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Dark Ascension

Facts
Placement
Plane
Innistrad
Other
Symbol description
Innistrad symbol turned inward
Design
Mark Rosewater (lead), ; Jenna Helland , ; Zac Hill , ; Graeme Hopkins , ; Matt Tabak
Development
Tom LaPille (lead), ; Mark L. Gottlieb , ; Zac Hill, ; David Humpherys , ; Ken Troop
Themes and mechanics
Double-faced cards , Cursed , Graveyard matters, Tribal , Human sacrifice
Keywords/​ability words
Fateful hour , Flashback , Morbid , Transform , Undying
Innistrad
Innistrad Dark Ascension Avacyn Restored
Premium Deck Series: Graveborn
Premium Deck Series: Graveborn Dark Ascension Duel Decks: Venser vs. Koth

Dark Ascension is the second set in the Innistrad block. It is the 57th Magic expansion and was released on February 3, 2012.

Set details

Dark Ascension, like its predecessor, is top-down designed with a horror theme. The set contains 158 cards (64 Common, 44 Uncommon, 38 Rare, 12 Mythic) and includes randomly inserted premium versions of all cards in the set. The set puts a stronger emphasis on tribal creature types, such as providing a lord for each of the main types (vampires, ghosts, werewolves, zombies and humans). All the major mechanics of the previous set, including double-faced cards, return. New mechanics are Fateful Hour and Undying. The expansion symbol of the set is the Innistrad symbol "turned inward", which represents humanity hunkering down.

Flavor and storyline

Innistrad has been overrun by creatures of the night. While the forces of good struggle to hold back the threat, villagers cower behind walls and pray for the morning light. The humans are on the verge of extinction and have to take desperate measures to stem the tide. It is revealed that Avacyn, the guardian angel created by Sorin is locked in the Helvault.

Magic Story

Savor the Flavor

Marketing

Dark Ascension was sold in 16-card boosters, 6-card boosters, five intro packs, two event decks and a fat pack. The 16-card boosters featured artwork from Havengul Lich, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Werewolf Ransacker. The small booster featured artwork from Beguiler of Wills.

The prerelease was January 28–29, 2012, the launch party on February 3–6, 2012, the Magic Online release on February 20, 2012. The Game Day was held on February 25–26, 2012.

At each prerelease, some number of people were designated by some flashy stickers as a vampire, werewolf, zombie, or spirit at the start of the event. Any time a monster defeated a human in a match, the monster would convert the human to their cause. At the end of each Prerelease, the remaining humans and the largest tribe or tribes of monsters would be declared winners, but the rewards were up to the organizers. The prerelease cards was the double faced Ravenous Demon / Archdemon of Greed. The Release card was Mondronen Shaman / Tovolar's Magehunter. The promotional card at the Game Day event was a full-art Strangleroot Geist, while a full-art foil Zombie Apocalypse was given to the top-8 participants. The Buy-a-Box was Gravecrawler.

Regular boosters of Dark Ascension come with a bonus sixteenth card that is either a Dark Ascension checklist card, a creature token, an emblem, or a rules card with an advertisement on the reverse side.

Tokens and emblem

The new Dark Ascension tokens and emblem are:

  1. {W} 1/1 Human produced by Gather the Townsfolk, Increasing Devotion, and Thraben Doomsayer
  2. {B} 1/1 Vampire with lifelink produced by Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
  3. Emblem for Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Themes and mechanics

The set introduces a new keyword mechanic in Undying. It functions very similar to Persist, but instead of a -1/-1 counter, it adds a +1/+1 counter to the creature when it returns from the grave.

Fateful hour is a new ability word, which creates an ability that functions if the controller of the effect is at 5 life or less.

Double-faced cards return with this set, further showcasing the transformation mechanic. As for Innistrad a special Checklist card is provided to facilitate play with the double-face cards. Flashback, Morbid, and Curses also return.

Creature types

No novel creature types were introduced in this expansion.

Cycles

Dark Ascension breaks the mold for cycles to a certain extent, as some of the cycles only contain four cards. In cycles that emphasize an allied color pair, the green-white part of the cycle is missing. This is likely due to the higher emphasis on monster tribes, as the white/green pair is tied to humans.

Three flashback cycles:

Two monster tribal cycles:

Mega cycle

Vertical cycle

Reprinted cards

Functional reprints

Strictly better

Notable cards

  • Archangel's Light is a notoriously weak card, particularly for a mythic rare.
  • Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger formed the backbone of Zombie decks in Standard, as both are hard to kill and can push a lot of damage through in early turns. Geralf's Messenger, in particular, is a conceptual mirrored version of Kitchen Finks which was a popular aggro card during Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block; providing life loss against life gain, getting stronger upon death as opposed to weaker and being extremely inflexible in casting as opposed to being fairly easy to cast.
  • Grafdigger's Cage is a powerful hoser card against strategies that attempt to cheat cards into play. This card incited widespread skepticism and anger but turned out to not be as threatening as expected. It nevertheless became a staple in the eternal formats, especially out of the sideboard.
  • Huntmaster of the Fells provided two bodies in one card, as well as lifegain and potential damage output, resulting in seeing heavy play in Standard.
  • Elbrus, the Binding Blade is a very flavorful artifact, depicting an expensive but weak dagger, which transforms into the gigantic and nigh-unstoppable Demon Withengar who feasts on the souls of defeated opponents.
  • Tragic Slip was once one of the best spot creature removal cards in the game, due to its ability to destroy almost any creature for one mana, provided that another creature already died that turn.
  • Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is a staple in Death and Taxes in both Legacy and Modern and has seen play on both of its times through Standard.
  • Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is well known in casual Commander for having an infinite combo loop with numerous creatures, most commonly Triskelion.
  • Thought Scour has seen substantial play in both Modern and Pauper decks that combine control style spells with aggressive finishers that benefit from a filled graveyard, as well as Modern decks focused on aggressively milling the opponent.
  • Young Wolf did not see much success in Standard but has proven powerful in both Pauper, where it is a key part of multiple aggro decks, and Bogles style decks, and in Modern, where it is one of the main combo pieces in decks built around Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.
  • Strangleroot Geist was a key part of standard aggro decks with an efficient and hasty body and resilience to removal, and continues to see play in decks similar to Young Wolf in Modern such as Yawgmoth and Chord Toolbox.

Banned and restricted cards

  • Faithless Looting showed the shift toward "looting" (a la Merfolk Looter) abilities in Red, although later sets shifted towards having the discard happen before drawing. Regardless, the card proved to be exceptionally powerful for any deck that cares about the graveyard, providing both great card selection and cheap access to repeatable discard. It even works great in multiples, which could also be discarded but still provide value through flashback. After many years of enabling graveyard strategies, it was banned in Modern in 2019 the wake of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis decks plaguing the format for months. Five years later, it was unbanned in an attempt to revitalize older strategies and fight the perception that Modern had become solely about decks created in the Horizons series.
  • Lingering Souls saw widespread application in nearly all formats and was banned in Block Constructed due to providing a large number of creatures with the cost spread over multiple turns. It remained a powerhouse in Modern for many years, although it has fallen out of favor as more powerful creatures have been printed.

Trivia

Preconstructed decks

Intro packs

Dark Ascension features five intro packs.

Event decks

Dark Ascension features two event decks.

References