Wizards of the Coast has announced Magic: The Gathering's infamous Black Lotus and the other of the Power Nine.
It's common for Magic: The Gathering cards to be banned from official play, due to them being overpowered in certain formats. There are also cards that needed to be censored and edited for rereleases, especially in different regions. A notable example of this is card art featuring skeletons or witchcraft needing to be edited in order to be released in China. This has happened throughout the history of Magic: The Gathering, as cards that featured demonic imagery and pentagrams often had to be changed in later sets. There was a time when Dungeons & Dragons was censored due to Satanism allegations, so it's not surprising that cards like Demonic Tutor would be censored and later replaced, especially as Wizards of the Coast was promoting the game to as wide as an audience as possible.
The Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition is launching on November 28 in North America and each display costs the princely sum of $999. This investment is only for four packs of 15 cards, and they can't be used in official tournaments. The official Magic: The Gathering cards won't be reprinted because they don't meet modern standards, but there are a variety of reasons why these cards will not be returning.
Magic: The Gathering's Ante Cards Won't Appear In The 30th Anniversary Edition
There are three cards that won't be appearing in Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition for obvious reasons, as they have the ante keyword on them. Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game, with its tournaments offering prizes and venues requiring an entrance fee to enter. These elements keep Magic: The Gathering in the realm of competition and outside of gambling, which would raise all kinds of issues for the game, especially in regions where gambling is heavily regulated. As such, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro ensure that there are no elements in the game that could lead it to be classed as gambling.
Magic: The Gathering has strict rules, but it wasn't always so careful about including gambling elements, as some of the earliest cards in the game used the optional ante rules. If players are using the ante rules, then they each draw a random card from their deck at the start of the match and place it in the ante zone. The winner of the match then gets to keep all of the cards in the ante zone. These rules are now forbidden in all official Magic: The Gathering tournaments, though there is nothing stopping people from using them in unofficial games. The ante rules are not only a potential thorny legal issue when it comes to gambling, but they would also cause tremendous bad blood among players, especially those who pay a lot of money for their cards.
Three of the cards that won't be appearing in the Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition feature the ante keyword. These cards are Contract From Below, Darkpact, and Demonic Attorney. Contract From Below lets the player discard their hand and ante the top card of their library in exchange for drawing seven cards, Darkpact lets the player swap an ante card with the top card of their library, and Demonic Attorney causes each player to ante the top card of their library.
What's interesting about these cards not appearing in Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition is that none of the cards in the set are meant to be played. The Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition contains commemorative cards with unique card backs, making them unusable in tournaments. The only way these cards can be used is as proxies in sleeves, which would happen in casual play.
Magic: The Gathering's Weakness, Crusade, Earthbind Cards Won't Appear In The 30th Anniversary Edition
The remaining three cards that aren't appearing in Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition are all for different reasons. The first card is Crusade, which is one of several Magic: The Gathering cards banned over racism concerns back in 2020. If a player searches for the Crusade card in the Gatherer, they will see a message explaining that its art won't appear on the site, due to it being considered offensive.
The Earthbind card is another one that's fairly easy to guess why it won't appear in Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition. The artwork on the card is overtly sexual, with a scantily-clad fairy being tied up in a suggestive position. Earthbind was one of the cards that weren't reprinted in Fourth Edition back in '95, along with other cards that featured controversial artwork, such as depictions of religious imagery and violence.
The final card that won't be appearing as one of Magic: The Gathering's 30th anniversary cards is Weakness. The reason this card has been cut isn't quite as cut and dry as Crusade or Earthbind, but the leading theory among fans is due to the artwork being ableist. It's possible that the card artwork features a negative portrayal of someone with a disability, which is why it doesn't meet the standards of modern Magic: The Gathering cards.
Source: Magic: The Gathering