Mythic Darkhold Destiny Draw Engine Could Outclass The One Ring

Last updated on October 12, 2026

The Darkhold | Illustration by Yohann Schepacz

Wizards of the Coast just revealed the first Universes Beyond set for next year: Darkhold Destiny. It’s the next Marvel set, and already it’s generating a ton of hype due to the fact that unlike other Universes Beyond sets so far, this one has its own original story. Hype aside, we also got to see a handful of cards from the set, including its namesake, The Darkhold.

The Darkhold

The Darkhold is one of those cards that you look at and can’t help but compare it to other great cards. It reminds me of other powerful card draw engines such as Phyrexian Arena, Necrodominance, and especially The One Ring. But is it just a passing resemblance that it shares with these cards, or is it the real deal?

The thing about The Darkhold is that you lose life equal to the number of cards in your hand, whereas most comparable effects only make you lose 1 life, or in the case of The One Ring you lose life per counter. Now assuming you have no cards in hand when you actually activate The Darkhold, it will essentially play out the exact same as The One Ring, you’re just losing life up front instead of on your upkeep.

However, how often will you actually be able to get cards out of your hand fast enough to mitigate the life loss? My feeling is that it won’t be possible unless you’re building your deck with this in mind. Cheap cards, ways to discard, life gain to offset the life lost, etc. All of these things can justify you tapping The Darkhold turn after turn to get the card advantage that rivals The One Ring.

This isn’t to mention the extra activated ability on the card, which sets each player’s life total to the lowest among all players. If you are in fact tapping this frequently, then likely your life total will be the lowest, and activating this ability can serve as a win condition. The hard part in this case is actually getting to eight mana, which seems like it might be something reserved for Commander where ramp is more abundant.

Finding a Home

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Ultimately, this is a very powerful yet very taxing card, and any deck that wants to play it will have to completely warp its gameplan around it, at least in traditional 60-card constructed formats like Standard and Modern. This is in stark contrast to The One Ring, which more or less slotted into any deck, as there was very little risk compared to the upside.

The decks that will want The Darkhold in Modern are likely the same decks that want something like Necrodominance, i.e. decks that are able to offset the lifeloss with cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and quickly empty your hand with cards like Soul Spike.

In Standard, it’s less clear where this might fit in. There are cards like Cecil, Dark Knight and The Last Ride that can benefit from the extreme life loss from The Darkhold, but there isn’t really a cohesive deck that already exists that wants this effect. Likely, if it does in fact see play, it will be in a brand new gameplan built around it, not anything that currently exists in the meta.

Wrap Up

Castle Locthwain | Illustration by Titus Lunter

So is The Darkhold the new The One Ring? No, and I don’t think anything can be. I sure hope nothing will be, because The One Ring is an absolutely broken card. However, The Darkhold is still a cool card. It’s powerful but not unconditional, and you really have to weigh its benefits and drawbacks before putting it into a deck, and I think cards like that are a lot more fun to play with. Will you be playing The Darkhold when Darkhold Destiny comes out, or are you too scared to unleash its awesome power?