A year ago, some people—not naming any names—spent their hard-earned money on playsets of the latest drool-inducing jewel, Mox Amber. Those people have not exactly received good returns on their investments. And yet the amber beckons. Why?
Amber, as most people can tell you, is the fossilized sap from a tree. We kind of slide right past the word “fossilized,” but there’s something amazing about fossils. They’re organic material over 40,000 years old that have lost the volatile and imperfect parts that make them rot, become something more permanent through a kind of necrotic alchemy. Unlike the dun-colored and jagged fossils of flora and fauna; amber was often thrown up from the Baltic sea, polished and rounded by the waves and sand. It’s smooth and glows under light and looks precious, even if it’s not rare enough to be as valuable as other stones.
Amber, being resin, is sticky in its pre-fossilized form. But it’s sticky in other senses, too. The material holds static charge, leading Syrians in the first century to call it “harpax,” from the word for “to drag,” from the way it would attract hair and cloth. Between that conductivity, the tendency to find trapped creatures in amber, and the often-occluded color amber takes from the multitude of micro bubbles caught in the stone; amber has a mystical reputation, a kind of hold on people. Hell, look at how unwilling we all are to accept that Mox Amber is weak, all things considered. Last weekend, it spiked $4, simply off of new Modern Horizons speculation. There’s something about amber that inflames our imaginations.
In Magic, that mysticism was represented in the most famous piece of amber—and the genesis for Mox Amber itself. Mangara, the Jamuraan diplomat and architect of an historic peace accord between warring nations, was trapped in the Amber Prison by the villainous Kaervek back in Mirage block.
Time Spiral came up short because it focused on what Magic did; Dominaria succeeded because it focused on how Magic felt. You don’t need to know the history of the Amber Prison to get Mox Amber’s narrative. All you need to know is that amber is a semiprecious stone with a lot of history behind it, and it all comes together. More than that, it leads you to fuse, as Magic does in its best moments, the design of a card with the feeling of it in play. Which is to say: what I love above all in the narrative Mox Amber tells is the requirement that a hero is present to use it. No one else can tap into its latent power.
Which is how I know I’m not heroic: I can’t make the damn thing pull its weight. I tried in Modern with a Thalia-based Death & Taxes model and a Zurgo/Kytheon Boros aggressive monstrosity. I tried it in Standard with a Dominaria-brewfest and now, I’m afraid to say, with Kaya. I even tried a mono-Legendary toolbox Time of Need deck that chained Legends off Reki, the History of Kamigawa—the less said about that one, the better. I built a Standard-legal Legendary reanimation deck around Lazav and Primevals’ Glorious Rebirth. In a half a dozen decks each time I draw it, it seems to whisper: “Boy, wouldn’t you rather I was Llanowar Elves or even Chromatic Lantern?”
And that’s the thing. What are you going to do with the Mox’s mana? It ramps you by a turn, sure; but what would make it better than, say, Rampant Growth or Growth Spiral? Unless you’re exploiting its Legendary status or artifact type—like Mox Opal does in Modern—then you’re just playing a finicky land. Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond offer explosive starts; they have that in common with the original Moxen. Mox Opal lets you cast Cranial Plating and power it up; it plays double duty and can be sacrifice fodder once you’ve played out your hand. Mox Amber, though, is all drawback—for now.
As the game grows, there may come a point when Mox Amber finally has a critical mass of one- and two-drop Legends; but that time is far in the future, as it should be. Amber is only precious because it’s ancient. It has no intrinsic value or function, unlike gold or diamonds, and that’s why the design of Mox Amber is precious. You don’t use it. You bury it until the future arrives, until enough time has passed, and enough heroes are around to make it worthwhile.
All of which is to say: good luck breaking Mox Amber. It’s about as likely as drawing replicable dinosaur DNA out of trapped bugs. Still, I respect that mission. Here’s the list I found that was closest to playable without needing the Mox to function:
I Need a Hero
| Creatures (19) 3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 3 Baral, Chief of Compliance 2 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant 4 Vendilion Clique Spells (18) 4 Mox Amber 4 Thorn of Amethyst 4 Remand 4 Absorb 2 Karn, Scion of Urza | Lands (23) 4 Flooded Strand 2 Polluted Delta 4 Hallowed Fountain 4 Mystic Gate 6 Island 3 Plains |
Perhaps the day will come when we can do more with Mox Amber. Watch for heroes.
A lifelong resident of the Carolinas and a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Rob has played Magic since he picked a Darkling Stalker up off the soccer field at summer camp. He works for nonprofits as an educational strategies developer and, in his off-hours, enjoys writing fiction, playing games, and exploring new beers.