From the Oracle text: "Only affects cards with the Arabian Nights scimitar symbol on them, or permanents that are copies of those cards." So... it does destroy cards from Chronicles with the Arabian Nights symbol? That was always the biggest headache with both this and Golgothian Sylex (heh, Golgotha. I can't believe I only just got that).
Actually for a while for me personally, the biggest headache came from that paragon of accuracy, InQuest magazine, thanks to their perpetually leaving off the rather important clause of "except for City in a Bottle" in their player's guide. I could never figure out how the card was supposed to work if it killed itself! Although InQuest, pre-Gamer, were the ones who told me that the card was inspired by Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic book series. Given InQuest's track record I'm not sure if that was actually true, but I'd like to think so, or at least that Magic drew from the same source as Neil Gaiman did.
Guest57443454
★☆☆☆☆ (1.2/5.0)(5 votes)
I still can't believe that Wizards printed such narrow cards...
Dr_Draco
★★★★☆ (4.4/5.0)(5 votes)
@stygimoloch: This card is indeed inspired by Sandman (Sandman #50 in particular). Richard Garfield mentions it in this article about the making of Arabian Nights: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/78
AlphaNumerical
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5.0)(7 votes)
Cards like these simply shouldn't be printed out of Un-sets.
At least Arabian Nights is somewhat playable in Vintage, with its Bazaar Library and all, but like the Homelands hoser, it is not necessary.
GainsBanding
★★★☆☆ (3.7/5.0)(6 votes)
In a world where only 400 Magic cards existed and 70 of them were from Arabian Nights, this might not seem like such a bad idea for a card. I bet if you were making an expandable collectible card game, you'd toy with this idea.
lukemol
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(21 votes)
Imagine this card in an Arabian Nights draft back in the day.
A: I play Kird Ape! B: I play City in a Bottle! A: Well....what do we do now? B: Wait for time to be called? I....really don't know. Didn't think that far ahead. We could call it a draw I guess....
keiyakins
★★★★☆ (5.0/5.0)(13 votes)
A lot of people are commenting about things like how this is so narrow or how it screws with limited formats.
These people are forgetting the environment this card was printed into. When it was printed, there were four sets: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Arabian Nights. Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited were basically the same cardset (ignoring the errors in Alpha and the white borders for Unlimited) containing 292 unique cards and 10 alternate arts. Arabian Nights contained 78 unique cards and four alternate arts. This one action could eliminate about 20% of the cards in the game environment. That's not at all 'narrow'.
As for the booster draft issue (which, admittedly, is amusing :P), there wasn't really a 'competitive' scene at the time, and limited formats basically were not around yet. And I think the fact that the only basic land in the set is Mountains would cause more problems! (Of course, the mountain wasn't supposed to be there...)
You may play multiple copies of each, except Savra, and you'll get the benefit multiple times. Play with any of the low cost Arabian Nights creatures. Opponents are afraid to block and kill your attacking weenies. Then play City in a Bottle and watch the lols. Decaying Soil and Enduring Renewal will let you recycle the Arabian Nights creatures if you want to nuke your own city in a bottle and play another.
Hmm... haven't done this yet but now I gotta try it some time.
ramaset
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
This flavor seems like it belongs in Unglued or Unhinged. I understand it back then, and even played with it a few times...now it seems kinda silly
Edit- can you imagine if this thing got reprinted? :-p
scumbling1
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(6 votes)
Because you can't Terror Juzam Djinn for two mana...
TDL
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
I've always liked these set-hosers, even though they're kind of weird... and either completely useless or ridiculously powerful.
Ladnarud
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Guest5744:
Think about having 2 or 3 available sets of cards back in the mid-nineties, one of them being Arabian Nights.
Anathame
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
HERP DERP GONNA MISS THE POINT DERP DERP
Kikke
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
this, Chaos orb and Sherezada are just awesome....a great flavor!
Gako
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
They should have done a version of this in Kamigawa naming Mirrodin. :D
Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfuckin' Shahrazads in this motherfuckin' card game!
Alsebra
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Aw...I thought that it'd be an easy way to wipe lands. Little did I realise, there were no basic lands in AN :/
Gameguy602
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Too bad this came out before imprinting effects existed. Exiling and imprinting every arabian nights card on this and returning them to play/owner's hand when it was destroyed would up the flavor factor significantly.
That's what you get for playing those Arabian Nights mountains!
Brotha52
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
What about those deck pimpers that play Arabian Nights Mountains? Would this kill their mountains?
Lord_Seth_02
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The card is extremely limited in what it can do, but it IS decent for stopping Vintage Dredge decks, because they rely so much on Bazaar of Baghdad to win.
Lord_Ascapelion
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
In a game where reprints are so common, this mechanic couldn't really exist for more than a few expansions and indeed, this is only one of the 3 "expansion hosers" that exist in black-bordered Magic. They seem like a neat idea, though. If your group doesn't mind Un-set cards, look to World Bottling Kit.
Maroon_Lotus
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
They need to make a set. Call it "From the Vaults: Ancients." All the cards on it would be time-spiral-ish imitations of cards on the reserved list. And everything from that set, would go onto the reserved list. And one of the cards, needs to be a City in a Bottle for that set.
Thats the only way something like this would ever work, because a single reprint makes this card too dumb. Other cards from this set could include some sort of pesudo-ante card, a card that forces your opponent to Ring of Ma'ruf, an upside-down moat (creatures with flying can't attack) and other such fun stuff, in addition to the obligatory wanna-be-black-lotus.
Salient
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
All my icons use this card's picture. :)
Sadly this does piddly squat against a smart Dredge player in Vintage; they just let you go first and pitch their first card on their discard step, avoiding the need for Bazaar of Baghdad completely.
Back in the day, we used to swear that WOTC would make rares like these and "the Laces" just to mess with people purchasing boosters. "Are you kidding, another Deathlace?!" Only this card did hose the power lands like Library of Alex and Brass City...
gut.gemacht
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Did the Oracle really need to specify that it only works on "non token" Arabian Nights permanents? I wasn't aware that a token got an expansion symbol when it was generated.
DoragonShinzui
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Tons of fun in draft.
Zetan
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
The comp rules update for M14 changes how this works. Now it will destroy every card whose first printing was in Arabian Nights:
109.3
Expansion symbols are no longer a characteristic. Magic cards are recognized as individual game pieces by their English card names. One of the central tenets of that system is that all cards with the same name are considered the same for deck building and play purposes. This system lets us reprint cards, print promo cards, and have cards appear in many languages. But three older cards referred to cards from a specific expansion, and that runs contrary to the system. The Arabian Nights Bird Maiden and the Fourth Edition version should be the same, but City in a Bottle says they're not. In fact, it makes the original version worse!
So, cards will no longer refer to expansion symbol as a characteristic. The three cards that used to do this (City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex, and Apocalypse Chime) will receive errata in a future update to refer to cards "originally printed" in the Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Homelands sets, respectively). This means that City in a Bottle no longer affects any cards named Mountain. It also means that those three cards can affect cards that were in the appropriate set and then reprinted. City in a Bottle will affect the aforementioned Fourth Edition Bird Maiden.
References to expansion symbol being a characteristic were removed in several other rules as well.
The_AC
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Good in legacy tournaments if your opponent is playing burn. (Arabian Knights mountains are considered flashy.)
Comments (33)
Actually for a while for me personally, the biggest headache came from that paragon of accuracy, InQuest magazine, thanks to their perpetually leaving off the rather important clause of "except for City in a Bottle" in their player's guide. I could never figure out how the card was supposed to work if it killed itself! Although InQuest, pre-Gamer, were the ones who told me that the card was inspired by Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic book series. Given InQuest's track record I'm not sure if that was actually true, but I'd like to think so, or at least that Magic drew from the same source as Neil Gaiman did.
At least Arabian Nights is somewhat playable in Vintage, with its Bazaar Library and all, but like the Homelands hoser, it is not necessary.
A: I play Kird Ape!
B: I play City in a Bottle!
A: Well....what do we do now?
B: Wait for time to be called? I....really don't know. Didn't think that far ahead. We could call it a draw I guess....
These people are forgetting the environment this card was printed into. When it was printed, there were four sets: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Arabian Nights. Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited were basically the same cardset (ignoring the errors in Alpha and the white borders for Unlimited) containing 292 unique cards and 10 alternate arts. Arabian Nights contained 78 unique cards and four alternate arts. This one action could eliminate about 20% of the cards in the game environment. That's not at all 'narrow'.
As for the booster draft issue (which, admittedly, is amusing :P), there wasn't really a 'competitive' scene at the time, and limited formats basically were not around yet. And I think the fact that the only basic land in the set is Mountains would cause more problems! (Of course, the mountain wasn't supposed to be there...)
Field of Souls
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
You may play multiple copies of each, except Savra, and you'll get the benefit multiple times. Play with any of the low cost Arabian Nights creatures. Opponents are afraid to block and kill your attacking weenies. Then play City in a Bottle and watch the lols. Decaying Soil and Enduring Renewal will let you recycle the Arabian Nights creatures if you want to nuke your own city in a bottle and play another.
Hmm... haven't done this yet but now I gotta try it some time.
Edit- can you imagine if this thing got reprinted? :-p
Think about having 2 or 3 available sets of cards back in the mid-nineties, one of them being Arabian Nights.
Would this kill their mountains?
Thats the only way something like this would ever work, because a single reprint makes this card too dumb. Other cards from this set could include some sort of pesudo-ante card, a card that forces your opponent to Ring of Ma'ruf, an upside-down moat (creatures with flying can't attack) and other such fun stuff, in addition to the obligatory wanna-be-black-lotus.
Sadly this does piddly squat against a smart Dredge player in Vintage; they just let you go first and pitch their first card on their discard step, avoiding the need for Bazaar of Baghdad completely.
Nowadays Grafdigger's Cage and the immortal Leyline of the Void are your Dredge hosers of choice.
109.3
Expansion symbols are no longer a characteristic. Magic cards are recognized as individual game pieces by their English card names. One of the central tenets of that system is that all cards with the same name are considered the same for deck building and play purposes. This system lets us reprint cards, print promo cards, and have cards appear in many languages. But three older cards referred to cards from a specific expansion, and that runs contrary to the system. The Arabian Nights Bird Maiden and the Fourth Edition version should be the same, but City in a Bottle says they're not. In fact, it makes the original version worse!
So, cards will no longer refer to expansion symbol as a characteristic. The three cards that used to do this (City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex, and Apocalypse Chime) will receive errata in a future update to refer to cards "originally printed" in the Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Homelands sets, respectively). This means that City in a Bottle no longer affects any cards named Mountain. It also means that those three cards can affect cards that were in the appropriate set and then reprinted. City in a Bottle will affect the aforementioned Fourth Edition Bird Maiden.
References to expansion symbol being a characteristic were removed in several other rules as well.