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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
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Image from Wizards.com |
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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
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Jeff Zandi
5
Time Pro Tour
Veteran
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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 |
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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 |
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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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