Friday, January 12, 2024

Putting Magic Flavor on the Table; Antiquities

 Antiquities is the second Magic: The Gathering expansion and was released on March 4, 1994. It is not part of any Block. The set was constructed around an artifact theme and told the story of the Brothers' War between Mishra and Urza.

Storyline

Ancient artifacts of the Thran Empire are discovered on the continent of Terisiare, including many advanced machines of war. Two brothers, Urza and Mishra, discover a stone in the Caves of Koilos; when they disturb it, it splits in two—Mightstone and Weakstone—unleashing the evil of Phyrexia on Dominaria. The ancient machines of the Thran are employed in battle once again as the Brothers' War takes place, an epic war between Urza and Mishra for control of both halves of the stone. The war culminates in the Sylex Blast, plunging the world into the Ice Age.

Themes and mechanics

Creature types

About half of the creature types used in Antiquities were new, and many of the creatures in this expansion are artifact creatures. Originally, artifact creatures were printed without any creature type, except in special cases (Wall of Spears "counts as a wall," for example). This resulted in the overall limited use of creature types in this expansion. Additionally, with the printing of Antiquities, Magic had exactly 100 creature types.


The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Archaeologist (later changed to Artificer), Atog, Druid, Gaea's Avenger (later changed to Treefolk), Gremlin (later changed to Ouphe then changed back to Gremlin), Poltergeist (later changed to Spirit), and Sage (later changed to Artificer).


The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Bodyguard (later changed to Human), Cleric, Demon, Dwarf, Faerie, Goblin, Orc, Smith (later changed to Human), Treefolk, and Wall. The creature types in Antiquities brought the total number in Magic at the time to exactly 100.

Counter types

Doom counters were introduced as a counter type in the set via errata.

Card Conversions

Card

Type

Conversion

Element

60

Artifact Creature

Ornithopter

Construct 0

79

Artifact Creature- Soldier

Manacore Soldier

Officer 2


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