Power nine

In Magic: The Gathering, Power Nine is a set of nine cards that were only printed early in the game's history, consisting of Black Lotus,Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Timetwister.

The Power Nine are considered to be among the most powerful cards in the game. All nine cards are of the rarest level of rarity and were printed only in the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets in late 1993 to early 1994. Currently, all of the Power Nine cards are restricted in the Vintage tournament format and banned in Legacy, the only tournament formats where they would be legal otherwise, and all except for Timetwister are banned in the casual Commander format.

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. Former Pro player and Magic writer Zvi Mowshowitz has declared Black Lotus as the best card of its type of all time, claiming every deck in the history of the game is better with a Black Lotus in it. It has since been banned from all official tournament styles save for Vintage, but even there, it is limited to one copy per deck, compared to the normal allowance of four. The illustration on Black Lotus was painted by Christopher Rush, who was at the time a Wizards of the Coast employee. The Black Lotus illustration is a depiction of a black lotus flower over a foliage backdrop.

Black Lotus is usually considered to be the most valuable non-promotional Magic card ever printed. Its Alpha and Beta versions in particular are considered to be extremely valuable, due to the more limited print runs and black borders of those sets. Alpha is the most sought after with an estimated 1100 ever printed, and beta with 3300 ever printed. A Gem Mint Alpha version of the Black Lotus was auctioned for more than $27,000 in November 2013.

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