One Ring was graded by PSA, Brook Trafton was offered an invitation to hang out with the rapper Post Malone during the latter’s visit to Toronto for a concert. Malone, a huge MTG fan himself, desperately wanted to meet Trafton and The One Ring card in person.

After an emotional and energized hangout, Malone offered to buy the card from Trafton—who agreed. Trafton told CBC in an August 2023 interview that he sold the card to Malone for $2.64 million.

Trafton also posted another TikTok video capturing the important sales moment where an exuberant Malone can be heard saying “Yeah, I’ll take it.” Afterward, the card disappeared into Malone’s private collection.

…At least until he inevitably gives it to a nephew—who will then likely throw it into a volcano. Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely…

What Does The One Ring Do?

As you can probably expect of a card with this much epic lore behind it, The One Ring comes with some very strong effects.

Firstly, The One Ring has Indestructible—a static keyword meaning that it cannot be destroyed through normal means. You can potentially remove the Indestructible ability and then destroy it, but that’s a tale for another time.

The next effect is that, when cast, The One Ring grants you protection from everything until your next turn. Yes, this is as broken as it sounds. Becoming invulnerable for a whole two turns (the rest of your current one and your opponent’s next turn) thanks to an indestructible artifact is insane and can turn a losing game into a winning one easily.

The third effect relates to The One Ring’s tap ability, so let’s talk about the latter first and ignore the text order on the card. Whenever you tap The One Ring, you put a burden counter on it and then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring. You can stack this effect as many times as you can tap the card. Usually, this would be once per turn…unless you have cards that let you untap artifacts.

Going back to the bit of text about the tap ability: at the beginning of your upkeep, you lose one life for each burden counter on The One Ring. There’s the drawback to using The One Ring to draw more cards. With that said, it’s pretty easy to counter this negative by using other card effects to gain life and offset the life points lost in this manner.

Since The One Ring is colorless, you can, for example, easily stick it in a white deck that has lots of Lifelink creatures.

About the Fancy Text on the 1:1 The One Ring Card

In case you’re wondering what language is used on the 1:1 The One Ring card, it’s Black Speech. This language was created by Sauron and used in Mordor by his minions, the Orcs.

However, the script on the card—and on The One Ring depicted on the card—is not Black Speech. This language has no actual script of its own. Instead, the script used is Elvish Tengwar. This is as close as Black Speech has ever come to being written in its pure form.

How Much Does The One Ring Sell For?

There are multiple versions of The One Ring besides the serialized 1:1 version. They all sell for different prices, which fluctuate. For an accurate gauge of this card’s selling and buying prices, check sites that regularly update their stats. We recommend checking prices on reputable sites like TCG Player, Cardmarket, and Cardhoarder.

There you have it, fellow nerds: everything you could ever want to know about The One Ring in Magic: The Gathering. If you’re into card rarity and value, check out our article about the rarest non-1:1 MTG cards ever printed. If you’re a longtime MTG fan, can probably guess what’s in the number one spot, but can you attempt to do so for the other nine? Read on to test your knowledge!