Category: Arabian Nights

Retro Magic - Pyramids from Arabian Nights

10/20/2016

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully

Pyramids is not exactly one of the most powerful Artifact cards ever printed, but it can potentially save a land of yours from being destroyed (any land in play, in fact.) Also, it can remove a pesky enchantment from any land. But it's 6 just to play, and 2 to use its ability (although that 2 mana paid could be well worth it depending on the target). Still, while it's kind of a nice idea, it's just too expensive to cast to really be relevant at all.

You'd think something called Pyramids would be a lot cooler... I think Richard Garfield whiffed on this one. Still, at the time, there were a lot of enchantments that targeted land even then, so you can see why people might consider playing these. Today, it's just a $10 card that sits in collector's binders.

Magic the Gathering Card Review - Oubliette from Arabian Nights

1/13/2015

by Richard Rowell, Write W.A.V.E. Media Staff

While it’s been one of the more valuable commons in the game for quite some time, Oubliette has finally been seeing a rise in its price. Being from Arabian Nights, that’s not incredibly surprising. In fact, in March of 2014, the card saw a massive price spike to around $12 median a copy, a stunning figure for a common. It’s actually a very good card, so it’s not surprising that its price soon afterwards crept up back towards $7 and continued to rise at a decent clip.

There is one very important thing to consider with Oubliette, however. There are two versions of the card. One version has a mana cost that reads as BB – although the colorless 1 is there but is extremely faint – but the correct version clearly shows its mana cost as 1BB. That being said, the misprinted copy is in fact worth nearly as much as the correct copy. So whether copy you pick up, you’re only talking about a difference of about 50 cents to a dollar. Just keep in mind the card really costs 1BB to cast.

So what’s so wonderful about this card? There’s a lot of text on it. Here’s the Oracle text to clarify:

“When Oubliette enters the battlefield, exile target creature and all Auras attached to it. Note the number and kind of counters that were on that creature.

When Oubliette leaves the battlefield, return that exiled card to the battlefield under its owner’s control tapped with the noted number and kind of counters on it. If you do, return the other exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner’s control attached to that permanent.”

So it’s sort of like Journey to Nowhere in white, except that it actually keeps any Auras and any counters that it had on it when it left. Still, that’s a really useful card, and it’s an Enchantment. We all know how Enchantments are all the rage these days. In any case, Oubliette is a great card to find. It is not on the reserve list, so there is an outside possibility that it one day be reprinted. For now, though, it looks to be a fairly safe investment.

Retro Magic: Shahrazad - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

6/14/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

I have to give Richard Garfield a ton of credit for creating this card. There is no doubt that Shahrazad is perhaps the most fascinating card in Magic the Gathering simply because of its effect. This card is banned in every format for a reason. Seriously, the card tells you to leave your current game of Magic to go and play a separate game of Magic with the remaining cards! Then after that game is over, you come back to your original game and the loser of the sub-game loses half of his or her life, rounded up. Then you still have to finish the original game!

Wow, that’s a pretty awesome concept: having a game of Magic inside of a game of Magic. Can it ever be practically worked out in a tournament setting? Absolutely not. But it doesn’t mean casual players don’t proxy this and try it out just for fun. Heck, if you actually own a copy of this card, why not stick it in a deck for chuckles? Heck, what if you ran 4 copies of this in a deck? You could potentially have a game of Magic inside a game of Magic inside a game of Magic inside a game of Magic!

And thus, the ban hammer came down…

Please keep your Shahrazads sleeved and bindered, please…

Retro Magic: Singing Tree - Arabian Nights Card Review

6/10/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

While Singing Tree is certainly not the most powerful card in the world, being able to reduce an attacking creature's power to zero certainly is not bad for a 0/3 creature costing 3G. I think this card is mainly on the Reserve list for collectors' value purposes. It's perhaps a card that may have otherwise have been a candidate to reprint in a Core Set.

It's an interesting stall card. Though it is only an uncommon, copies of this card can still sell for $30 USD (or even more) on the open market, mostly just because it is from such an old set and supply is so limited, especially in decent condition.

Retro Magic: Serendib Djinn - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review

6/10/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

In Serendib Djinn, we have a 5/6 flyer for only four mana. Doesn't that have to have a downside? Oh, it does, and it's a big one. At the beginning of each of your up-keeps, you must sacrifice a land. If you sacrifice an Island this way, Serendib Djinn deals 3 damage to you. Then when you control no lands, sacrifice Serendib Djinn.

Now, honestly, if you play this at the right time, this Djinn will win you the game rather handily. So while it has a big downside, it's not unplayable. It makes you realize just what boss monsters Djinns really were at the time and how much the game has really changed (mostly for the better.) But Djinns are cool, and it's too bad recent ones haven't been the boss monsters they once were.

Retro Magic: Old Man of the Sea - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review

6/6/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Old Man of the Sea is an interesting creature that allows you to steal an opponent's creature. He could steal away some very interesting creatures from your opponent, and he himself is a 2/3 for 1UU.

Depending on what he steals from your opponent, it can go from simply being a decent early game Mind Control to putting you at a great advantage. It's an interesting card to play with and one that if printed today would certainly see some action. Alas, it's on the Reserve list.

Retro Magic: Merchant Ship - Arabian Nights Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

6/6/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

In early Magic, there are many examples of cards that were simply just not very good. Merchant Ship was a card that was never reprinted because it’s on the Reserved List. But it doesn’t really matter that it is, because it’s not very good.

Merchant Ship is a 0/2 that can’t attack unless your opponent controls an Island. Why would you attack with a card with 0 power at all, anyway? If you attack with it, and it isn’t blocked (little chance of that, really) you gain 2 life. Oh, wow, 2 life?

Also, if you control no Islands, you must sacrifice this card. This is a little odd, since if you’re playing this card nine times out of ten you will control an Island. In any case it’s pretty weak, especially for an uncommon from Arabian Nights!

Still, Merchant Ship is on the Reserved list. It’s probably worth having a copy just for collection’s sake. After all, decent condition copies of Merchant Ship can sell for as much as $5 or more on TCGPlayer. And while it’s a really mediocre card, the occasional Ramirez DiPietro or Skeleton Ship Commander deck will play a copy.

Retro Magic: Library of Alexandria - Arabian Nights Card Review

6/4/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

There's a reason that Library of Alexandria is banned in both Commander and Legacy and limited to one in Vintage: it's a free draw every turn that you have 7 cards in hand. On top of that, it also can tap for a colorless mana. On the surface, it makes many people wonder, why is this banned? Truth is, played correctly, you can basically get a free extra draw every turn. It's also not a Legendary Land, meaning you could play more than one at a time. This is why it's limited to a single copy in Vintage.

It's a bit skill-intensive, but Legacy & Vintage are certainly very skill-intensive formats. It's just too good for a land that comes into play untapped and can also provide you mana if you can't get the extra card draw. It's just a really great card. Best part is, it's not even a rare. That doesn't help its price, come down, though, as it's still one of the more expensive Magic cards out there.

Retro Magic: Jihad - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review

6/2/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Jihad is sort of an early version of Honor of the Pure and similar to Crusade printed in Alpha/Beta/Unlimited. This card is a bit better than those two: as long as your opponent has the chosen color of permanents in play, your white creatures get +2/+1.

Against mono-colored decks this can actually be a killer. White weenie becomes a lot more powerful with this on the board. It can swing a game in your favor late in the game when your board position is already set up and you just need that few extra power to deplete your opponent's life. It's a card that has found its way into more than a few mono-white EDH deck lists. It could still be quite relevant as a Legacy sideboard option today (if white weenie strategies were still a Legacy-viable deck).

Retro Magic: Ifh-Biff Efreet - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review

5/29/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Ifh-Biff Efreet is one of the more interesting cards in Arabian Nights. With his ability, any player can pay a single green mana to do 1 damage to each player and each creature with flying.

Considering that you can activate his ability as many times as you have green mana to pay, this is a pretty powerful card. It's especially good if your opponent isn't playing any green mana sources. On top of that, it's a 3/3 flyer for 2GG.

It's not hard to see why this is on the Reserve List, as it's actually quite powerful on paper. In practice, the Efreet doesn't really see much play anymore, but pops up in Cubes and Commander decks, here and there.

Retro Magic: Khabal Ghoul - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/27/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Here's an interesting Zombie card, an uncommon from Arabian Nights called Khabal Ghoul. For 2B, you get a 1/1 zombie that gets a +1/+1 counter at each end step for every creature that died that turn and wasn't regenerated. Potentially, this guy could get pretty darn big in a hurry.

He's a nice a nice little card to put in your Zombie-based Commander deck or crazy rogue Legacy deck. He's also not bad in Old School Magic, a format where you can only play cards from 1993 or 1994. If you have about $20 to spare per copy of this guy, Khabal Ghoul is worth a look.

Retro Magic: Juzam Djinn - Arabian Nights Rare Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/25/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully

For 2BB, Juzam Djinn gives you a 5/5 that makes you take 1 damage during each of your up-keeps, which is OK. It is certainly worth taking that 1 extra damage with just how big this guy is, and at the time, this was a really massive creature.

Today, a single copy of Juzam Djinn sells for over $400 USD! That doesn't seem worth the price tag at all if you're thinking of playing him. However, the "Old School Magic" format which uses cards from only 1993 and 1994 likes this card a lot. That's what has skyrocketed his price over the years. He's a really useful card, but unless you have $1200+ to shell out on a playset, he's a reserve list card that you probably should steer clear from.

Retro Magic: Elephant Graveyard - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/21/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Elephant Graveyard is one of the more interesting land cards ever printed. Not only can you tap it for a colorless mana but you can also tap it to regenerate an Elephant or Mammoth. It's funny to think about a deck now being built that revolves around Elephants and Mammoths, but this card actually would make that combination a really fun deck.

Certainly an Elephant/Mammoth hybrid beat-down deck wouldn't be particularly competitive, but it would be fun. I wouldn't recommend investing in these for the purpose of building a casual deck around them, however, as they're $50 USD a piece for a decent condition copy. But if you happen to stumble across a copy or two of these for a reasonably cheap price, it's not a bad idea to pick them up.

Because this card isn't really that viable to play anymore in any competitive sense, it isn't a problem for it to remain on the Reserve List. Keeping it there simply helps it retain collector's value, which for many Magic players, is perfectly fine.

Retro Magic: Drop of Honey - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/19/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

One of the cards never reprinted in a later Magic set is Drop of Honey, an interesting enchantment. For a single green mana, its effect is actually fairly powerful. During your upkeep, the creature with the lowest power is destroyed. If there's a tie, you get to choose which is destroyed. Drop of Honey is destroyed when there are no creatures left on the field.

When the set Legends was released in 1994, this card was given an errata to make its ability a targeting ability. This made it incredibly powerful alongside cards that could not be targeted (in later years this would include creatures such as Troll Ascetic with hexproof) or any creatures with protection from green. In recent years, the errata was reversed and revised to be something that was much closer to its original text, so that would no longer target. It's still an interesting card and if you can find one in near-mint condition, it's a rare card worth adding to your collection.

Drop of Honey actually is on the Reserve List. It is a fairly powerful card, but compared to others on the list, it's now just very good. With the errata that once made it very, very good no longer in play, it probably does not need to be on that list any longer.

Retro Magic: Diamond Valley - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/17/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

One of the most expensive cards from Arabian Nights, often selling on the secondary market for about $100 USD a copy, Diamond Valley is one of the best cards in the set, as well.

By tapping Diamond Valley you can sacrifice a creature in order to gain life equal to the sacrificed creature's toughness. Not only that, but it's effect is able to be used after blockers have been declared.

While it's not really a card that can necessarily win you a game, it's a very fun card for EDH decks that are built around life-gain mechanics. It is pricey, but it's a fun card to play, and you can use it quite a number of times in a game, so it's worth a look if you're willing to sink one hundred bucks into acquiring a copy. This card is, understandably, on the Reserve List.

Retro Magic: City in a Bottle - Arabian Nights Card Review

5/15/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

While it's a pretty cool concept for a card, it's fairly obvious why City in a Bottle was never reprinted. Not only is it relatively useless now, but it was ridiculously powerful at the time. It discards every card from the Arabian Nights expansion that is currently in play, and as long as City in a Bottle is on the board, no other cards from Arabian Nights can be played.

One interesting aspect of this card, though, is that it does not affect reprints of cards from the Arabian Nights expansion. City in a Bottle will forever remain on the Reserve List as an interesting curiosity and a chase card for serious Magic: the Gathering collectors.

(Side note, Oct 19, 2016: Since there is no Reserve List on Magic Online, City in a Bottle was in fact reprinted in Vintage Masters, as a mythic rare no less! What a strange way to introduce it into Magic Online. I guess they thought people would use it to blow up Bazaar of Baghdad strategies? I don't know...)

Retro Magic: Bazaar of Baghdad - Arabian Nights Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/13/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Bazaar of Baghdad is not only on the Reserve List, but it is also banned in Legacy tournament play. On the surface, tapping to draw two cards, and then having to discard three doesn't sound terribly impressive. However, being able to use its tap ability every turn, especially in a deck that utilizes the Graveyard as a resource, it can become a very powerful engine.

Because of how quickly you can fill your graveyard with the cards you actually want in there while drawing into your game-winning combo pieces, Wizards of the Coast decided that this card needed to be banned. It still sees a good amount of play in Vintage, however, where there is a much smaller ban list, so it's still incredibly valuable.

Retro Magic: Ali From Cairo - Arabian Nights Card Review - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

5/11/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

Ali from Cairo has a pretty silly ability. It's obvious why this card has stayed on Magic the Gathering's Reserve List - one of the cards that Wizards of the Coast has promised to never reprint. Basically, you can never lose the game as long as Ali is on the board (unless you lose by poison counters, of course.) Any damage that would reduce your life to 0 will still leave you with 1 life.

One important note: Any loss of life you would take outside of damage, such as the effect of the Extort mechanic, would still reduce your life to 0. So it's still possible to lose with Ali on the board; it's just considerably more difficult.

As this card is not banned in Vintage or Legacy, it's still very possible to build a deck around Ali from Cairo. Getting your hands on a play-set is certainly a pricey proposition, though, at over $50 a piece. will a deck based around him be as good as it once was? Not particularly, especially as a creature with no power and only 1 toughness. But he's still fun to play, and he's a valuable card for your collection.

Retro Magic: Arabian Nights! - Magic the Gathering (MTG)

4/27/2012

by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff

As the first ever expansion for Magic: the Gathering, Arabian Nights is obviously one of the most sought after sets by collectors of the game. It had some extremely powerful cards, one major oddity (only one basic land was printed in the set by accident), and possibly the craziest card ever to be printed in any trading card game: Shahrazad.

Arabian Nights actually has many cards reprinted in later sets. Many cards from Arabian Nights were reprinted in Chronicles, the later compilation set. Some other notable cards were reprinted in later Core Sets and expansions. For example, Desert was reprinted in Time Spiral.

The most notable card that has been reprinted from this set is City of Brass. This is a land that allows you to tap for any color of mana, but you must pay one life to do so. It was only an uncommon in Arabian Nights, but has been reprinted as a rare in Chronicles, and the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th edition Core Sets. It would also be reprinted in Modern Masters and the Modern Event Deck. One of these later reprints can be had for about $3-4 USD a copy, but original Arabian Nights versions can sell for as much as $100 USD a copy... or more!

Only 28 cards from this set have never been reprinted. 22 of them are on Wizards of the Coast's Reserved List. Being on the Reserved List means that they will never be reprinted, mainly because of their power level and also to protect their collectors value. These 22 cards remain some of the rarest cards in all of Magic.

Besides these, there is a major oddity in the set: a basic Mountain! Since Arabian Nights was originally meant to be printed as a stand-alone product, it initially had basic lands as part of the set. When it was decided that it would instead be an expansion to Alpha, Beta & Unlimited, the basic lands were removed.

However, in the first print run of the set, Mountain was accidentally left in. This makes the Arabian Nights Mountains highly sought after by players & collectors alike. A single copy of this particular printing of Mountain is worth about $50-60 USD. Even in less than perfect condition, they're worth holding onto, even if only for trade stock for Red Deck Wins lovers.

Stick around for more Retro Magic, where we look at some of the oldest and rarest cards in Magic: the Gathering!

Some Retro Magic articles to enjoy:

Ali from Cairo - Arabian Nights Card Review
Ancestral Recall - Retro Magic Card Review
Juzam Djinn - Arabian Nights Card Review