CGC Cards Grades Gamma Playtest Mox Pearl from Magic: The Gathering

Before trading card games are mass-produced for the general public, TCG developers usually test their game’s cards (including abilities, mana costs, etc.) and overall mechanics. To do this, a small group of people intimately involved with a TCG’s development sometimes receives a small deck of prototype cards, which can be rough sketches or outlines of a card mounted on high-grade cardstock. These playtest cards are extremely limited in quantity and are highly valued by collectors.

CGC Cards™ recently certified one of these cards from Magic: The Gathering. The Mox Pearl, Magic: The Gathering (1992) Gamma Playtest received a grade of CGC 8.

Mox Pearl

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Mox Pearl is a member of the coveted Power 9, a group of early Magic: The Gathering cards that were banned or restricted shortly after release for being too powerful. The artwork is simple, a rough sketch of an orb in black and white, and would change drastically in the finalized version of the game. This Gamma Playtest Mox Pearl also has only one instruction: “Provides 1 mana TAP.” In the final version of Mox Pearl released in the Alpha set, the instructions became clearer about how to use the mana: “Add 1 white mana to your mana pool. Tapping this artifact can be played as an interrupt.”

Only a very small number of the Gamma Playtest version of Mox Pearl are known to exist, and CGC Cards has only graded this single example. According to the CGC Cards Population Report, CGC Cards has only graded a total of 216 Gamma Playtest cards from Magic: The Gathering. This card will be offered at a Heritage Auctions sale in October.

About CGC

Since revolutionizing comic book grading in 2000, CGC has grown to include certification services for many other types of pop culture collectibles. These divisions include CGC Cards, CGC Video Games and CGC Home Video. CGC Cards provides expert card grading for TCGs, sports cards and non-sports cards. CGC Video Games is dedicated to video game grading for the most popular consoles, including Nintendo, Sega, Atari, PlayStation and more. The newest division of CGC, CGC Home Video, provides expert VHS grading in addition to other types of videocassettes.