Fallen Empires

Template:Expansion Nonblock Fallen Empires is the fifth Magic expansion and was released in November 1994. It is the last expansion to be printed that is not associated with a block.

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 counters, but this theme was overdone and resulted in confusion because of the many different kinds of counters that were used. As a result of this expansion, and some other cards like Frankenstein's Monster, only +1/+1 counters, with few exceptions, are used today to modify creatures.

Fallen Empires also introduces the use of multiple illustrations on common cards, each of which had either three or four different versions, each with a different illustration by a different artist. Some commons in the Homelands expansion and the Alliances expansion also have either one or two versions.

Notable Cards

Hymn to Tourach is arguably the best discard spell ever printed and was widely used when it was legal in the Standard format.

Order of the Ebon Hand was popular in the very powerful Necropotence decks.

Cycles

Fallen Empires has three cycles:

Artifact Boon cycle: Balm of Restoration, Conch Horn, Implements of Sacrifice, Aeolipile, and Elven Lyre are rare artifacts with a mana cost of 2 and an activated ability that costs "1, T, sacrifice [this]." The effects of each of these artifacts is a weakened version of each of the cards in the Boon cycle from Alpha Edition.

Storage land cycle: Icatian Store, Sand Silos, Bottomless Vault, Dwarven Hold, and Hollow Trees are rare lands illustrated by Pat Morrissey that share the text "[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. T, remove any number of storage counters from [this]: Add C to your mana pool for each storage counter removed this way."

Sac land cycle: Ruins of Trokair, Svyelunite Temple, Ebon Stronghold, Dwarven Ruins, and Havenwood Battleground are uncommon lands illustrated by Mark Poole that share the text "[This] comes into play tapped. T: Add C to your mana pool. T, sacrifice [this]: Add CC to your mana pool."

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.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Avatar, Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Merfolk, Orc, and Wall.