Discover the Most Expensive Magic: The Gathering Card in the World

People like to collect stuff. From baseballs to scarce mint stamps, there’s nothing we won’t covet. So yes, we love to gather and show off the rarest of the rare and the most expensive of expensive. As luck would have it, in the early nineties, collectors set their eyes on a new prize, a collectible that no one could foresee its impact on the world. We’re talking, of course, about Magic: The Gathering cards. 

In 1993 Richard Garfield created Magic: The Gathering, also known as MTG or simply Magic. Wizards of the Coast had the distinction of publishing Magic, the first-of-it’s-kind tabletop card trading game in which players can collect and use these cards to defeat their opposition. 

No one could have predicted Magic’s popularity, as just a year after its initial release, players had bought every Magic card in existence. Yes, Magic had surpassed everyone’s expectations because even the creators weren’t prepared for its popularity. Players were serious about getting their hands on the most powerful Magic Cards. Wizards of the Coast, also known as Wizards, would find it difficult to keep up with the demand. 

With the law of supply and demand in place, years later, most of the original Magic Cards are now worth a pretty penny and are highly coveted by gamers and collectors alike. However, which card is the most expensive, and how much is it worth? This article will explore the most expensive Magic: The Gathering card and how much someone has forked over for it. In addition, we’ll look at the rarest Magic card, The One Ring. The One Ring could beat out the price of The Black Lotus, but that would mean someone would need to find it first. So let’s dive in and discover the most expensive Magic Card in the world today.

The Most Expensive Magic: The Gathering Card: 5 Must-Know Facts

• The most expensive Magic: The Gathering card is The Black Lotus.
• The Black Lotus was first printed as part of the game’s debut set.
• The Black Lotus is part of The Power of Nine.
• Only 1100 of The Black Lotus MTG cards were ever printed.
• In the mid-1990s, it was worth less than $100. In 2002 a copy sold for $500. In 2022, Post Malone bought a signed artist proof of The Black Lotus for $800,000. 

The Most Expensive Magic: The Gathering Card: Where to Buy?

First things first: Buyer beware. There are many fake Magic Cards on the market. One could perform the bend test to verify authenticity. However, most collectors won’t do that and wouldn’t recommend it. Most collectors will only handle an authentic Black Lotus card carefully with gloves, instead leaving the authentication of a card worth so much to Beckett Grading Service. Beckett Grading System, or BGS, is a trusted way for collectors to authenticate items, giving them a grade based on their authenticity. 

Players can find Beta copies on TCG Player. The one currently up for sale will set you back $22,999.99 — and that is the price for a damaged card. On the other hand, serious collectors can pick up a near-mint copy of the coveted card for $132,998.00. You may also find the coveted card on sites like eBay. New Magic: The Gathering cards can still be purchased from Wizards, Amazon, gaming stores, and other retailers.

May Include The One Ring Card!

Magic: The Gathering The Lord of The Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth Collector Booster Box - 12 Packs + 1 Box Topper Card

$429.77

• Only one English-language Collector Booster in the world will contain The One Ring (Serialized 1 of 1) card
• 12 The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Collector Boosters, includes 15 MTG cards in each pack plus 1 Traditional Foil Box Topper card
• Full of hard-to-find cards with 5–7 cards rating Rare or higher
• Includes a total of 8–10 cards with a Traditional Foil treatment plus 1 possible Surge Foil card in each pack

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11/27/2023 05:51 am GMT

The Most Expensive Magic: The Gathering Card: The History of The Black Lotus

To understand why The Black Lotus is the most expensive, and coveted, MTG card in the world, we need to look at the history of the card and the game of Magic in general. Way back in 1993, the first Magic: The Gathering decks were released. These decks, aptly named Alpha and Beta, included The Power Nine. The Power Nine cards include some powerful cards intended to be added to any player’s deck. However, the creator of MTG never foresaw just how in demand these cards would become. 

Here is a breakdown of each of The Power Nine cards:

Ancestral Recall: A blue spell granting players the advantage of drawing three cards without any cost or disadvantage. 

Time Walk: Lets players take an extra turn. Again, without any cost or disadvantage. 

Time Twister: Allows players to reset resources while exploiting card drawing effects. 

The 5 Moxen: These five cards are named Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Mox Jet. They allow players to take several turns in one, allowing for extra mana at an accelerated rate. 

The Black Lotus: Lets players do what the 5 Moxen do but in a more powerful way. The Black Lotus lets users add three mana of any one color. Again, without any disadvantage. 

As you can probably see, these Power Nine cards, were much too powerful. In a game driven entirely by cause and effect, they quickly became the most coveted by players and new collectors alike. 

The Public Response

Let’s explore the first problem fans and creators encountered with Magic Cards. These cards were super-powerful, which was overlooked by the makers of Magic. Players wanted the powerful cards, but they faced scarce supply. So we see the first supply and demand issue. The first magic base sets, Alpha and Beta, sold out almost immediately after their release due to their high demand. Unfortunately, the publishing company couldn’t keep up, but they did try.

In response to Magic’s popularity, Wizards of the Coast ran an additional third printing of the initial cards. This third printing, called “Unlimited,” was an expansion meant to keep collectors happy while meeting the needs of Magic players. One way to keep collectors happy was to change the border from the basic black and white that Alpha and Beta releases both sported. Also, to give players a better chance of finding the powerful Black Lotus, Wizards saturated the market with these cards. 

However, it wasn’t enough. Fans bought every Unlimited card just four months after its release in March 1994. So let’s break down the number of cards in each release to understand better how many cards were sold before Magic: The Gathering turned a year old. 

• The Alpha run was 2.6 million cards.
• The Beta run was 7.3 million cards.
• The Unlimited was 35 million cards.

It’s quite novel to imagine 45 million cards sold out in less than a year. Again, Magic: The Gathering exceeded everyone’s expectations. The addictive game was already sweeping the nation with no signs of slowing down. Among these 45 million cards lay the only 1100 legal Black Lotus cards ever to exist. 

The Reserved List

In July 1995, the good folks at Wizards of the Coast tried their hand again to appease collectors and gamers — this time with the release of Chronicles. Unfortunately, Chronicles was an expansion of the Fourth Edition core set and contained no new cards. 

The release of Chronicles was meant to meet the high demand and limited supply of the current cards; however, it saturated the market so incredibly, that now the most prized Magic Cards went from super-valuable to nearly valueless almost overnight. 

In March of 1996, Wizard’s response to this oversaturation was the decision to expand its reprint policies. In the hopes of allowing some cards to grow in their worth, the game company created “The Reserved List,” a list of cards that were never to be reprinted again, whether with a black and white border or in the same form. The Black Lotus was on this list. 

The Reserved List successfully raised the value of the cards on that list. However, the Magic community was unhappy and called out Wizards for inflating the prices of Magic Cards. Since The Reserved List came to be, a few revisions have occurred, including removing cards such as Demonic Tutor and Clone. In 2010, Wizards claimed there was a loophole in the list and reprinted some cards on the Reserved List in foil or premium version. 

Why Not Do Away With the Reserved List?

For example, say you paid $6,000 for a Black Lotus. Then, say Wizards said the Reserved List was no longer valid, making The Black Lotus worth $1000. Players could sue for $5,000. They can sue for the price difference and not the expected value of the investment. We’re not lawyers, and this ruling would be totally up to a judge, so we’re only saying this is one scenario that could happen should the Reserved List be no more. 

Now some of you may be asking why the folks at Wizards can’t do away with the entire Reserved List. The answer may lie with the law. You see, a judge may declare the “promise” made by Wizards as a binding contract, and if the company were to disband the list, a judge could claim promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel says that if the Reserved List did get disbanded, people could sue Wizards for the price difference in The Black Lotus cards when the list went into action versus what the card would be worth should the list be disbanded. 

Now we better understand why The Black Lotus is the most expensive Magic: the Gathering card in the world. Also, we better understand why in July 2018, an Alpha Black Lotus sold at auction for $87,000. However, we’re unsure if it explains exactly why Post Malone bought a Black Lotus for $800,000. Watch the video below to find out more!

The Rarest Magic: The Gathering Card

Now that we’ve learned about the most expensive card, let’s look at the rarest Magic: The Gathering Card called The One Ring. The One Ring is a card that piggybacks on Wizard of the Coast’s grand plan of expanding the rarity of certain cards. In fact, only one legal copy of The One Ring will ever exist. The One Ring card can only be found in one English-language Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth Collector Booster in the world.

So if only one card exists, will we ever actually see it? Is The One Ring too rare for its own good? Maybe. It’s possible this uber-rare release could backfire on Wizards. How, you may ask? Because no one may actually find the card. If it is found, we may never know. Let’s explore some scenarios around how we may never find The One Ring.

Scenario one revolves around a young Magic fan not realizing the card’s value. Let’s say this fan opens a pack of Magic booster cards containing The One Ring. However, the player doesn’t realize its value. They may play Magic games with the card, thereby degrading its value. Or they may simply lose it. Or perhaps most egregious, the card meets the fate of a busy parent who happens to toss the card in the garbage while cleaning the child’s room. Now we see how it’s possible that, even though someone found the card, no one else even realizes it.

The second scenario revolves around supply and demand. Not every region sells a lot of Magic Cards. So, it may take years to discover The One Ring, especially if the card is tucked into a box and shipped somewhere with little Magic sales. Conceivably, the card sits in the dark for a decade or more, totally unbeknownst to anyone. 

A third scenario revolves around a collector buying two Collector Boosters. This collector buys two Booster boxes but only opens one. The other is tucked away on a shelf in a closet until an unsuspecting person opens it thirty years later.

The Fate of The One Ring

So really, the value and the fate of The One Ring can go in two different directions. On one end of the spectrum, someone will find the card and keep it in mint condition, coveted, increasing in value as time passes. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, no one may find it for many, many years, and Wizard’s idea of creating hype and mystery fails considerably, no one caring about its exclusivity. However, if it is found, it could be like winning the lottery. If you care to try your luck, you can purchase the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth Collector Booster here:

Conclusion

Collecting can be a fun but expensive hobby. Fans and non-fans alike are willing to fork over major bucks for one Magic: The Gathering card that they may never even play because it is worth too much. Have you ever coveted an item so badly that you were willing to pay millions to own it?

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