Highlights

  • Mox Sapphire, Vesuvan Doppelganger, & Time Walk are some of the priciest Magic cards, selling for thousands or even millions.
  • Copy Artifact, Lord of the Pit, & Mox Jet are other highly valued cards due to their rarity & gameplay impact over the years.
  • The most expensive Magic card ever sold is a one-of-one serialized The One Ring from the Lord of the Rings set, bought for $2 million by Post Malone.

It's a tough market out there, but there are a few things that you can count on to be sound investments; property, art, and gold come to mind. But for the geeky millionaire looking for an investment that both harkens back to childhood memories and has a proven track record of appreciating in value since 1993, nothing beats Magic: The Gathering cards.

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While more recent Magic cards can measure their market value in the mere hundreds of dollars, these painted cardboard rectangles can boast prices in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Read on to discover the most expensive Magic cards ever printed.

Updated March 12, 2024, by Sean Murray: There have been a few recent auctions that have pushed two cards off the top ten. We've updated this list to include the latest sales below.

10 Mox Sapphire - Limited Edition AlphaMTG - Mox Sapphire

Price

$46,800

Way back in Magic's earliest iteration, there was a group of cards known as the Power Nine. These nine cards included cards we'll see later on this list, including Time Walk, Timetwister, and the infamous Black Lotus, but five of those nine were simple artifacts that merely provided one additional mana.

Mox Sapphire doesn't do anything more than provide a single blue mana, but the fact you could play as many of these artifacts as you wished on the first turn meant it was theoretically possible to have far more mana than your opponent if you received a lucky draw. That's why Mox Sapphire along with the other four Moxes are restricted in Magic's Vintage format and have received very few reprints since the game's initial debut.

9 Vesuvan Doppelganger - Limited Edition Alpha

MTG Vesuvan Doppleganger

Price

$63,000

The only thing better than a Shivan Dragon was two Shivan Dragons. You could have just had more than one in your deck, or you could splash some blue mana to cast Vesuvan Doppelganger. This creature came into play as an exact copy of another target creature, except it remains a blue permanent. It also can continue copying creatures, gaining their power, toughness, and abilities every turn.

Vesuvan Doppelganger was more of a fun multiplayer card than anything else, but fond memories and thick wallets can create surprisingly high prices when mint-condition cards appear at auction.

8 Time Walk - Limited Edition Alpha

Time Walk

Price

$63,000

There's a reason Time Walk is banned in almost every format. Being able to take an extra turn over your opponent is a massive advantage that often cannot be overcome. Being able to take an extra turn for merely two mana is so wildly overpowered that, along with Chaos Orb and a few others, Time Walk became one of Magic's earliest banned cards.

You can still cast a Time Walk in Magic's Vintage format, but its availability to play in a few tournaments isn't what really makes this card special. People remember Time Walk's awesome power and that power commands a high price at auction even decades later.

7 Timetwister - Limited Edition Alpha

MTG Timetwister

Price

$84,000

The only thing bigger than taking another turn is getting a new hand. Timetwister provides both you and your opponent a fresh hand of seven cards and a fresh library, with only Timetwister remaining in the graveyard. This card was the linchpin of many combo strategies, but it was eventually banned in Legacy and restricted in Magic's Vintage format.

However, you can still play Timetwister in Magic's most popular casual format: Commander. Rarity, power, and demand from even current players have pushed Timetwister's price into the stratosphere, making early-edition cards still in good condition as expensive as some luxury cars.

6 Copy Artifact - Limited Edition Beta

MTG Copy Artifact

Price

$100,000.77

There are a lot of potent artifacts in Magic: The Gathering and Copy Artifact lets you copy any of them for just two mana. That's a powerful way to ramp up your mana base with some mana-producing artifacts, or you could just have two Darksteel Colossuses bouncing around.

Unlike many cards on this list, Copy Artifact was never banned, and it was even reprinted a few times too. In fact, you can find copies from Revised Edition for as little as $20. But at one point at least, you had to shell out six figures to get a mint condition Copy Artifact from Magic's Alpha printing.

5 Lord of the Pit - Limited Edition Alpha

MTG Lord of the Pit

Price

$105,000

For a very long time, Lord of the Pit wasn't considered a great card. Having to sacrifice a creature every turn just to keep this 7/7 flying trample demon from hurting you seemed too steep a price. But Magic has evolved, and now there are some creatures that are all too happy to be sacrificed to our dear Lord of the Pit.

There are still better cards out there, but the dangerous demon was a sign of things to come in Magic's future. Perhaps that's why a mint copy of Lord of the Pit sold for over $100,000 in 2023. A curious decision considering you can get copies from later editions for as little as ten cents.

4 Mox Jet - Limited Edition Alpha

MTG - Mox Jet

Price

$108,000

Another Mox has recently made it to Magic's top ten priciest cards. There's nothing inherently superior to Mox Jet over Mox Sapphire—it simply provides a black mana as opposed to a blue mana. However, black mana received new importance in Magic's Vintage format with the release of Tales of Middle-earth and perhaps the most disruptive card Vintage has seen in years: Orcish Bowmasters.

Every Vintage deck would play at least a few Mox artifacts, depending on the colors of that particular deck. Since Orcish Bowmasters provided a new archetype that required black, Mox Jet saw greater importance. Perhaps to the point where someone felt it'd be a good investment to pay over $100,000 for one, although it seems doubtful this particular Mox Jet will ever be removed from its protective case.

3 Mind Twist - Limited Edition Alpha

MTG Mind Twist

Price

$208,940.97

Few cards are more brutal than Mind Twist. There's no greater feeling of helplessness in Magic than being without any cards in hand, and being able to make your opponent discard a full hand for just eight mana is very powerful. That's why Mind Twist is banned in Legacy, but you can still play it in Vintage and even Commander.

Once again, you can get cheap versions of this card from later sets for just a few dollars, but according to MTGGoldfish, an Alpha printing of Mind Twist went for over $200,000 back in the day.

2 Black Lotus - Limited Edition Alpha

Black Lotus

Price

$800,000

When most people think of ludicrously expensive Magic cards, they most often think of the Black Lotus. This zero mana artifact has been terrorizing Magic auctions for the past thirty years. Its power to enable completely broken early-game strategies is renowned. It's been banned in every format but Vintage, and it has been reprinted but once for Magic's 30th Anniversary Edition.

Black Lotuses have been routinely selling at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, the highest price for an Alpha Edition Black Lotus was $800,000, paid by renowned Magic player Post Malone back in June 2022. But even that isn't the highest price paid for a Magic card.

1 One-Of-One Serialised The One Ring - Lord Of The Rings: Tales of Middle-earth

The One Ring

Price

$2,000,000

Earlier this year, Wizards of the Coast announced something special for its Lord of the Rings crossover set, Tales of Middle-earth. In one very special booster pack would be a one-of-one serialized card called The One Ring. There would be other One Rings in other boosters, but this One Ring would have unique art, unique Elvish text, and the serialized number 001 of 001.

After a week, the card had been found, but it wouldn't be sold for another month. Again, the buyer was Post Malone, and he paid a whopping $2 million for The One Ring in a heavy protective case. It was a life-changing amount of money for Brook Trafton, and Malone seemed pretty happy to receive the rarest and most expensive Magic card ever printed. Even if he could have bought a few houses for what he paid for it.

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