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43-495: The setting for Mirrodin is a plane by the same name. An artificial world created by the planeswalker Karn , originally named Argentum, and named after the Mirari by Memnarch, Mirrodin's environments and inhabitants mix organic and metallic. Mirrodin is orbited by four satellites, which are called suns and moons interchangeably, that correspond to red, black, white and blue magic. Green was notably absent until Glissa Sunseeker became

86-441: A close friend Chainer, a cabalist, and a cool-headed sister Jeska. The antagonist is Laquatus, a sly merfolk who uses trickery and mind control to bend others to his will. Other characters include the cephalid emperor Aboshan, Kamahl's centaur friend Seton, Kamahl and Jeska's dwarven trainer Balthor, the militaristic Kirtar, the mellow but dangerous Cabal Patriarch (The First), and the unpredictable sociopath Braids. Almost everyone in

129-463: A conduit for its birth. The set focuses on five main regions on Mirrodin, each corresponding to a part of the Magic color pie: The main character of the story is the elf Glissa Sunseeker, who visits all these places, guided by revenge against the machines that killed her family. The story is captured in the novel The Moons of Mirrodin by Will McDermott. Magic returned to the setting of Mirrodin with

172-518: A designer, as it was the set in which he made his biggest mistakes. Rosewater went into the Odyssey design deciding he wanted to challenge notions of card advantage . Looking back on this he states that he was doing this for himself at the expense of the audience at large. Other design mistakes highlighted by Rosewater included the Threshold mechanic. The mechanic forced players to keep track of

215-463: A gothic horror theme. The Flashback mechanic would also return in Innistrad. Notable cards from Odyssey include Entomb , Nimble Mongoose , Psychatog , Shadowmage Infiltrator and Standstill . Notable cards from Judgment include * Burning Wish and Cabal Therapy Psychatog is a blue-black Magic: The Gathering creature card printed at the "uncommon" level of rarity in

258-403: A large enough deck, the number of cards removed was increased to 10, but even this was felt to be too powerful — Battle of Wits , a card that wins the game for players with more than 200 cards in their library, was being planned for the same set, giving players more incentive to use unusually large decks. Eventually the "library-eating" ability was replaced with its current discard ability. With

301-542: A modified version of Necratog's ability to "eat" cards in the graveyard, but it was felt that Chronatog's ability, which involves skipping turns, should not be continued in Psychatog. It was initially replaced with an ability that required removing 7 cards from the player's library (deck); running out of cards means losing the game, placing a limit on how many times this ability could be used. After developer William Jockusch showed that this could be circumvented simply by using

344-411: A showdown. Upon victory, Kamahl slams his sword into the ground, granting his wish and bringing life and growth to the surrounding environment (Mirari's Wake), though he unfortunately cannot cure his dying sister's wound. Odyssey ' s main theme is the graveyard. All the colors interact with the graveyard and use it as a resource, though green and black are the strongest graveyard colors. Previously,

387-479: A single color. It has 40 Black cards, 28 Blue cards, 28 Red cards, 21 Green Cards and 21 White cards. This imbalance is, however, balanced by the release of the third expansion set in the Odyssey Block, Judgment . Torment' s release marked a tremendous power boost to the color black. The "Swamp Rewards" cards along with Chainer's Edict and Nantuko Shade were incredibly potent in tournament play, spawning

430-434: A staple of Magic , represented weapons, clothing and armor that could be wielded or worn by creatures. Equipment functions like the older "Enchant Creature" cards (now called Auras) in that they provide some effect while attached to the creature. Unlike Auras, however, Equipment can only be attached to creatures you control in most cases, and remain in play even if the creature they were attached to leaves play. Affinity reduces

473-444: Is a Magic: The Gathering expert-level block. It consists of a trio of expansion sets : Odyssey (September, 2001), Torment (February, 2002) and Judgment (May, 2002). The storyline of Odyssey leaps forward 100 years after the events in the set Apocalypse on the remote continent Otaria . Odyssey ' s protagonist is Kamahl, a formidable fighter-mage skilled in both throwing fireballs and melee combat. Kamahl has

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516-538: The Onslaught ) . Modular was a keyworded ability of artifact creatures, these creatures would come into play with a set number of counters and, upon the destruction of that creature, could transfer them to another artifact creature. Modular was part of a larger theme of charge counters on artifacts throughout the set. Fifth Dawn introduced the Sunburst and Scry mechanics. Artifacts with Sunburst get +1/+1 counters (if

559-483: The MonoBlack Control archetype (or the more appropriately named Coffers Control ) that could destroy its opponent's creatures, hand, and life total with large Cabal Coffers -fueled spells. Previously, control decks were almost synonymous with blue counter-based control decks, but after Torment it was no longer a fact that a control deck was unviable without countermagic. Relative to other mechanics at

602-577: The Scars of Mirrodin block. The Darksteel Eye is the second novel in the Mirrodin Cycle by Jess Lebow. It continues the journey of Glissa, after the infiltration of the Synod and the recollection of all the golem Bosh's memories. They now must travel back across Mirrodin to seek the power that resides in the center of Mirrodin. The final book in this expansion series is named The Fifth Dawn. In

645-621: The Aven birds of The Order; Blue has the deceitful, octopus-like Cephalids; Black is plagued by the Horrors and Minions of Cabal summoners; Red showcases Dwarves, Firecats, and Barbarians of the Pardic mountains; and Green is rife with Centaurs , Squirrels , and the insect -like Nantuko druids of the Krosan forest. Torment , which focused on black, is unique in that it is the first set to focus on

688-497: The Equipment, Affinity, Imprint and Entwine mechanics, and introduced the indestructible and modular keywords. Something that is or has indestructible can't be destroyed by damage or "destroy effects". In Darksteel , indestructible cards (all of which were artifacts) are made of the titular metal, though other things have been deemed indestructible when it became a common mechanic in later sets (similar to Double Strike, introduced in

731-649: The Mirari, currently fixed to the pommel of Kamahl's sword. Meanwhile, Laquatus schemes as much as ever to persuade Empress Llawan to aid him in finding the Mirari. Along with his bodyguard Burke (Laquatus' Champion), the ever-demented Braids, and Commander Eesha of the Aven, each plays a part in the war over the Mirari. Kamahl trains with the Nantuko Thriss in Krosa in Druidic magic and ultimately confronts Laquatus in

774-399: The Odyssey expansion set in 2001. Its abilities, which allow the player to strengthen it by discarding cards or removing cards in the graveyard (discard pile) from the game, resulted in Psychatog being labeled "broken" (overpowered) by players; in an online poll conducted in 2002 at Magicthegathering.com, 35.9% of respondents said they believed that printing Psychatog had been a mistake. Six of

817-449: The Sunburst mechanic (see below). Fifth Dawn introduced an enhanced design for artifact cards, which uses a darker inner border to help players distinguish artifacts from white cards. Fifth Dawn theme decks contained a few reprints from Mirrodin and Darksteel with the improved card face. Mirrodin introduced a number of new mechanics, including Equipment, Affinity, Imprint and Entwine. The artifact subtype Equipment, which has become

860-520: The Tangle, destroying everything in its way. Finally, at the Radix, Glissa's destiny becomes clear. As rage and despair overcome her, Glissa's body calls forth a great column of green mana from Mirrodin's core, annihilating the avatar in the process. Now that mana hangs overhead in a glowing sphere—the green sun at last, Mirrodin's fifth dawn. Mirrodin is notable for being the first expansion set to feature

903-545: The card from the game. The other is the ability word threshold, which, when printed on spells and creatures, rewards players for having seven or more cards in the graveyard. Torment continued the Flashback and Threshold mechanics began in Odyssey and introduced Madness. When a card with Madness is discarded, it can usually be played at a reduced cost. Torment sports 10 Madness cards, a common and an uncommon for each of

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946-522: The card is a creature) or charge counters (if noncreature) for each color of mana used to pay the artifact's mana cost. "Scry X" means "Look at the top X cards of your library. Put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order." X was always 2 in Fifth Dawn, but other numbers were introduced when Scry was reprised for subsequent sets. One notable cycle in Mirrodin

989-479: The creative team. Rosewater recalls talking with Brady Dommermuth, an editor for the game at the time, who suggested that a gothic horror theme would have better suited the set's design. Rosewater would later become the head designer of Magic and Dommermuth the creative director. This would lead to the Innistrad set, released in 2011, that returned to the graveyard themes explored in Odyssey but this time with

1032-430: The exception of Legions which had 145 as a balance among the five colors.) The name Fifth Dawn is derived from the plane's five suns. Each sun is associated with a color of mana and the green sun, which has long been absent, returns to the sky as part of this set's storyline. Fifth Dawn adds a new twist to artifact theme of Mirrodin and Darksteel : it encourages using colored mana for playing artifact spells, via

1075-429: The five colors. The "black corruption" theme of Torment spreads beyond sheer numbers of cards. There are a number of other cards that focus on black or swamps, including cards that reward players for controlling swamps, "tainted" lands, flashbacks that required loss of life, nightmares and possessed creatures. Judgment continues Odyssey's Flashback, Threshold and Punisher mechanics and Torment's Nightmare creatures in

1118-402: The form of Wormfangs and Gorgers. It also contains a cycle of wishes that allow you to search for cards from outside the game, and a cycle of incarnation creatures that granted abilities to creatures in play as long as they were in the graveyard. Odyssey was a poorly received set. Mark Rosewater , the lead designer for Odyssey, claimed that the set was the one from which he learnt the most as

1161-517: The graveyard for its Flashback cost and would be removed from the game once it resolved. This essentially allowed you to play the same spell twice. The most notable card among these was Call of the Herd which was later reprinted as one of the Time Spiral 'Timeshifted' cards. Many of Magic's marquee races like Elves and Goblins are completely absent from Otaria. White is represented by Nomads and

1204-447: The graveyard rarely affected gameplay, but Odyssey ' s cards forced players to constantly keep track of both graveyards at all times. Odyssey' s secondary theme is token creatures. Throughout the Odyssey block, all the colors receive more token creatures than usual, and green's token generating spells are some of the most powerful tokens generators in Magic history. This was because if spells had Flashback they could be played from

1247-598: The method of devoting sideboard space for combo pieces and silver bullets. In essence, this made the maindeck stronger but the smaller sideboard made postboard games weaker. Burning Wish received DCI attention after it was showcased in an absurdly powerful Vintage deck called "Long.dec" where multiple Burning Wishes were used to abuse a single Yawgmoth's Will in the sideboard, the deck would then traditionally win using Tendrils of Agony (which could also be searched up using Burning Wish). This tournament-legal combo deck boasted an incredible 60% 1st Turn Kill rate, making it one of

1290-573: The most powerful Magic decks ever. Burning Wish was thus restricted in Vintage by the DCI on December 1, 2003, making it a good candidate for the most powerful card in Judgment . Odyssey introduced two graveyard-centered mechanics. One was flashback. Spells with flashback can be played again from the graveyard, essentially getting a second use out of the spell. However, using a Flashback ability removes

1333-491: The new card frame, mana symbols in the text box of Mirrodin cards are greyed out instead of being in color. Beginning with Mirrodin Wizards reduced the size of their large expansion sets from 350 to 306 cards. This was due to regular complaints, that Wizards was producing too many cards and players could not keep up. Beginning with Darksteel Wizards also increased the size of small expansion sets from 143 to 165 cards. Thus

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1376-634: The new card front design (which debuted in 8th Edition ). The high number of artifacts in Mirrodin highlighted the inherent flaw of the new border design — artifact cards, which were now bordered in a very light grey instead of brown, were very hard to distinguish from white cards. The problem prompted Wizards of the Coast to change the bordering background of artifact cards to a much darker grey in Fifth Dawn . Also due to complications when switching to

1419-421: The number of cards in their opponent's graveyard and which cards could put cards into the graveyard. It was found that this was largely not enjoyable for players. Another problem with Odyssey that Rosewater has discussed is that the storyline and flavor of the set did not match its graveyard-focused mechanics. He explains that this was because there used to be little interaction between the development team and

1462-421: The number of cards released each year would stay the same, but then Magic developer Randy Buehler explained that Wizards believed this change would make it easier for collectors and players to keep up with the number of new cards as these would be released more homogeneously over the course of the year. Darksteel was the first "small" expansion to have 165 cards, whereas previous small expansions had 143, (with

1505-505: The player-perceived criticism that "R&D is making our decks for us." This is the second expansion set made that did not have an equal number cards from each color. The first expansion with such an imbalance was its predecessor, the Torment expansion set, which was skewed towards the color black. The Judgment expansion set was meant to balance this, and skews towards green and white, black's enemy colors. The expansion symbol for Judgment

1548-491: The story is after the Mirari , a legendary artifact of immense power with the ability to make its wielder's innermost wishes come true. The Mirari is relatively small, resembling a metallic ball mounted on a wiry helix. The Mirari notoriously drives its wielder insane, often causing death and massive destruction, wherein it awaits a new master. The Magic: The Gathering Creative Team began a new approach to Magic's storyline starting with Odyssey . Changes include: Torment tells

1591-518: The story of Chainer , a Dementia Summoner of the Cabal, who first discovers the Mirari and rises through the ranks of the Cabal, eventually becoming rival to the Cabal Patriarch himself. Having mortally wounded his sister, Jeska, with his own sword, Kamahl leaves her to the care of his centaur friend, Seton, and sets out on a quest to find a way to heal her. Her wound festers from the might of

1634-520: The story, Glissa, Bosh, and Slobad journey deep within Mirrodin's core to confront the insidious Memnarch. With them is the Kaldra avatar—an immensely powerful being of energy summoned when Kaldra's sword, shield, and helm were brought together. But what was supposed to be the world's salvation turns out to be a vile trick. With a single spell, Memnarch seizes the avatar and turns it on Glissa and her companions. Kaldra's avatar relentlessly pursues Glissa into

1677-634: The time, Torment' s Madness mechanic proved to be overpowered, most notably on Circular Logic, Basking Rootwalla, and Arrogant Wurm. This gave rise to U/G Madness (pronounced "Blue-Green Madness"), an Aggro-Control archetype fundamentally built on Wild Mongrel and Aquamoeba as discard outlets to utilize the Madness, Flashback, and Threshold mechanics of Odyssey Block. U/G Madness is notable for being format-dominating, inexpensive to build, easy to play, and almost exclusively utilizing Odyssey Block cards. U/G Madness and Coffers Control are good examples of

1720-429: The top eight players at the 2002 World Championship used Psychatog-based decks, including the winner, Carlos Romão . It is one of a cycle of multicolored Atogs. The multi-colored atogs in Odyssey were intended as hybrids of the earlier, single-color atogs. Psychatog is a hybrid of the black Necratog (from Weatherlight ) and the blue Chronatog (from Visions ), and this is reflected in the card's art. Psychatog has

1763-573: The total cost of the spell by the number of permanents in play of a certain type, which in the case of Mirrodin was always artifacts or basic land types. Entwine was an optional cost on modal instants and sorceries, which allows a player to choose all effects (rather than only one) if the Entwine cost was paid. The Imprint keyword allowed an artifact to gain additional effects if another card is exiled and imprinted on that artifact. Mirrodin also had an infamous cycle of artifact lands. Darksteel continued

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1806-490: Was a scale. The set contains 33 Green cards, 33 White cards, 27 Red cards, 27 Blue cards and 16 Black cards. All multicolored cards in the set are both green and white. With the release of Judgment , the Wishes (specifically Burning Wish , Cunning Wish , and Living Wish ) offered a radical new approach to deckbuilding in tournament play. Control decks and Combo decks across multiple formats revolutionized themselves with

1849-945: Was the cycle of artifact lands ( Ancient Den , Seat of the Synod , Vault of Whispers , Great Furnace and Tree of Tales ). These enhanced the power of cards with the "Affinity" mechanic by increasing the number of artifacts in play while still being considered lands. Due to abuse, they are banned or restricted in some formats. Other notable cards include Chalice of the Void and Chrome Mox . Notable cards in Darksteel include Æther Vial , Arcbound Ravager , Darksteel Citadel , Darksteel Reactor , Death Cloud , Skullclamp , Sword of Fire and Ice , Sword of Light and Shadow and Trinisphere . Notable cards in Fifth Dawn include Crucible of Worlds , Engineered Explosives , Serum Visions and Vedalken Shackles . Mirari The Odyssey

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