The History of Black Lotus: Magic: The Gathering's legendary Holy Grail card (2024)
In Magic: The Gathering’s 30-year history, spanning across tens of thousands of cards and a myriad of playing systems, no cards have had more influence on the game as the Power Nine - a set of nine extremely powerful cards from the card game’s earliest Alpha, Beta and Unlimited sets.
Among those nine, one stands above them all: Black Lotus. There isn’t a card within the whole of the MTG pantheon that has quite captured the imagination as this innocuous bit of horticulture. But what is Black Lotus? Why was it banned alongside the other Power Nine? And how did one Black Lotus end up being sold for over half a million dollars?
Before we dive into why Black Lotus has earned its place as the pinnacle of the Power Nine, we need to understand a little bit about mana and card economy. You know, the fun stuff!
In Magic: The Gathering, the primary resource used for pretty much anything you do in-game is mana. On the top right of any MTG card, there will be an indication of which colour and quantity of corresponding mana are needed to play that card. So, for example, if you wanted to play Peek you need to have one Blue land available in your mana pool to use its effect. Your mana pool is the sum of all lands played throughout a game and is slowly built upon over the course of a game - as you are only allowed to play one land card per turn.
In monetary value and status, no other Magic: The Gathering card has quite reached the apex Black Lotus has.
Black Lotus is a mono artifact (meaning it can only be played once) with no casting cost (so no mana is required) that allows a player to add three mana of any single colour to their mana pool. Not just to their hand, which would be powerful enough, but directly into the field of play. This essentially gives them a three-turn head start against their opponent.
As the number of cards you can use during a turn is only limited by the amount of mana you have in your pool (compared to the summoning limits of a game like Yu-Gi-Oh!), Black Lotus could allow a player, especially one playing an aggressive Red mana deck, the opportunity to destroy their opponent with zero ability to be countered.
Not long after the initial release of Black Lotus in 1993, it was swiftly restricted and subsequently banned from all but MTG’s Vintage format, making one solitary appearance in the 1994 MTG Championships before never being seen again. The same applies to the rest of the Power Nine, whose powers ranged from similar mana fetches like Lotus’ to my personal favourite, Time Walk, which just straight up lets you have a second turn. The Power Nine were ridiculous and gloriously unbalanced and had to be banned. Soon, their notoriety had made the rare MTG cards worth a fortune.
In monetary value and status, no other Magic: The Gathering card has quite reached the apex Black Lotus has. But it wasn’t always this way.
Black Lotus and the rest of the Power Nine were only printed for the early Alpha, Beta and Unlimited sets right at the very beginning of Magic: The Gathering’s inception. All in all, it is estimated that only about 1,100 Black Lotus cards were ever printed. This, however, didn’t immediately lead to the eye-watering prices we see today. The earliest recorded resale price of a Black Lotus is in issue 1 of Scrye Magazine from June 1994, which lists a Beta set Lotus at a mere $22.50 (roughly $45 in today’s money).
As the years rolled on, this price started to increase. 10 years later, in 2004, you could expect the same Beta Lotus to be worth around $1,000 ($1,567 today). That equates to a percentage value increase of over 3,000% - which is absolutely huge, but $1,000 is not a completely bombastic number. However, over the next 15 years something magical and a little bit odd happened: YouTube.
The value of Black Lotus doesn’t lie in what it is, but in what it represents.
As the video-sharing platform ballooned in popularity heading into the 2010s and beyond, so did the desire to watch Nyan cats, chocolate rain and people opening packets of trading cards. Soon, YouTube channels started making the allure of pulling that fateful flower all the more tantalising. One such video from openboosters featuring a Black Lotus pull has amassed over seven million views. Couple that with a generation of players who had gotten older, nostalgic and gained access to disposable income, and very soon the act of owning Black Lotus became a status symbol in and of itself.
Going by MTGPrice, the cost of that Beta Black Lotus in 2014 was now worth $3,376 - a jump of 237% between then and ‘04. But in just five years, the price hiked to an eye-watering $21,000 dollars by 2019, a 552% increase in half the time. The apex for a Beta Black Lotus came on June 3rd 2021, when one sold at auction for $48,000. That doesn’t even come close to the jaw-dropping $511,100 a mint-condition Alpha Lotus signed by the card’s artist Christopher Rush sold for in 2019, which made Black Lotus one of the most valuable trading cards ever sold.
It’s difficult to fully articulate why Black Lotus is so important to the history of this great game. Black Lotus artistically, compared to modern Magic: The Gathering cards, is rather archaic. Though evocative of a certain age of illustration, the last 30 years have seen massive innovation across both art style and in-game playability. Ultimately, when push comes to shove, Black Lotus is merely a piece of paper that you now can’t even use for the function it was created for.
Yet the value of Black Lotus doesn’t lie in what it is, but in what it represents. For players who 30 years ago first dived into the magnificence of Magic: The Gathering, it is a reminder of just how broken the mechanics of the original game were, or how wonderfully charming the art used to be. For some, Black Lotus is an investment, understanding the value of an item goes well beyond what an item is made of.
In the end, though, a video from an MTG Draft event in Chiba, Japan in 2018 quantifies everything about what makes Black Lotus so special. Pulling one out from a pack sends a crowd into euphoric joy. For something as simple as a card to do this, is true magic.
MTG's Black Lotus, which dates back to the competitive card game's first Alpha printing in 1993, is famed for its rarity, with a print run of around 1,100, and its power. It costs no mana to play but adds three mana of any color to your pool, so it's a great shortcut to casting powerful spells early in the game.
Magic: The Gathering Black Lotus sells for $540,000, setting yet another record for the holy grail card. The perfect condition card signed by artist Christopher Rush is now the most expensive MTG card ever sold at auction.
The "Black Lotus" card can be played at zero cost, and grants three mana (the game's primary resource) when sacrificed (discarded from play). Thus, the card gives the player an enormous jump in the early stages of a Magic game.
A Black Lotus, arguably the most sought after card in Magic: The Gathering, has sold for a record-breaking price of $540,000 at a recent auction. As reported by Polygon, the Black Lotus has been topping its own record each time it's been available for auction.
1. Black Lotus. Black Lotus has long held a reputation as the most valuable Magic: The Gathering card ever made, dating from MTG's very first set, Limited Edition Alpha, released in 1993.
The Black Lotus card dates back to the first Alpha printing in 1993 and is one of the rarest cards in the world. There are only around 1,100 of them in the wild and that's if everyone who ever had a copy kept one.
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the black lotus is highly revered; its petals represent the five Buddhas of Wisdom while its center symbolizes both the heart chakra and Buddhist enlightenment. To this day, Tibetan Buddhists still use this powerful symbol during religious ceremonies.
Such is the case with the Black Lotus card. This card has been banned from tournament play because of its unique ability - namely, it doesn't require any mana to play, and it can add three mana of any color to your pool. This means that you can cast spells much faster than you would normally be able to.
The rarity of a card is indicated by the color of its expansion symbol. The symbol itself shows which set the card belongs to, and its color indicates its rarity. Common cards have a black and white symbol, uncommons are silver, and rares are gold.
A PSA 10 Gem Mint Alpha Black Lotus sold for $540,000 and broke the record for highest selling Magic: The Gathering Card, breaking the record that a previous Black Lotus set in 2021. The record-setting auction was held on PWCC Marketplace and completed yesterday, topping the previous Alpha Black Lotus by $28,900.
This means that the probability to open at least one Black Lotus in a single pack, 1 - P[No Lotus], is 1.05%, and the probability to open at least one Black Lotus in four packs, 1 - P[No Lotus]^4, is 4.15%.
More than any other MTG card, Black Lotus has a history of being the most expensive card around. This is thanks to it being, by most accounts, the best MTG card in existence.
Not only is the Black Lotus the most valuable Magic card, but its value seems to go up more and more every year. The Black Lotus gives the player three mana of a single color when tapped, costs nothing to put into play, and can be used as an interrupt.
Not only is the Black Lotus one of the rarest cards in the game, but it's also one of the most powerful cards in the game. You can build an extraordinarily powerful Magic deck around the Black Lotus. The Black Lotus is a zero mana cost card.
Black Lotus is expensive, and it is also banned in every format except Vintage, where it is restricted to one, not unlike its brethren in the power nine. This is done because of the card's insanely high power level. Vintage is a format in which every card that is playable by the current rules of MTG is legal.
Magic: The Gathering's legendary Power Nine cards, including Black Lotus, are having a record-breaking year. Multiple records have been broken for the rare cards from MTG's earliest sets.
Arguably the strongest -- and certainly the most famous -- Power Nine card is the Black Lotus. Illustrated by Christopher Rush, it gives the player three free mana, making it arguably the most powerful card in the game.
it was a Black Lotus (an artist print, at that) and, yes, it was signed by artist Christopher Rush. But, as he admitted to Howard Stern on his radio show, he also spent $800,000 on it.
Firts take a white bordered card and put the Lotus on top of it. If white shows, the card is smaller than a real card (usually fake), then put the card on top of the Lotus and is black shows, the Lotus is larger than a real card (surprising number of early fakes were slightly too small, especially at the corners...).
For Christianity, the white blossoms of the lotus represent purity and creation, specifically God's creation of the universe. Similar to how the lotus rises from the murky depths of mud, this religion states that God brought creation, light and beauty out of the dark and empty space.
“The lotus symbolizes enlightenment but if you place it upside down it means the opposite. Religious symbols or portraits of gods shouldn't be tattooed on feet because it's a sin in Hinduism.
One of Magic: The Gathering's most coveted cards, Black Lotus, has sold at auction for a record-breaking $540,000. Magic: The Gathering's illustrious card, Black Lotus, recently went to auction and sold for a record-breaking $540,000.
In sets released since 2018's Dominaria, you can quickly identify if a card is Legendary by its frame. All Legendaries printed since Dominaria have an ornate crown-like frame at the top of the card, setting them apart from anything else.
Cards have value due to utility in competitive play.
When demand goes up, value goes up. Cards that might have been worthless just a few weeks ago can end up being worth quite a bit once they start seeing play in competitive decks. It's also worth noting that competitive Magic is very much pay-to-play.
TCGplayer Tip:Known as Second Edition, Unlimited featured reprints of Beta cards but in white-bordered frame treatment instead, including the infamous Black Lotus. As part of the Power Nine, Black Lotus is a remarkably influential card within Magic: The Gathering's history.
Blue: A rare lotus, a blue one of its kind represents wisdom. Purple: Also rare, the purple lotus (often referenced in Buddhism) symbolizes balance within yourself, and self-enlightenment.
The most exclusive credit card is the American Express Centurion Card, also known as the Amex Black Card. It is reportedly reserved for people who spend at least $100,000 per year, and an invitation is needed to apply.
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the black lotus is highly revered; its petals represent the five Buddhas of Wisdom while its center symbolizes both the heart chakra and Buddhist enlightenment. To this day, Tibetan Buddhists still use this powerful symbol during religious ceremonies.
History. Black Lotus was active during the Old World and was part of the effort to save humanity from the Dark Ones. The founders tried to warn the people of the Old World that the Dark Ones would lead to their destruction but their warnings went unheeded until it was too late.
Such is the case with the Black Lotus card. This card has been banned from tournament play because of its unique ability - namely, it doesn't require any mana to play, and it can add three mana of any color to your pool. This means that you can cast spells much faster than you would normally be able to.
Blade Runner: Black Lotus is a Japanese–American CGI anime television series based on the Blade Runner franchise that aired from November 2021 to February 2022. It was a co-production between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim, in addition to being created in partnership with Alcon Television Group.
In Hinduism, the lotus represents spiritual enlightenment, beauty, fertility, purity, prosperity and eternity. It is said that there's a lotus flower in every Hindu's heart, and that when this lotus blooms, the person achieves enlightenment. The lotus is also an important symbol in the Hindu tantric tradition.
For Christianity, the white blossoms of the lotus represent purity and creation, specifically God's creation of the universe. Similar to how the lotus rises from the murky depths of mud, this religion states that God brought creation, light and beauty out of the dark and empty space.
In general, however, the lotus commonly serves as a sacred for purity, rebirth, and strength. Because lotuses rise from the mud without stains, they are often viewed as a symbol of purity.
The Black Lotus is the single most valuable normally printed card in the game of Magic printed in a standard set. Due to its fast mana acceleration, it is also a member of the Power Nine, nine notoriously powerful cards from the original Magic print runs.
Lotus jacobaeus "Black Lotus" - Buy Online at Annie's Annuals. With a cult following like no other plant in our nursery – if it could be propagated on drool alone, we would be up to our ears in this incredibly rare, black-flowered member of the pea family from the Cape Verde Islands.
Black Lotus is the most well-known card in Magic: The Gathering. It was first printed in 1993 and is a member of the iconic power nine, which means, like the other members of the power nine, Black Lotus was only printed in the first three sets ever made in Magic – Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited.
Last time we checked, the current owner of that item is the rapper Post Malone, who paid over $800,000 for the privilege. The Black Lotus is part of the MTG Power 9, which are considered some of the most powerful (and rarest) cards in the entire trading card game.
The most iconic card from Magic always draws attention when they go up for auction. A signed artist proof version of Black Lotus recently made news when rapper Post Malone purchased it for $800,000.
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