Urza's Destiny
Urza's Destiny is the seventeenth Magic expansion and was released in June 1999 as the third set and second small expansion in the Urza block.
Set details
Urza's Destiny contains 143 black-bordered cards (44 rare, 44 uncommon, and 55 commons). Its expansion symbol is an Erlenmeyer flask, meant to symbolize Urza's continued experiments in finding a means to defeat Phyrexia. Urza's Destiny was the first and only set after Arabian Nights which has a solo designer, Mark Rosewater. It was the first Expert-level, tournament legal set to be printed under the then-new 6th Edition rules changes; the most notable change seen on cards is the use of the word "Creature" on the type line as opposed to "Summon". In this the set was also following the footsteps of Portal Second Age.
Due to an error some boosters contain DCI and Arena promotional foils in the uncommon slot. The foil cards that appear this way are Duress, Stroke of Genius, Gaea's Cradle, Thran Quarry, Rewind, Skittering Skirge, Pouncing Jaguar, Serra Avatar, Karn Silver Golem, and Lightning Bolt.
Urza's Destiny was released on Magic Online on April 11, 2011.
Marketing
The cards were sold in 15-card boosters which had artwork from Emperor Crocodile and in four preconstructed theme decks. The Official Urza's Destiny Game Guide is the guide to the cards in the set. It was written by Will McDermott, editor of The Duelist at the time. The set was also accompanied by Bloodlines, the final novel in the Artifacts Cycle. The prerelease card was a foil False Prophet.
Storyline
With the Weatherlight completed, Urza now works on a eugenics program to create a perfect crew for it, as well as engineering a race of soldiers to fight the Phyrexian invasion. One of his geneticists, Gatha, defects, and uses his knowledge to improve the Keldon race. Meanwhile, the Phyrexians create the plane of Rath as a staging ground for the invasion.
Themes and mechanics
The "reveal" cards come in two types: creatures (Seers) and spells (Scents). When you use a Seer ability or a Scent spell, you show your opponents any number of cards of the specified color that are currently in your hand. The number of cards revealed determines the power of the effect.
Urza's Destiny also has a strong theme of graveyard effects. Many creatures and a few enchantments have special abilities that trigger when the permanent is put into a graveyard (e.g. When Aura Thief goes to the graveyard, you gain control of all enchantments).
The set also further develops the cycling theme introduced in the previous two sets with "cycling from play" creatures. These creatures, such as Brass Secretary and Yavimaya Elder, do not have cycling as a keyword, but instead have the activated ability "
, sacrifice this creature: Draw a card." This ability is similar to cycling, but is used while the creature is in play rather than in your hand.
Creature types
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Golem.
The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Angel, Ape, Barbarian, Beast, Beeble, Bird, Cleric, Crocodile, Dragon, Drake, Druid, Elemental, Elf, Giant, Goblin, Griffin, Horror, Hound, Illusion, Imp, Insect, Knight, Minion, Ogre, Rat, Skeleton, Soldier, Spider, Townsfolk (later changed to Human), Wall, Wizard.
Cycles
Urza's Destiny has four cycles and a vertical cycle:
Vertical cycle
Mega-mega cycles
Notable cards
- Carnival of Souls looks like a combo engine but has a difficult-to-exploit payoff and plays badly during the era of mana burn. It is notable as being one of the worst cards ever.
- Donate and Illusions of Grandeur were integral pieces of the Trix decks.
- Elvish Piper became one of the games most well-known "Timmy"-cards.
- Flicker spawned Flicker, a mechanic and its associated archetype of deck.
- Magnify is one of four cards that are global pump effects and one of two (with Thran weaponry) to increase toughness.
- Mask of Law and Grace is reference to Voice of Law and Voice of Grace from Urza's Saga. It would go on to form a parallel pair with Shield of Duty and Reason from Apocalypse, referring to the two Voices in this set.
- Masticore was resistant to multiple forms of removal and punishing to the small creatures of the time. It was renowned for its powerful, inspired a creature archetype (Masticore) and was later referred to on Deep Analysis.
- Opposition spawned multiple prison-decks most notably "Squirrel-prison", locking out the opponent's lands with enough creatures. It remains a Vintage Cube build-around to this day.
- Phyrexian Negator was powered out with Dark Ritual and an essential part to many suicide-black decks.
- Powder Keg became the board-sweeper of choice with Nevinyrral's Disk leaving Standard after 5th Edition.
- Storage Matrix was the last reference to the "Mono-Artifact" rule seen on things like Winter Orb until Mirrodin made a few more call-backs.
- Treachery was used in many blue control decks like Draw-Go.
- Replenish, Opalescence and Academy Rector formed a combo deck based on discarding and milling many enchantments.
- Replenish was banned from Extended, and Legacy when the format started, but was unbanned in June 2007.
- Opalescence was infamous for being in Standard with Humility, a layering rules headache.
- Academy Rector still forms the backbone of multiple combos, especially with Omniscience, and even Yawgmoth's Bargain in the same set.
Banned and Restricted cards
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary can generate an absurd amount of mana. It rotated in and out of the Commander banlist as they moved around the banned-as-commander rule.
- Yawgmoth's Bargain is a strong variation on Necropotence, as the cards are drawn immediately. It was banned throughout all of Legacy's lifetime and was only unrestricted in Vintage in 2018.
- Metalworker can produce tons of mana in the many artifact-decks of the day. It was banned in Legacy from inception until June 2009, and banned in Commander until September 2014.
Reprinted cards
The following cards have been reprinted from previous sets and included in Urza's Destiny.
- Ravenous Rats — was last seen in Portal Second Age.
Functional reprints
Urza's Destiny has one functional reprint:
- Wild Colos is a functional reprint of Raging Cougar from Portal, save for creature type.