Those Magic Moments Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sixth Edition

The Sixth Edition City of Brass said "Whenever City of Brass is tapped, it deals 1 damage to you" instead of "Whenever City of Brass becomes tapped, it deals 1 damage to you." Under the Seventh and Eighth Edition rules, this would mean that whenever you tapped it, you would repeatedly take 1 damage until you lost the game.

Answer: Black

Each of blue, red, and green has two (Zephyr Falcon and Bay Falcon in blue; Tahngarth, Talruum Hero and Windseeker Centaur in red; Rabid Wombat and Mirri, Cat Warrior in green.) Black has only one, Ghost Hounds.

Answer: White

There are nine multicolored beasts in Magic: Anurid Brushhopper (GW), Cavern Harpy (UB), Flowstone Charger (RW), Fungal Shambler (GUB), Kjeldoran Frostbeast (GW), Phantom Nishoba (GW), Razing Snidd (BR), Sabertooth Nishoba (GW), and Spiritmonger (BG), for a total of 6 in green, 5 in white, 4 in black, and 2 in each of red and blue.

This may be somewhat surprising since red has many mono-colored beasts while white has none (excluding Lexivore from Unglued.)

Answer: dissolve

"Awesome" appeared first on the flavor text of the decidedly less-than-awesome Fallen Empires card Conch Horn. "Rearranging" appeared in Arabian Nights on the flavor text of early versions of Sandstorm. "Subtlety" appeared first on the Antiquities version of Rocket Launcher. "Dissolve" had yet to appear on a Magic card when Urza's Saga was printed, several years later.

Answer: Undergrowth

Undergrowth had what was essentially a kicker cost, but was never issued errata to give it the kicker mechanic. Cyclone, Nether Shadow, and Tawnos's Coffin have been retrofitted with cumulative upkeep, haste, and phasing out, respectively.

Answer: Legends

The mechanics are the Chain mechanic (Chain Lightning, Chain Stasis, Chain of Silence, Chain of Vapor, Chain of Smog, Chain of Plasma, Chain of Acid) and the Burst mechanic (Kindle, Accumulated Knowledge, Life Burst, Ęther Burst, Mind Burst, Flame Burst, Muscle Burst).

In each case, the first card was red, the second blue, and the remaining five a cycle of one card in each color released simultaneously.

Answer: Gloom

Gloom was, and still is, the only black card that can deal with Circle of Protection: Black (apart from defeating the opponent with life loss instead of damage), and in Alpha it specifically hosed Circles of Protection. Ironically, Circle of Protection: Black was accidentally left out of the Alpha printing, so it did not exist until Beta.

Answer: Odyssey

Tireless Tribe + About Face is one of Magic's fastest combos that can be pulled off using only common cards, although it is somewhat risky.

Answer: Apocalypse

The card is the split card Fire/Ice. Most players will remember it not for this dubious distinction but for being a highly efficient and versatile utility spell.

Answer: 3

The ability is "T: Add three colorless mana to your mana pool." The cards are Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith, and Thran Dynamo. Basalt Monolith has been issued errata to add to the ability: "This mana can't be spent on abilities of permanents named Basalt Monolith".

This errata was issued in order to stop it from being combined with Power Artifact for infinite mana. Mana Vault and Grim Monolith were not issued this errata, probably because they are already restricted.

Answer: Protection from green

Black Knight, from Alpha, has first strike. The Ice Age card Minion of Leshrac was the first black creature with protection from black. The "cloud" ability first appeared in black on the Nemesis cards Belbe's Percher and Battlefield Percher. Protection from green first appeared in black even later on the Torment card Grotesque Hybrid, and it was granted by an ability rather than intrinsic.

This is most likely an effect of the fact that Wizards has de-emphasized the black/green rivalry in favor of the black/white one in the past.

Answer: Enchantments

Many cards can regenerate creatures. The Mirrodin cards Welding Jar and Loxodon Mender regenerate artifacts, while the Arabian Nights card Pyramids regenerates lands.

Answer: Adarkar Wastes

The Anthologies box contained Brushland. The Deckmaster box contained Karplusan Forest, Sulfurous Springs, and Underground River.

Answer: Jade Statue

Jade Statue's flavor text is:
"Some of the other guys dared me to touch it, but I knew it weren't no ordinary hunk o' rock." -Norin the Wary.
Jade Monolith had no flavor text. Neither did Black Vise (unlike The Rack from Antiquities). Jalum Tome was from Antiquities, not Alpha.

Answer: Phantom Monster

The flavor text on Phantom Monster comes from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Haunted Palace".

Answer: Odyssey

The cards are Diligent Farmhand and Pardic Firecat. They are also the first common cards to specifically refer to another common card by name, giving them a unique role in limited formats.

Answer: The Dark

Blue got Apprentice Wizard, red got Sisters of the Flame, and green got Elves of Deep Shadow (while it produced black mana, it itself was green.) The Dark was famous for cards that ignored the color wheel, including tapping efects in black (Word of Binding), toughness bonuses in red (Goblin Caves), first strike in green (Land Leeches, Spitting Slug), and direct damage in both white and blue (Fire and Brimstone, Witch Hunter, Mind Bomb, Psychic Allergy).

Answer: artifact

Antiquities was by far the expansion most heavily focused on artifacts. The word "artifact" appears 1.58 times per card in Antiquities, more than even Mirrodin (which has 0.85 references to "artifact" per card.) Torment has absolutely no artifacts or cards that reference artifacts in any way.

Answer: Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar was a ruler in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) in the sixth century B. C., and was responsible for creating the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon. How he got onto a Magic card is anybody's guess.

Answer: Blue

White has Akroma, Angel of Wrath, which has haste in addition to almost every other keyword ability currently in use. Green has Centaur Chieftain and Yavimaya Ants. Black has several creatures with haste, most in conjunction with a self-reanimation ability (such as Nether Shadow). Red, of course, has many creatures with haste.

Answer: White and blue

For some reason, white and blue seem to have nothing to say about each other in Homelands. Why? Blue has quite a hodgepodge of creatures in Homelands, many of which are nonsentient. And why white? Well, red and green like to get in arguments with blue, and black likes to get in arguments with everybody.

Answer: False

The three cards City in a Bottle, Golgothian Sylex, and Apocalypse Chime all destroyed all cards from a specific set - which included lands. Hey, I didn't say which lands.

Answer: Gnome

The eight Gnomes, in chronological order, are Quarum Trench Gnomes (Legends), Clockwork Gnomes (Homelands), Ersatz Gnomes (Mirage), Patchwork Gnomes (Tempest/Odyssey), Bottle Gnomes (Tempest/Mirrodin), Copper Gnomes (Urza's Saga), Ticking Gnomes (Urza's Legacy), and, of course, Mistform Ultimus (Legions).

Answer: Bosh

I highly doubt that Uthden Troll, back in the time of Alpha, was thinking of large artifact-hurling golems that would appear over ten years later, but nevertheless there Bosh's name is.

Answer: 21,855,966

It must be a triangular number. No triangular number ends in 2, 4, 7, or 9. Thus, 21,855,966 is the correct answer. (There are in fact 6,612 different Magic cards from Alpha through Mirrodin.)