what is the rarest magic card that comercially produced???

Question

something that was printed for lots of people to have... but is still rare...

Answer 1

That would be a few of the rares from Arabian Nights. Being the first Magic expansion, they didn't print a lot of it and it was only a 78 card set. The rarity system we have now wasn't in place at the time, so some rares were more rare than others. Take Juzam Djinn, for example; they only had one of them on each rare sheet, so you could imagine how scarce they are. I guess Cynthia's Portal 3 answer could be a distant second or third. But I guess that's too old for her to know anything about.

Answer 2

Any rares from Portal: Three Kingdoms. It was only released in Asia and Australia. Go here http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/index.aspx?term=&Field_Name=on&Field_Rules=on&Field_Type=on&setfilter=Portal%20Three%20Kingdoms and it will show you the whole set.

Here's an official response from MTG.com:

August 13, 2003, Ask Wizards:
Q: "What are some of the most rare cards ever printed? I'm not talking about Moxes or anything like that. I've seen blank cards and blue Hurricanes."
--Jack Roosevelt

A: From Brian Tinsman, R&D game designer:
"The rarest cards fall into two categories: misprints and specials. The blank cards you've seen are either misprints or R&D playtest cards that were never used. One famous mistake was a run of Fallen Empires that was printed with backs from Wyvern, another TCG being manufactured at the same factory. The rarest misprints, and among the rarest Magic cards in existence, are those blue Hurricanes. They're from a printing nicknamed 'Summer Magic.' In the summer of '94, Wizards realized one printing of Revised had severe mistakes, with the art almost too dark to see on many cards. Wizards recalled the entire print run and had them all destroyed. Well, almost all of them. About four cases (40 display boxes) accidentally made it to the public in the UK and Tennessee. Today a Summer Magic Birds of Paradise is worth well over a thousand dollars.

"Another misprint was a series of foil Friday Night Magic promotional cards that were added to Japanese Urza's Legacy and Urza's Destiny sheets as test runs to see if the print process was working right. Those cards had no text, just mana costs and art, and were supposed to have been destroyed. Some of them, like Lightning Bolt, accidentally made it into booster packs and are now among the rarest of all cards.

"Special printings are cards that were produced to commemorate some event and given to the participants only. The rarest is probably the 1996 World Champion card, of which only one is supposed to exist. It was encased in a trophy and awarded to Tom Chanpheng, the winner of that tournament. Wizards never printed any other cards for later World Champions. The next rarest is the card Proposal, which Richard Garfield had printed and slipped into a deck in order to propose to his soon-to-be wife, Lily. About seven of these were given to members of their wedding party. Richard also used Magic cards to announce two more special events, the birth of his two children. Splendid Genesis (about 150 cards) and Fraternal Exaltation (about 250 cards) were given to friends and coworkers.

"Sought after by some collectors are cards altered by designers to change their functionality. Although not legal for tournament play, it's generally accepted that if you can get Richard Garfield to change the mana cost or abilities on a card and sign it, you can play it as written. It's rumored that there's a 3/3 Llanowar Elves out there somewhere.

"Thanks to my fellow designer Mike Elliott for helping me out with a bunch of this info."

Answer 3

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