The rare Black Lotus, the most sought after Magic: The Gathering card, recently sold on eBay for $166,100. That’s more than twice what a similar card sold for in July of last year.
The card in question dates back to 1993, and was part of the very first printing of Magic cards ever made. Also known as the Alpha set, these limited edition cards are easily recognized by their more rounded corners and black borders. The Black Lotus is a particularly powerful card as it gives players additional mana, which is used to power spells and summon creatures in the original collectible card game.
This particular Black Lotus, graded by the Beckett service, rates at a 9.5 out of 10. That’s about as close to mint condition as you’re likely to find. And condition makes all the difference in the collectible market. A grade 9 card sold for only $57,350 in January.
What’s interesting here though is the dramatic increase in price over just 7 months. In July, a Beckett grade 9.5 Black Lotus went for just $87,672. While last week’s sale was for a different card, that’s an increase in value of nearly 100 percent.
The collectibles market is heating up all over the gaming industry. Recently a mint condition copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System sold for $100,150 at auction, making it one of the most expensive video games ever sold.
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Comments
Is there a high end competitive scene in the MTG world that would allow/use these cards?
By WayneJetSki on 03.05.19 2:28pm
I don’t think so, and that’s why I don’t understand the value. Magic is clearly a lot bigger than I thought it was
By harrylane4 on 03.05.19 2:34pm
A lot of value as a pure collectible.
By theBeerBaron33 on 03.05.19 3:34pm
Black Lotus is only legal in one format, Vintage, and even there, it’s limited to one copy per deck. Here’s a snapshot of what the popular Vintage archetypes are: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/vintage#paper
Short version: the average deck costs like $20k. It’s a bit of a niche format.
By Tekkactus on 03.05.19 2:51pm
lol wow the "budget" competitive Vintage deck costs 6K
By interbret on 03.05.19 3:16pm
In another piece of evidence that Dredge is another game from Magic altogether, $5,700 out of the $6,200 dollars required to build it comes from the playset of Bazaar of Baghdad on their own.
By Tekkactus on 03.06.19 9:18am
Did NOT realize a competitive Magic deck costs THAT much??
Is that unique to Magic? I only ever did Decipher’s Star Wars CCG and Pokemon and those competitive decks were cheapo
By Dutchguy000 on 03.05.19 4:01pm
That’s for a very, very specific sub category of Magic.
The most common format for Magic (Standard), the decks range from ~$100 – $400, barring extreme outliers.
By k3omg on 03.05.19 4:10pm
And even a single step down from Vintage, called Legacy, sees decks at about ten times the Standard deck cost. Nowhere near the five digit costs you see in Vintage. And in Modern, my favorite format, most competitive decks are less than $1,000.
By interbret on 03.05.19 5:40pm
Ty both for clarification. I have a few $50 playing card decks and I lose my shit playing with them…cant imagine that kind of cheese
By Dutchguy000 on 03.06.19 3:29pm
You potentially could play with these cards, but you wouldn’t. Unsealing them from their containers nullifies their quality rating.
It’s also worth noting that there are other Black Lotus cards with worse conditions and from sets that make them less valuable that play just the same, but aren’t worth that massive price. So you’d just be throwing money away to play with these specific cards.
By Lil Kut-Ku on 03.05.19 10:18pm
No. This is being bought as a collectible; it’s extremely rare and in outstanding condition. Nobody spending that kind of money for that card is actually using it to play.
By roymacIII on 03.06.19 4:13pm
The whole game seems like a scam. I’d hate to get suckered into this market.
By Izzy Data on 03.05.19 4:48pm
It’s a fun game as long as you don’t get hyper competitive. Try some of the cheap PC game versions where the buy-in is super low (the older ones surprisingly don’t abuse microtransactions like they could have).
By theBeerBaron33 on 03.05.19 4:51pm
It’s a great game! These numbers are way off from what a normal player would see. I play a lot and the most I’ve ever spent on a deck was probably around $300 for 75 cards. It can really range depending on which type of magic you’re playing but the most competitive versions are cheapest (standard and limited).
By Scrimler on 03.05.19 6:28pm
Oh it is. I’m glad I was able to get out.
It’s a joke told over and over again but MTG is the original popularized microtransaction game.
By domsays on 03.05.19 6:59pm
The major redeeming factor is that it’s possible to cash out. With pretty much all but a very small few digital microtransactions there’s no recouping any of the spent money.
By k3omg on 03.06.19 5:15pm
Totally possible.
Not likely, but possible. Especially in Standard.
But in that way it’s like gambling. Sure lots of people win, but the house does it’s best to entice the majority of winners to put some or all of their winnings back in.
By domsays on 03.06.19 7:30pm
Every now and then I consider selling the cards in my old Magic deck. But then I check the prices and they just keep appreciating, so I think I’ll just leave them there. I’ve got a crapped up Unlimited Black Lotus in it, but at this rate maybe it’ll be worth a few thousand someday.
By Lil Kut-Ku on 03.05.19 10:21pm
It’s worth a few thousand now. Heavily played Unlimited Lotuses run somewhere in the range of 6k.
By Tekkactus on 03.06.19 9:14am
Only $57,350? Bargain!
By happylou on 03.06.19 8:06am