I’ve only shown the Mox Emerald here, but I think we can all agree that if someone was going to give us one we wouldn’t care much which one it was! The Moxes (or Moxen?) are famous, probably only secondary to the spectaculary expensive Black Lotus. But back in the day, it wasn’t exactly clear just HOW powerful these could be. I mean, if you were playing in an environment with a limited pool of cards back in the day, how likely would you be to choose this artifact that seemed no better than a land? Surely you’d want a Vesuvan Doppleganger (we all coveted this card), or even a Sol Ring instead because it gave you 2 mana, albeit colorless.
It didn’t take long however, for people to realize that you could have one of each of the 5 Moxen (Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Jet, Emerald) and you could put them out ALL in one turn because they didn’t count as land! In my book, they’re actually more useful than the Black Lotus because you can only use that once whereas a Mox can be used every turn. It was also fun to Armageddon while you had moxes in play.
Card Name: Mox Emerald
Set: Alpha, Beta, UL, not reprinted
Rarity: Rare
Card Cost: 0
Card Type: Mono Artifact
Artist: Dan FrazierText: Add 1 green mana to your mana pool. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt.
Rules Text (Oracle): Add G to your mana pool.
I knew several people who had Moxes back then, but it was not a huge deal. After all, nobody had more than 1 of them. They went for at most $30-40 back then. They weren’t very game changing at all, because we played mostly group games where their speed was neutralized by having so many people in the game at once.
I never received a Mox in a pack, nor did I ever trade for one sadly. On the bright side, neither did I trade one away… I knew a few people who got rid of them in favor of other powerful rares. I had plenty of opportunities to trade for them, but at the time I was concentrating on amassing Dual Lands.
A year after I started, however, tournament Magic really started to take off and then it seemed like EVERYONE had to have a set in order to play with. The one-on-one tournament play, where it is necessary to use every possible extra speed advantage on your opponent, made in mandatory to have the mox jewelry. To this day, I don’t see what’s so great about them, although I wouldn’t turn my nose down if I found a set for cheap at some garage sale. That’s one of my dreams… one day I’ll be at an estate sale and there will be a bunch of Magic cards that the sellers have no idea what they have so they’re selling the whole box for $20. And inside is a Black Lotus, Time Walk, and all 5 Moxes. Hey, it COULD happen…
