Although the modern term for these cards is Power Nine, other terms existed in the early days of the game. A tournament in New York advertised a
grand prize of either "The Big 10" cards or $1000; the cards in The Big 10 were the Power Nine cards and Chaos Orb. During
playtesting before the release of the
Alpha edition, the Power Nine were deemed to be powerful cards whose scarcity would ensure the cards would not overpower games, but as
print runs increased for each set the design team ultimately decided to remove the cards for the
Revised Edition release.
Black Lotus The "Black Lotus" card can be played at zero cost, and it grants three
mana (the game's primary resource) when
sacrificed (discarded from play). In
Magic a player can have up to four cards of the same name in a deck. As such, playing this card gave a considerable advantage in the early stages of the game. An artist proof card has a white back and are likely more scarce than released versions. Black Lotus is usually considered by collectors to be the most valuable non-promotional
Magic card due to its limited print and limited distribution. In 2022,
Post Malone paid $800,000 for an
artist's proof signed by artist
Christopher Rush. Then records were broken in 2024 when an
Alpha CGC graded at 10 sold for $3,000,000. The card's standing in the Magic: the Gathering community is evinced by the creation of the
Magic: The Gathering Players Tour, which was originally established as the
Black Lotus Pro Tour and first contested in February 1996 in
New York City. The art for the card was created by
Christopher Rush.
Moxes The five original Mox cards are: •
Mox Emerald •
Mox Jet •
Mox Pearl •
Mox Ruby •
Mox Sapphire They are colloquially known as "Moxen" or "Moxes", and each represents one of the Magic: The Gathering colors. When tournaments were officially organized, a list of banned and restricted cards was created for the various formats; the Moxen were restricted to one copy each per deck. Ancestral Recall was deemed "vastly too powerful"; the functionally similar card Inspiration that was included in the core
Sixth Edition allows a player to draw two cards instead of three, at a cost of one blue and three other mana, instead of one blue mana. The release of the
Alliances expansion set included the card Library of Lat-Nam, intended as a substitute for Ancestral Recall with a higher in-game cost. The art for the card was created by
Mark Poole. The art for the card was created by Amy Weber.
Timetwister Timetwister forces all players to shuffle their hand, library (draw pile) and graveyard (discard pile) together. Then, the players draw seven cards. Timetwister is itself put into a new graveyard afterward. The card is banned in Legacy and other formats. It is restricted to one copy per deck in Vintage, and it is legal in
Commander. The release of the
Alliances expansion set included the card Diminishing Returns, intended as a substitute for Timetwister with a higher in-game cost. The art for the card was created by
Mark Tedin. ==Collecting==