Games - Ice Age

Home > Listing Index > Games > Ice Age (Magic: The Gathering)

	Games - Ice Age

Ice Age was the eleventh Magic: The Gathering
set and the sixth expansion set, released in June, 1995. Set in the years from 450 to 2934 AR, the set describes a world set in perpetual winter due to the events in Antiquities.

Storyline

The Brothers' War, referenced in the set Antiquities
and the Urza block, has thrown Dominia into a drastic climate change. The weather has dropped sharply and a new Ice Age has begun. Most of society has been lost; all that remains are the soldier nation of Kjeldor, the barbarians of Balduvia, and the elvish society of Fyndhorn. The necromancer Lim-Dûl has begun to conduct twisted experiments and the wizard Zur the Enchanter trains new wizards to survive in the harsh environment.

Set History

Ice Age was the first "stand-alone" expansion; that is, it was the first set that could be played independently of other Magic: the Gathering products. It was the first expansion to reprint the basic lands (aside from an Arabian Nights
misprint that left a Mountain on the print sheet).

As Ice Age was the first "stand-alone" expansion set, the designers believed that some "staple" cards from the basic set and expansions should be in the set. Thus, the set was also the first expansion set (aside from the Mountain misprint) to reprint cards. Staple cards like Swords to Plowshares, Giant Growth, Counterspell, and Dark Ritual, as well as popular older cards like Icy Manipulator were reprinted in Ice Age. Also, many cards were functional reprints of already-printed cards; that is, aside from the name (and possibly the creature type), these cards were identical to cards in other sets. Examples include Fyndhorn Elves, a functional reprint of Llanowar Elves; Zuran Spellcaster, a functional reprint of Prodigal Sorcerer; and Order of the White Shield and Knight of Stromgald, functional reprints of the "pump knights" from Fallen Empires
.

Mechanics

In Ice Age, a new type of basic land was printed: the snow-covered land. Many players forget that, as basic lands , you are allowed to put as many of them in your deck as you wish. It is possible to build decks made entirely out of basic lands, such as the five original ones, or the new snow-covered ones. Some cards had effects that were stronger when a player used snow-covered lands rather than normal basic lands, and some effects exposed players using those cards to additional weaknesses. Currently, snow-covered lands are the only basic lands ever printed beyond the five normal basic lands.

Another new mechanic introduced in Ice Age was Cumulative Upkeep. This was a way to get better effects for a cheaper price; however, a player had to keep paying more and more each turn to keep that card in play. Although cumulative upkeep did not have a large impact on the game, similar mechanics (such as Urza's Saga's
Echo and Nemesis's
Fading) that were born of cumulative upkeep were successful. An interesting note is that cumulative upkeep uses counters to keep track of the "upkeep". This meant that the cumulative upkeep mechanic potentially becomes a source of counters which could be used to feed cards like "Chisei, Heart of Oceans".

Ice Age was also the first set to have legendary permanents of a single color. In Legends
, the first, and, until Ice Age, the only set with Legendary permanents, they were either lands, or were at least two colors. For the sake of argument Enchant Worlds are not considered to be legendary in this case even though rules forbid more than one in play at a time. This was due to the fact that the designers of Legends wanted these legendary permanents to be more exotic than regular permanents. By the time Ice Age was developed, this stance was softened, and the single-color legends Marton Stromgald and General Jarkeld were printed.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ice Age (Magic: The Gathering) ]

Games - Ice Age

Storyline

Set History

Mechanics

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay