Pointed Discussion

first post? damn, this card is the best common ever, whah else to say, "remove target nonland permanent" ... and so easy to play, ANY deck with white have to play this, ! another 5/5 card by stormkeeper

One of the most versatile and powerful white removal spells ever. Its ability to remove planeswalkers is an added bonus.

Oblivion Ring – Shards of Alara common. The flavor text for the Shards of Alara version of Oblivion Ring ("A circle of light and a word of confinement.") is a reference to the Lorwyn version: "A circle of sugar and a word of forbiddance.". Clearly, no matter what plane you're in, oblivion rings involve circles and words.

Card of the Day - Monday, August 03, 2009

If I'm not mistaken, the creature trapped in the art is a Nova Chaser.

"10/2 Trample? I don't think so."

Nope. It's Ashling the Extinguisher. She's purple!

I was so confused the other day, this guy Oblivion Ringed my Wurm, then destroyed all colored permanents. I had the only creature in play, and it was 6/6.

Lol at this flavor text. "A circle of sugar"?

@A3kitsune; This is Lorwyn block. It was heavily based on Brian Froud's 1978 work Faeries and several similar works, where a suggestion to ward off the "fickle folk" was to use various strange charms. Sugar was meant to either simply ward off supernatural pests or bribe them into going somewhere else as a treat.

This artwork for Oblivion Ring is the better of the two. Also best Lorwyn common hands down! =)

Sure, for a 3-drop removal spell, Vindicate is still the best, but if you don't play black this is the next best thing.

@RikerBlake
Good attempt, but it's wrong,
Ashling, The Extinguisher was from Eventide,
Which was AFTER Lorwyn/Morningtide,
After the Aurora messed everything up.
The O-ring itself is causing some sort of purple gas or powder, if you look closely,
The Flamekin is catching certain bits of it aflame.

I like this art the best. Unfortunately, they probably won't ever reprint this specific art, since it has an elemental and they are so closely identified with Lorwyn.

By far my favourite art for this card.
I too have long tried to figure out the identity of the flamekin in the ring. Ashling the Pilgrim most fits the body type and shape, but the twin swords and sheathes don't match. Ceaseless Searblades, Flamekin Bladewhirl, Rage Forger, and Vengeful Firebrand all have swords, but none of them have sheathes, and the Forger certainly doesn't match, while it's difficult to tell with the Searblades. Most likely, I have decided, it is just some nameless and random flamekin whom this unfortunate, ring-based fate has befallen.

The "what creature is that in the art" debate has been raging on for several posts and the answer has not been found as of this post. It's obviously a Vengeful Firebrand, which was released long after Lorwyn, so I can understand the confusion. The two swords and sheathes match, as well as the scale-mail bracers and overall female flamekin body. I love cards that involve art of other cards or from the main story!

Anyway, IMHO, O-ring is the best white removal available. For O-Ring gets rid of not just creatures, but also Planeswalkers, artifacts, other enchantments (including other O-rings!) which is very hard to do with other spells, especially in other colors, without a major drawback. Its cost often messes up your tempo if played early, but if you absolutely have to get rid of something immediately (Wellwisher anyone?) it's well worth it. And, of course, you can always hold it and wait to play it at just the right moment, such as removing that last blocker for the win attack or sending that huge creature your opponent just played to oblivion.

The major disadvantage is that it remains on the battlefield and can get bounced or burned itself, and will trigger any enter-the-battlefield abilities of both the card removed, and other cards already on the battlefield. Also, it's an enchantment, so it can only be cast during your turn, and can't be used in combat or in response to something an opponent does.

I find the versatility of this card overrides any drawbacks. You have to assume your opponent can get rid of it, or even cares to. It also will remove and enchantments or counters on the creature, and the creature can't regenerate to save itself either. Nobody will want to burn an O-ring to recover their removed Joraga Warcaller after the counters are lost, so the creature is as good as dead. Any other similar counter-oriented card will suffer from the O-ring (such as modular/sunburst creatures) Also, any equipment will have to be re-equipped. The tempo loss from that alone plus the enchantment burn will surely mess up your opponent.

Cards like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are great 1-drop white removals, but come with drawbacks. Path mana accelerates and land filters your opponent (unless in the rare case that you're landlocked and use it on yourself), which I find to be a significant drawback because now you opponent has an extra land of his color-choice that he didn't draw and is ahead of you mana wise. STP is good if you blast a relatively weak creature (with a special ability or something) but bad if its a fatty because then your opponent gets a lot of life. And, of course, you can blast your own creature if you absolutely need the life.

And then there is Journey to Nowhere, which is less to cast but only targets creatures. Also a very good white removal.

There are plenty of multicolored removal spells, such as the famous Vindicate, which compete for mono-colored removal in a multicolored deck, but that would be a whole different story now.

White removal is abundant in the metagame, but I think that O-ring is one of the best. I typically run 4 in every white deck I build unless I can find an appropriate multicolored spell to fit the deck.

I also like the Lorwyn art better than the newer version, It just seems more like a "Oh noes! Ive been sent to oblivion!" picture.

The sugar thing is an interesting example of anachronism in folklore, because access to granulated sugar in the British Isles (except as an exotic luxury) only arrived with the advent of mass slavery in the Caribbean and advances in technology - long, long after the period that would later be romanticized into the basis for Lorwyn had passed. Beet sugar arrived even later than that, once granulated sugar had become a staple part of the European diet but Emancipation pushed up its price, but since what we've seen of Lorwyn's climate (and can infer from its real-world basis) is much better-suited to the cultivation of beets than sugar cane, and extracting sucrose from the former is actually a bit lower-tech than the latter, and if they meant like honey or something they would have said so, I feel like it's a safe conclusion that the sugar referenced in the flavor text is beet sugar - assuming it's not some magical granulated pollen extract or the like.

This version has the best flavor text. It also has the worst flavor text.

Eight reprints, we still get nothin'. You would think something as flavorful as "Oblivion Ring" would inspire a little more, you know, flavor.

Umm, Salient, the first reprint also had flavor text, which is similar, but not the same, as this one.

My opponent played Ashling the Pilgrim.
I like Ashling. So I put a ring on it.