MTG: Black Lotus – Magic’s Most Expensive Card
While the One of One Ring may have surpassed it, no standard print card is more expensive than the OG Black Lotus card.
Greetings, fellow Planeswalkers and Praetors! Folks play Magic for various reasons: the thrill of victory, the challenge of building the perfect deck or finding the nastiest combo, or just for the joy of collecting. However, some people collect Magic cards to flex the prettiest, most expensive cards they can snag.
WotC has given us plenty of reasons to collect, from gorgeous surge foils to alternate art treatments and exclusive Secret Lairs. But there is one card from the old days that didn’t need fancy bling to be the (technically second) most expensive card around. Enter the card that could send you to college: Black Lotus.
What Does Black Lotus Do?
Black Lotus was one of the original “Mana Rocks” and remains one of the best. It is a zero-cost artifact that you can sacrifice for three mana of any one color. This allowed players to ramp into potent spells immediately, with little to no need for lands. Unfortunately, this also led to an unhealthy game environment. Black Lotus’s primary combo defined Magic’s ruleset as we know it now (at least partially).
When it was first printed, the four-copy limitation on cards didn’t exist. This led to players winning on turn one with a deck of twenty each of Lotus, Channel, and Fireball. After that, Magic added the rule limiting card copies in your deck. However, Black Lotus still produced a nasty level of play. Wizards limited it to one if not outright banned it in most formats.
Black Lotus and the Power Nine
Around the time Lotus released, eight other extremely powerful cards appeared in rotation. There was a “Mox” for each of the five colors, and then five powerful Blue spells. Ancestral Recall was a three-card draw for one mana, Timetwister was a hand and graveyard reset, and Time Walk was a two-mana extra turn, a nasty concept even now. These nine cards are known as “The Power Nine”, and are still some of the most powerful cards in the game. They haver never been reprinted, and likely never will.
How Much is it Worth?
Over the years, Black Lotus has changed in value based on age. Since a reprint is unlikely, the value will only continue to skyrocket as the years go on. In February of 2019, a Grade 9.5 Alpha Black Lotus sold for $166,100 on eBay, setting a record for the site. Three years later, a Grade 10 copy sold for $511,100, with a similar copy selling for $540,000 two years later.
In 2022, Post Malone bought an artist signed copy of Black Lotus for a whopping $800,000. Malone made history in 2023 by purchasing the One of One Ring for 2.6 million dollars. Most recently, a Grade Pristine 10 Alpha copy was sold for 3 million dollars.
Black Lotus in Lore
The Black Lotus has shown up a few times in Magic’s lore, and its in-universe worth is similar to the worth of its card. The legendary Carthalion family had a Lotus, their most valuable artifact, which they hid away in House Scarlett. The Shadow Mage Jared Carthalion stole it several years later, using it to summon a dragon in battle. It was also rumored that the mystical plant was grown in Tolaria, in the Lotus Vale. However, due to conflicting accounts and the somewhat tenuous nature of Tolaria, those rumors are hard to prove.
Note: Though it isn’t a “lore” reference, Garth One-Eye can create a Black Lotus copy as one of his abilities in the TCG.
The Legacy of the Lotus
Many Magic cards feature references to the legendary artifact flower. Lotus Cobra, for example features the elegant flower on its hood. There have been several cards that work very similarly, such as Jeweled Lotus, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Lotus Petal. However, none can equal the sheer power of the original: three free mana with no drawbacks.
