Urza's Destiny
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Urza's Destiny is the eighteenth Magic expansion and was released in 1999 as the last set in the Urza's block.
Urza's Destiny was the first set to use the word "Creature" on the type line as opposed to "Summon".
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.
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 ot 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
- 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.
- Legendary land mega-mega cycle: Yavimaya Hollow is the third card in this mega-mega cycle, which also includes Teferi's Isle, Volrath's Stronghold, Kor Haven, and Keldon Necropolis
- Uncommon Angel mega cycle: Voice of Duty and Voice of Reason are the fourth and fifth cards in this mega cycle, which also includes Voice of Truth, Voice of Grace, and Voice of Law. These are white Angels, each of which had a different protection from color.
- "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, 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. The Wizards are — Brine Seer, Cinder Seer, Ivy Seer, Jasmine Seer, and Nightshade Seer.
Theme decks
The pre-constructed theme decks are:
| Theme Deck Name | |||||
| Red | Green | White | Blue | Black | |
| Assassin | |||||
| Battle Surge | |||||
| Enchanter | |||||
| Fiendish Nature | |||||