Wizards of the Coast launches The Lord of the Rings: Magic: The Gathering crossover set, The Lord of the Rings: A Tale of Middle-earth (opens in new tab).

The card is, of course, the One Ring, "the treasure and temptation of Sauron's power" that caused so much trouble in Tolkien's Third Age. You know:

"Three rings for the king of the elves under the sky, Seven to the Dwarven lord in the hall of stone, Nine are for mortal men doomed to death. One for the Dark Lord who sits on his dark throne In the land of Mordor where the shadows sleep One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them all One ring to guide them all and bind them in darkness In the land of Mordor where shadows sleep

The One Ring cards come in multiple editions, including main set editions, bundled alt-art editions, and extended-art editions, which gradually become available through limited channels. The true prize, however, is the 1/1 Ring, a "traditional foil card printed in Tengwar script in the Black Language of Sauron," which is found only in the English version of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, in the collector booster pack

And yes.

And yes, that means one booster pack: one person finds this card and becomes the only person on earth to own it, at least until commerce or crime occurs. In that way, this is like the NFT, only instead of actually existing, it exists.

Now let's take a closer look at the one card that rules them all.

To be clear, the different one-ring cards are all "mechanically identical". Rather, I think the opposite is more likely: if anything, the opposite is more likely. Playing this dramatically increases the probability of being rolled in the parking lot after the game.

Other rings of power are represented by sol rings themed for elves, dwarves, and humans. These are in Kwenya, the language of the High Elves, and are written in the Tengwar script.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth crossover set will be released on June 23 (opens in new tab). Note that the digital version will not include the 1/1 cards and will be released a few days before that, on June 20.