Arabian Nights

For other uses, see Arabian Nights (disambiguation).

Arabian Nights is the first Magic expansion and was released in 1993. It was sold in booster packs of eight cards which included six commons and two uncommons.

Setting and storylines

The storyline of Arabian Nights was unique in Magic (up to the release of Portal: Three Kingdoms) in being the only set to be based on a real-world setting instead of one of the planes in the Magic multiverse. Inspired by the comic Sandman #50, titled Ramadan, and based on The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Richard Garfield created the set with not only a Arabian setting, but also added many characters, locations and events that came directly from the novel.

As a result of the real-world references and stark difference from the world of Dominaria, Arabian Nights was retconned to take place in the plane of Rabiah, which once had been ruled by Djinni. After the Djinni had weakened themselves in the Spirit War known as The Jihad, humans became the main race of Rabiah. Characters like Aladdin, Ali Baba and King Suleiman had lived long ago. After that the plane was reproduced a thousand times in the Thousand-fold Refraction of Rabiah to keep the 1001 Nights parallel going.

Several stories have been released that took place on Rabiah. Foremost there is the story of the planeswalker Taysir, which was chronicled in a comic released by ARMADA. There were also two short stories; one dealt with the history of the City of Brass, the Brass Men and the planeswalker Fatima, while the other told about Serendib Efreets, Bird Maidens and Flying Men.

Notable Cards

• Ali from Cairo was once considered powerful enough to be on the Restricted List, but has since been removed because there are many ways to deal with it.
• Bazaar of Baghdad is amongst the most powerful lands ever to be printed and one of the defining cards of the Vintage format.
• City of Brass is the first card to produce any color of mana, and is still good enough to see use today.
• Erhnam Djinn was once a powerful green creature and was central to the "Erhnamgeddon" decks that used Armageddon to negate the drawback of the "Ernie" and leave an opponent helpless to its attack.
• Juzam Djinn was once considered the most powerful creature in the game.
• Kird Ape is a favorite card of many and is found in the tournament deck "The Zoo" that uses cheap but powerful creatures to win the game.
• Library of Alexandria is arguably one of the most powerful card drawing cards in the game.
• Serendib Efreet is the best purely aggressive monoblue creature ever printed.
• Unstable Mutation is amongst the best creature auras in the game.

Cycles

Arabian Nights has no true five-color cycles. There are four Efreet and four Djinn cards, however, with one for each color except White. According to Richard Garfield, efreet and djinni "did not seem to belong in White — while not always evil, they were never good." (White, however, is never a "good" color.)

Creature Types

Most of the creature types used in Arabian Nights were new, and many are unique. Early expansions had creature types only for flavor reasons, resulting in many unusual types.

The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Aladdin, Ali Baba, Ali from Cairo, Ape, Asp, Camel, Cavalry, Dandân, Devil, Efreet, Egg, El Hajjâj, Elephant, Flying Men (later changed to Human), Guardian, Island Fish, Jackal, King (Unlimited Edition's Goblin King was a Goblin King), Leper, Bird Maiden (later changed to Maiden), Marid, Nomad, Raider, Sindbad (later changed to Human), Singing Tree, Smith, Sorceress, Tortoise, and Witch.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Djinn, Ghoul, Ogre, Ship and Wolf.

Points of interest

• Arabian Nights is the first set to use an expansion symbol.

• Multiple cards in this set use accent marks, or diacritics, in their names. These accents are not printed in the card title but can be found in the text box because the respective fonts used to or do not support them.

• As the first Magic expansion, Arabian Nights was originally intended to be released as a stand-alone product. As a result, the set was nearly printed with a yellow-on-pink card back, instead of the blue-on-brown used in all cards known today, in order to distinguish it from "The Gathering", which was originally the name of Alpha. In addition, basic lands were to be included. In the first print run of the set, a leftover Mountain was included accidentally, and the commons were printed with a smaller, darker circle in the generic mana cost of the card. The corrected print run of the set did not inculde any basic lands and used the larger, lighter generic mana circle that is used for other sets. As a result of its inclusion in this set, Mountain is the most printed card in Magic.

• Arabian Nights is the first set to introduce lands that had abilities that don't produce mana. Some of these lands also produce colorless mana (see Desert, Elephant Graveyard, and Library of Alexandria), while others do not (see Bazaar of Baghdad, Diamond Valley, Island of Wak-Wak, and Oasis).

• Aladdin and Old Man of the Sea are the first cards that allowed tapping to gain "unmarked control" of another permanent.

• Bottle of Suleiman, Mijae Djinn and Ydwen Efreet are the first cards to use the coin flipping mechanic. "Mijae" and "Ydwen" are anagrams of Jamie and Wendy, respectively. Richard Garfield was the best man at the wedding of Jamie and Wendy around the time of the creation of this set.

• Aladdin's Lamp had the most expensive casting cost of any card at the time of its printing. When it was printed, the icon of 10 in a gray circle (representing a cost of 10 generic mana, or File:Mana10.gif) did not exist, so the casting cost was instead represented as File:Mana5.gifFile:Mana5.gif.

• Ali from Cairo was the first creature card added to the Restricted List. It was added in January of 1994 and removed in April of 1996.

• Brass Man inspired the creation of Goblin Dirigible and Goblin War Wagon.

• City in a Bottle is the only card in this set to reference the Sandman comic that inspired the set. It is the first "expansion hosing" card, meaning that it has an overall negative effect on cards with the Arabian Nights expansion symbol. Also, this card is the first to give the expansion symbol game relevance. There are two other "expansion hosing" cards: Golgothian Sylex and Apocalypse Chime.

• City of Brass is the most reprinted non-basic land.

• Cuombajj Witches: "Cuombajj" is translated from Arabic to mean "corrupt."

• Cyclone is the first card printed to use Cumulative Upkeep, although it did not use this keyword. (Stasis is considered the first card with Cumulative Upkeep by some, altough its upkeep cost is only similar to, and not descriptive of, Cumulative Upkeep, and the card's Oracle text does not use the keyword). The use of Cumulative Upkeep here is not too surprising, as the team that was working on the Ice Age expansion, which introduced the Cumulative Upkeep keyword, also participated in development of this set.

• Dancing Scimitar has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in Arabian Nights. It inspired the creation of Ensouled Scimitar.

• Dandan is mentioned in the flavor text of Dauthi Trapper.

• Desert is the first common non-basic land.

• Desert Nomads is the first card to have a non-basic landwalk ability.

• Ebony Horse is the first card to have the ability to remove a creature from combat.

• El-Hajjaj was the first creature with its abilty, and also the only mono-black creature to have it. It inspired the creation of Spirit Link, which in turn inspired many other cards.

• Erg Raiders: "Erg" is translated from Arabic to mean "desert."

• Erhnam Djinn has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in Arabian Nights. "Erhnam" is an anagram of "Herman," Richard Garfield's brother-in-law.

• Flying Carpet was functionally changed when it was reprinted in Sixth Edition so that it no longer requires the sacrifice of the creature it targets when it is destroyed.

• Ghazban Ogre was the first card that changed control based on the state of the game. "Ghazban" is translated from Arabic to mean "treacherous."

• Guardian Beast is the only black Guardian and is the first card to grant indestructibility, although this mechanic was not yet created.

• Hasran Ogress is one of a few cards that refers to the gender of the creature in its name. Modern cards tend to have gender-neutral names. "Hasran" is translated from Arabic to mean "hideous."

• Hurr Jackal: "Hurr" is translated form Arabic to mean "gulch."

• Ifh-Biff Efreet is the first card to allow players other than its controller to use its activated ability. This mechanic was later expanded upon in the Mercadian Masques expansion. The art from this card was mistakenly used for Serendib Efreet when it was reprinted in Revised Edition. "Ifh-Biff" is a childhood nickname for Richard Garfield's sister, Elizabeth, and was originally questioned by editor Beverly Marshall Sailing for not having an Arabian feel.

• Island Fish Jasconius has the greatest combined power and toughness among all creatures in Arabian Nights.

• Jeweled Bird is considered by some to be the first cantrip, as its activated ability has multiple effects, one of which is "Draw a card."

• Junun Efreet: "Junun" is translated from Arabic to mean "nasty."

• Juzam Djinn has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in Arabian Nights. It was initially reguarded as a bad card, as players did not immediately understand why one would want to play a card that damages its controller. "Juzam" is translated from Arabic to mean "evil." It has since inspired the creation of multiple cost-effective cards, including Balduvian Hordes, Yukora the Prisoner and Plague Sliver.

• Khabal Ghoul: "Khabal" is translated from Arabic to mean "night."

• Kird Ape was banned in the Extended format when it was first created. "Kird" is translated from Arabic to mean "jungle."

• Library of Alexandria was supposedly made less powerful in development. It inspired the creation of Scroll of Origins.

• Magnetic Mountain has the five common vowel letters (A, E, I, O, and U), in order, in its name.

• Mijae Djinn shares the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in Arabian Nights with Ydwen Efreet. "Mijae" is an anagram of "Jamie," a friend of Richard Garfield's for whom he was the best man at his wedding to Wendy.

• Moorish Cavalry has the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in Arabian Nights.

• Nafs Asp: "Nafs" is translated from Arabic to mean "hidden."

• Oubliette is the first card with Phasing, although it originally used the removed from the game zone. After the creation of the Phasing mechanic in the Mirage expansion, it was realized that Oubliette is actually using Phasing, since the affected creature retains all counters, Auras, and later Equipment on it. An oubliette is a dungeon with an entrance only from above. Richard Garfield designed this card in part because of the movie Labyrinth, which used the term and stuck with him when he later found the term in "1001 Nights."

• Old Man of the Sea's creature type is Marid, which is an Arabic word meaning "rebel" and is related to the fact that in some versions of the "1001 Nights," this character is a djinn. It has inspired the creation of many creatures with a similar tap to gain control ability, including Coffin Queen.

• Repentant Blacksmith is the first creature printed with protection from red, which was considered a powerful enough ability that the card was made uncommon.

• Ring of Ma'ruf is the first card to allow interaction with the removed from the game zone. Its ability to retrieve a card from outside the game was unique until it inspired the creation of the cycle of Wishes in the Judgment expansion.

• Rukh Egg was reprinted in Eighth Edition, nearly ten years after its original printing, but was almost not included in the set because of its complexity for beginners. It received errata early on to put a Rukh token into play only when it goes to the graveyard from play, not from anywhere as printed. The egg in the Arabian Nights art appears in the artwork of Dwarven Shrine. A "rukh" is also called a "roc."

• Sandals of Abdallah inspired the creation of Lightning Greaves, as footwear was discovered to be a class of armor and weapons that had not been explored much in Magic when equipment was first being created.

• Serendib Djinn and Serendib Efreet: Serendib is another name for the island Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), which has significance in both the Bible and "The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad." The English word "serendipity" was derived from the name Serendib.

• Stone-Throwing Devils upset some people, as "stone-throwing devils" is sometimes used as a derogatory term for Palestinian protesters in Israel.

• Unstable Mutation is the first card to use -1/-1 counters.

• Wyluli Wolf: "Wyluli" is an anagram of "Lily Wu," the maiden name of Richard Garfield's wife.

• Ydwen Efreet shares the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in Arabian Nights with Mijae Djinn. "Ydwen" is an anagram of "Wendy," the wife of Richard Garfield's friend Jamie for whom he was best man at his wedding.

External links

• Arabian Nights Product Page
• Richard Garfield's article on the making of Arabian Nights
• Skaff Elias' article on development of Arabian Nights
• Mark Rosewater's article on Arabian Nights
• Mike Ryan's article on card names in Arabian Nights
• Proposed card back for Arabian Nights stand-alone expansion
• Some scans from the Arabian Nights comic
• “The City of Brass”, a story about the creation of the City of Brass
• “The Eater of the Infinite”, a story about a Serendib Efreet