Urza's Destiny

Urza's Destiny is the eighteenth Magic expansion and was released in 1999 as the last set in the Urza block.

Set Details

Urza's Destiny was the first tournament legal set to use the word "Creature" on the type line as opposed to "Summon", following the footsteps of Portal Second Age.

Themes

New themes in Urza's Destiny included the "reveal" and "lobotomy" cycles. The "reveal" cards come in two types: creatures (Seers) and spells (Scents). When you use a Seer ability or a Scent spell, you show your opponents any number of cards of the specified color that are currently in your hand. The number of cards revealed determines the power of the effect.

The "lobotomy" cards gain their nickname from the Tempest spell Lobotomy, which allowed you to look at a player's hand, choose a card, and remove all copies of that card from his or her hand, graveyard, and library. The Urza's Destiny set gives each color a specialized version of this effect.

Urza's Destiny also has a strong theme of graveyard effects. Many creatures and a few enchantments have special abilities that trigger when the permanent is put into a graveyard (e.g. When Aura Thief goes to the graveyard, you gain control of all enchantments).

Cycles

Urza's Destiny has six cycles:

• Enchanted bonus creatures vertical cycle: These creatures gain an ability as long as they are enchanted: (in order of rarity)— Fledgling Osprey, Metathran Elite and Thran Golem. This cycle is represented in the preconstructed theme deck Enchanter.
• Growing creature enchantments: Aura enchantments that were inspired by the card Tempest card Legacy's Allure. — Incendiary, Momentum, Archery Training, Private Research and Festering Wound.
• "Lobotomy" spells cycle: An uncommon cycle of spells that removes a target card from the game, then also removes all other copies of the card in its controller's graveyard, hand and library from the game — Scour, Quash, Eradicate, Sowing Salt and Splinter.
• Rare creature: These 3 rare creatures form a cycle in that if you don't control the appropriate card type, the creature is sacrificed — Covetous Dragons (artifacts), Emperor Crocodile (creatures) and Tethered Griffin (enchantments).
• Scents cycle: A common cycle of spells whose effects are proportional to the number of cards of their color you reveal from your hand — Scent of Jasmine, Scent of Brine, Scent of Nightshade, Scent of Cinder and Scent of Ivy.
• Seer cycle: An uncommon cycle of 1/1 Wizards that have an activated ability which costs C, that mimics the Scent cycle — Brine Seer, Cinder Seer, Ivy Seer, Jasmine Seer and Nightshade Seer.

Famous cards

• Donate — Donate with Illusions of Grandeur were integral pieces of the Trix decks.
• Masticore — A 4/4 artifact creature for with a drawback of discarding a card each upkeep is a very strong creature especially with the ": Masticore deals 1 damage to target creature" ability.
• Opalescence
• Plow Under — Used in green control decks.

Reprinted cards

The following cards have been reprinted from previous sets and included in Urza's Destiny.

• Ravenous Rats — was last seen in Portal Second Age.

Functional reprints

Urza's Destiny has one functional reprint:

• Wild Colos is a functional reprint of Raging Cougar from Portal.

Theme decks

The pre-constructed theme decks are: Template:Theme decks

External links

• Urza's Destiny product information page — Wizards of the Coast