Ring of Lordship – wow! It’s a good day for all Item and Tribal decks in The Elder Scrolls Legends!

T he amazing MattOblivium revealed the Ring of Lordship today . The item provides a buff of +0/+2 which allows for better trades and works nicely in Mania.

But the Ring will also be madness in Runebreaker Dementia decks. But we are jumping ahead. The second part of the card text is actually the more interesting one:

Your creatures with the same type as the wielder cost 1 less.

The Ring of Lordship clearly promotes tribal decks containing creatures from mostly one particular race. Each Legends-creature is linked to a particular type or race, e.g. Argonian, Khajiit, Dragon, Wood Elf, etc. As a matter of fact, these races or tribes are distributed across various attributes (colors). Example: Argonians can predominantly be found in green Agility and purple Endurance (see the Races & Attributes Reference Sheet). As long as the item is equipped to a creature in play, all creatures with the same race cost one less. Your tribal deck might require an extra bit of card draw to ensure that you can still replenish your hand.

Unfortunately, the cost-reduction is gone, if the Ring-wielder is silenced or removed. Therefore, the item should be equipped wisely, maybe right after your opponent has played that Shadowfen Priest. There are also options to protect a creature from removal. Let’s look at these first.

Synergies for Ring of Lordship

1. Making Ring of Lordship Stick

The Legends card-pool provides a few options to protect creatures from certain forms of silencing or removal. Apply these individually or in combination for a longer-lasting ring effect. One ring to rule them all (sorry, I had to do this).

Cover provides protection against creatures

Embassy Disguise

The Black Dragon

Hulking Scalon

Playing the wielder of the Ring to Shadow Lane provides it with cover. This at least provides a minimum level of protection, if your opponent has creatures in both lane. The item Embassy Disguise gives a creature cover until it attacks. This keeps the creature hidden from other creatures almost permanently (if you choose to), but unfortunately doesn’t stop either removal actions nor Lethal pings nor silencing effects.

Protection against Lethal

In order to protect Ring of Lordship against a deck running a lot of Lethal creatures, you can use the Grummite Hulking Scalon or the Imperial The Black Dragon.

Protection against Silence

Lute

Adoring Fan

Star Sung Bard

Keeper of Whispers

If the neutral item Lute is equipped, the wielder is immune to Silence. This works for any type of creature. For sure, a similar effect can be achieved in Intelligence with Keeper of Whispers, a Redguard, who makes other friendly creatures immune to Silence. To be really safe, it’s best to have two of those in play.

Another option is to equip Ring of Lordship to a creature that already is immune to Silence. If you like to play Tribal Wood Elf, Adoring Fan is your fan of choice. Isn’t he always? Similarly, Star-Sung Bard does the trick for Nord tribal decks that run a lot of unique cards.

Protection against removal actions directly targeting creatures

Mage Slayer

Indomitable Ordinator

Nahagliiv

Iron Atronach

There are a lot of removal actions that require your opponent to target a creature. As a consequence, it would be wise to equip the Ring of Lordship to a creature that cannot be targeted by actions. Here is a short overview by attribute:

Strength: Mage Slayer – a Nord .

. Endurance: Nahagliiv – a (unique) Dragon (Wow! Is Alduin here?). Indomitable Ordinator: a Dark Elf (yup, that’s crazy). Iron Atronach – a Deadra (Greedy madness!)

Agility: Hulking Scalon – a Grummite.

Shadowmaster

In addition, any deck with Agility can use Shadowmaster, who gives another creature of your choice cover and prohibits your opponent to target it with actions. This allows you to protect other races as well, but only for one turn. So better make it count!

If you have a creature that your opponent cannot target with actions equipped with a Lute it’s pretty difficult to remove the ring. Mage Slayer and Hulking Scalon would also allow you to put both Lute and Embassy Disguise on it. This would provide your Ring of Lordship the maximum protection. It should be noted, that it’s probably not worth to take this full amount of effort and many will say that neither Nord-tribal nor Grummite-tribal decks will ever be a thing. Maybe it’s worth giving it another try! Particularly the Nord…

2. Tribal Synergies

The Ring of Lordship will help all tribal decks. You wanted to get a Wolf deck to work? Here is another chance. You like the Khajiit? For sure, Ring of Lordship helps. Dwemer? Sure. Dragons? Of course. Whether it will be enough to make that particular tribe a viable deck on the ladder will need to be seen after Isle of Madness is released. From today’s perspective, any tribal deck that already works relatively well on the ladder might get a nice push to a higher tier.

Ramp Scout

Hist Speaker

Tree Minder

Blackwood Distiller

Thorn Hist Mage

A g ood candidate for such a deck is Ramp Scout, that heavily relies on Argonians such as Hist Speaker, Thorn Hist Mage, Tree Minder and Blackwood Distiller. These are responsible for the ramp-part – a set of 12 cards. When complimented with copies of Red Bramman, Archein Elite, Preserver of the Root, Shadowfen Priest, Sails-through-Storms and/ or Soulrest Marshall there might be a reasonable core of Argonians in the deck.

Orc Warrior

Orc Warrior is a classic Legends deck. Reducing the cost of the Orcs, who also got better card draw with Karthspire Scout from the FrostSpark Collection, will certainly love the Ring’s cost reduction in an attempt to dominate the meta again. Lord Wrothgar Kingpin, anyone?

Nord Runebreak Crusader

Relentless Raider

Eastmarch Crusader

Ulfric Housecarl

Haafingar Marauder

The Nords in many aggressive Crusader decks benefit from rune breaks. Cards like Dawnstar Healer, Eastmarch Crusader, Morthal Executioner, Haafingar Marauder, Ulfric’s Housecarl, Riften Pillager and Relentless Raider are frequently seen in successful Crusader decks. Add a Mage Slayer and a Lute and this deck archetype can maybe pull-off something a little earlier than our opponent might like.

The Reflective Automaton trick

Reflective Automaton is a creature that has all creature types. When equipped with the Ring of Lordship the Automaton will reduce the cost of all creatures by 1. Certainly, your opponent will make “Lord Automaton” his primary removal target.

3. Item Decks

Gardener of Swords

Dragonstar Rider

Thieves Guild Fence

Master of Arms

The tribe that likes items are the Redguard. So what if the Ring of Lordship meats an item deck to reduce the cost of the Redguard? That might be a thing! With Gardener of Swords and Dragonstar Raider in play, and Ring of Lordship in hand, you can probably create an Item Abomination Madness play”. Just equip the Ring onto the Raider. This will also equip the Ring to the Gardener of Swords and the next card you draw is a Redguard with a reduced cost of two. Bam! If you draw an item, equip this to the Raider to draw another card. Add Thieves Guild Fence to the equation and you are on an Isle of Madness. Assassin Item Madness…

If you don’t like Assassin, try this in Battlemage. The Rihad Brothers will become 0-cost and 1-cost cards respectively. Merric-al-Aswala was just turned into a 5-cost card, and Master of Arms would be a 4-cost. Scary, since we also know from the Cheesemancer reveal that we will be getting an item tutor. As we do not know the attribute yet, we might have to consider Forsworn Looter if the new tutor does not fit into Battlemage. Ideally, he will allow you to draw a Dragon Priest Mask from deck to equip this to Merric or the Master of Arms. This will at least make item decks more fun!

Summary

Ring of Lordship is a card with the potential to shift the meta away from some of the “three color good-card”-decks. Since creatures from the same tribe are mostly distributed across a combination of only two attributes (with a few exceptions), the Ring could indirectly promote more Tribal decks to be played. And who knows, maybe one or two will be really, really good. Let’s give it a try…

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