Fallen Empires
Template:Seealso Template:Expansion Nonblock Fallen Empires is the fifth Magic expansion and was released in November 1994. It is not considered part of any block.
Set details
The set's rarity breakdown is: 35 commons (15@C4, 20@C3), 31 Uncommons (25@U3, 5@U2, 1@C1), 36 Rares (36@U1). Each common card of C4 rarity has 4 pieces of art, and each common card of C3 rarity has 3 pieces of art. This results in 120 unique commons if you count art variations.
The multiple versions of Fallen Empires commons was an experiment to see if players liked to see more art on commons, but it was ultimately decided that having too many artworks associated with one card made it more difficult for players to identify a card quickly.
Cards were available from mid November 1994 to sometime in 1998. Although they stopped shipping in late January 1995, enough cards were printed to keep them on the shelves for years afterward.
The print run was announced by Wizards to be between 350-375 million cards.
Themes
Fallen Empires has a flavorful theme. The flavor text on the cards could be used to piece together a story. Another theme is the creature type, or "tribal," theme. For the first time universal creature types were used, tying the creatures in this expansion together. Also, multiple cards referenced these creature types. A third theme is the use of tokens and counters, but this theme was overdone and resulted in confusion because of the many different kinds of tokens and counters that were used.
| “ | There were so many cards that produced tokens and/or required counters that we issued a cardboard sheet of them in Duelist #4[1]. | ” |
As a result of this expansion, and some other cards like Frankenstein's Monster, only +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, with few exceptions, are used today to modify creatures.
Notable cards
- Goblin Grenade is a very powerful direct damage spell.
- High Tide found a place in successful tournament decks many years after its printing.
- Hymn to Tourach is arguably the best discard spell ever printed and was widely used when it was legal in the Standard format. Magic has since said it doesn't like random cards being so powerful.
- Order of the Ebon Hand was popular in the very powerful Necropotence decks.
Storyline
After the Brothers' War, on the Dominarian continent of Sarpadia, the Ice Age is approaching. The changing climate results in dwindling resources and fighting amongst allies for survival.
Cycles
Fallen Empires has three cycles:
- Artifact boons: Each of these rare artifacts has a mana cost of
and an activated ability that costs "
, 
, sacrifice [this]." The effects of each of these artifacts is a weakened version of each of the boons from Alpha — Balm of Restoration (Healing Salve), Conch Horn (Ancestral Recall), Implements of Sacrifice (Dark Ritual), Aeolipile (Lightning Bolt), and Elven Lyre (Giant Growth). - Sac lands: Each of these uncommon lands has "[This] comes into play tapped. : Add C to your mana pool. , sacrifice [this]: Add CC to your mana pool.", where C is the respective color of the land; each also features art by Mark Poole — Ruins of Trokair, Svyelunite Temple, Ebon Stronghold, Dwarven Ruins, and Havenwood Battleground.
- Storage Lands: Each of these uncommon lands has "[This] comes into play tapped. You may choose not to untap [this] during your untap step. At the beginning of your upkeep, if [this] is tapped, put a storage counter on it. , remove any number of storage counters from [this]: Add C to your mana pool for each storage counter removed this way."; each was also illustrated by Pat Morrisey — Icatian Store, Sand Silos, Bottomless Vault, Dwarven Hold, and Hollow Trees.
Mirrored pairs
Fallen Empire has five mirrored pairs, all enemy-color hosers:
- Chants: These uncommon enchantments, one black and one green, both cost {C}{C} and must be sacrificed at the beginning of your upkeep unless you pay one mana of its color and deals 3 damage to any player who puts a basic land of the other's color into play unless he or she puts a -1/-1 counter on a creature he or she controls — Tourach's Chant and Thelon's Chant.
- Landwalkers: These uncommon 2/2 creatures, one blue and one red, has or can gain a landwalk ability corresponding to the other's color — River Merfolk and Goblin Flotilla.
- Order clerics: These common cleric creatures, one white and one black, both cost {C}{C} and have protection from the other's color, "{C}: [This] gains first strike until end of turn", and "{C}{C}: [This] gets +1/+0 until end of turn" — Order of Leitbur and Order of the Ebon Hand.
- Tappers: These uncommon spells, one blue and one green, both have a mana cost that includes {C}{C} and play with the tap/untap status of creatures of the other's color — Homarid Shaman and Thelon's Curse.
- Warfare enchantments: These uncommon enchantments, one white and one red, both cost {C} and allow you to sacrifice a creature to force an opponent playing with the other's color to temporarily give up one resource (mana or untapped creatures) or lose another (damage or lands) — Heroism and Raiding Party.
Misprints
One of the most famous miprints was a run of Fallen Empires that was printed with backs from Wyvern, another TCG being manufactured at the same factory. These cards sell individually for $40US or more.
Creature types
Fallen Empires is the first expansion to use a consolidated set of universal creature types. This also plays into the creature type, or "tribal," theme in this expansion. Of the 14 creature types used in this expansion, only Orgg and Wall appear on just one card.
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Fungus, Homarid, Orgg, Soldier, Thrull, and Townsfolk (later changed to Human). Camarid, Citizen, and Saproling also appeared on tokens produced by cards in this set.
The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Avatar, Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Merfolk, Orc, and Wall.
Points of interest
- A number of flavor texts in this expansion are quoted from the fictional, multi-volume "Sarpadian Empires."
- The storage land cycle described above probably inspired the creation of the similar storage land cycle from the Mercadian Masques expansion.
- The sac land cycle described above inspired the creation of the more colorful sac land cycles in the Invasion and Odyssey expansions.
- Deep Spawn has the greatest combined power and toughness among blue creatures in Fallen Empires.
- Delif's Cone is the only common card in this expansion with only one artwork associated with it.
- Ebon Praetor has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in Fallen Empires.
- Feral Thallid has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in Fallen Empires.
- Goblin Chirurgeon, as illustrated by Phil Foglio, is constructing a creature from the head of Llanowar Elves, the arm of Uthden Troll, and the body of Cat Warriors.
- Goblin Grenade, as illustrated by Ron Spencer, depicts a goblin holding a spear that has spines arranged to spell the name "Mike," a friend of the artist's. This card was considered for reprinting in the Onslaught expansion but it was far too powerful with the goblins in that expansion.
- Goblin Warrens probably inspired the creation of cards like Skeletal Vampire.
- Hand of Justice has the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in Fallen Empires.
- Homarid Spawning Bed was the only card that produced Camarid creature tokens until the card Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII was printed in Time Spiral.
- Homarid Warrior is strictly worse than Giant Crab.
- Hymn to Tourach inspired the creation of many "discard two" cards, including Stupor, Unburden and Wrench Mind among others.
- Icatian Javelineers was designed without in the cost of its activated ability, but designer Chris Page proved that it was necessary.
- Icatian Town is the first spell to produce creature tokens.
- Mindstab Thrull was called "Mutant Saboteur" when artist Mark Tedin was asked to illustrate it, which explains the very odd creature with a set of lockpicks.
- Order of Leitbur is an inside joke, as describing people of Leitbur as "Leitburites" was designed to sound like LiteBrites.
- Orgg has the greatest combined power and toughness among all creatures in Fallen Empires. It appeared in two television commercials, pitted against Vizzerdrix in one and "Bob from Accounting" in the other. Because of his spot in the commercials he was slated to be added to the Core Set, but he was considered to be too complex, so Trained Orgg was created for it.
- Thrull Champion is the first "Lord" (a creature that improves creatures of one particular type) to also be a creature of that type.
- Thrull Retainer is the first Aura with an activated ability with the cost of self-sacrifice.
- Vodalian Knights is the only creature in Fallen Empires with flying in its text box, and it is an activatable Jump, and it cannot attack unless the defending player controls an island.