The MTG card Mind Over Matter has more than doubled in price in the last week, soaring from $40 to $99 and continuing to rise, due to its combo potential with a newly revealed card from the upcoming Lord of the Ring set.
Last week we saw plenty of MTG Lord of the Rings spoilers, from Sauron to Gollum. But the relevant card here is The One Ring, a unique legendary artifact that grants limited protection and can be tapped for ever more card draw, at the cost of life. The card goes from strong to absurd when it’s paired with Mind Over Matter, an enchantment from the 1998 set Exodus that lets you discard a card to untap a permanent. You can probably see where this is going…
With both out on the battlefield, these two cards form a neat infinite combo that lets you draw through your entire deck. Each time you tap The One Ring it gets an additional burden counter and draws an additional card, so after just a couple of activations you accelerate way out of control.
The most likely place for this combo (in fact the only place where a 10 mana combo is viable) is Commander games, where the combo could help you dig for a key card in your deck, whatever win condition or answer you need.
However, the far more degenerate and likely use case for this infinite combo, especially if it shows up in cEDH, is digging for a card like Laboratory Maniac, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, or especially Thassa’s Oracle. These blue cards all let you win the game by emptying your library, which you’ll have just done with the combo.
Though the MTG Lord of the Rings release date is still a few months away and no one’s playing this combo yet unless they’re using MTG proxies, the buzz around it on social media has still had a dramatic effect on the secondary market. Mind Over Matter has shot up by 150%, from $40 to $99 over the course of seven days. Intriguingly, it saw a similar spike around the release of Kaldheim, where it surpassed $100, then slowly sank back down to its recent price point.
MTG Lord of the Rings is going to be the first Universes Beyond set to make it to MTG Arena. If you’re looking to make a start playing digital magic, it can be expensive. Our list of MTG Arena codes will save you spending on gems.