Visions
From MTG Salvation Wiki
- For other uses, see Visions (disambiguation).
| ||
|---|---|---|
| Symbol | 
| |
| Design Team | Bill Rose (lead) Charlie Catino Don Felice Howard Kahlenberg Joel Mick | |
| Development Team | Bill Rose (lead) Mike Elliott William Jockusch Mark Rosewater Henry Stern | |
| Release Date | February 1997 | |
| Mechanics | ||
| Keywords/ Ability words | Cumulative upkeep, Flanking, Phasing | |
| Size | 167 (62 Common 55 Uncommon 50 Rare) | |
| Expansion Code | VIS | |
| Development Codename | Mirage Jr. | |
| Sets in Mirage block | ||
| Mirage | Visions | Weatherlight |
| Magic: The Gathering Chronology | ||
| Mirage | Visions | Fifth Edition |
Visions is the tenth Magic expansion and was released in 1997 as the second set and first small expansion in the Mirage block.
Contents |
[edit] Set details
Visions was the first set to have a wide dispersal of pre-releases.
At the time of its release, Visions was a "first" in the release of quality cards at the common level; examples include Uktabi Orangutan and River Boa. River Boa (at that time) was considered "very good", with two abilities (islandwalk and regeneration), and a 2/1 at only 
.
Visions was the start of the "speeding up" of red decks. Red decks began to get faster due to a card from Visions: Fireblast. In the late game, players could now sacrifice two Mountains to deal four damage to opponents. This proved to be essential as burn decks became all the rage. Decks were sporting "pure burn", essentially: four Lightning Bolt, four Incinerate, four Fireblast, which made it very easy for the red player to deal twenty damage to their opponents, or in today's colloquial, it "increased the reach" of the red player. Fireblast was also common rarity.
Wizards of the Coast started selling Visions cards and preconstructed theme decks for Magic Online on April 10, 2006. The cards became legal to use in several formats as they went on sale. Official release events were held on April 13, 2006.[1]
[edit] Mechanics and themes
Visions introduced no new mechanics, but used the following previously used mechanics: Cumulative upkeep, flanking, phasing, poison counters, slowtrips, substance, and world enchantments.
Visions included many creatures that had abilities that triggered upon entering play. This meant that some creatures could now do things normally reserved for instants, sorceries, or costly activated abilities. These "comes-into-play" creatures could also combo well with cards that returned creatures to a player's hand.
[edit] Design and development
The Visions expansion originated as a split from "Menagerie" (the original name for Mirage), which had grown too large for a single set. For a brief time during its development, Visions was known by the codename "Mirage Jr." It received its final name shortly later.[2]
[edit] Cycles
Visions has five cycles:
- Charms: Each of these common instants has a cost of C and lets you choose one of three possible effects — Hope Charm, Vision Charm, Funeral Charm, Hearth Charm, and Emerald Charm.
- Color-Hoser Enchantments: Each of these uncommon enchantments has an additional or a greater effect against enemy colors — Honorable Passage, Dream Tides, Desolation, Heat Wave, and Elephant Grass.
- Karoo lands: Each of these uncommon lands is sacrificed when it comes into play unless you return an untapped basic land of a given type to your hand and adds
C to your mana pool — Karoo, Coral Atoll, Everglades, Dormant Volcano, and Jungle Basin.
- Opposing-Color Rares: The cost of each of these rares included mana of two opposing colors (
, 
, 
, 
, ) — Righteous War, Suleiman's Legacy, Firestorm Hellkite, Pygmy Hippo, Squandered Resources.[3]
- Chimeras: Four uncommon 2/2 artifact creatures costing
that has a combat ability and a sacrifice ability to give any chimera +2/+2 and that chimera's combat ability — Brass-Talon Chimera, Iron-Heart Chimera, Lead-Belly Chimera, Tin-Wing Chimera.[4] They were all illustrated by Mike Dringenberg.
[edit] Notable cards
- Chronatog: This curious creature looks bad at first: Skip your next turn for a temporary boost in size. But this ability was found to have benefits in a deck that established a "lock" (a situation from which the opponent cannot win) and proceeded to win the game by running the opponent out of cards. By never having another turn a player did not have to worry about "decking" him or herself after the lock was established. A deck that exploited this fact was "Stasis".
- Goblin Recruiter: Like most goblin cards, this was overlooked until Onslaught was released and the goblin deck archetype began to dominate Extended and Legacy. The card was banned in Extended until 6th Edition rotated out and is still banned in Legacy.
- Nekrataal: A "187" creature that kills a non-artifact non-black creature when it comes into play. It was reprinted in 8th, 9th and 10th Edition as well as the Battle Royale box set. It is still played in both casual and tournament decks.
- Man-o'-War: Another "comes into play" creature, Man-o'-War allowed blue players a measure of board-control, by returning a creature in play to its owner's hand.
- Relentless Assault: Having only one attack phase per turn is central to Magic. Though it never saw play in competitive decks, this sorcery gives the player another attack phase, which leads to a variety of opportunities.
- Squandered Resources: An innocuous-looking enchantment that lets its controller sacrifice lands in play for a quick mana boost, this card became the linchpin of the "Prosbloom" decks that used a combination of cards from Mirage and Visions to draw cards, make mana, and repeat until the player could cast a Drain Life large enough to kill the opponent.
- Uktabi Orangutan: The poster "comes-into-play" creature of the set gives green players a way to destroy artifacts (which was out of green's flavor at the time) and have another creature. The card art also had what looked like two yellow monkeys in the background mating, which was poked fun at in the card Uktabi Kong from the humor set Unhinged that shows the same two monkeys in the background, one of which is seemingly pregnant. The Mirrodin card Viridian Shaman is a functional reprint of this card.
- Undiscovered Paradise: This land can produce five colors of mana but returns to its owner's hand the turn after it is used. It was instrumental in allowing four- and five-color decks to dominate in 1997 and 1998.
- Vampiric Tutor: With this instant, a player can grab any card from their library at any time for a minimal amount of life and mana. It enabled decks that required a specific combination of cards for victory to gain a foothold in tournament play, and also made "toolbox" decks (containing just one copy each of certain situational cards) possible. The fact that only 2 life is lost when the card is 'tutored', and that it can be played during the opponent's turn makes it almost as good, if not better than Demonic Tutor.
[edit] Theme decks
The Mirage block theme decks were designed for MTGO, as these expansion sets were printed before theme decks were first printed in the Tempest block.
The pre-constructed theme decks are:
| Theme deck name | |||||
| White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | |
| Legion of Glory | □ | ||||
| Savage Stompdown | ■ | ■ | |||
| Unnatural Forces | ■ | ■ | |||
| Wild-Eyed Frenzy | ■ | ||||
[edit] Trivia
- Visions was the first set to have the same name as a Magic card printed earlier: Visions, the card, was first printed in Legends (1994). The card and the set are otherwise unrelated.
- Visions was the last set to feature a new creature that creates poison counters (Suq'Ata Assassin) for over 10 years until this mechanic reappeared as the poisonous keyword on two futureshifted cards from Future Sight (Snake Cult Initiation, Virulent Sliver).
- It is the last non-Starter expansion set to date not to include any legendary permanents.
[edit] References
- ↑ Wizards.com: Visions Release Events, Tuesday, March 28, 2006.
- ↑ "Codename of the Game", by Mark Rosewater, MTG.com, Monday, August 12, 2002.
- ↑ "Sets of Five". Ben Bleiweiss. Wednesday, December 25, 2002.
- ↑ "Card of the Day". Monday, November 10, 2008.
