In 1993 Magic the gathering was  a very different game than it is today. There were only a hand full of different cards printed and many collectors owned almost all of them. Through time, many many more cards have hit the shelves and there’s now thousands of different magic cards available for play. There’s one that experienced players are wishing they held onto: The Black Lotus.

To novice collectors this card certainly didn’t look like much. It was a use-it-and-throw-it-away artifact that only worked once, adding 3 mana to your mana pool. Many players brushed it off as good trade bait to those more experienced players. Cards like Shivan Dragon and Sengir Vampire were much more exciting than this boring artifact and I cringe at the number of stories I’ve heard entailing one being traded for the other.

Black Lotus is not only the best mana acellorator in the game, it is the most collectable, sought after collectable gaming card in existance. Some of the novelty to it is that it’s last printing was in 1993. Magic noticed it’s superb and subtle power and restricted it from being reprinted since then, thus allowing time to take its toll on the scarcity of the card. Nearly 20 years later it can be purchased in poor condition for hundreds of dollars.

So why is this card so good?

Its Free! This means that you can play this card at any time! Providing 3 mana of any color on the first turn in a competitive game today pretty much puts all odds in your favor to win. Black lotus is the root of many unique game winning and even first turn winning combos and is revered as the king of the Power 9 (click to read more about the power 9). Hands down the best card in the game from nearly any standpoint, the Black Lotus is restricted to 1 per deck because of its immense power in competitive play.

The image of the Black Lotus has become an icon for the game of magic itself. Illustrated by Christopher Rush, this cards subtle beauty has inspired the making of card sleeves, binders, t-shirts, deck boxes and all sorts of other MTG parafanillia in its image. Possibly, due to it’s plain appearance, early collectors whom were just casual players over looked it. They’re kicking themselves now. The average price on-line to purchase a decent looking lotus is well over $2000.00 dollars. That’s over $1000.00 more than any other card out there. Inflated due to popularity? Most definitely, but the prestige (and slight ridiculousness) of owning this card is priceless according to the players who use them.

Luckily many spin-offs of the card have been printed allowing players who don’t have four digits to drop on a 3.5×2.5 piece of 18 year old cardboard. For the casual player, these cards can be nearly as useful and one thousandth of the price (literally):

In conclusion, Black Lotus is grossly over-priced. Half the price is for the nostalgia and the other is for the best card in the game. None-the-less it is a priceless addition to any collection. I hope those of you reading managed to hold onto yours. Who knows… maybe someday you could use it as a down payment on a house!

Screenshot off E-bay taken 11/3/2009

(For those of you with poor vision that says $89,000.000)

oh dear.