Power Nine

In Magic: The Gathering, Power Nine is a set of nine cards that were printed in the game's early core sets, consisting of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, and Timetwister. These nine cards were printed in the first sets of Magic: The Gathering, starting in 1993. They are considered among the most powerful cards in the game. Owing to their power, they were banned from being played in most competitive settings.

The cards were added to Magic: The Gathering Arena in September 2022 with the introduction of the Alchemy: Dominaria United expansion set.

Cards

Although the modern term for these cards is Power Nine, other terms existed in the early days of the game. A tournament in New York advertised a grand prize of either "The Big 10" cards or $1000; the cards in The Big 10 were the Power Nine cards and Chaos Orb.

During playtesting before the release of the Alpha edition, the Power Nine were deemed to be powerful cards whose scarcity would ensure the cards would not overpower games, but as print runs increased for each set the design team ultimately decided to remove the cards for the Revised Edition release.

Black Lotus

The "Black Lotus" card can be played at zero cost, and it grants three mana (the game's primary resource) when sacrificed (discarded from play). In Magic a player can have up to four cards of the same name in a deck.