Weatherlight came out in 1997 and kicked off the famous Weatherlight Saga—which has been compared to the more recent, more infamous Gatewatch, um...not-Saga? The set had three mechanics—flanking, phasing, and cumulative upkeep; while the Saga featured such famous characters as Squee, Gerrard, Captain Sisay, Hana, Mirri, and others. Flanking saw print again with last year's . Phasing […]

We already covered Mercadian Masques back in February. Today we're going to dig back in time to cover the second set in the Mercadian Masques block—Nemesis. Nemesis came out in 2000, and brought back Spellshapers, alternative casting costs, Mercenaries and Rebels from the previous set. Mercenaries and Rebels are still too parasitic to be very interesting, but the […]

Did you know that Magic is 25 years old? You probably did. But are you familiar with very many cards more than a decade old? Maybe you aren't. Today I'm going to reacquaint you with a set 20 years in Magic's past: Visions! Visions is a small set from Mirage block that used the mechanics phasing, flanking, and cumulative upkeep. But […]

Maybe you've noticed a theme in my last two columns. First we did Future Sight. Then we visited Planar Chaos. Hm, is this a pattern? Yes, we've been doing Time Spiral block in reverse, and that means that today we're going to the past to visit the set that kicked off this crazy block. In addition to bringing […]

This week on Dig Through Time we're going to visit the alternate present of 2007 with Planar Chaos. Like the rest of Time Spiral block, this set explored the "crust" of the color pie, mining for effects that bordered on allowable in each color at the time. They weren't just pushing boundaries, though. Some of the experimentation was […]

Welcome to the first edition of Fresh Meat! You may read my bi-weekly series Dig Through Time where I review old sets of Magic and pull out underplayed gems. This series is going to be more infrequent. Whenever a new set comes out I'll select an interesting new legend and walk you through some of the […]

Up until today's article Dig Through Time has only examined sets from Magic's past. Today I want to go to the future. That's right, I could no longer stop myself. It's finally time to talk about Future Sight! I remember cracking packs of this set back in 2007 when I was in college. I was super duper […]

This week in Dig Through Time: Alara Reborn! This set ties up the preceding Shards of Alara and Conflux sets in the Alara block. In order to represent the reunification of the five shards of the shattered plane, Alara Reborn is comprised entirely of multicolor cards. This is the first and only set to do this ever. The set […]

In this week's Dig Through Time, let's examine a block from very early on in Magic's history, Tempest block. Tempest came out from 1997-1998, and is comprised of Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus. For all of you Vorthos out there, this block is set on the plane of Rath, which has since become fused with Dominaria. Magic's early blocks […]

Welcome back to another installment of Dig Through Time. Today we're going back to my college days when Shadowmoor and Eventide were first released. These two sets are a little bit quirky, a little bit creepy, super unusual, and are among my absolute favorites. This block is unique for a number of reasons. First, it […]