Scry

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The "Power Nine"

In Magic: The Gathering, the Power Nine are nine rare cards found in the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets, and are widely considered to be the most powerful cards ever printed. In games where they are legal, they play an important role in the competitive tournament atmosphere. However, they are only legal in Vintage in which they are restricted, meaning a deck may not contain more than one copy of the cards. Due to their power, these nine cards are considered "broken" (overwhelmingly powerful).

The Power Nine are:

• Ancestral Recall
• Black Lotus
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Timetwister
• Time Walk

Black Lotus

The Black Lotus is the the most valuable Magic card ever to be released in a regular set. Especially its Alpha and Beta versions are considered to be extremely valuable. Former Pro player and Magic writer Zvi Mowshowitz has declared Black Lotus as the best artifact of all time, claiming every deck in the history of the game is better with a Black Lotus in it. 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.

Moxes

The five Mox cards —Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet and Mox Emerald (colloquially "Moxen")— are Artifacts, that are similar to the five Basic lands in that they add one mana of a specific colour to their owner's mana pool. In most situations the Mox cards are better than lands because a player can play as many of these as they desire while a player can only play one Basic land per turn. All five Mox cards have been illustrated by Dan Frazier. In each artwork a different piece of Jewelry is depicted.

Ancestral Recall

Ancestral Recall allows the player to use one card to draw three more at an extremely low mana cost. It originated as part of a set of five cards called "Boons", one of each color, which gave three of something (e.g. mana, life, damage) for the cost of one mana. Ancestral Recall remains the only one of these cards to not have been reprinted since Unlimited.

Timetwister

Timetwister holds great power due to its ability to get a hand of fresh cards with the possibility of drawing cards that used to be in that player's graveyard.

Time Walk

In Time Walk's early play test version it had the text "Target player loses next turn." While the intent of the game designers was that the opposing player would skip a turn, many new players saw the card and believed that the targeted player would lose the entire game (i.e.: "Target player loses [during his/her] next turn" instead of the intended "Target player loses [the ability to take his/her] next turn"). However, the wording was changed prior to the release of Alpha. Even with the altered wording, Time Walk remains the cheapest way to get an extra turn in the game.

Variants of power cards

The fame of the cards has been alluded to and lampooned in subsequent printings of Magic: the Gathering.

Black Lotus

The first attempt to design a fixed Black Lotus was Lion's Eye Diamond from the Mirage edition. Lion's Eye Diamond was designed to be unplayable due to causing the player to discard his or her hand but still ended up being powerful. The card was eventually restricted in Vintage. The Tempest card called Lotus Petal is identical to Black Lotus except that it only produces one mana instead of three and also ended up restricted in Vintage. In the Mirrodin set, the Gilded Lotus imitates the Black Lotus's ability by producing the same amount of mana without being sacrificed, but at a much higher cost to play. Lotus Bloom, printed in the expansion set Time Spiral, has Black Lotus's ability but incorporates a three turn delay. And Lotus Vale, from Weatherlight, was a land that permitted repeated use of the Black Lotus's ability, but required that two lands be sacrificed when played.

Moxes

Mirrodin features a Chrome Mox while Stronghold is the home of Mox Diamond, both of which ended up being fairly powerful but still balanced. Scars of Mirrodin expansion enables its controller to add one mana of any color to his or her mana pool via the Metalcraft keyword ability.

Ancestral Recall

In Ice Age appeared Brainstorm. Though the caster of Brainstorm has to put two cards back on top of his or her library after drawing three, Brainstorm is still considered a powerful card, and has been restricted in vintage. The most recent fixed Ancestral Recall is Ancestral Vision, incorporating the same delay that was used to balance Lotus Bloom.

Time Walk

Time Walk has several descendants, the most straightforward of which is Time Warp from Tempest, doing exactly the same thing as Time Walk at the cost of . Time Stretch from Odyssey was essentially a double Time Warp, costing twice the mana and giving you two turns instead of one. Also Beacon of Tomorrows from Fifth Dawn gets the caster an extra turn with the additional benefit of getting shuffled back into the library, but at an even higher cost . Later, Walk the Aeons of the Time Spiral expansion was released. It allows a player to take an extra turn for the cost of , but can be bought back by sacrificing three islands. Most recently printed is Savor the Moment; it costs only one more than Time Walk (it costs but you have to skip your next untap step, severely curtailing its usefulness.

Neither of the descendants has seen much competitive play, but the recent reprinting of Time Warp in Magic 2010 has caused many decks to be built around it and Time Sieve, an artifact that allows for a Time Walk effect by sacrificing 5 artifacts in play.

Timetwister

The Urza's Saga card Time Spiral untaps enough lands to pay for itself (although its converted mana cost of 6 keeps it unplayable in the early turns) and removes itself from the game. It too is banned in the Legacy format.

Diminishing Returns has a similar effect to Timetwister for just one blue mana more, but as an additional cost forces the caster to remove 10 cards of his or her library from the game. The Betrayers of Kamigawa card Sway of the Stars adds the effect of setting of each player's life total to 7, but costs 10 mana. Mirrodin's version, Temporal Cascade can duplicate Timetwister via the Entwine mechanic, but costs 9 mana if used this way.

Power Ten?

The term "Power Nine" was originally coined based on the cards in the group representing a substantial jump in price over any other card in the game. However, with slowly dwindling supply (due to loss and accidental destruction), no reasonable expectations of reprints, and an increasing demand, the market has changed, putting three more cards on nearly the same price plateau as the Power Nine: Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, and Library of Alexandria, the last of which, from the Arabian Nights, was historically often referred to as the tenth piece of power. All are worth at least US$130 on the secondary market. It has also been argued that the cards Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker and Sol Ring all rival or exceed the power level of the Power Nine, but because of their much lower rarity, they do not fetch nearly the same price.

External links

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