I hope you enjoy reading this review, as it’s very unlikely any of you will get much closer to this ski. Only 200 will be made in Kästle’s Hohenems factory, which will make this model an extremely rare animal in the U.S. To highlight its exceptionalism, Kästle’s head engineer elected to make the top veneer from a single cherry tree grown in the far western region of Austria where Kästle was founded and the brand re-opened its base of operations last year.

Underneath its seductive top sheet is an MX84 with two sheets of carbon fiber laminates added to its already rich construction. As any ski maker will tell you, carbon is a difference maker, adding damping and strength even when applied in small doses. Inserted in full sheets into an MX84, high-grade carbon introduces the smoothness and quiet of a six-figure sedan.

Readers with a long memory will recall that last season this same ski, sans cherry veneer, was the top-rated ski among our Finesse Favorites. This year, it’s shifted over to the Power column without skipping a beat. In fact, it’s number one in both properties two years running, so whether you consider it the perfect Finesse ski or the ideal Power model, you’ll be right either way.

So what’s the big deal? Part of it is the allure of the unavailable. As a Sport Loft regular sighed, “I’m so happy. I wish I was made of $.” We always overrate what we know we can’t have, right? Maybe it’s the fully cambered, no rocker, no early rise, no crutches-for-the-technically-infirm baseline that devotes its full attention to holding one arc, then another, then another, all in perfect harmony with the terrain, in a string as endless as this sentence. It leaves the skier feeling, as another Sport Loft tester confided, like “I’m the best skier in the world.”

Most of the rapture over the MX Limited is justified. How could it be anything less than immaculate on edge, considering its bloodlines? If it costs more than a share of Berkshire Hathaway stock, so what? The 200 citizens who will end up owning them won’t sweat the knee-buckling tariff. As one of our lovely members reminded me last year during a give-and-take about what ski he should buy, “I don’t need to be buried with my money.”

Good point. It didn’t seem to help the Pharaohs. Instead of erecting an egregious crypt, my metaphysical counsel is to acquire an MX Limited and enjoy this life to the fullest.