The Gathering Modern Ban May Benefit Commander

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 18, 2024 9 Views 6 Min Read
The Gathering Modern Ban May Benefit Commander



Summary

  • The One Ring being banned in Modern is good news for Commander fans due to a decrease in price.
  • Prior to the ban, The One Ring dominated Modern, selling for over $100 and seeing high demand.
  • The decreased price of The One Ring makes it more accessible for Commander decks in 2025.



Every year, multiple Banned and Restricted posts for Magic: The Gathering‘s various formats go live, typically shaking up the meta in some way. 2024 was no exception, with Commander bans removing four of the most played and most valuable cards in Magic: The Gathering from the format, and now a huge December 2024 update that mainly affected Modern. MTG‘s Modern has seen major bans in the past, and the latest ones are nothing to scoff at. Of these new bans in Modern, one is likely the biggest of the year on par with Nadu, Winged Wisdom, and oddly enough, it may end up affecting Commander too.

Modern and Commander decks in Magic: The Gathering are very much disjointed, with the former allowing the usual four copies of each card and only cards from Eight Edition forward, and the latter only allowing one copy of each non-basic land card. As such, it would seem absurd to think that bans or unbans in one format can end up affecting the other, but in a TCG like Magic: The Gathering, it’s possible thanks to a massive collection of cards spanning thirty years. What follows is that The One Ring being banned in Modern may end up making the card see more play in Commander thanks to a more affordable price.


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How The One Ring’s Ban in Modern Could Be Good News For MTG Commander Fans

Magic: The Gathering‘s The One Ring was speculated to get a ban or restriction for months due to its dominance over the meta in Modern, and its price began dropping over the weeks preceding the December 2024 updated ban list for fear that its price would collapse. Still, this card was being sold for over $100 throughout the year, and now is going for about half the price with a good chance of dropping even more in value in the coming weeks.

This is because the demand before the ban was huge, as over 60% of Modern decks would play four copies of The One Ring. The card was and still is quite popular in every format it’s legal in, and sometimes the fact that its price point was so high due to Modern meant that Commander players had a hard time affording even one copy to put in their decks. Now, 2025 will be a good year for Magic: The Gathering Commander fans, as The One Ring is much more affordable and thus much easier to slot into any deck – even for more casual play.


Magic: The Gathering’s The One Ring is currently going for around $57 on TCGPlayer.

Why Now Is the Perfect Time to Start Playing The One Ring in MTG’s Commander

Commander can be quite prohibitive for fans, as many competitive decks end up featuring some of the most expensive cards in Magic: The Gathering. One such example is Mox Diamond, a staple of cEDH decks (competitive Elder Dragon Highlander, another name for Commander), which goes for around $800. The One Ring is often played in Commander due to its incredible card draw potential as well as its “protection from everything” ability that makes it such a great defensive tool, so having the option to include it even in non-competitive decks or low-budget competitive decks.


It’s unclear how much the dreaded MTG Modern ban will now affect the card’s price, but it’s not unlikely that The One Ring will end up settling at around $40-45 at the start of 2025. From its previous highest point in 2024, that is quite a drop, and it wouldn’t be much more expensive than other Commander staples (even in cEDH) like Rhystic Study or Fierce Guardianship, with both sitting at around $35-40. One of the biggest advantages of The One Ring, which also ended up being a huge con for its Modern presence, is the fact that it’s easy to slot into any deck due to its non-existent buildcrafting requirements.

The One Ring only costs colorless mana, and it can easily take one slot in the 99 for a Commander deck of any kind.

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