Portal Second Age

Portal Second Age is the name of the second Magic: The Gathering starter level set which came out on June 24, 1998^[1]. The set contains 165 cards in all languages except Portuguese, which contained 49 cards.

Set history

Due to the complexity of Magic, especially for new players, in 1998, a second set of cards targeted to appeal to beginners was released. Christened, Portal Second Age, the set continued with the similar concepts of Portal, but reduced the set size and presented the game up in a more straightforward fashion by limiting the number of game mechanics and eliminating ambiguous language.

As of October 20, 2005, all cards in Portal Second Age are legal in Vintage and Legacy tournaments.

Mechanics

No new mechanics were introduced with Portal Second Age. There were several "simplifications" made to the game through things left out of the set.

• Instants -- Instants did not exist within the set. Instead, every "one-shot" spell was a sorcery; however, some sorceries could be played at particular times uncommon to sorceries but normal for instants. Most of these cards have since received errata making them Instants. For example, the card Deep Wood has the following text: Play Deep Wood only when you're attacked, before you declare blockers.
• Rules Text -- All rules text was in boldface. All flavor text and reminder (italicized) text was not boldface. To separate rules text and flavor text, the cards utilized a line with a slight bulge on both top and bottom; this makes the line look like a very elongated diamond.

Also, Portal Second Age had two changes from Portal, in an effort to smooth the transition to more advanced sets:

• Creature Types -- Portal Second Age cards had creature types, and were the first to word them as "Creature -- type" that was adopted with 6th Edition.
• Wording Changes -- In Second Age, "block" remained as it was, replacing "intercept" from Portal. Similarly, "graveyard" re-replaced "discard pile", and "library" re-replaced "deck".

References

1. ^ Wizards of the Coast (1998-06-25). "Portal Second Age Spoiler Cardlist". http://www.wizards.com/magic/generic/cardlists/Portal_Second_Age.txt. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 

External links

• Wizards' official page on Portal and Portal Second Age