It's a literal rarity that Wizards of the Coast decides to introduce just a single copy of Magic: The Gathering card but, alas, it has happened.
It's a literal rarity that Wizards of the Coast decides to introduce just a single copy of Magic: The Gathering card but, alas, it has happened.
Cards like Shichifukujin Dragon and 1996 World Champion had an entire print run of one. They are considered today to be the rarest cards in existence. And with the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set, they're doing it again.
Well, sort of.
As the set will be Lord of the Rings themed, there of course will be rings. But, more-or-less true to the set's source material, it will be very limited. Each of the 19 rings that were given to dwarves, elves, and humans in the story will printed in the set to a specific quantity, as seen in the image below. And, if you notice, the foil versions of the cards will be ten times as scarce as the non-foil versions.
The dwarves received three rings in the books, so there will be 3,000 non-foil dwarf ring cards and 300 foil serialized ones. Elves got seven, so that means that version will have a print run of 7,000 and 700, respectively. Likewise, for the nine human rings, we're looking at 9,000 and 900. respectively.
All said and done they'll all arguably be some of the rarest Magic cards ever distributed like this.
But that doesn't even come close to what the One Ring will be getting. For that one, they'll stick to being close to the book and have only one special, foil One Ring card coming out. As such, it will carry a serial number of 001/001, making it one of the few cards in Magic history with an entire print run of one. But, unlike those other one-run cards created before it, anyone could get it. It will be included in one of the set's booster packs -- specifically, Collectors Boosters and the set's Gift Bundle (which includes a Collectors Booster within).
And (spoiler alert), it's expected to be worth quite a lot of money.
Don't worry about there only being one The One Ring card printed overall, however, as this single card print one of one only relates to one special version of the card. Normal, non-unique The One Ring cards will still be found in booster packs, just with different art and a different treatment.
Magic: The Gathering's The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set is scheduled to release on paper on June 23 with its prerelease occurring beginning the weekend prior, June 16-22.
