The Dark

Template:Expansion Nonblock The Dark is the fourth Magic expansion and was released in 1994. It was sold in eight-card packs. It includes a goblin tribal theme, powerful abilities with intense colored mana and upkeep costs, and the return of Poison counters.

Notable Cards

• Ball Lightning is a favorite red creature.

• Maze of Ith is a powerful land with a reusable single-creature Fog effect, and slowed many games down significantly.

Storyline

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.

Cycles

The Dark has no cycles.

Creature Types

The Dark is the first expansion to explore a "tribe," or a specific 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. 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: Ball Lightning, Bandit, Banshee, Brother, Cave People, Eater, Eel, Exorcist, Fallen, General, Hunter, Leech, Lurker, Miracle Worker, Mob, Murk Dwellers, Nameless Race, Niall Silvain, People of the Woods, Pikemen, Preacher, Rag Man (later changed to Minion), Robber, Rock Sled, Scavenger Folk (later changed to just Scavenger), Shark, Sister, Squire, Tracker, Uncle Istvan, Viper, and Whippoorwill.

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, Slug, Treefolk, Wall, Wizard, Wurm and Zombie.

Points of Interest

• Many cards in this set blatantly conflict today's ideas of a color pie. Apprentice Wizard gives blue mana acceleration. Ashes to Ashes is a black spell capable of not only targeting black creatures but removing them from the game. Erosion is blue land destruction. Fire and Brimstone is white direct damage. Fissure is red targeted 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 multicolored cards in The Dark have reminder text to remind the player that the card counts as two colors.

• None of the three lands printed in The Dark are capable of producing mana.

• Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust not only have related names, they also have similar costs and effects.

• Ball Lightning has the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in The Dark. 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 end of the turn during which it was summoned" instead of at the end of any turn, allowing some loopholes around its intended impermanence before errata was issued to fix it. This artwork can also be found in the artwork of Dwarven Shrine.

• Carnivorous Plant has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in The Dark. It was the first Wall without "Wall" in its name, leading many players to think that it could attack.

• City of Shadows inspired the creation of Altar of Shadows.

• Coal Golem has an ability that allows any deck to cast Ball Lightning. It inspired the creation of the Attendant cycle in the Invasion expansion, each of which has a similar ability that aallows any deck to cast one of the corresponding Legendary Dragons from the Legendary Dragon cycle in the same set.

• Dark Heart of the Wood is the first multicolor non-creature card.

• Diabolic Machine has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in The Dark.

• Eater of the Dead has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in The Dark.

• Frankenstein's Monster is one of only a few cards named after a literary source. It is also the only card that stipulates three different types of counters that can be put on it, something that is avoided today.

• Gaea's Touch was initially misprinted with all its text, expansion symbol, and mana cost shifted to the left.

• Goblin Rock Sled created confusion for having "Goblin" in its name but not in its creature type, making it unclear to many at the time how it interacted with other cards in The Dark that referenced Goblins.

• Inferno inspired the creation of Bloodfire Colossus.

• Knights of Thorn has the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in The Dark.

• Land Leeches is strictly better than Hornet Cobra, which appeared just one expansion prior in the Legends expansion.

• Leviathan is the first creature printed with double-digit power and toughness and had the greatest combined power and toughness among all creatures until Polar Kraken in the Ice Age expansion.

• Mana Clash is the only card with a casting cost of R that can potentially win the game on the first turn without any other assistance. This card is named after one of a few names considered for a time for the title of the game of Magic, which was considered too common a word to trademark; ": the Gathering" was later added to "Magic" to make it unique.

• Marsh Gas is strictly better than Hell Swarm, which appeared just one expansion prior in the Legends expansion.

• Marsh Goblins and Scarwood Goblins are the first non-Legendary multicolored creatures.

• Marsh Viper is the only creature in this expansion with the Poison mechanic.

• Maze of Ith was restricted in the Vintage format from October 1994 until April 1999 for its ability to slow games significantly. This card was heavily played due to its power, and under old Mulligan rules resulted in many opening hands without mana sources.

• Merfolk Assassin combos with War Barge, which is also printed in this expansion, to kill any creature for 3,T.

• Murk Dwellers likely inspired the creation of cards that gain a power bonus when attacking, such as Charging Bandits, Hollow Dogs, and Ravenous Skirge.

• Rag Man is mentioned in the flavor text of Dauthi Trapper.

• Reflecting Mirror is the first card to have the ability to change the target of another spell.

• Safe Haven has an ability that originally functioned at interrupt speed because there were at the time a few cards (such as Red Elemental Blast) that could kill a creature at interrupt speed. It inspired the creation of Cold Storage.

• Sorrow's Path is voted to be "the worst card (in terms of power) ever made" by Mark Rosewater.

• Stone Calendar inspired the creation of the Medallion cycle in the Tempest expansion, which further inspired the Familiar cycle in the Planeshift expansion and the Warchief cycle in the Scourge expansion.

• Tormod's Crypt has the most powerful graveyard removal effect for its cost of any card. Today, no set with a graveyard theme would ever include a card this powerful.

• Venom gave the ability of Thicket Basilisk, Cockatrice and Infernal Medusa a name to be referred by.

• Water Wurm is the only monoblue Wurm.

• Whippoorwill, along with Frozen Shade and Blinking Spirit, confused many players by depicting a creature apparenly in mid-flight without actually having flying in its art. This kind of disparity between art and ability is actively avoided in modern cards.

External Links

• Official product page
• Mark Rosewater's first feature article on magicthegathering.com