Games - Power Nine

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	Games - Power Nine

In Magic: The Gathering, the Power Nine are nine rare cards that were printed early in the game's history and are widely regarded as overpowered. However, in games where they are legal, they play an important role in the competitive tournament atmosphere. All nine cards were rares printed only in the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets, meaning they were only printed for a short period from late 1993 to early 1994.

The Power Nine

Black Lotus

Cost: 0
Type: Artifact
Text with errata: T, Sacrifice Black Lotus: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool.

Arguably the best known card in the Power Nine, and for that matter all of Magic. With the exception of special, near-unique cards such as , the Black Lotus is the most expensive and valuable (in monetary terms) Magic card aside from Summer Magic's misprinted Blue Hurricane. It has unparalleled power in terms of mana acceleration, temporarily putting the owner 3 turns ahead in mana development. This advantage, combined with other efficient and powerful cards, allows its user to get so far ahead that victory can become inevitable. The card, especially its Alpha and Beta variants, is often valued in the thousands of United States dollars. The illustration on Black Lotus was painted by Christopher Rush. At the time Rush was a Wizards of the Coast employee rather than a freelance artist. He created many of the original card designs. The Black Lotus illustration is a depiction of a black lotus flower over a foliage backdrop. Since then, Rush has made a similar, but distinct alternate art for the card, given to the winner of the 2003 Type 1 Championship held at GenCon.

Ancestral Recall

Cost: U
Type: Instant
Text with errata: Target player draws three cards.

Drawing cards is the heart of the game; the player who has the most options has the best chance of winning. Ancestral Recall allows the player to use this one card to draw three more, for a price considered extremely cheap by modern Magic standards. For comparison, the card "Brilliant Plan" from the set Portal - Three Kingdoms
has virtually the same effect as Ancestral Recall, but is a Sorcery instead of an Instant (meaning that it can be played only during your turn) and costs 4U, five times as much as Ancestral Recall.

Timetwister

Cost: 2U
Type: Sorcery
Text with errata: Each player shuffles his or her hand and graveyard into his or her library and then draws seven cards. (Then put Timetwister into its owner's graveyard.)

Depending on the circumstances, Timetwister can be a more potent drawing card than Ancestral Recall, allowing all players to renew their hands completely and get back cards already played. Its drawback is that one's opponents also have the potential to benefit from the same effects; however, they also may lose valuable cards currently in their hands, whereas the player of Timetwister can prepare to use his or her other cards before casting Timetwister. For many decks, Timetwister acts like restarting the game, and gives the casting player the sizable advantage of going first with their new hand.

Time Walk

Cost: 1U
Type: Sorcery
Text with errata: Take an extra turn after this one.

As with the other Power Nine, the power of Time Walk greatly exceeds its cost, especially in the early game. If multiple Time Walks are cast in a row, the advantage it allows a player in development of cards and mana is often decisive. A toned-down remake of this card, Time Warp, appeared in Tempest
, at the much higher cost of 3UU.

One infamous story surrounding this card comes from its early playtest version, which 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. Luckily, Wizards of the Coast was able to change the wording in time for Alpha's
release.

The Moxen

Cost: 0
Type: Artifact
Text with errata: T: Add W/U/B/R/G to your mana pool.

The five Mox cards are notable in that they are almost strictly better than land as a mana source. In fact, in the days before their restriction to one card per deck, its wasn't uncommon for players to forego running basic land cards altogether in exchange for four sets of "Jewelry," the reason being that they do not have the "play only one per turn" restriction that land cards have. Even after their restriction, running all five Mox is considered a staple for Vintage Decks. The Moxen are the standard by which most mana-producing artifacts are created and judged. Blue is the only color that has spells in the power nine, (Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and TimeTwister) so the Mox Sapphire is the most desirable and expensive of all the moxen. Blue can sometimes be relatively weak in newer sets and formats, such as Standard and Extended, but is the staple of all Vintage decks. After this, Black and Red mana are usually needed the most, making Mox Jet and Mox Ruby a good second tier of moxen. After this the moxen's usefulness resides primarily in their ability to produce colorless, i.e. generic mana, rather than their ability to produce a certain color of mana, due to Green and White's relative weakness in Vintage. Therefore while the Mox Emerald and Mox Pearl are still highly valuable, they are the 3rd tier among moxen and may be up to $100 cheaper than Mox Sapphire.

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