Magic The Gathering

Invasion common. Thanks to Grizzly Bears, Balduvian Bears, Bear Cub, and Forest Bear, vanilla 2/2s are often referred to as Bears. This “Bear” not only had a mechanically relevant creature type, it also helped fix mana in the multicolor Invasion environment. It’s one of many cards that come up in a Gatherer search for “Elf”.

Judgment rare. This card has loads of top-down flavor: the cleric exorcizes the essence of the dead, and the dead souls battle the Exorcist as he destroys them. If he tries to exorcize a dead Tombstalker, the demon is likely to take the Exorcist down with it! With Odyssey block’s threshold mechanic, this ability could always be put to good use.

Guildpact uncommon. All haunt creatures boast comes-into-play effects, with this haunt flier creating creature tokens when it comes into play. To underline its allegiance to the Orzhov syndicate, this white creature actually creature black flying tokens. What concept best matches a white flier that creates black fliers? The spirit of a church belfry, and the bats who live there.

Coldsnap uncommon. Boreal Shelf and its brethren (Frost Marsh, Tresserhorn Sinks, Highland Weald, and Arctic Flats) are snowy updates of the Invasion tap duals (Coastal Tower, Salt Marsh, Urborg Volcano, Shivan Oasis, and Elfhame Palace). Though they have an occasional drawback in your opponent’s Zombie Musher or Ronom Serpent, their upsides are substantial???search them out with Into the North, tap them to pay for Mouth of Ronom’s activation cost, or turn them into 2/2 flyers with Balduvian Frostwaker.

Classic Sixth Edition rare. Inferno, like many cards from Ice Age block, boasts a quote from Jaya Ballard, Task Mage. But wait???Inferno wasn’t printed in Ice Age Block; it’s originally from The Dark, with flavor text attributed to Mairsil the Pretender. Core set flavor text writers have a (mostly) unique chance to write new flavor text relating to characters and situations from the past (although Time Spiral and Planar Chaos let them stretch those muscles as well), and that’s exactly what one writer did here, providing a quote that brings something new to the table while staying true to the personality established in Ice Age Block.

Legends common. Early Magic cards were generally designed with duels in mind, with their templates sometimes getting a little vague on the subject of whether they affected every opponent in a multiplayer game or just one. Syphon Soul, on the other hand, could hardly be clearer, and has served as the inspiration for such multiplayer love-’em-or-hate-’ems as Agent of Masks, Syphon Mind, and Kokusho, the Evening Star.

Mercadian Masques common. Cloud Sprite is one of a number of creatures that have flying but can only block creatures that also have flying, a combination of abilities sometimes known as “high flying.” Cloud Sprite itself continued in Masques a tradition of such creatures being blue that goes back to Cloud Elemental in Visions, but the very next set, Nemesis, would see the ability depart into black (on Belbe’s Percher and Battlefield Percher), a riff on black’s “can’t block” drawback that hasn’t been repeated since.

Invasion common. Many different Magic cards have been reprinted outside their original contexts, and it’s always interesting to see how they shift in value. Terror was worse when it was reprinted in Mirrodin than ever before (though still quite good), whereas Shatter, also in Mirrodin, was better than ever. When Harrow was originally printed in Tempest, tempo was key and playing multicolor was hard, so the card was solid but unexciting. In the five-color world of Invasion Block, however, Harrow was a vital role-player, finding your third and fourth colors (or maybe fourth and fifth), enabling that greedy splash, and cranking up “domain” spells like Tribal Flames.

Ice Age common. Incinerate was originally made as a Lightning Bolt variant, not a replacement, costing more but adding an upside. Later proving to be fairer than its one-mana uncle, it replaced Lightning Bolt in the core set starting with Fifth Edition, but was itself soon replaced by Shock and Lightning Blast???and eventually the inferior Volcanic Hammer. Tenth Edition marks Incinerate???s return to the core set, proving that???unlike Lightning Bolt???it is considered fair after all.

Alliances rare. Dystopia was the first black card that could kill White Knight, and there was much discussion over whether this was good for the game. White could kill Black Knight with Wrath of God (from Beta onward, anyway), but it was felt that one of black???s weaknesses ought to be an inability to remove creatures with protection from black. As time went by, of course, Dystopia did not prove to be too powerful, and black has continued to receive a string of answers to White Knight, from Urborg Justice to Cruel Edict to the timeshifted Wrath itself, Damnation.