Antiquities
Antiquities is the second Magic expansion and was released in 1994.
The set was built around an artifact theme and told the story of the Brothers' War between Mishra and Urza.
Storyline
Ancient artifacts of the Thran empire are discovered on the continent of Terisiare, including many advanced machines of war. Two brothers, Urza and Mishra, discover a stone in the Cave of Koilos, but when they disturb it, it splits in two, unleashing the evil of Phyrexia on Dominaria. The ancient machines of the Thran are employed in battle once again as the Brothers' War takes place, an epic war between Urza and Mishra for control of both halves of the stone. The war culminates in the Sylex blast, plunging the world into the Ice Age.
Cycles
Antiquities has no cycles, except for Atog, which later became the first of the Atog mega cycle which included Auratog, Foratog, Chronatog, and Necratog from Mirage.
Creature types
About half of the creature types used in Antiquities were new, and many of the creatures in this expansion are artifact creatures. Originally, artifact creatures were printed without any creature type, except in special cases (Wall of Spears "counts as a wall," for example). This resulted in an overall limited use of creature types in this expansion. Additionally, with the printing of Antiquities, Magic had exactly 100 creature types.
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Archaeologist, Atog, Druid (Unlimited Edition's Ley Druid was a Cleric, and Verduran Enchantress was an Enchantress), Gaea's Avenger, Gremlin, Poltergeist, and Sage.
The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Bodyguard, Cleric, Demon, Dwarf, Faerie, Goblin, Orc, Smith, Treefolk, and Wall. The creature types in Antiquities brought the total number in magic at the time to exactly 100.
Notable cards
- Mishra's Workshop is a powerful land that produces a large amount of mana that is only useful for casting artifacts. There are plenty of powerful artifacts that a player would be happy to cast two turns sooner thanks to this card.
- Candelabra of Tawnos saw play in early competitive combo decks, but is no longer considered the powerful card it once was.
- Mishra's Factory is arguably the best manland ever printed. It only got better with the Sixth Edition rules change.
- Strip Mine is a very powerful land destruction tool that many decks automatically included a maximum four of.
- Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant, affectionately called the "Urzatron," have seen major competitive use only since 2003 for their ability to produce large amounts of mana quickly in combination.
Trivia
- Antiquities is the first expansion to use multiple versions of a card with different artwork (outside of the Core Set's basic lands) and the only expansion to use multiple versions on nonbasic lands.