Portal

Portal was a starter-level expansion released in 1997. It was designed for teaching Magic to new players and so was made as easy to understand as possible. The set was not legal in any organised format at its release, but was made legal for Vintage and Legacy formats on 20th October 2005, along with its successors Portal Second Age, Portal Three Kingdoms, Starter 1999 and Starter 2000.

The set is infamous for its odd rules system, which was intended to make the game easy to understand but often led to much confusion when players went from Portal to an advanced or expert level set. It featured no artifacts or enchantments, as they were deemed too complicated. It also had no cards with the term instant (or interrupt, which was still in use at the time), although it did feature sorceries that could only be used at times that they could not normally be played, such as Mystic Denial, which could only be played in response to a creature or sorcery spell, and Assassin's Blade, which could only be played during an opponent's declare attackers step. All such cards have since received errata to make them actual instants. (Note that, under the Portal rules, Mystic Denial could counter Assassin's Blade because it was a sorcery, but under normal Magic rules it cannot because it is an instant.) The set also did not have any creatures with creature types, instead having every creature have a type line reading "summon creature". This has also been changed with errata.

The set also used different game terms, such as calling blocking "intercepting," calling the library the "deck" and calling the graveyard the "discard pile." These terms are again meant to simplify the game, but instead were the potentially the biggest source of confusion when a player started using more advanced cards that used the standard terms instead.

Finally, the set tried to improve the layout of the cards to make them simpler to interpret. The power and toughness on creature cards featured sword and shield symbols next to them to make it clear which number was which. The cards also had bold type for rules text, while flavor text was non-bold and seperated from the rules text by a thick line in order to make it clear that the two were seperate and that the rules text was more important. Whilst these were not as controversial as the other changes, they gave the cards a simplistic look and clearly marked the cards as being for beginners in the eyes of more experienced players.

Notable Cards

Whilst Portal was full of vanilla creatures and simple spells, a few of its cards have had some impact on Magic as a whole and on the core sets in particular:

• Blaze, a core set staple, was first printed in Portal.

• Although it is not a particularly powerful card, Ebon Dragon's art has made it one of the most popular and valuable cards in the set.

• Exhaustion was first printed in the set, but has since seen reprint in Ninth edition and in Urza's Saga.

• Gift of Estates has been reprinted in Ninth Edition.

• Jungle Lion is considered one of the stronger cards in the set, its power and mana cost being on a par with Savannah Lions and Jackal Pup. However, it has seen little play since Portal was made tournament-legal.

• Lava Axe was first printed in the set and has been reprinted multiple times.

• Personal Tutor was preemptively restricted when Portal was legalised in Vintage due to the power of tutor effects in the format. However, the other tutors in the set (Cruel Tutor and Sylvan Tutor) were not.

• Phantom Warrior was also first printed in Portal and has gone on to become a core set staple.

• Raging Goblin, another iconic red card and core set staple, was first printed in the set.

• Scorching Spear is arguably one of the worst burn spells ever printed.

• Snapping Drake was reprinted in Ravnica, where it is often a good pick in Limited.

• Volcanic Hammer was first printed in the set, but has gone on to be reprinted in three core sets and has appeared in high-tier 'Vore decks.

• Wind Drake, yet another core set staple, was also first printed in Portal.

• Wood Elves were also first printed in Portal. They have seen Standard constructed play due to their ability to fetch Shocklands.

• The classic cards Armageddon, Earthquake, Hurricane, Man-o'-war and Wrath of God were all reprinted in Portal.