Planar Chaos

Planar Chaos

 

Planeshifted

 

Card comparisons

 

Theme decks

 

Trivia

 

Planar Chaos
[[File:{{#setmainimage:PLC logo.jpg}}|250px]]
Set Information
Set symbol
Symbol description	overlapping planes
Design	Bill Rose (lead) Matt Place Mark Rosewater Paul Sottosanti
Development	Devin Low (lead) Zvi Mowshowitz Brian Schneider Henry Stern Mike Turian
Art direction	Jeremy Jarvis
Release date	February 2, 2007
Plane	Dominaria
Themes and mechanics	Timeshifted cards, Split cards, Rebels, Slivers, Thallids, Spellshapers
Keywords/​ability words	Echo, Flanking, Flash, Kicker, Madness, Morph, Split second, Suspend, Vanishing
Set size	165 cards (60 commons, 55 uncommons, 50 rares)
Expansion code	PLC
Development codename	Crackle
Time Spiral block
Time Spiral Planar Chaos Future Sight
Magic: The Gathering Chronology
Time Spiral Timeshifted Planar Chaos Future Sight

For other uses, see Planar Chaos (disambiguation).

Planar Chaos is the forty-first (41th) Magic expansion and was released in February 2007 as the second set in the Time Spiral block. Prerelease Events were held on January 20, 2007.

Set details

Planar Chaos contains 165 all new black-bordered cards (fifty (50) rares, fifty-five (55) uncommons, and sixty (60) commons), including a fourty-five (45)-card "timeshifted" subset (ten (10) rares, fifteen (15) uncommons, and twenty (20) commons). The theme of this expansion is "the (alternate) present"; to fit the theme of the block ("time"). Its expansion symbol is a depiction of two overlapping planes. There are no artifacts in Planar Chaos.

Timeshifted

See also Planar Chaos/Planeshifted.

The fouty-five (45) timeshifted cards in Planar Chaos (also known as colorshifted or planeshifted) represent cards being reprinted from an alternate reality. They are each functionally identical to an old card, with the crucial exception of their color (and possibly with a different creature type, or referencing a different color or land type in its abilities). Cards that were timeshifted in Planar Chaos had a slightly different border, and their title and types were written in white instead of black. In contrast to Time Spiral, they had regular colored expansion symbols.

Marketing

Planar Chaos was sold in fifteen-card boosters, four preconstructed theme decks and a fat pack. The decks and the fat pack contained a Pro Tour Players Card. The booster packs featured artwork from Radha, Heir to Keld, Jedit Ojanen of Efrava and Darkheart Sliver. The prerelease card was the foil alternate art Oros, the Avenger. The release card was Hedge Troll. The set was accompanied by the novel of the same name, written by Scott McGough and Timothy Sanders.

The booster packs included eight "normal" commons, three "timeshifted" commons, two "normal" uncommons, one "normal" rare and one "timeshifted" rare or uncommon card (there are three times as many "timeshifted" uncommon cards than there are "timeshifted" rare cards, making it three times as likely that an uncommon will appear in this slot).

Additional art for several tokens was designed for Magic Online.

Flavor and Storyline

Dominaria’s temporal fabric is no longer fraying at the edges — it’s ripping down the middle. The time rifts have not only merged the past with the present, but also splintered the timeline into thousands of alternate histories. These divergent Dominarias overlap with the known world in bizarre ways, combining the familiar with the shockingly new. Teferi, having lost his Planeswalker's spark, still struggles to mend the planar rifts before they corrode the very structure of the multiverse. With his allies Jhoira and Venser, he has already succeeded in restoring the wayward region of Shiv to its natural place in Dominaria, healing one rift. But danger awaits them as the trio attempts to teleport to Urborg: the chaos of an alternate Dominaria…

Mechanics

Flash, split second and suspend were introduced in Time Spiral. Echo, flanking, kicker, madness, morph are all keywords used in previous sets. Planar Chaos marked the first appearance of spells with echo costs that did not match their casting costs, as well as the first appearance of single color split cards.

Vanishing is introduced in this expansion, which works similarly to fading from Nemesis. Vanishing uses time counters to interact with suspend cards and induces sacrifice at the removal of the final counter to make the mechanic more intuitive than its predecessor.

In keeping with the theme of alternate realities converging, Planar Chaos features numerous cards with abilities "usually" assigned to another color:

• White received shroud (then "This creature can't be the target of spells and abilities.") (e.g. Calciderm), regeneration (e.g. Revered Dead), countering (e.g. Mana Tithe) and returning creatures to your hand (e.g. Stormfront Riders).
• Blue received vigilance (e.g. Serra Sphinx), discard (e.g. Piracy Charm), giving creatures +X/-X or -X/+X (e.g. Shaper Parasite) and the ability to destroy creatures (e.g. Pongify).
• Black received first strike (e.g. Spitting Sliver), lifelink-like effects (e.g. Vampiric Link), control effects (e.g. Enslave), tapping creatures (e.g. Midnight Charm), and spell/damage redirection (e.g. Muck Drubb).
• Red received reach (e.g. Needlepeak Spider), trample (e.g. Battering Sliver), fear-like effects (e.g. Skirk Shaman), "pump" effects (e.g. Fatal Frenzy), returning opponent's permanents (e.g. Stingscourger) and spells that target flying creatures (e.g. Hammerheim Deadeye).
• Green received flying (e.g. Giant Dustwasp), haste (e.g. Reflex Sliver), life gain/damage prevention (e.g. Essence Warden), card-drawing effects (e.g. Harmonize) and returning creatures from the graveyard (e.g. Deadwood Treefolk).

Creature types

The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Hellion.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Angel, Ape, Assassin, Avatar, Beast, Bird, Cat, Centaur, Cleric, Dragon, Drake, Druid, Elemental, Elf, Fungus, Gargoyle, Giant, Goblin, Horror, Illusion, Insect, Kavu, Knight, Lhurgoyf, Merfolk, Phoenix, Rebel, Rogue, Serpent, Shade, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Sliver, Snake, Soldier, Spellshaper, Sphinx, Spider, Spirit, Treefolk, Troll, Vampire, Wall, Warrior, Wizard, Wurm, Zombie.

Cycles

Planar Chaos has ten cycles and three vertical cycles:

Cycle name
Alternate legendary creatures	Crovax, Ascendant Hero (Ascendant Evincar)	Braids, Conjurer Adept (Braids, Cabal Minion)	Mirri the Cursed (Mirri, Cat Warrior)	Akroma, Angel of Fury (Akroma, Angel of Wrath)	Jedit Ojanen of Efrava (Jedit Ojanen)
	Each of these legendary creatures is based on a legendary creature from a past set.
Charms	Dawn Charm	Piracy Charm	Midnight Charm	Fury Charm	Evolution Charm
	Common modal instants with three options that are each illustrated by John Avon with artwork depicting a small stone framed in jewelery held in two hands. In addition, each featured an ability (regeneration, discard, first strike, trample and flying) that their color doesn't normally have.
Common Slivers	Poultice Sliver (regenerate)	Synchronous Sliver (vigilance)	Spitting Sliver (first strike)	Battering Sliver (trample)	Reflex Sliver (haste)
	Each of these common monocolored Slivers grant abilities that their color doesn't normally have — Poultice Sliver (regeneration).
Magi	Magus of the Tabernacle (The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale)	Magus of the Bazaar (Bazaar of Baghdad)	Magus of the Coffers (Cabal Coffers)	Magus of the Arena (Arena)	Magus of the Library (Library of Alexandria)
	Each of these rare Human Wizard creatures has the abilities of a powerful land from the past.
Spellshapers	Ghost Tactician (Scare Tactics)	Dreamscape Artist (Harrow)	Ridged Kusite (Guided Strike)	Firefright Mage (Shriek of Dread)	Sophic Centaur (Gerrard's Wisdom)
	Each of these spellshapers references an instant or sorcery that was previously printed in a different color.
Suspend X cards	Benalish Commander	Aeon Chronicler	Roiling Horror	Detritivore	Fungal Behemoth
	Each of these rare creatures has power and toughness */*, an ability defining *, "Suspend X—[mana cost including ]. X can't be 0," and a triggered ability that triggers on the removal of time counters while it is suspended that improves the game state for the definition of "*".
Vanishing creatures	Calciderm	Tidewalker	Waning Wurm	Lavacore Elemental	Deadwood Treefolk
	Each of these are uncommon creatures with vanishing.
Cycle name
Enemy-color Slivers	Necrotic Sliver (Vindicate)	Cautery Sliver (Goblin Legionnaire)	Frenetic Sliver (Frenetic Efreet)	Dormant Sliver (Jungle Barrier)	Darkheart Sliver (Dark Heart of the Wood)
	Each of these uncommon Slivers with enemy-color mana costs have abilities that mimic previous enemy-color cards.
Cycle name
Legendary Dragons	Oros, the Avenger	Intet, the Dreamer	Teneb, the Harvester	Numot, the Devastator	Vorosh, the Hunter
	Each of these rare legendary Dragons has a mana cost of MNO (where N and O are the enemy colors of M), flying, a triggered ability with a cost of M that triggers on dealing combat damage to a player, and power/toughness of 6/6. The cycle is a reference to the cycle of three-colored Legendary Dragons from Invasion.
Cycle name	<	<	<	<	<
Colorshifted reprints	Malach of the Dawn (Ghost Ship)	Piracy Charm (Funeral Charm)	Dunerider Outlaw (Whirling Dervish)	Prodigal Pyromancer (Prodigal Sorcerer)	Fa'adiyah Seer (Sindbad)
	The cards referenced by each of these colorshifted cards appeared in the Time Spiral expansion's timeshifted subset.

Vertical cycle

Cycle name
Extortion	Dash Hopes	Phantasmagorian	Temporal Extortion
	Each of these black spells allow a player to pay a steep cost in order to counter these powerful spells.
White Bounce	Whitemane Lion	Stormfront Riders	Dust Elemental
	Each of these white spells are creatures that have flash and return an increasing number of creatures you control to your hand when they enter the battlefield
Red Split	Dead/Gone	Rough/Tumble	Boom/Bust
	Each of these red spells is a split card where both spells are red, unlike other split cards where each is a different color. These are the only split cards in Planar Chaos.

Notable cards

• Aeon Chronicler saw widespread play as an uncounterable card advantage machine and possible finisher in blue control decks.
• Damnation, a colorshifted Wrath of God with similar artwork giving black control decks a strong board sweeper.
• Detritivore, a red card that continually would destroy non-basic lands in a Standard format filled with them. It was also used in combination with Wildfire from 9th Edition in land destruction decks, providing an able finisher.
• Extirpate, a strong card punishing Combo decks.
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, a land that turns other lands into Swamps and which saw widespread tournament play, e.g. in Extended Hexmage Depths deck.

Theme decks

The preconstructed theme decks are:

Theme deck name	Colors Included
Endless March	W			R
Ixidor's Legacy		U
Rituals of Rebirth	W		B		G
Unraveling Mind			B	R

External links

• Planar Chaos product information page — Wizards of the Coast
• English Rules Primer — Planar Chaos