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Balance - Sorcery

Fourth Edition · 1995

Market Prices

$2.33median

Priced for the Fourth Edition printing — select another in “Printings & Editions” below to re-price.

Indicative cached prices, not a live quote.

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Legality

PremodernBANNED
Full Scryfall Data
Fourth Edition{1}{W}

Balance

Sorcery

Each player chooses a number of lands they control equal to the number of lands controlled by the player who controls the fewest, then sacrifices the rest. Players discard cards and sacrifice creatures the same way.

Printings & Editions

Premodern-legal editions of Balance — old-border printings plus any period-appropriate foil promos (Arena/Judge, through Scourge). Hover to preview an edition on the card; click to select it.

Old-border editions + pre-Scourge promo foils (Arena/Judge). Modern-frame reprints (8th Edition onward) exist but are not period-appropriate printings.

Why It's Banned

Balance is anything but balanced. For two mana, it can act as a board wipe, a Mind Twist, and a mass land destruction spell all in one. It punishes players for playing the game.

One of the original Power Nine-adjacent cards from Alpha. It has been restricted or banned in almost every format it has ever been legal in.

Banned. Interaction is the core of Premodern, and Balance removes the opponent's ability to interact entirely.

Full ban-list deep dive

Trivia & Lore

  • Balance was restricted in Type 1 (Vintage) on April 19, 1995 (the same announcement also restricted Fork), and it was restricted in Standard the same day. The restriction was notably driven by a metagame deck rather than a new printing: the 'Maysonet Balance Rack' deck that showed the card's full power in spring 1995. Balance remains restricted in Vintage to this day.
  • When Extended became an officially sanctioned format in July 1997, Balance was on its inaugural banned list, alongside cards like Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, Mind Twist, and Zuran Orb. The card was considered too powerful for the brand-new format the moment it launched.
  • Balance was first printed in Limited Edition Alpha (1993) with art by Mark Poole, one of the original Magic artists. Poole still sells signed fine-art prints of his Balance illustration on his personal website, including a limited edition of 25 canvas prints.
  • Despite being a Power Nine-era staple banned or restricted in multiple formats, Balance is NOT on the Reserved List, because it kept appearing in early core sets: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Revised, and Fourth Edition (later also Eternal Masters and others).
  • Balance's Oracle text was changed multiple times; in the 2006 'Power-Level Errata-B-Gone' update, R&D explicitly restored the resolution order to 'lands, cards, creatures' to match the original printed cards, noting the Oracle had at one point scrambled that order.
  • Balance's most infamous combo is with Zuran Orb: cast Balance, then in response sacrifice all your own lands to the Orb for life before it resolves, forcing opponents down to your now-zero lands for a mass land-destruction lock. Land Tax is a classic engine to refill afterward.
  • Tom Chanpheng, a 19-year-old from Brisbane, Australia, won the 1996 World Championship with a White Weenie deck running Balance, sweeping favorite Mark Justice 3-0 in the finals, despite a decklist registration error: he left his Adarkar Wastes off the list and judges made him play basic Plains, leaving his Sleight of Mind dead all event.
  • Chanpheng's 1996 win produced one of Magic's rarest cards: a one-of-a-kind '1996 World Champion' card illustrated by Christopher Rush, after which the printing plates and extra copies were ceremonially destroyed. Chanpheng later sold the single copy to a private collector in 2001 for $17,500.

Critical Rulings

"Balance doesn't have targets, so permanents that can't be targeted, such as a creature with shroud or protection from white, are valid choices to be sacrificed."

— 2016-06-08

"Each type of object is counted during the corresponding part of the process. Cards in hand are counted after lands have been sacrificed, and creatures on the battlefield are counted after cards have been discarded. Thus, a land creature sacrificed to the first part of the spell would not be counted when determining how many creatures are on the battlefield for the last part."

— 2016-06-08

"First the player whose turn it is chooses which lands (if any) to keep, then each other player in turn order does the same. Each player will know the choices made by the players who chose before them. All of the unchosen lands are then sacrificed simultaneously. Then the process is repeated for cards in hand, except that no cards are revealed until all players have chosen what to discard, at which point those cards are all discarded simultaneously. Lastly, the process is repeated for creatures, and players will again know earlier choices made when deciding what to sacrifice. All of the unchosen creatures are then sacrificed simultaneously."

— 2016-06-08

Price History

91d · USD
$2.33▲ 36.3%

Tracks this card’s preferred printing: the old-border edition shown by default (block-expansion printings first, e.g. Urza’s, Tempest, Mirage). It doesn’t re-price when you select a different edition above. Per-edition history is planned.

$2.33$2.02$1.71
03/1804/1705/1806/18

Decks playing Balance (6)

Balance is banned in sanctioned Premodern — these are Unchained and historic (legal-when-played) appearances.