Arabian Nights was the first
Magic: The Gathering expansion set, published in 1993. The set is composed entirely of new cards. The expansion symbol of
Arabian Nights is a
scimitar. The setting of
Arabian Nights is inspired by the themes and characters of the
Thousand and One Arabian Nights with some of the characters and places coming directly from these tales. The
Arabian Nights also provides the flavor text for most of the cards in the set.
Arabian Nights stands out as being one of the only two card sets primarily based on
public domain real-world fiction (the other being
Portal Three Kingdoms), as opposed to other card sets based on settings created exclusively for
Magic. At that point in
Magic development, the role of expansions was relatively undefined, and Garfield intended for
Arabian Nights cards to bear a purple and gold back that would allow players to exclude
Arabian Nights from their games. In his article, "The Making of Arabian Nights", Garfield cites this as his inspiration to "be more adventurous in creating mechanics and themes". Player response against the proposed new back caused
Wizards of the Coast to stay with the original backs, allowing cards from various sets to be mixed freely in gameplay. To replace the new card back, a symbolic scimitar was added between the card artwork and card text, On the other hand, the Mountain, accidentally not removed from
Arabian Nights, is the only card of the set that had been printed before. It is thus the first reprint in
Magic outside a base set.
Arabian Nights includes a few minor collation and typographical errors. One of them was the so-called "Arabian Mountain". When the decision was made to have the expansion sets fully playable with the basic set, Wizards of the Coast decided that there was no need to include basic lands in the print run, so they were removed. However, one Mountain basic land card accidentally remained on the print sheet as a common, in a slot intended for a Desert card. Due to this oversight, the Mountain is now the most common
Magic card. Wizards noted that there were just under 31,000
Arabian Nights Mountain cards printed. Another error, this time in printing, caused two different styles of generic mana symbols to be printed on some cards. Some copies of these cards feature a regular sized generic mana symbol, other copies have one that is smaller and darker.
Design Even when separated from its place as
Magic's first expansion,
Arabian Nights was a groundbreaking set in terms of its impact on the game. In his article "It Happened One Nights",
Mark Rosewater detailed among others the following innovations or expansions on
Alpha mechanics: • Stealing opponent's cards –
Alpha enabled players to gain control of their opponent's permanents, but
Arabian Nights explored this theme further. • Opponent-activated abilities – has an ability that each player can activate. This theme was further explored with the Mongers in
Mercadian Masques. • Lands with abilities –
Arabian Nights was the first set with Lands that had abilities other than mana abilities. • Coin flips –
Arabian Nights was the first set that made use of coin flips to introduce additional randomness to the game. •
Cumulative upkeep & cantrips (cards that draw a new card when played) – Both concepts were more formally introduced in
Ice Age, but
Arabian Nights made use of these on and , respectively. •
Lifelink – The concept of the ability that would become Lifelink was first introduced on
Arabian Nights . • Exile zone as a Limbo – was the first card to use what would eventually come to be called the Exile zone as a holding zone for cards temporarily out of play. It would later be errata'd to use the phasing mechanic seen in the
Mirage expansion.
Storyline Richard Garfield considered several
mythologies to build
Magic first expansion around, but eventually decided to use a real-world mythos. Personally fascinated with the
One Thousand and One Nights mythos, and inspired by the recent
Sandman comic by
Neil Gaiman, "Ramadan", he decided that it fit the game well and chose to employ it for
Magic. although many other sets are inspired or loosely flavored by real-earth cultures (e.g. Norse cultures in
Ice Age, African cultures in
Mirage, Eastern Europe in
Ravnica, etc.).
Notable cards • ''''
— The effect to create subgames is unique in Magic
and eventually led to the banning of this card from all tournament formats as it was perceived to consume too much time in tournaments. In his article "The Making of Arabian Nights" Richard Garfield called Shahrazad his favorite card from Arabian Nights'' also due to its unique effect. • '''''' — The Library has been a staple of
Vintage decks for years. For some time Vintage players even referred to the
Power Nine as Power Ten to include the card. Library of Alexandria is restricted in Vintage and not legal to play in any other format. • '''''' — Kird Ape is one of the most powerful one-mana creatures of the game's early life. When played alongside , it was a 2/3 potentially on the first turn of the game, which led to it being on the first list of banned cards for the
Extended format. • ''''
— Originally, Richard Garfield wanted to use different card backs for Arabian Nights'', so that each set could stand on its own and that players could have the option of playing only with the sets that they liked. After this idea was vetoed, City in a Bottle was an intended "safeguard" that if a player didn't want to play with
Arabian Nights cards, they had a card that could stop the entire expansion. • '''''' — With Jihad, Stone-Throwing Devils is a card that was banned due its racist implications against
Palestinians, especially during the
first intifada and is included with the
Banned 7. • '''''' — Basic land. The Arabian Nights set was not intended to have basic lands, but one "mountain" card was printed in the set by mistake. • '''''' — With Stone-Throwing Devils, Jihad is a card that was banned due to its offensive religious implications with
Islam and the holy war of
Jihad and is included in the
Banned 7. ==Antiquities==