Concurrent with the release of the Unlimited Edition was the game’s first expansion set, Arabian Nights. Also designed by Garfield, the 92-card set included a card called Shahrazad, which permitted players to play a subgame using cards in their “library,” which are those cards in a player’s deck that are not in use. This card, too, is banned in tournaments.

Other early expansion packs include Antiquities (100 cards, including the trio of Urza cards and the rare and highly collectible Mishra’s Workshop) and Legends (its mammoth collection of 310 cards, as well as the fact that the full number of uncommon cards never made it into print), make this a difficult set to collect.

For the most part, the subject matter of Magic cards is as serious as fantasy and mythical fiction can get. Cards faces are filled with images of marauding goblins, fanged and drooling creatures, gloomy forests, and desert wastelands. But the designers at Wizards of the Coast, which publishes Magic: The Gathering, have also been known to poke fun at themselves, as seen in the parody sets called Unglued (1998) and Unhinged (2004).

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