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This Space For Rent

Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Aladdin's Ring
8th Edition


Reviewed May 4, 2005

Constructed: 2.37
Casual: 2.33
Limited: 2.88

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Jeff Zandi

5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran

 Aladdin's Ring

I love Aladdin's Ring. That is NOT the same thing as saying that Aladdin's ring is actually GOOD. It really costs too much to play and to use to be that useful. There HAVE been constructed artifact decks that used the ring as an alternate win condition. Aladdin's ring is decent enough in Eighth edition draft ( for you Magic Online sickos) because that Eighth edition limited formats are fairly slow. Still, I always liked this card. This card's original art was a little bland for me, but the two more recent artistic interpretations have inspired me to make up my own flavor text. In the Stuart Griffin artwork for Aladdin's Ring in Sixth Edition, I thought the Wizard/Artificer examining the ring in his hand might have been saying, "Hmmm...eight mana...maybe if I play it in a green deck...no, maybe if I could generate lots of mana...nah, still sucks!..." When the current Dave Dorman art was introduced for the Seventh (and Eighth) Edition version of this card, I submitted to Wizards the flavor text "The twist of a ring...the punch of a donkey". I thought the flavor text worked pretty well, but mainly, I just wanted a Magic card to have "donkey punch" appear on it in some form or other. If you're making your own donkey punch at home, by the way, here's the easy recipe. You'll need a REALLY BIG container, add equal parts of three important ingredients: ice, fruit juices, donkey.

CONSTRUCTED: 2.0
CASUAL: 3.0
LIMITED: 2.5


DeQuan
Watson

* Game Store Owner

 Aladdin's Ring - Tuesday

This is a very peculiar card. It just take so much mana to get it to function that many times it gets overlooked. It does have an interesting use. For decks like MonoBlack control that have the ability to generate lots of mana and need some colorless damage, this is the perfect choice.

Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 2
Limited: 3.5

Paul Hagan

 Aladdin's Ring --

Ugh. I've never been a huge fan of Aladdin's Ring, and spiffy new art and the 8th Edition look doesn't help that feeling. Eight mana is eight mana, and I don't like sinking above six mana into a card that doens't help me win the game almost immediately. Aladdin's Ring really doesn't fit within that category, mostly due to its hefty activation cost. I could understand if it just tapped for the ability, or even cost two or three mana, but eight is too much. It doesn't help that plenty of people are packing artifact-hate, even after the Era of Arcbound Ravager is over.

For limited use, I can see Aladdin's Ring being somewhat useful, but I still don't expect it to be spectacular -- you have to have around half the land in an average limited deck in play to even drop the Ring, and it has to be around the next turn to be of any use. Ugh.

Constructed Rating: 2.0
Casual Rating: 2.0
Limited Rating: 2.5
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