[Status] Magic’s Serialized The One Ring Has Been Found, Graded and Sold!

Last updated on January 9, 2024

The One Ring (Serialized 1 of 1) | Illustration by Veli Nyström

With the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth for MTG, we got something that we’ve never (quite) seen before in Magic before: a unique, serialized version of a card. The One Ring, a key artifact from Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth, is an all-powerful unique item, and if any card was deserving of this treatment, this is a pretty good candidate for it.

But what does the card actually do? Which products did it potentially come in? Let’s take a moment to look into it here!

What Is The One Ring in MTG?

The One Ring | Illustration by Veli Nyström

The One Ring is a card included in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, released worldwide on June 23, 2023. The card itself is relatively simple in design, but it perfectly encapsulates the Dark Lord Sauron’s ring from the famous books, allowing you to draw cards (power), at the cost of losing life.

It’s suitably a mythic rare and also legendary. After all, there can only be one!

What Are the Different Versions of The One Ring in MTG?

There are four different versions of The One Ring in the Lord of the Rings set: the regular version, an extended art version, a “borderless scene” version, as well as the much talked about serialized version.

Where Could You Get The One Ring?

The one-of-a-kind, unique, serialized The One Ring could only be found in English language collector boosters for Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. Of these, only one in the world contained it! It should be noted that the collector booster containing it could have also been found in either a collector booster box or the collector booster in the gift bundle.

The borderless scene version, which is part of a panorama with Frodo, Sauron's Bane, Samwise the Stouthearted, and Gollum, Patient Plotter, is included (in foil) in both the regular bundle as well as the gift bundle. This is the only place to find it in foil and is included, with the other three cards in the scene, in all bundles. Non-foil versions of these cards can also be found in collector boosters.

The regular version and the extended art versions can be found in all booster pack types.

What Were the Odds of Finding the Serialized 1/1 The One Ring in a Booster Pack?

There’s only a single version of The One Ring’s serialized version in existence, so the odds of opening it in any given collector booster were one in however many boosters have been printed! Handily, Amazon had advertised the collector boosters with the odds of pulling the card as less than 0.00003%, indicating there are at least 3,333,333 collector boosters in existence.

Has the Serialized 1/1 The One Ring Been Found?

Yes. The 1/1 The One Ring has been found, graded, and certified as real by PSA after being opened in Toronto! The official Magic: The Gathering Twitter also confirmed the card as real. The owner immediately lawyer'ed up, got the card graded, and sold it to a fellow fan, the biggest Magic fan he knew of. Brook Trafton first thought of Post Malone as a potential buyer and ensured it went to a fellow player. Post Malone bought The One Ring for $2 million dollars and apparently puts it in play every so often.

What Is the Value of the 1/1 Serialized The One Ring?

When Post Malone purchased The One Ring for $2 million, it became the first card worth more than $1 million dollars. Post Malone also bought a Black Lotus artist proof, signed by Chris Rush (technically not an actual card, but still makes a good point) for $800,000.

While Black Lotuses aren’t unique (although they’re incredibly rare), they’re incredibly powerful cards with a lot of history behind them. But The One Ring has multiple versions that are available for a tiny fraction of the cost of the 001/001 version, so plenty of people can play the card.

Is The One Ring a Good Magic Card?

The One Ring is exactly the type of card that looks inoffensive at first glance, but can actually be quite powerful. The two abilities it has are protection, which gives you protection from everything until your next turn when it comes in, and card draw, which causes you to lose life in a roundabout way.

Let’s look at the card draw ability first. You may be surprised to learn that there aren’t many cards out there with the text “tap: draw a card” without some kind of extra cost. Some cards will allow you to tap to loot (draw then discard), others rummage (discard then draw), and there are plenty of options out there that allow you to pay mana, tap, and draw a card, too. The only other artifact that allows you to tap and draw a card, with no restriction, is the comically bad Urza's Blueprints. While you need burden counters on The One Ring to actually draw a card, which technically is a restriction, tapping it puts a counter on it before you draw, so unless there’s something like a Solemnity out, there is no restriction here.

The reason this ability is so powerful is that if you have a way to untap The One Ring, such as a Voltaic Key, you’re then able to draw multiple cards a turn. Similarly, effects like Seedborn Muse will untap The One Ring in each opponent’s turn too, so you can draw a card from it for every player’s turn. And because you only lose life in your own upkeep, if you can find a way to sacrifice it before the trigger happens, you won’t even lose any life! The indestructibility does make getting rid of it slightly more difficult, but it’s relatively trivial to do so if you’re ready for it.

While the draw ability is probably the most impressive part of the card, the protection it offers isn’t bad either. If you gain protection from everything, you can’t be targeted with a card like Thoughtsieze or Lightning Bolt, and you can’t lose life due to damage, either. If you can find a way to flicker it, too (my choice would be Teleportation Circle), you’re going to be very difficult to beat.

Does Magic Have Any Other 1/1 Serialized Cards?

No, there aren’t any other one-of-one serialized cards, but there are two unique cards.

First is 1996 World Champion, awarded to, you guessed it, the MTG World Champion in 1996, Tom Chanpheng.

The other example is Shichifukujin Dragon, a card designed to promote the opening of a tournament center in Japan in 1996. Wizards went a 27-year stretch between printing unique cards and it's unclear when they'll do it next.

Will There Be More Unique Serialized Cards Like The One Ring in the Future?

At this point, I'd be surprised if we never saw any more serialized cards in the future of Magic. They clearly generate a lot of hype, and the chance to open them will be a good driver of pack sales for WotC. It could end up being overdone, though, as we’ve seen with other gimmicks in the past, like masterpieces.

Maybe Wizards has learned their lessons in that regard and will hold these back until there’s a card that’s particularly deserving of the treatment.

Wrap Up

Oblivion Ring | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

The One Ring has certainly generated a whole lot of hype, and now that it's been found, we'll just dream of seeing it played across the table from us!

What would you do if you had opened it? Would you have sold it? Kept it? Left it to your nephew in your will? Personally, I think I would've started a crowdfunding campaign to take it to a volcano and throw it in. I hear Hawaii's Big Island is nice this time of year! Let me know your thoughts on it down below, or find us over on Twitter to continue the conversation.

Good luck in gathering your fellowship of The Precious!