Antiquities
Antiquities is the second Magic: The Gathering expansion and was released in 1994. It is not considered part of any block.
Set details
It was sold in booster packs of eight cards which included six commons and two uncommons. Booster Boxes contain 60 booster packs. The packs were not entirely random, players had to buy more than one box to complete the 100 card set. Wizards created the Antiquities Buy-Back program where you could send up to 100 cards back to receive cash back.
Antiquities was printed on sheets of 121 cards. The set's rarity breakdown is: 28 commons (25@C4, 1@C5, 2@C6), 37 Uncommons (4@U2, 29@U3, 2@C1, 2@(U3+C1)), 20 Rares (20@U1). This strange distribution comes from the lands Mishra's Factory, Strip Mine, Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower which have four different pieces of art each. Mishra's Factory and Strip Mine have three versions at U1 and one at C1. Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant have two versions at C1 and two at C2. Urza's Tower has three versions at C1 and one at C2. This makes it so collectors view Antiquities as as 100 card set.
Cards were available from mid March 1994 through late April 1994.
The print run was announced by Wizards to be 15 million cards.
The set was constructed 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 Caves 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 itself has no cycles. It does, however, contain Atog, which later became the first member of the "atog mega cycle", which includes Auratog, Foratog, Chronatog, and Necratog from Mirage.
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.
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 (later changed to Artificer), Atog, Druid, Gaea's Avenger (later changed to Treefolk, Gremlin (later changed to Ouphe), Poltergeist (later changed to Spirit), and Sage (later changed to Artificer).
The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Bodyguard (later changed to Human), Cleric, Demon, Dwarf, Faerie, Goblin, Orc, Smith (later changed to Human), Treefolk, and Wall. The creature types in Antiquities brought the total number in Magic at the time to exactly 100.
Misprints
- Reconstruction — Printed without an expansion symbol.
- Tawnos's Weaponry — has two variants. One is missing the gray circle behind the activation cost. Each version is equally rare.