Quote:
Originally Posted by swarmee
As a guy who played Magic about a year after it started (1994-96 timeframe), I can give you a little background. The initial MTG base sets (black bordered Alpha with heavily rounded corners, and black bordered Beta with lightly rounded corners) came out in 1993 along with the additional sets Arabian Nights (scimitar logo on cards). They were made in much more limited numbers than the white-bordered (3rd*) edition base sets called "Unlimited" or "Revised." The game became much more even when Wizards of the Coast (game producer) really let the presses run for 4th edition in 1995, which was the first year they put the copyright date on the cards.
Alpha and Beta were mostly only available in larger markets in the country, and the Unlimited and Revised cards were the ones that trickled through the country and spread like wildfire. So think of them like the 1952 Topps High Numbers, and the Black Lotus being the Mantle. The Mox jewels being the Mathews, Mays, Jackie, etc.
Everything in Magic is based on being able to call the cards from your hand by paying a casting cost. Each land gives you one piece of energy per turn, so the first turn, you could play a land and then play a card with a casting cost of 1 energy (mana). On turn two, you could place your second land, and cast either a creature with a cost of 2 mana, or 2 with a cost of 1 mana each. It would give each player a fair chance to have a few turns to get enough creatures out there to be competitive.
The Black Lotus, however, was a "cheat" to this pattern. For a zero mana casting cost, you could immediately conjure 3 mana and cast a stronger creature. And since it was a rare card, there weren't many out there. You couldn't just buy pre-made decks with all the same cards to compete against your friends and in tournaments. If you didn't own the card, you couldn't play it. So the players that got the Black Lotus in packs had the best chance of winning the games and becoming tournament beasts. The Moxes were similar; they gave you cheap energy that you could ramp up your creatures with faster than your opponent. And since the early years of Magic required you to play for ante (risk a card to win your opponent's card), the best decks kept getting stronger. Because they accrued a lot of play wear, finding gem mint ones are difficult, because you used to shuffle them into your decks like playing cards before people started keeping them in sleeves.
TLDR: Black Lotus has always been a powerful and in demand card, and links you to the founding players of MTG.
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That's pretty much it.
My friends introduced me to the game just before Unlimited came out, and it was pretty neat. Cards I could do something with besides just collect them!
Unlimited was pretty hard to get even just outside major markets. I asked the only nearby shop that might have any about them for a couple weeks and got the expected date of their next shipment. No presell available at all, not even prepaid!
By the time I got there after work they had 3 packs left out of something like 5 cases. Bought them all, plus the last starter deck.
Yep, I got the black lotus, and didn't realize it was a big deal until I got to play a week or so later.
Unlike people who were more into it or had more time, or worked near a shop and had a lunch hour, I didn't become an instant winner. In fact, I lost every single game for 2-3 years. I didn't win until I traded the card to a friend. At the time it was I think a couple hundred, and he offered about that in other cards. Not a bad deal at the time, and I did start winning a few games.
Looking back, it was a really awful trade. Especially since I lost interest after a couple years because of the constantly changing rules about what cards were allowed and what weren't. (They would change what was allowed in tournaments to keep the game balanced, and my friends all went by tournament rules) I think the stuff I traded for is still maybe 200.
I still have a Mox or two though.