Though it may feel like the ‘quirky’ branch of indie JRPGs has become a played out trope by now, it wasn’t too long ago that a confusing, humorous, and parodying take on the standard template was seen as a novel concept. One of the most significant examples of this was OFF, a simple freeware RPG Maker project that caught fire on Tumblr in the late 2000s and inspired the development of games like OMORI, Yume Nikki, and Undertale.
Now, developer Mortis Ghost (along with Fangamer) has put out a modestly tweaked remaster of the game for Switch and PC, introducing the classic to a new generation while also polishing up some of its rougher edges. I’m pleased to say that this remaster has largely stuck the landing—the original game feels like it’s barely aged a day, while the few additions genuinely enhance the overall experience.
Magic: The Gathering has been running for literal decades, and while reprints will always keep making harder-to-find cards a little easier to collect, there are some cards so rare that they become almost like urban legend.
There are cards worth thousands, for example, but there are also cards worth millions, from wild serialized, one-of-a-kind prints like The One Ring (famously purchased by Post Malone) to cards like Time Walk, which were so powerful they’ve been banned.
Below, you’ll find some of the priciest cards around, marking some of the rarest in the game’s history.
Magic: The Gathering’s Rarest Cards Of All Time
10 – Time Walk (Alpha)
A card from the game’s Alpha Edition, Time Walk has sold for around $25,000 and offered an extra turn for a measly two mana, meaning it was banned pretty swiftly.
It’s not legal in any format, but for collectors it’s a piece of Magic history regardless, forming part of the ‘Power 9’ (more on those shortly).
9 – Euroakus
A card so rare that TCGPlayer doesn’t have it, Euroakus was a Heroes of the Realm card awarded to Wizards’ European Team in 2020.
Heroes of the Realm cards are given to Wizards employees, with their name printed. As Wargamer explains, one of these Euroakus cards was sold for $25,200 in 2022, but the name was blurred out.
8 – Phoenix Heart
Phoenix Heart might not be legal (it doesn’t actually have an effect), but it’s very sweet. Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering, has the card printed to celebrate his wedding to Koni Kim and send it out among the wedding invites.
It’s previously sold for $27,500, which is even better than an open bar at a wedding if you ask us.
7 – Splendid Genesis
Richard Garfield commemorated the birth of his first child with this neat card. Splendid Genesis reads, “Shuffle all cards in the game together and deal them into three decks. The game continues with a new player.”
Naturally, it serves no gameplay purpose, but it’s a wholesome card that still fetched around $72,000 at auction in 2022. Only 110 were printed.
6 – Timetwister
Remember when we mentioned the ‘Power 9’ earlier? Here’s another, and yes, it’s banned.
Timetwister puts your hand, library, and graveyard together and lets you draw another hand of seven cards. Essentially resetting your deck (and your opponents) while leaving the board state as it is – a neat trick, and one that someone paid $84,000 for.
5 – Lord of the Pit
Demon decks are all the rage these days, but Lord of the Pit was one of the first. It’s a 7/7 with Flying and Trample that does damage to its owner unless they sacrifice a creature.
There are five ‘Moxes’ included in the ‘Power 9’ (scroll down for the full list), and while the effect of adding a single mana may seem a little tame, it’s a powerful ramp in the early turns.
It’s been sold for $108,000 in the past, but we can’t find it on TCGPlayer. Instead, a newer version (which taps for any color but requires multiple artifacts be in play) is available instead. It’ll cost you $160, mind.
3 – Autographed Black Lotus
The iconic Black Lotus pops up on this list twice, with an autographed version signed by its illustrator, Christopher Rush, going for around $511k.
And yet, Post Malone claims to have bought a similarly signed one for $800k, and that brings us nicely to…
2 – One of One Ring
While some purists felt the chase of a single ‘one of one’ version of The One Ring made the game of Magic more of a sideshow to a Willy Wonka-esque spectacle, it’s become legendary.
The card was found and sold to Post Malone for around $2 million, although there have been suggestions it was higher than $2.5 million. You can buy one of the more commonly available ones for your collection for around $70 if you’re keen.
1 – Black Lotus
The only card that’s sold for more than the ‘One of One Ring’ is a Black Lotus card in pristine condition, sans autograph.
A private buyer snapped up a Pristine 10 graded version of the iconic card for $3 million in 2024, making this the most expensive Magic: The Gathering card. You can buy a ‘moderately played’ version right now for $79k.
Can You Still Pack The Rarest Magic: The Gathering Cards?
Sure, you could, but your chances are astronomically low. Many of the cards on this list haven’t been printed for years, and while there are still valuable cards to find in packs (we’ve got a rundown of the most valuable ones in Edge of Eternities), you’d have to find a super dusty old pack to get some of the cards on this page.
That makes the secondary market the only option for collectors.
Magic: The Gathering’s Power 9 Explained
We’ve referred to the ‘Power 9’ in this list a few times, so here’s every entry, and their effects.
Black Lotus
Adds 3 mana of any single color of your choice to your mana pool, then is discarded. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt.
The Mox: Emerald, Jet, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire
Add 1 [color] mana to your mana pool. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt.
Ancestral Recall
Draw 3 cards or force opponent to draw 3 cards.
Timetwister
Set Timetwister aside in a new graveyard pile. Shuffle your hand, library, and graveyard together into a new library and draw a new hand of seven cards, leaving all cards in play where they are; opponent must do the same.
Time Walk
Take an extra turn after this one.
The Power 9 were found in the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets of Magic: The Gathering.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
Sonic Mania is one of the best Sonic games ever, and while there were hopes it would get a sequel, a few years ago, it was revealed how Sega was eager to move beyond pixel art and ultimately it didn’t go ahead.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A isn’t out until October, but this weekend there’s a Switch 2 demo at the 2025 Pokémon World Championships.
The first impressions are now rolling in, and we’ve put together some thoughts so far – starting with a ‘hands on’ from our senior video producer Zion Grassl. Although it might not be for everyone, we’re thinking the hardcore fans will be pleased with how it’s shaping up.
If you’re looking to upgrade your gaming PC and want to keep your budget to under $1,500, then one deal stands out above all the rest. Walmart is offering the iBuypower Element Pro gaming PC equipped with an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU for just $1499 with free delivery. This was the best “high-end” gaming PC deal during Prime Day – better than anything I found on Amazon – and it’s still the best deal I’ve seen so far at this price point. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is an outstanding graphics card that can run the latest games (like Battlefield 6) in 4K.
iBuypower Element Pro Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming PC $1499
The iBuypower gaming PC is generously equipped across the board. It features an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and 2TB M.2 SSD. The Ryzen 9 7900X processor has a max boost clock of 5.6GHz with 12 cores and 24 threads. This is an excellent CPU for both gaming and multi-tasking and you won’t need to upgrade from it for a long time. It’s cooled by a very robust 360mm all-in-one liquid cooling system and run off an 850W power supply.
The Radeon RX 9070 XT Received a 10/10 at IGN
We rated the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT a “perfect” 10/10. Even though it costs $150 less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the 9070 XT beats it out in several of the games we tested. In a few benchmarks, the results aren’t even close. The 9070 XT is also comparable in performance to the older $1,000 RX 7900 XTX but with better ray tracing and upscaling performance than its predecessor. It does lose out on VRAM (16GB vs 24GB), but that isn’t really an issue for gaming. By “4K ready” I mean that this gaming PC can run pretty much any game at 4K resolution and at framerates of 60fps or higher. Any video card that’s weaker and you’ll have to compromise in order to get playable framerates.
The Battlefield 6 Beta Runs This Weekend
Battlefield 6 is out in October and there’s one final open beta that runs August 14-17. It’s shaping up to be a solid game that goes back to its true roots . Check out our initial impressions of the beta and go ahead and try the game. Battlefield 6 has fairly lax requirements for a new release title; EA recommends at last a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT GPU to achieve 30fps at 1080p, although an RTX 4080 or more powerful GPU is recommended for gaming in 4K.
Check out more Alienware Back to School deals
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
Everyone, we like to believe, has a made a secret list for every single console they’ve ever owned, of weird and/or experimental stuff they either want to, or wished they had, played. Sometimes you get round to them, sometimes you don’t. You know the sort of thing. For me, on GameCube specifically, things like Cubivore come to mind, and to a lesser extent Eternal Darkness and Geist. Yes, Geist! Which means “ghost” in German. Did you know that? Of course you did. Every Geisterjäger or Paranormal-Forscher worth their salz knows this stuff.
Now, Geist didn’t exactly set the world on fire when it came out, but to skip over it for its shortcomings — of which it has its fair share — is to do yourself out of a genuinely odd, unsettling and actually quite good game. And, you know what, 20 years down the line from when it originally released, it’s perhaps more intriguing than ever thanks to how differently it plays compared to many of its peers.
Hey friends! This week Tim, Brett, and Sid are back with exciting PlayStation Plus Game Catalog news for August, some early Battlefield 6 thoughts, and ideas for gaming-themed tattoos.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s release highlights:
Sword of the Sea | PS5 (PlayStation Plus Game Catalog)
Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution | PS5, PS4
Discounty | PS5
Herdling | PS5
Midnight Murder Club new update — Bring up five friends to play the new PvE mode Graveyard Shift and keep gameplay fresh with wildcards that shuffle the rules
PlayStation Plus Game Catalog August
Extra and Premium
Mortal Kombat 1 | PS5
Marvel’s Spider-Man | PS5, PS4
Sword of the Sea | PS5
Earth Defense Force 6 | PS5, PS4
Unicorn Overlord | PS5, PS4
Atelier Ryza 3 Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key | PS5, PS4
Indika | PS5
Harold Halibut | PS5
Coral Island | PS5
Premium
Resident Evil 2 | PS5, PS4
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis | PS5, PS4
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, System Shock 2, Resident Evil 1 Director’s Cut, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Gaming tattoos – the team shares gaming tattoos they have or would like to get, and ask listeners to write in with pics of their gaming tattoos
The Cast
Download the image
Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE
Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
