jackofallgeeks | The Day Of Judgement Has Come

Technically, I've been playing Magic: The Gathering for about half my life, I think. I started in '95, that's almost 8yrs ago, it's a rough enough estimate.

In my time, I have seen many expansion sets. I claim to have started with Fourth Edition (and if you want to get REAL technical, the first cards I ever started messing around with WERE 4th Edition, before anything else came out), but for all intents and purposes, I started PLAYING with Ice Age. It was a fine time in the history of Magic - I would almost say it was one of my favorite sets (and at least it gets an Honorable Mention).

I've seen alot of sets come and go. After Ice Age, the first Stand Alone Expantion came Homeslands and Alliances - though I'm honestly not sure of the order. Homelands was at best an underestimated set, at worst a weak set, though Ihsan's Shade remains one of my favorite Legends, mostly due to his amazing depth of character. Alliances was a good set which was generally the first set to really encourage multi-colored decks (I think Ice Age started that trend, actually - what with the Shambling Strider and Krovikan Sorceror). Alliances was notable as well because it brought back Homarids, our old friends from Fallen Empires.

After Alliances, I believe came Mirage, a joy of mine due to Phasing. Mirage was followed by Visions, which I always took as a Mini-Mirage (heh heh, that's almost funny) because it didn't really present anything new. Then came Weatherlight, and the introduction of a story, pulling Sisay out of earlier flavor texts. I think Weatherlight was a very nice set, which gave a decent kind of overview to Dominiaria, but I generally think the story was a mistake (not wholly, though - the novels suck, but the story itself is decent, and it made the legends believable - I'd rather have Miri over Lady Orca, though I still think Ihsan beats them both).

Tempest started the story in truth. It also introduced a black companion to Ihsan - Commander Greven il-Vec, a truely impressive dark figure. From Tempest we move to Stronghold (a decent set, I think) and onto Exodus - the whole Tempest Block being most notable, I think, for it's Legends and it's Slivers (oh, and the Licids - love those little symbiotes).

Somehow, I think the continuity got broken here, as we jump to the Urza's Block, the whole thing of which I think was an expanded form of Antiquities, only because the two both center (mainly) on Urza and Mishra (more so Urza in the Block, duh). Starting with Urza's Sage we flow through Urza's Legacy abd Urza's Destiny. I don't have much to say on this Block because it was durring this time that I fell out of Magic (*gasp* Yes, the rumors are true). I rewgret it because the Urza's Block, I'm told, was on of the most powerful cycles, and from the cards I've seen, I believe it. The sets, though, were so powerful they threatened time and again to destroy the Tournament enviroment. It would have been an interesting time.

We finally get 'back' to the story with Mercadian Masques, arguably one of the weakest sets in all of Magic history. It wasn't so bad, but things seemed over-costed and under-powered, though they did introduce Rebels and Mercenaries, the first of which have a mechanic that builds it's own deck. Nemesis came next, my favorite set before the Odyssey Block, though not as violently so. Singlely, I think Fading was the greatest part of Nemesis, and that's what caught me so. Fading, by the way, works wonderfully in a Black Recursion deck...especially if you splash Green and throw some Skyshroud Ridgebacks or a Skyshroud Behemoth into the fray. Mmmm...

Anyways, Nemesis also had the most interesting un-used Legend - Belbe. Sadly, the girl died (twice, infact) in Nemesis, and so we'll never see her, but the potential she had as a character - almost single-handedly she redeemed the Nemesis Novel (if I do still have a few gripes). From there we move onto Prophesy, which has the powerful but oft-overlooked mechanic of self-mutilation - er, I mean, sacrifincg your lands for potent effects. Prophesy was also a rather weak, over-costed, under-powered set, but it too had playable cards in it (along with Rhystic Magic. MmmmmRhystic...).

Now we begin,. slowly, to come to the present. After Prophesy came Invasion, which I thought was a very nice set, especially after the general weakness of the last Block. Invasion more than any other set before it encouraged multicolored decks - and not just two or the occational splash of a third color, but all out three-, four-, and five-color decks. A five-color deck was nigh-unheard of, though the Slivers had had their day. After it, Planeshift, and the storyline Phyrexian Overlay, came. Planeshift was big on odd color combinations, and introduced Gating creatures. Finally came Appocalypse, the end of the story-arc - and the world, it seems. The story failed me by having Multiple Planeswalkers band together, which I could never really see happening, though the fight between Urza and Gerrard has potential.... The set hoewever was quite nice, simply going insane with off-color combinations like Green/Blue or Red/White or (my personal favorite) Green/Black. It also had some amazingly powerful cards, all Gold, of course.

With the death of the story came...another story. Odyssey is supposed to take place on Dominiaria some hundreds of years after the Phyrexian Invasion. On the plus side, the continuity was held by generally killing off the major Pre-Appocalyptic races - Elves, Merfolk, Goblins - and the insitution of new (and old?) races in the forefront - Druids, Centaurs, Dwarves, Cephalids. Cephalids? Yes, our calamari-like friends in the sea, though I fear they may go the way of the Homarid. I like that bunch, even if they are a bunch of backstabbing invertabrates.

What really grabs me withOdyssey is Threshold. Flashback is nice in that it genewrally doubles your card base, but if I can get cheap creatures with nice effects when I get stuff in my graveyard, I like it. Threshold just makes me happy. Torment, though, is my favorite set so far, I think. Given that Madness is a wonderful mechanic, and Nightmares just make me joyous, it's a Black Set, and you must all know my personal Color Alliegence by now.

And soon (this fall) Judgement will be upon us. In my time I have seen the advent of nearly four Editions and a total of 20 expantions. in that post I told you not to read yet is a little jewel I found. You might want to check it out.