Mox

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Mox
Information
Origin	Dominaria
User	Liana of Minorad, Kristina of the Woods, Jared Carthalion, Ravidel
Status	Unknown
Scryfall Statistics
artworks

A mox (plural: moxen or moxes) is a piece of jewelry, usually containing a gemstone, that can produce mana. The most well-known comprise five of the pieces of the Power Nine. As design, a Mox is an artifact that tends to cost zero and taps for one mana, usually colored.

Card history

The word "Mox" was derived from the English slang word "Moxie". The word has long been associated with energy and vigor. The origin of this word traces back to the early 1900s when America's most popular soft drink was called Moxie.

The Original Moxen

• 
  Mox Pearl (Alpha)
• 
  Mox Sapphire (Alpha)
• 
  Mox Jet (Alpha)
• 
  Mox Ruby (Alpha)
• 
  Mox Emerald (Alpha)

The original five Moxen are rare artifacts that produce one of the five colors of mana. The original Moxen account for five of the Power Nine cards from the Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited sets (the earliest editions of Magic: The Gathering, printed in 1993) and thus are widely considered to be among the most powerful (and expensive) cards in the game. The cause for this is the ability to play multiples in a single turn, giving an unbalanced, extremely powerful mana acceleration which led to them being restricted in Vintage and completely banned in every other format very early in the game's history. All five of the original Moxen (along with the original art for Mox Diamond) were illustrated by Dan Frazier. Due to the original Moxen appearing in the Alpha and Beta releases of Magic: The Gathering they are also present within the Collectors' Edition and International Collectors' Edition sets (both also released in 1993).

Balanced Moxen

• 
  Mox Diamond (Stronghold)
• 
  Chrome Mox (Mirrodin)
• 
  Mox Opal (Scars of Mirrodin)
• 
  Mox Amber (Dominaria)
• 
  Mox Tantalite (Modern Horizons)
• 
  Mox Jasper (Tarkir: Dragonstorm)

Apart from the original five, other Moxen have been released in various sets over the years. Each of these additional Moxen were attempts by the game designers to create more balanced versions of the original Moxen by way of adding additional costs beyond the zero mana casting cost. Despite these additional costs, the first three of the 'balanced' Moxen are considered to be quite powerful and have found their way onto various banned and restricted lists over the years. Mox Amber, while difficult to use, had been the linchpin of a Standard combo deck for a few months and become a resource of combo decks as the pool of cheap Legendary creatures increases.

Un-Moxen

• 
  Jack-in-the-Mox (Unglued)
• 
  Mox Lotus (Unhinged)

The non-DCI sanctioned Unglued and Unhinged sets feature one mox each. Per the Unglued and Unhinged theme, each of these Moxen include an appropriately ridiculous ability.

Magic Online

• 
  Mox Emerald
• 
  Mox Jet
• 
  Mox Pearl
• 
  Mox Ruby
• 
  Mox Sapphire
• 
  Gleemox

The original Moxen were unavailable on Magic Online until Vintage Masters debuted in June 2014. These original Moxen (along with the rest of the Power Nine and several other Vintage staples) use the Modern card frame and have alternate artwork by artist Volkan Baga, previously used on awards given to winners of the Vintage Championship tournament series. The original printings of Chrome Mox and Mox Opal appeared online along with the rest of their initial release sets, Mirrodin in 2003 and Scars of Mirrodin in 2010 respectively while Mox Diamond eventually debuted online along with the rest of Stronghold in 2009, long after its initial paper release in 1998.

Gleemox was a Magic Online-only promo card that was given away with the announcement of the Gleemax project. They were distributed on Magic Online by Gleemax. The card doesn't show up in gatherer because it's not a real-world card.

Magic: The Gathering Arena

In 2022 the Moxen were added to Magic: The Gathering Arena with the release of Oracle of the Alpha in Alchemy: Dominaria. Unlike Magic Online, players are not able to craft the cards for their own collection. They are only available through designed-for-digital mechanics that generate them during a game. Each of the cards uses the modern frame and alternate artwork present on Magic Online.

In 2024, Wizards of the Coast added a cycle of creatures in Alchemy: Thunder Junction that each conjure an enemy colored Mox to their controller's hand. These cards are intended to replace Oracle of the Alpha when it rotated out of the Alchemy format with the release of Bloomburrow.

The cards are legal in all formats that include their generator cards — Alchemy, Historic, Brawl and Timeless.

Reprints

• 
  Mox Diamond (From the Vault: Relics)
• 
  Chrome Mox (Promo)
• 
  Mox Opal (Modern Masters 2015)
• 
  Chrome Mox (Eternal Masters)
• 
  Chrome Mox (Kaladesh Inventions)
• 
  Mox Opal (Kaladesh Inventions)

The original Moxen and Mox Diamond are on the Reserved List by Wizards of the Coast and thus won't be physically reprinted again. An earlier version of Official Reprint Policy allowed for special premium reprints of cards found on the Reserved List, allowing Mox Diamond to appear as a reprint in the From the Vault: Relics set, released in 2010. Negative collector reaction to its reprinting led to an amendment to the Official Reprint Policy preventing any further physical reprints, but allowing for the release of Reserved List cards on Magic Online.

An alternate art Chrome Mox was given away as a Grand Prix promo in 2009 (and subsequently released on Magic Online) while Mox Opal was reprinted in Modern Masters 2015, retaining its original artwork. Chrome Mox was reprinted once again in Eternal Masters, this time at mythic rarity. Both Chrome Mox and Mox Opal were reprinted in Kaladesh Inventions, marking their debut in the Masterpiece series.

Unreleased Moxen

• 
  Crystalline Mox

A card tentatively named "Crystalline Mox" or "Crystal Mox" was playtested during the development of Mirage but was not released because R&D identified it as still being too powerful to print. The decision to exclude the new design from the set occurred late in the design cycle:

I was commissioned to do the artwork for the card 'Crystal Mox.' When I spoke to Sandra, I said, 'Oh, that's nice, since I've done the art for all the other Moxes.' She responded: 'You did the other Moxes?' Back then, when the game was still new, the art directors weren't as involved in the rest of the process. They never printed Crystal Mox, but the artwork that I did for the card is the artwork on Enlightened Tutor (Mirage). You can kind of see what I was going for if you noticed the jewels of each color in the Tutor's crown.

— Dan Frazier

Test Card Moxen

• 
  Mox Poison

A test card mox was created by Gavin Verhey for the Unknown Event at MagicCon Philadelphia. In normal environments the card would be considered as powerful as standard mox but due to Phyrexia: All Will Be One limited having the toxic mechanic, the card was more balanced. A year later, the card reappeared in Mystery Booster 2 with art by Dan Frazier.

Design

The original mox (and Black Lotus) allowed players to quickly break the parity of the early game by generating more mana that the one-land-per-turn limit would normally allow. This caused significant balance issues as players with multiple mox in their opening hand were at an advantage over players with fewer or none. These issues ultimately caused the mox to be restricted in the first restricted list released by the DCI in 1994.

R&D has identified the core components of a mox design as:

• It must be an artifact;
• It must produce a colored mana; and
• It must cost .

These elements alone inevitably end up causing new card designs to be too powerful for a format, so some sort of drawback is required to balance them out. The requirements only allow for a small window of design space to make cards that are acceptable to players before the drawback renders the card unplayable in most situations. Because of this, new mox designs are rare.

Storyline

Moxen

The Moxen were a powerful collection of mana-infused gems owned by Liana of Minorad. Liana gave them to Kristina of the Woods and Jared Carthalion during her duel with Ravidel at Minorad so that he would not take them. Ravidel claimed various times that the Moxen had once belonged to him; at the battle with Jared, Kristina, Altair of Coloni and Caliphear the Nightmare against Ravidel at the Dueling Chasm of Golthonor, Ravidel used the Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, and Mox Sapphire to activate the Mox Beacon. The Mox Opal appeared to be from Mirrodin / New Phyrexia though was also later seen on Avishkar. Mox Jasper was formed on Tarkir after the Dragonstorms imbued the land itself with the essence of dragonfire.

Moxite

In the Edge, moxite is a rare fuel source. Sub-light interstellar travel is generally accomplished by spacecraft propelled by nuclear moxite reactors. Tezzeret recognized that the resource was rich with magical potential, similar to etherium. Its mallowmass value slid in the decade before 4564 AR due to mining on Sigma's Reach. When the Endstone revised the timeline to cause the colony to have never been populated, the drop in value remained, although its cause was now unexplained.

The Jewels Series

In 2007, five extremely rare pieces of actual jewelry were produced for the Italian market to resemble the Moxen. Each necklace comes in a display box that has the corresponding Mox's art printed on the front.

• 
  The Jewels Series

See also

• Mox Amber
• Mox Beacon
• Mox Jasper
• Mox Opal
• Sara Mox

Storyline sources

• The Shadow Mage
• Wayfarer