Rath block

The Rath Cycle (also known as the Tempest block) is a block of three Magic: The Gathering expansions that continues the events of the Weatherlight Saga.[2] It consists of Tempest (October 1997), Stronghold (March 1998) and Exodus (June 1998). These are the 20th, 21st and 22nd expansion sets, respectively.[3][4][5][6][7]

Tempest
Tempest expansion symbol (Storm cloud)
ReleasedOctober 1997
December 8, 2008 (MTGO)
Size350 cards (110 commons, 110 uncommons, 110 rares, 20 basic lands)
KeywordsBuyback, Shadow
MechanicsSlivers, Licids
DesignersMark Rosewater (lead), Richard Garfield, Charlie Catino, Mike Elliott[1]
Development codeBogavhati
Expansion codeTMP
First set in the Rath Cycle block
Tempest Stronghold Exodus
← Weatherlight Stronghold →
← Mirage Block Urza Block →
Stronghold
ReleasedFebruary 1998
April 13, 2009 (MTGO)
Size143 cards (55 commons, 44 uncommons, 44 rares)
KeywordsNone new
MechanicsSpikes
Development codeRachimulot
Expansion codeSTH
Second set in the Rath Cycle block
Tempest Stronghold Exodus
← Tempest Exodus →
← Mirage Block Urza Block →
Exodus
ReleasedJune 15, 1998
December 7, 2009 (MTGO)
Size143 cards (55 commons, 44 uncommons, 44 rares)
KeywordsNone New
MechanicsNone new
Development codeGorgonzola
Expansion codeEXO
Third set in the Rath Cycle block
Tempest Stronghold Exodus
← Stronghold Portal Second Age →
← Mirage Block Urza Block →
Tempest Remastered
ReleasedMay 6, 2015 (MTGO only)
Size269 cards (101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares)
Expansion codeTPR
← Dragons or Tarkir Modern Masters 2015 Edition →

Storyline

Tempest

The Weatherlight arrives in Rath to rescue Captain Sisay when Volrath's ship the Predator, attacks. Volrath's forces, led by dark angel Selenia, swarm the ship looking for Legacy artifacts - one of which is Karn. In an act of nonviolence, Karn gives himself up and is taken aboard the Predator. All the remaining artifacts are taken into their possession except Squee's Toy. The assault on the ship continues and Captain Gerrard falls overboard into the forest of Skyshroud below. Tahngarth leaps onto the fleeing Predator and later finds Karn. Greven il-Vec intervenes against Tahngarth and gets the upper hand to take him prisoner. Meanwhile, Gerrard now on foot, flees the merfolk, and soon finds himself in the company of the Vec on a pilgrimage. Their leader, The Oracle, believes Gerrard is a prophesied hero, the Korvecdal. The remaining crew of the Weatherlight descend into the Skyshroud forest for repairs and Hanna and Mirri set out on foot to find Gerrard. After some time, the Skyshroud elves capture them and bring them before their elven lord Eladamri, who coincidentally has also received the Vec and Gerrard into his company. Gerrard explains his mission and convinces Eladamri to free Hanna and Mirri. Gerrard then discusses with Eladamri, Starke, and the Oracle en-Vec the plans to reach Volrath's stronghold.[8]

The Predator eventually returns to Volrath's stronghold, where Volrath is displeased that Greven il-Vec has failed to capture Gerrard and uses his dark magic to torture him. Karn and Tahngarth are imprisoned in Volrath's torture chamber. Back on the Weatherlight, Eladamri has provided the crew with directions to a portal that could lead to escaping Rath. Ertai departs the ship to interpret the runes of the portal and to prepare it for use when the Weatherlight will eventually return from the stronghold. Ertai is then confronted by Soltari emissary, Lyna, and draws Ertai into her world full of beings caught between Rath and Dominaria. In return, Ertai draws Lyna into his reality on Rath and they begin discussing the plight of the Soltari and Lyna's interest in the portal.[8]

On the Weatherlight, en route to the stronghold, Crovax feels the draw of dark angel Selenia. The crew continues on to the Cinder Marsh and encounters a massive lair of sliver creatures that share a hive mind. With the help from Hanna, they defeat the slivers and continue through the back door entrance to the stronghold via the ventilation ducts that eventually lead to the Furnace of Rath. After fighting the fires of the Furnace, they continue on to the Death Pits and are boarded by terrible horrors called carrionettes. With the blessing of Orim, the Samite healer, Gerrard destroys the carrionettes and escapes below deck, but not before saving Squee from carrionette reinforcements. Squee then activates his toy...[8]

Stronghold

The crew of Weatherlight approaches Volrath's Stronghold in search for Sisay and the missing pieces of the Legacy. Deep in the Dream Halls, Gerrard learns that Volrath was his former blood brother Vuel and the one who stole the Legacy. What appears to be a final conflict between Gerrard and Volrath ends instead with the death of an imposter shapeshifter.

Exodus

The crew of Weatherlight has rescued the pieces of the Legacy and Captain Sisay, and now must retreat through Volrath's Stronghold and escape to the portal that would lead them off of Rath. Volrath and his main lieutenant Greven il-Vec will stop at nothing to destroy them and reclaim the ancient artifacts that will allow Volrath to oppose his hidden master. However, they must also stave off the combined assault of Volrath's Stronghold by the elves of the Skyshroud forest and the human tribes of the Kor, Vec, and Dal, recently reunited by Gerrard of Weatherlight. Also, a disturbing change has happened to Crovax, the noble who accompanied Weatherlight to Rath. His newly formed bloodlust and thirst for power threatens to destroy the entire ship.

Set history

Tempest

Tempest was the second set and the first standalone in the Weatherlight Saga, a continuous storyline for over four years' worth of Magic expansions. The release of Tempest represented a large jump in the power level of the card set, compared to the previous Mirage block. Many cards from Tempest instantly became (and still are) tournament staples. Its expansion symbol is a cloud, with a lightning bolt erupting out.[2] On December 8, 2008 Tempest was released for Magic: The Gathering Online.

Originally Tempest was intended to have a major "poison" theme, but in the end all poison cards were pulled from the set.[9]

Stronghold

Stronghold was the last set in which multi-colored cards appeared until the 2000 expansion Invasion.

On April 13, 2009 Stronghold was released on Magic Online. It went off sale on April 27, 2009, but was briefly available again for the release of Exodus on December 7, 2009.

Exodus

Exodus is the first set to make a card's rarity visibly apparent on the card itself. All previous expansions had no way to tell whether a card was a common card or a rare card. From Exodus on, the expansion symbol reveals what rarity a card is.[2] If a card has a black expansion symbol, it is a common card (there are eleven common cards in a fifteen-card booster pack). If it has a silver expansion symbol, it is an uncommon card (three in a booster pack). If it has a gold expansion symbol, it is a rare card (one in a booster pack).

Exodus is also the first set to add collectors' numbers to the cards themselves.[2] Next to the copyright information are two numbers in the format X/Y, where X is the card's collectors' number and Y the number of cards in the set in question. The cards were numbered in alphabetical order by color according to the Magic color wheel, starting with white and going clockwise. Exodus is also the first set to center the artist and copyright information at the bottom of the card, rather than have that information aligned to the left side of the card. This change persisted until the card design change in 8th Edition.

Tempest Remastered

Tempest Remastered is a Magic Online-exclusive set released on May 6, 2015. The set features 269 cards (including basic lands) specially selected from the three expansions of the Rath block. Although cards retain their original illustrations, all cards use the most recent card layout, and may have a different rarity than those from the original sets.

Mechanics

Tempest introduced two new keyworded mechanics to Magic: buyback and shadow.[2] Buyback appeared on instants and sorceries. Spells with buyback had an optional buyback cost which, if paid, caused the spell to return to its owner's hand after being cast instead of being placed in the graveyard. Shadow was an ability on white, black and blue creatures, which mandated that those creatures could only block or be blocked by creatures with shadow. Tempest also introduced several new creature types. One of these was slivers, a type of creature that shared their abilities with other Slivers in play. Slivers continued into Stronghold, and later made appearances in Legions, Scourge, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos, Future Sight, Magic 2014, and Magic 2015. It also introduced Licids, a creature type that had the ability to become creature enchantments. It also introduced a cycle "stuck" or "slow" lands, uncommon lands that add mana of two allied colors, but when used, did not untap on your next turn, and medallions, a very popular cycle of artifacts, one for each color, that reduced the cost of spells of the appropriate color. Tempest introduced enchantments that gain counters each turn, as well has spells whose effects start small and grow each time a copy of the spell is played. Both of these mechanics would be used in subsequent sets.

Stronghold used many of the same mechanics as Tempest, including buyback, licids, and shadow. A prominent creature type in Stronghold is the Slivers. While first introduced in Tempest, Stronghold greatly expanded on this creature type that can make other creatures larger. Another creature type from Stronghold were the En-Kor, creatures that can redirect damage they suffer to other creatures, thus making them almost invulnerable to damage.

Design notes

As was done in Ice Age and Mirage, Tempest continued to import staple cards from earlier sets into the current environment. In addition, a couple of newer staples from Mirage and Visions were reprinted. Tempest also printed a number of cards that combined abilities of older cards with the "buyback" keyword. An example of this is Elvish Fury, which is similar to Giant Growth. Tempest also attempted to fix a number of classic but overpowered cards.

Exodus introduces no new keywords or mechanics, but it did use the Buyback and Shadow mechanics introduced in Tempest. There were two cycles in Exodus called by the name of "underdog" cards The first cycle are the Oaths, one rare enchantment of each color, that would check a resource of each player and then balance them out. There were also the keepers, that were weaker creature versions of the oaths, and uncommon.

Notable Cards

Notable cards from Tempest include Ancient Tomb, Cursed Scroll, Diabolic Edict, Grindstone, Intuition, Lotus Petal, Scroll Rack, Time Warp, and Wasteland.

Notable cards from Stronghold include Dream Halls, Ensnaring Bridge, Mox Diamond, Sliver Queen, and Volrath's Stronghold.

Notable cards in Exodus include City of Traitors, Hatred, Oath of Druids, Survival of the Fittest[10]

gollark: Probably a horrendously complex problem, that.
gollark: and then do magic and it's all fine
gollark: That doesn't actually help with *arranging them onscreen*.
gollark: No.
gollark: Also, Python libraries generally seem to be imperative stuff with a thin OOP veneer which makes it slightly more irritating to use.

References
  1. Rosewater, Mark (September 6, 2010). "Something Wicked This Way Comes, Part 1". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved September 7, 2010.
  2. http://www.gameyum.com/magic-the-gathering/88789-mtg-cards-and-sets/
  3. Miller, John Jackson (2001), Scrye Collectible Card Game Checklist & Price Guide, p. 520.
  4. Moursund, Beth (2002), The Complete Encyclopedia of Magic The Gathering, p. 720.
  5. Justice, Mark (1998), Magic The Gathering - Advanced Strategy Guide, p. 128.
  6. Wakefield, James (1997), Tournament Reports for Magic: The Gathering, p. 169.
  7. Shvartsman, Alex (1998), Tempest Revealed: A Review of the Tempest Edition of Magic : The Gathering by Alex Shvartsman.
  8. Rosewater, Mark (December 1997), "Before the Storm - The Making of Tempest", The Duelist (#20), pp. 64–81
  9. "Magic Show Worlds 2010 Extra – Mark Rosewater Interview". StarCityGames. January 7, 2010. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
  10. Lauer, Erik. "Explanation of December 2010 B&R Changes". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
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