Final Fantasy XV fans are likely familiar with the Ring of the Lucii. This is a major focus of the entire story, and is an incredibly powerful piece of equipment to acquire. As a result of this, when thinking about how the Ring would be adapted to MTG, many fans expected this to appear as a mythic equipment.
Instead, The Ring of Lucii is just an uncommon. While it offers some interesting effects, there’s certainly a startling flavor fail that is leaving players perturbed. Considering that this item was the focus of an entire movie, this is a rather shocking move.
The Ring of Lucii
In Final Fantasy XV, this powerful piece of equipment hosts the souls of past Lucian rulers. In exchange for its massive power, The Ring of Lucii eats away at the user’s life. There are some slight nods to this function in Magic’s take on the artifact, but this is by no means a powerful effect.
Tapping a nonland permanent for two mana and a life is interesting, but subpar Icy Manipulator effects aren’t strong enough to see competitive play anymore. The mana investment is far too large to effectively slow down opposing creatures. It doesn’t help that both of this card’s abilities want to go in different directions.
The Ring of Lucii also allows you to add two mana, so one half of the Ring encourages ramping into large spells, while the other wants to delay your opponent’s progression. Compare this to Hedron Archive, which has some similarities to The Ring of Lucii. The card is also a four-mana rock that taps for two mana, but its activated ability draws two cards in exchange for the Archive.
Despite this difference, Hedron Archive doesn’t see constructed play, despite being Standard legal. This probably means The Ring of Lucii won’t, either. The card is too slow to play the control role properly, and the ramping role has already been proven as inefficient.
Outside of Commander decks with specific synergies with The Ring of Lucii, like Hylda of the Icy Crown, many players expect this card to be a Brawl staple. In slower formats, ramping two mana on an artifact that can be repurposed for other things is perfectly reasonable.
Ultimately, even if it is somewhat playable, it’s clear that The Ring of Lucii is a lot worse in MTG than it is in Final Fantasy.
A Disappointing Rendition
The Ring of Lucii feels like a second-hand trinket in MTG, which is perhaps the biggest flavor fail we’ve seen yet. Many players spoke out about their disdain for the failure to represent the power level of one of the most important items from Final Fantasy XV in the context of the overall set:
“Jesus… the RotL was an amazing thing to get in the game.
Here’s a pretty mid piece of crap.”
Quixotegut
“The flavor on this thing sucks. It does so much stuff and is so relevant to the story of its game, and here it just…taps stuff. In the game, it KILLED stuff.”
NumberHunter1
“Man this should have been a rare equipment that destroys any creature but Noctis at the end of the turn, but should have had life gain, destroy and exile activated abilities. WotC just didn’t want another ring to be anywhere close to one upping The One Ring.”
Nos9864
It doesn’t help that Wizards of the Coast just printed The One Ring for The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. This flavorful artifact was so powerful that it had to be banned in Modern eventually. That said, The Ring of Lucii isn’t quite that powerful lore-wise, but you’d still expect more given its flavor in Final Fantasy.
Sadly, this isn’t the only flavor fail seen in the Final Fantasy crossover. Many of the Final Fantasy XIV Through the Ages Bonus Sheet cards don’t really make much sense, either. The cards representing each arc fail to evoke feelings towards that arc in any way.
Perhaps this card could have swapped places with Gogo, Master of Mimicry. While this card does a fantastic job of depicting Gogo’s abilities, his inclusion as a Mythic Rare is baffling. For reference, Gogo is an optional character from Final Fantasy VI that, while a part of the game, doesn’t have nearly as big of an impact as Kefka or Terra. Despite this, Gogo gets a powered-up Mythic Rare card while The Ring of Lucii, one of the most important aspects of Final Fantasy XV, gets a redundant uncommon.
Hopefully, this is the last of the poorly represented items in the Final Fantasy franchise with significant importance that fail to get the recreation they deserve.
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