The Dark

The Dark

 

Trivia

 

This page is about the expansion set. For the short story, see The Dark (story). For other uses, see The Dark (disambiguation).

The Dark
[[File:{{#setmainimage:TheDark_Logo.jpg}}|250px]]
Set Information
Set symbol
Symbol description	Crescent Moon
Design	Jesper Myrfors Steve Bishop Glenn Elliott Beverly Marshall Saling
Development	Skaff Elias Jim Lin Chris Page Dave Pettey
Art direction	Sandra Everingham
Release date	August 8, 1994
Plane	Dominaria (Terisiare)
Themes and mechanics	Tribal, first mood-based theme, graveyard as resource, exile, poison counters
Set size	119 cards (40 commons, 44 uncommons, 35 rares)
Expansion code	DRK
Early non-block expansions
Legends The Dark Fallen Empires
Magic: The Gathering Chronology
Legends The Dark Fallen Empires

The Dark is the fourth Magic expansion and was released on August 8, 1994. It is not part of any block.

The Dark booster

Set details

The Dark was printed on sheets of 121 cards and contains 119 unique cards. The set's rarity breakdown is: 41 commons (1@C1, 40@C3) and 78 uncommons (35@U1, 43@U2). The C1 card and U2 cards are together considered the uncommons of the set, and the U1 cards are considered the "rares".

The Dark includes a goblin tribal theme, powerful abilities with intense colored mana and upkeep costs, and the return of Poison counters. The expansion symbol of the set is a thin crescent moon to evoke The Dark’s tone. The Dark introduced the first multicolored noncreature card, the first common multicolored card, and the first enemy-pair multicolored card.

Each of the lands in The Dark has a unique dark grey-purple-colored text box, which was reprinted on the Chronicles version of Safe Haven.

Marketing

The Dark was sold in eight-card booster packs which included six commons and two uncommons. Cards were available from mid-August 1994 through mid-November 1994. Wizards announced the print run to be 62 million cards. The Dark was the first Magic expansion that was released in the Italian language (the Italian Legends was released later).

Storyline

The expansion was introduced with a short story describing the ominous and powerful nature of the dark magic from which the set took its name.

In the flavor text of the set's cards, another story was told: The climax of the Brothers' War was the Sylex Blast, which lofted debris into the air blotting out the sun and creating The Dark. Without the sun the climate begins to cool, and an anti-magic religion comes to power, blaming the Sylex blast and its effects on all magic and its users. Persecution of these magic-using wizards led to the creation of the fabled City of Shadows in the east and the Conclave of Mages in the west, where they hid themselves during this time.

Creature types

The Dark greatly expanded the concept of a tribe, or a specific creature type (briefly touched upon in Legends with the kobold creature type). It contains six goblins, a card named Goblin Rock Sled, two creatures with abilities that reference goblins, two Auras that can give a bonus to goblins, and a sorcery to destroy all goblins — Tivadar's Crusade. Despite this creature-type theme, most of the rest of the set used unusual, creature-specific creature types like other early expansions.

The following creature types are introduced in this expansion:

Original summon type	Later creature type
Bandit	Human Rogue
Brother	Human Shaman
Cave People	Human
Exorcist	Human Cleric
Hunter	Human Cleric
Miracle Worker	Human Cleric
Mob	Human
People of the Woods	Human
Pikemen	Human Soldier
Preacher	Human Cleric
Robber	Human Rogue
Scavenger Folk	Scavenger, then Human
Sister	Human Shaman
Squire	Human Soldier
Tracker	Human
Uncle Istvan	Human
Leech	(Unchanged)
Lurker	Beast
Nameless-Race	(No creature type)
Whippoorwill	Bird
Ball Lightning	Elemental
Eel	Fish
Shark	Fish, then back to Shark
Rock Sled	Goblin
Eater	Horror
Rag Man	Minion
General	Orc Warrior
Niall Silvain	Ouphe
Viper	Snake
Banshee	Spirit
Fallen	Zombie
Murk Dwellers	Zombie

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Drake, Elf, Goblin, Hag, Imp, Knight, Leviathan, Merfolk, Monster, Rat, Ship (later changed to Spirit), Slug, Treefolk, Wall, Wizard, Wurm and Zombie.

Cycles

The Dark has no cycles.

The recurring cycle of color hosers is broken. Some green and blue cards support black and red, instead of hosing them. Metaphorically, in the Dark, White was abandoned by its allies Green and Blue.

Color hosers

White	Black
Angry Mob (P/T depend on opponent's black)	Nameless Race (P/T depend on opponent's white)
Exorcist (destroy black creatures)	Inquisition (damage depending on opponent's white)
White	Red
Tivadar's Crusade (destroy Goblins) Knights of Thorn (protection from red)	Goblin Wizard (put Goblins onto the battlefield, give protection from white)

"Traitor colors"

Green for Black	Blue for Red
Elves of Deep Shadow (black mana source) Wormwood Treefolk (ability activated by black mana) Dark Heart of the Wood (polychrome black/green card)	Electric Eel (ability activated by red mana)

In later expansions, there will be cycles of allied color cards. In the Dark, this cycle is broken. As stated above, White is betrayed by its Green and Blue allies.

Allied colors

Green & Red	Red & Black	Black & Blue
Scarwood Goblins (polychrome green/red card)	Marsh Goblins (polychrome red/black card)	Drowned (blue card, ability activated by black mana)

Pairs

The Dark has one mirrored pair

Mirrored Pairs		Description
Ashes to Ashes ()	Dust to Dust ()	Both have names related to the Book of Common Prayer, and are both uncommon sorceries with a mana cost of 1MM that exile two permanents of a certain type.

Notable cards

• Ball Lightning is a favorite red creature. It inspired many hasty disposable creatures, including Skizzik, Blistering Firecat, Spark Elemental, and Lightning Serpent. Before receiving errata, Ball Lightning only had to be sacrificed at the beginning of the end step of the turn it enters the battlefield instead of at the end step of any turn, allowing some loopholes around its intended impermanence before errata was issued to fix it.
• Maze of Ith is a powerful land with a reusable single-creature Fog effect that slowed many games down significantly.
• Tormod's Crypt is one of the best sideboard cards against decks that use the graveyard as a resource.
• Blood Moon is a Modern staple first printed in The Dark.

Functional reprints

The Dark has one functional reprint:

• Goblin Hero is a functional reprint of Gray Ogre from Revised and Raging Bull from Legends, save for creature type.

Trivia

• Many cards in this set blatantly conflict with today's ideas of a color pie. Erosion is blue land destruction. Fire and Brimstone is white direct damage. Fissure is red targeted creature destruction. Holy Light is white toughness reduction. Mana Vortex is blue mass land destruction. Merfolk Assassin offers blue repeatable creature destruction. Mind Bomb is blue direct damage or discard. Preacher offers white repeatable creature control. Witch Hunter is both white direct damage and repeatable bounce. Word of Binding is black creature tapping.
• Although the multicolored cards in the Legends expansion did not, the three multicolored cards in The Dark have reminder text to remind the player that the card counts as two colors.
• Only one of the four lands printed in The Dark produces mana.

Misprints

The artist Dennis Detwiller is incorrectly credited as Denise Detwiler on the following cards:

• Flood
• Goblin Rock Sled
• Merfolk Assassin
• Pikemen
• Scavenger Folk
• Squire
• Tivadar's Crusade

External links

• Official The Dark Information Product Page — Magic: The Gathering (old)
• Official The Dark Information Product Page (new)
• The Dark checklist