Arabian Nights (Magic: The Gathering)
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| Arabian Nights | ||
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| Release date | December 1993 | |
| Mechanics | Lands with abilities, djinns and efreets, metagame effects, coin-flip effects | |
| Keywords | None new | |
| Size | 92 cards (78 unique: 26 commons, 33 rares, 18 uncommons and 1 basic land) | |
| Expansion code | BTD (AN)
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| Magic: The Gathering Chronology |
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| Unlimited | Arabian Nights | Antiquities |
Arabian Nights was the fourth Magic: The Gathering set and the first expert level expansion set, featuring completely new cards.. Ali Baba, djinns, deserts, and King Suleiman joined the Magic world on the plane of Rabiah with cards inspired by the themes and characters of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights. The expansion symbol for Arabian Nights was a scimitar.
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[edit] Set history
Richard Garfield, Magic creator, acted as the sole designer for the set, and developed it in parallel with other teams working on what would become Ice Age and Mirage. The set received input from Jim Lin, Chris Page, and Dave Pettey as well.[1] At that point in Magic's development, the role of expansions was relatively undefined, and Garfield intended for Arabian Nights cards to bear a purple and gold back[2] that would allow players to exclude Arabian Nights from their games. In his article, The Making of Arabian Nights,[3] Garfield cites this as his inspiration to "be more adventurous in creating mechanics and themes".
Player response against the proposed new back caused Wizards of the Coast to stay with the original backs, allowing cards from various sets to be mixed freely in gameplay. This decision may well have been one of the reasons for Magic's longevity. To replace the new card back, a symbolic scimitar was added between the card artwork and card text, making the first expansion symbol; every expansion set since has displayed a unique one.
As with preceding sets, interesting errors were revealed when the set was released. One of them was the so-called "Arabian Mountain". When the decision was made to have the expansion sets fully playable with the basic set, Wizards of the Coast decided that there was no need to include basic land in the print run, so it was removed. However, the Mountain basic land card accidentally remained. Another error, this time in printing, caused two different styles of generic mana symbols to be printed on some cards. Some copies of these cards feature a regular sized generic mana symbol, other copies have one that is smaller and darker.
[edit] Design
Even when separated from its place as Magic's first expansion, Arabian Nights was a groundbreaking set in terms of its impact on the game. In his article "It Happened One Nights",[4] Mark Rosewater detailed the following innovations or expansions on Alpha mechanics:
- Stealing opponent's card
- Opponent activated abilities
- Lands with abilities
- Coin flips and random resolutions
- Cumulative upkeep
- Cantrips (Cards that replace themselves in a player's hand)
- Life Link
- -1/-1 counters
- Removed from game
- Remove from combat
[edit] Notable cards
- Bazaar of Baghdad: This powerful land card has the ability to both draw and discard cards for free, every turn. Although activating Bazaar results in a net loss of one card, over the years more and more mechanics have been printed to ameliorate, or take advantage of the drawback: Squee, Crucible, Madness, Worldgorger, Welder, Dredge, Uba Mask, etc.
- City of Brass: The first land to provide mana of all colors, it became the benchmark for such lands for a long time to come. After Arabian Nights, it was reprinted in Chronicles and then in the base sets starting from 5th Edition until it was removed in 9th Edition.
- Desert Nomads: The first creature with a non-basic landwalk.
- Juzám Djinn: This was considered for a long time to be one of the best creatures in the game, though it has been out-classed in recent years. It is still the most expensive black card to purchase. On a non-Magic note, Juzám (an affectionate nickname) is a prominent character in many InQuest Gamer comic stories.
- Library of Alexandria: A land that adds one colorless mana or allows a player to draw a card provided he has seven in his hand. This allowed for such degenerate card drawing that it was eventually restricted. It is sometimes viewed as the tenth card in the Power Nine.
- Ring of Ma'rûf: Allows players to fetch cards not in their decks and add them to the game; in effect, it let players ransack their collections to find the right card for the task at hand. It inspired the five Wish cards in Judgment, which had a large impact on competitive play.
- Shahrazad: Possibly the most unusual card ever created, but still fitting with the theme of the set (emulating the "frame story" format of the Arabian Nights tales), Shahrazad caused players to start a second game of Magic "inside" the first, which had to be played to completion before returning to the main game. Due to its weird flavor, a version of Shahrazad called Enter the Dungeon was created for Unhinged.
[edit] References
- ^ Better Late Than Never
- ^ The almost different back
- ^ The Making of Arabian Nights
- ^ It Happened One Nights
