Planeswalkers, behold! We have the ultimate treasure for you! 

Or if you have no idea what that means, let us fill you in. A Planeswalker is the role that a player takes in the massive card game Magic the Gathering. They act as powerful wizards who are able to summon monsters, use artifacts and cast spells, which is what the cards all represent. 

Each card?s origin within the lore of the game is represented by one of five colours; white, blue, black, red and green. The card?s colour is printed on its border, which marks which colour of mana that card will likely need to use. 

There also exist two-coloured cards, the border is printed with a gradient between the two. Even further beyond that, golden bordered cards are classed as ?multicoloured?, which means they will likely have energy to draw from a variety of colours. 

Wizards need mana to cast however, so there are ?land? cards that produce the magical stamina for their player, enabling the player to make use of their damaging cards and other tricky strategies. 

There are two main ways to win a game of Magic, that being to reduce the ?life total? of your opponent to 0, or to run your opponent out of cards to pull. Like all card games it has a plethora of its own rules, card types and creative ways to handle the game. 

With this very basic rundown of what Magic is, we can talk about the Black Lotus. 

This card is the most valuable normal card ever to be printed in a normal set. It holds a torch in the Power Nine, a group of nine cards from the original Magic print runs that are infamously powerful.

Black Lotus was in fact, the reason a rule was enacted. Players could snag a first-turn win if they packed twenty Black Lotus cards along with twenty Fireballs. This enforced the rule of only allowing four duplicates of one card. 

Beyond this, the Black Lotus was later banned from competitive play altogether. 

So, why has this banned card become such a Holy Grail for Magic collectors? 

For one, it is of the previously mentioned Power Nine. Nine cards present since even the alpha of the game that are infamous for being extremely powerful. 

Even in normal print, the Black Lotus is worth thousands down to its reputation. It has had two well-known sales being the 9.5 graded card selling on eBay for a high ?138,597.16 ($166,100). The other being graded a 10, in a case signed by its artist Christopher Rush, selling at auction for a hefty ?426,472.06 ($511,100). 

This card was part of the original set, so another part of its high value comes from how hard it is to get hold of one now, especially one in good condition. 

Vectis will be selling this card in the TV & Film Sale on Thursday 8th December. Being sold as Lot Number 6257, with a pre-sale estimate of ?10,000 - ?15,000, this is not one you will want to miss!

 

View the lot in the live catalogue here: https://www.vectis.co.uk/lot/wizards-of-the-coast-garfield-games-magic-the-gathering-international_938459