Weatherlight
Weatherlight is the eleventh Magic expansion, released in June 1997 as the third set and second small expansion of the Mirage block. Weatherlight also marked the beginning of the Weatherlight Saga, the most important Magic storyline, which continued through 2001.
Set details
The set contains 167 black-bordered cards (50 rare, 55 uncommon, and 62 commons). Its expansion symbol is the Thran Tome, an important artifact of the Legacy whose contents change depending on who reads it. Among the information contained in the Tome are the components and intended operation of the Legacy itself.
Marketing
The set was sold in booster packs containing 15 cards (1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 11 common). All boosters featured the same artwork from the card Steel Golem. While previous sets only included allusions to an overarching story, Weatherlight was the first set to explicitly tell an ordered narrative focused on developed, archetypical characters. The new approach to designing and marketing Magic proved to be a huge success both popularly and commercially. Weatherlight also set the stage for the books of the Rath Cycle storyline.
Storyline
Four thousand years after Urza and Mishra reopened the portal to Phyrexia, the evil lord Yawgmoth sits poised to invade his one-time home - Dominaria. The plane's only hope for survival is a cache of powerful artifacts known collectively as the Legacy. When put together to assemble a powerful doomsday weapon, these artifacts will have the potential to destroy the dark powers that will try to invade the planet. The focal point of this weapon is a flying ship called Weatherlight, and its intrepid crew searches the planes to find all of the pieces of the Legacy before the invasion commences. Only the reluctant leadership of Gerrard Capashen and the skills of Squee the cabin boy and Tahngarth the hulking minotaur will save the day. It doesn't help that captain Sisay has been kidnapped, and they have to travel to the plane of Rath to save her before they can complete their destiny. And Gerrard, of course, will have to live up to his own overwhelming responsibilities by facing his blood brother Vuel, who has changed his name to Volrath and sold out any semblance of goodness he had by becoming Yawgmoth's first in command.
Storyline sources
Magic online
Weatherlight was retroactively released on Magic Online on December 12, 2007. Release events began on December 14, 2007.
Themes and mechanics
Weatherlight was designed completely independently from the group that designed Mirage and Visions, but it was decided for coherency to use elements of the earlier two sets to make the third set feel like part of the block. However, the Weatherlight design team embraced a theme that had nothing to do with the previous sets; it is the first set where the graveyard is strongly mechanically relevant.
Weatherlight contained no new named mechanics. It contained the following previously used mechanics: Banding, Cumulative upkeep, Phasing, Flanking, and Swampwalk. Two themes include:
- "Graveyard order matters" — Cards which refer to the order of cards in a player's graveyard (see Spinning Darkness),
- "Sacrifice buyouts" — Creature cards which have triggered abilities that tell you to sacrifice them unless you pay a cost or perform an action (see Barrow Ghoul).
Creature types
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Aboroth (later changed to Elemental), Avizoa (later changed to Jellyfish), Barishi (later changed to Elemental), Behemoth (later changed to Elemental), Gatekeeper (later changed to Horror), Peacekeeper (later changed to Human), Thundermare (later changed to Elemental Horse), Undead (later changed to Horror and Wraith).
The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Atog, Bear, Bird, Cleric, Cyclops, Djinn, Dragon, Drake, Dwarf, Elemental, Elephant, Elf, Falcon (later changed to Bird), Fish, Ghost (later changed to Spirit), Giant, Goblin, Griffin, Hound (later changed to Dog), Illusion, Knight, Merfolk, Minotaur, Ogre, Ooze, Orc, Rat, Serpent, Snake, Soldier, Spirit, Treefolk, Unicorn, Wall, Wizard, Wolf, Wurm, Zombie.
Cycles
Weatherlight has three cycles:
Mega-mega cycle
Pairs
Weatherlight has one matched pair:
Reprinted cards
The following cards were reprinted in Weatherlight from Portal.
Functional reprints
Weatherlight has two functional reprints:
- Cloud Djinn is a functional reprint of Cloud Dragon from Portal, save for creature type.
- Fallow Wurm is a functional reprint of Thundering Wurm from Portal.
Notable cards
- Circling Vultures has a wording that required giving it its own line in the special actions section in the rules.
- Doomsday lets a player set up a combo win with their five cards and continues to be a viable but difficult deck to play in Legacy and Vintage, as the opponent has a clear route to victory: survive the five cards.
- Gaea's Blessing is a popular anti-mill card with a clause that was later superseded by the Eldrazi Titans.
- Gemstone Mine is a land for five-color combo decks, as it comes untapped and produces any color, its three-time limit less relevant when the player wins.
- Lotus Vale was very popular, although it was very vulnerable to land destruction.
- Ophidian gave rise to a legacy of saboteur abilities, with an effect that generated resources rather than removing those of their opponents.
- Null Rod has become a powerful artifact stopping Moxen, amongst others, in Vintage tournaments.
- Redwood Treefolk is one of the first cards that improved upon its predecessor. It cost the same as Ironroot Treefolk at
but had a power/toughness of 3/6 instead of the latter's 3/5. - Veteran Explorer was the linchpin for the Legacy Nic Fit deck.
Theme decks
Paper versions of Weatherlight theme decks (also known as precons) do not exist because the concept of theme decks was not implemented until the next block (Tempest block) was released. Weatherlight precons were designed retroactively for the MTGO release of the Mirage block sets in 2005, nearly a decade after the set was released in paper.
The pre-constructed theme decks are: