After the Ice Age block, Magic the Gathering needed a breath of fresh air. Homelands was disappointing, and Alliances didn’t quite live upto its hype either. the Mirage Block brought many new exciting things to the table: a new card design, focus on tribal factors, new abilities and a new found use of the ”World Enchantments”…

Mirage – Released Mid 1996

Mirage was a very strong set compared to the last several released. for the first time players could truly focus on running a tribal deck. The set sort of introduced modern Magic the Gathering. The set was laced with renditions of Tutor cards that allowed you to search your library for cards, Dragons, which were an exciting new kind of creature (besides Shivian Dragon of course) and several new abilities. Flanking was a new power unheard of before. Flanking allows your attacking creatures to have an advantage in combat. I guess you could sort of call it a fancy attack-only first strike. Essentially any creature assigned to block a creature with flanking gets -1/-1 before combat damage even resolves! This eliminates “chump blockers” and makes for some nasty attackers. “Phasing” was also a power introduced in this set. Phasing sort of died out quickly and is ranked right up there with Banding by today’s standards. Phasing basically provided a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t strategy to the game. Cards with phasing bounce in and out of play and usually had low mana costs. Phasing wore off quickly but the Flanking ability was brought back in the Time Spiral block!

Mirage is full of game changing new cards. It had te most powerfull creatures of the time in it and still contains the second largest one ever printed: Phyrexian Dreadnought, a 12/12 for only 1 mana! Obviously it had a slight drawback but it was a facinating card. It still sees much use today. when choosing the best card in the set, the Dreadnought obviously jumps to mind, but there was one other card that is rather overlooked in casual play but is second to only Black Lotus in some vintage tournament play. Selling for over 25 dollars to this day (less than the Dreadnought) it is seen in many decks around the world. You just have to figure out how to use it!

Lion’s Eye Diamond – Rare

Runners up : Phyrexian Dreadnought, Spirit of the Night, Enlightened Tutor, & Flash

Visions – released Feb 1997

Visions provided a strong follow-up expansion to Mirage. More than ever before creatures were used in a tribal setting and some even fetched other creatures out of your deck. Visions was also a very strong set in that many of its cards had very strong “comes into play abilities”. Instead of just playing a creature, you could now accomplish two things with one card; such as destroying a creature and playing a blocker. Visions also continued the tradition of phasing and flanking, adding several more creatures with the ability to the playing field.

Visions is one of the most well balanced sets of the early cards and really did a good job of adding more fun to the Mirage set. There are, again, several stand out cards in this set that all compete for the best spot in the deck. Unlike some modern sets where most of the rares are really good cards this set is old enough that many of the rares have been out dated. Vampiric Tutor stands out in most players minds as the strongest card in this set, and arguably it is. For 1 mana and 2 life it lets you pick what you draw the next time you draw and is an amazing card to have in your opening hand. there is one other card that acts like a tutor and is capable, especially in today’s modern setting, of dumping something unbelievable out so early in the game that you’d think your opponent cheated. Visions is the original breeding ground for rule bending and game braking abilities…

Natural Order – Rare

runners up : Vampiric Tutor & City of Solitude

Weatherlight – Released June 1997

Weatherlight contained many strong game controlling cards, but came up a little short of the other two sets in term of theme. Actually it started a whole new one! The famous MTG characters of the “rath cycle” all make their appearance in the flavor text and art of this set and Weatherlight sets up the stage for the famous chronology of cards that would be printed over the next 4 years. Where Weatherlight lacked in creatures, it made up in abilities. Strong, constricting abilities were found all through the set and phasing flanking and cumulative upkeep all continued to keep the game interesting.

While this upcoming best card probably wasn’t quite as useful when it was printed, it has now emerged as a strong counter to a popular deck strategy and definitely sticks with the weatherlight theme of global effects. Again slightly overlooked, this card one-ups Lotus Vale as the strongest card in the set because it can shut down 5 of the power 9. (Don’t get me wrong, Lotus Vale is MUCH less situational and quite possibly a better choice for casual decks)…

Null Rod – Rare

runners up: Lotus Vale, Abeyance & Buried Alive

After the Mirage Block was released, magic players felt refreshed and the game really was defined. the evolution of it is most visible between these sets. Many cards from this era are still in use today and will be used for many more years. this block is followed by one of the most famous (if not the most famous) blocks in MTG history: the Tempest Block! <– Follow the link to continue reading!

(pictures from www.magiccards.info)