Price of Knowledge - Chalice of the Void

Welcome to Price of Knowledge. In this new series we'll take a look at the history of a single card, showcasing the factors that lead the card to its position today. So without further delay, I present the Price of Knowledge for Chalice of the Void!

 

The Mirrodin set, released in October of 2003, had a heavy emphasis on artifacts, introduced equipment, and brought the new keywords Imprint, Affinity, and Entwine into the game. Tournaments at the time were plagued by wildly disparate power levels during play, with some players in a sealed draft event receiving good but still lackluster cards in comparison to the others who would receive the powerful Affinity cards with tons of other artifacts to make them viable, or the amazing equipment-oriented creatures with large quantities of equipment, or the singularly great cards like Trinisphere, Isochron Scepter, and the infamous Chalice of the Void.

 

As gathered from posts circa 2003 (such as this one), the internet was already abuzz with talk about Chalice of the Void. Wizards had announced that they would be printing cards into Mirrodin that were more designed for Type One (basically Legacy/Modern) than for Standard (then called Type Two), and Chalice was obviously one of them. There was even conversation most notably about it being something so powerful it shouldn’t have been printed. At the time Magic was only ten years old. Chalice became one of the earliest examples of a phrase that is now mentioned too frequently: “power creep.”

Players enjoyed the set of course, with its new mechanics and powerful cards making players rethink their average gameplay ideas, but players of eternal formats were in love with Chalice for its simple yet elegant ability. It can stop one- and two-drops. But its most unique ability is countering zero-drops by paying no mana into it. Mox Jet (IE)? Nope. An Ornithopter (Retro Frame) or two as free blockers? Nada. Black Lotus (IE)? Not gonna happen. Chalice of the Void was blocking players out of their most expensive, and at the same time reliable, eternal format cards and it was driving the fans wild.

At the time Standard was King (Long live the King!) and it saw great play there, with players complaining of broken games and imbalanced gameplay, though Chalice wasn’t the sole target of that claim. It was one of many. The main focus of complaint was the Affinity mechanic and Chalice was simply a nuisance card. But it maintained a modest price of around five dollars due to its ability to stifle cards in Type One gameplay. Then came Worldwake in 2010. Chalice had seen some rises and falls in its middling price in the years between, but Worldwake’s inclusion of low-to-the-ground creatures and spells to pump (Groundswell), ramp (Everflowing Chalice (Surge Foil)), and generate tokens (Gryff's Boon) was enough to make the Modern players cry in frustration, while the more speculative investors cried in happiness because suddenly every player wanted a Chalice. It was a quick and easy answer to those pesky low-cost spells that were really coming out strong in the meta, and those investors had the cards everyone wanted to buy. In Legacy that same year there were hundreds of decks using Chalice, including in the 2016 Swiss Legacy Cup where Loic Favre, Nicolas Perrenoud, and Fathi Ben Aribi all played with copies of it in their mainboards. Players and spectators saw the card’s value, and that acknowledgment showed in its rising price.

 

Chalice has received only a few reprints (Have you SEEN the Masterpiece version?! I need one NOW), and maintained a respectable price tag in spite of its restriction in Vintage back in 2015. Modern players today see it as the go-to sideboard card. You can’t go two whole games without someone “Chaliceing” at one or two, and it’s nerve wracking!

 

These are the cards we dream about pulling from a pack and the ones we showcase either through specialty desktop displays or by dropping it onto the field in a game of Commander or Modern. Cards like Chalice of the Void will always hold a place in our hearts and in our decks, and so we celebrate its kind in this new series. Until next time remember, always keep your hand concealed, never tap down your creatures against Infect, and always ALWAYS remove your proxies before major tournament events. You don’t want to be THAT guy.