• Lion's Eye Diamond (Original Art)
  • Lion's Eye Diamond (Original Art)
  • Lion's Eye Diamond (Original Art)

    Lion's Eye Diamond (Original Art)

    Artist
    Margaret Organ-Kean
    Year
    1996
    Medium
    Watercolors
    Set/Console Name
    Mirage
    Console/Game
    Magic the Gathering
    C.O.A.
    painted
    Painted A.P.
    yes
    Substrate Material
    Arches Watercolor Paper
    Substrate Dimensions
    10 7/16"H x 13 1/4" W
    Image Area Dimensions
    9 7/16"H x 11 3/8" W
    Frame Dimensions
    Unframed
    Handmade Protective Case
    YES
    Reserved List
    Yes

    Lion’s Eye Diamond (LED) is a zero-mana cost artifact from Mirage (1996). You can add three mana of any one color to your mana pool by discarding your hand and sacrificing LED. When Lion’s Eye Diamond was printed, it was originally viewed as a “bad Black Lotus”. It mirrored Lotus’s explosive mana ability but added a steep drawback since you had to discard your entire hand to use it. Early players dismissed it as nearly unplayable, since casting spells after discarding seemed impossible. But as the game evolved – and mechanics like Madness, Flashback, Threshold, and Storm were introduced – LED transformed from a “junk rare” into one of the most powerful combo enablers in Magic’s history. Lion’s Eye Diamond is a centerpiece of Legacy combo decks. It’s played in Legacy Storm decks like ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) and TES (The Epic Storm). In these decks LED acts as a Black Lotus substitute – generating three mana after the player casts a tutor or recursion spell (e.g. Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Past in Flames, Gaea’s Will). It’s synergy with Infernal Tutor and/or Burning Wish can enable some explosive T1-2 kills by producing a lot of mana in combination with other fast mana acceleration like Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal. Infernal Tutor + LED is a core combo in these decks (e.g. cast Infernal Tutor, hold priority, crack LED for BBB, discard hand, then tutor for Ad Nauseam or Tendrils of Agony). Lion’s Eye Diamond is also featured in other popular combo variants like Doomsday (Thassa’s Oracle wincon) and Black Saga Storm. Another Legacy archetype where LED is played is in Dredge. In these decks it provides mana and discards your entire hand, which is a feature, not a drawback. LED enables some explosive openings with Faithless Looting, Breakthrough and Dredge cards such as Golgari Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp. Lion’s Eye Diamond is also seen in some Vintage combo decks (e.g. Landless Spy, Underworld Breach, Belcher, and Storm). In cEDH decks, LED is used in Underworld Breach combos (e.g. Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze infinite loops), Ad Nauseam Storm decks, and Tivit, Seller of Secrets builds. Lion’s Eye Diamond is on the Reserved List, it will never be reprinted in paper.
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