Darksteel

Darksteel is the second set in the Mirrodin block. It is the 31st Magic: The Gathering expansion and was released on February 6, 2004. The prerelease was January 24–25, 2004.

Set details
Darksteel was the first small expansion to have 165 cards (11 extra rares and 11 extra uncommons compared to previous small expansions). The expansion symbol for the set is a miniature version of the Shield of Kaldra. The set continues the heavy artifact theme of its predecessor Mirrodin. Thematically the main component are darksteel artifacts, all of which are indestructible. The set also features an update of the lucky charms

Marketing
Darksteel was sold in 15-card boosters, four preconstructed theme decks and a fat pack. The booster packs featured artwork from Shield of Kaldra, Arcbound Ravager and Eater of Days.. The prerelease card was a foil alternate art Shield of Kaldra. This card was the first to mention a card in its text box that hadn't been printed yet. The three Kaldra artifacts form a mega-cycle. The set was accompanied by a novel by Jess Lebow. A 3/3 Beast Token for Pulse of the Tangle was offered as a Magic Player Reward.

Storyline
"The world . . . is . . . hollow." This is the secret that Chunth, the Tel-Jilad troll elder, entrusts to Glissa Sunseeker before his death at the hands of a traitor. Armed with that knowledge, Glissa fights her way through the great vedalken capital of Lumengrid, down into the Pool of Knowledge. The Synod's sacred chamber contains a lacuna—a tunnel, saturated with blue mana—that leads to Mirrodin's secret interior. There, huge, bizarre towers of fungus-like metal called mycosynth reach up toward an immense inner sun of pure mana. As Glissa flees from her vedalken pursuers, she discovers another secret inside this plane. Memnarch is real, and he patiently waits for the elvish champion to find him. In the meantime, he studies the blinkmoths and has begun to build a monument to his greatness as an artificer: the Darksteel Eye, a device that will make his omniscience over Mirrodin complete.

Tournament impact
Darksteel is notorious as a very powerful tournament set. At one point it was responsible for two of four cards that were banned in Extended: Aether Vial and Skullclamp. Skullclamp was also very notorious in Standard as well for over-powering creature decks, making them very resilient even to mass destruction and providing a lot of card advantage at a very small cost. It became the first card to be banned in Standard in five years. Later other cards featured in the meta-game warping Affinity deck, especially Arcbound Ravager</c>. Trinisphere</c> was restricted in Vintage due to the format's capacity for one player producing large quantities of mana on the first turn and then dropping Trinisphere, preventing opponents from doing the same.

Mechanics
Modular has artifact creatures enter the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters on them. If the artifact creature is put into the graveyard from play, these counters are moved to another artifact creature.

Indestructible is also introduced and exclusively found on artifacts with the word "Darksteel" in their names. As the name suggest, permanents that are indestructible simply can not be destroyed through any means, e.g. direct destruction effects such as Wrath of God</c> or damage. The mechanic would be reused occasionally in later sets, though not exclusively bound to artifacts.

The set also reprises Affinity for artifacts but also introduces Affinity for basic land types in a cycle of Golems.

Creature types
The creature type Artificer was introduced in this expansion.

The following creature types that are not new to Magic are used in this expansion: • Angel

• Beast

• Cat

• Dragon

• Drake

• Drone

• Dryad

• Elemental

• Elephant

• Gargoyle

• Goblin

• Golem

• Horror

• Insect

• Leviathan

• Myr

• Ogre

• Ooze

• Rat

• Shaman

• Shapeshifter

• Slith

• Soldier

• Spider

• Spirit

• Vedalken

• Wall

• Warrior

• Wizard

• Wolf

• Wurm

• Zombie

Cycles
Darksteel has four cycles:

Pairs
Darksteel has one mirrored pair.

Reprinted cards
In contrast to Mirrodin reprinting a sizable number of artifact-related staples, only three cards were reprinted for Darksteel.


 * Fireball</c> first printed in Alpha, last seen in 5th Edition
 * Inflame</c> first printed in Prophecy
 * Juggernaut</c> first printed in Alpha, last seen in Revised

Functional reprints

 * Hoverguard Observer</c> functional reprint of, save for creature type
 * Ur-Golem's Eye</c> functional reprint of

Notable cards

 * Aether Vial</c> banned in Mirrodin block tournaments.
 * Arcbound Ravager</c> banned in Mirrodin Block tournaments.
 * Skullclamp</c> banned in Extended format tournaments.

Preconstructed decks
Darksteel has three monocolored and one bicolored theme decks.