Jeweled Bird

Premodern-legal editions of Jeweled Bird — 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.

Chronicles

1995·chrrare

Selected

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

Jeweled Bird swaps itself into the ante and draws a card, a function built entirely around the outlawed ante mechanic. It is banned in Premodern as a matter of rules, not balance.

A classic ante card from Magic's first years, removed from sanctioned play with the rest of the ante cards.

Trivia & Lore

• Jeweled Bird debuted in Arabian Nights, Magic's very first expansion set (released December 17, 1993, roughly four months after the Alpha base game). It is a {1} artifact whose tap ability antes the Bird itself, then puts all your other cards owned in the ante into your graveyard and draws you a card.
• The card carries different rarities in its two printings: it is an Uncommon (black-bordered) in Arabian Nights (#66) but a Rare (white-bordered) in the 1995 Chronicles reprint (#102), despite reusing the identical Amy Weber artwork.
• Jeweled Bird was caught in Magic's very first banned/restricted list in January 1994, when the DCI banned all ante cards (alongside Shahrazad). This predates named formats - Type 2 (Standard) was not created until January 1995, and the original all-cards pool was only retroactively named Type 1 (now Vintage).
• In the final of the 2001 Magic Invitational (a 5-color, ante-scored format), Kai Budde used Jeweled Bird - a card then worth only about $2 - to swap his ante down below the roughly $3.50 value his opponent Dan Clegg needed to win the match, clinching game 3. Budde's prize for winning was designing his own card, Voidmage Prodigy.
• Jeweled Bird is one of only nine cards ever printed that interact with the ante zone - collectively nicknamed the 'Poker 9' - the others being Contract from Below, Darkpact, Demonic Attorney, Bronze Tablet, Rebirth, Tempest Efreet, Amulet of Quoz and Timmerian Fiends (Homelands, October 1995, the ninth and final ante card ever made).
• Rule 407 (Ante) of the Comprehensive Rules still formally governs Jeweled Bird: cards bearing the 'Remove from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante' text are the only cards permitted to add, remove or change ownership of cards in the ante zone, and ante remains a documented optional variant that is strictly forbidden under tournament rules.
• Per Scryfall's official ruling (dated 2004-10-04), Jeweled Bird is exchanged for your entire contribution to the ante - so if you had already anted multiple cards, the Bird replaces ALL of them, not just one.
• Arabian Nights, Jeweled Bird's home set, contained 78 cards and is the only Magic expansion based directly on a pre-existing literary work - One Thousand and One Nights - reusing real character and story names like Shahrazad and Ali Baba.

Critical Rulings