Magic 2012

The Magic: The Gathering 2012 Core Set (a.k.a Magic 2012 or M12) is a Core Set which was released on July 15, 2011. The worldwide Prerelease events took place July 9–10, 2011, and Launch Parties took place July 15–18, 2011.

Set details
Magic 2012 contains 249 cards (101 Common, 60 Uncommon, 53 Rare, 15 Mythic, 20 Basic Lands), including randomly inserted premium versions of all cards. The set saw the return of planeswalkers and the five Titans, had a minor aura theme, introduced hexproof and had several top-down designed creatures. The returning mechanic for this Core Set was bloodthirst.

Magic 2012 also marked the return of Korean to the set of printed languages. Sets from 4th Edition through Urza's Saga had been printed in Korean in the past, before Korean was dropped from the list of printed languages. Magic 2012 brought the list of printed languages to 11: English, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Marketing
Magic 2012 was sold in 16-card and 6-card booster packs, five Intro packs, two event decks and a fat pack. The regular boosters featured art from Grand Abolisher (with white background), Sphinx of Uthuun (with blue background), Rune-Scarred Demon (with black background), Chandra, the Firebrand (with red background) and Garruk, Primal Hunter (with green background). The 6-card booster featured Jace, Memory Adept. Magic 2012 was also sold in the new "Booster Battle Pack"s, which contain 2 20-card semi-randomized decks, 2 booster packs, a Magic "learn to play" guide and a rules insert.

A promotional version of Bloodlord of Vaasgoth was given out to players at the Prerelease event. The promotional card for the launch party was Garruk's Horde. Both cards are new to the set. The Buy-a-Box was Chandra's Phoenix</c>. The Magic 2012 Game Day was held on August 12–14, 2011. At this event the DCI-Promo-Card was Stormblood Berserker</c> and the Top 8 Finish reward was a full-art foil Dungrove Elder</c>.

Regular boosters of Magic 2012 came with a bonus sixteenth card that was either a "tips & tricks card" or a creature token from Magic 2012.' Unlike the traditional tips & tricks cards, they were printed in landscape format and had no numbering. The back side had an advertisement for Commander, magicthegathering.com, Magic 2012 Intro Packs, Magic Online, swagdog.com, Ultra Pro products or www.wizards.com/locator.

Tips & Tricks
The tips & tricks cards are:
 * 1) bloodthirst
 * 2) booster draft
 * 3) casual formats
 * 4) colors of expansion symbols,
 * 5) decks work best when they're about 40% land and 25-40% creatures
 * 6) drawing a card when the library is empty means losing the game,
 * 7) gatherer, hexproof
 * 8) limited format
 * 9) minimum deck size and playing with only 4 of any one card,
 * 10) planeswalkers (2 different card wordings).

Tokens
The Magic 2012 tokens are:
 * 1)  3/3 Beast creature produced by Garruk, Primal Hunter</c>.
 * 2)  3/3 Bird creature with flying produced by Roc Egg</c>.
 * 3)  1/1 Pentavite artifact creature with flying produced by Pentavus</c>.
 * 4)  1/1 Saproling creature produced by Jade Mage</c> and Druidic Satchel</c>.
 * 5)  1/1 Soldier creature produced by Timely Reinforcements</c> and Throne of Empires</c>.
 * 6)  6/6 Wurm creature produced by Garruk, Primal Hunter</c>.
 * 7)  2/2 Zombie creature produced by Cemetery Reaper</c>, Zombie Infestation</c>, and Grave Titan</c>.

Sample decks
Just like Magic 2011, the Magic 2012 Core Set came with ten thirty-card sample decks.

Rule change
The Magic 2012 core set introduced the wording shortcut "dies." The word "dies" on a Magic card simply means "is put into a graveyard from the battlefield." The two phrases are interchangeable. Similarly, the word "died" means "was put into a graveyard from the battlefield." The term "dies" is used only if a creature is moving from the battlefield to a graveyard and only if the effect doesn't care which player's graveyard the creature is put into. (The complete phrase "is put into a graveyard from the battlefield" is used if the object is likely to have a different card type.) Many older cards would be updated in the Oracle card reference to use this new term. This was not a functional change.

Mechanics and themes
Magic 2012 also introduced a new keyword in Hexproof, which is similar to Shroud except the controller of the permanent can still target it. This ability used to be colloquially referred to as "Troll Shroud" in reference to Troll Ascetic</c>, one of the first and most popular cards with that mechanic.

The keyword Bloodthirst returned after its initial appearance in Guildpact and a small cameo in Future Sight. Unlike its appearance in Guildpact, Bloodthirst was particularly focused in black on its Vampire tribe.

The set also saw the return of Planeswalkers, though it wasn't restricted to the original Lorwyn 'walkers as Gideon Jura and Sorin Markov had cards in the set. For the first time, three new Planeswalker cards were made for a core set. Like in Magic 2011, these planeswalkers had a number of cards referencing to them.

Cycles
Magic 2012 has nine cycles:

Pairs
Magic 2012 has two mirrored pairs.

Core set changes and reprints
As a Core Set, Magic 2012 has a high number of reprints. Like its predecessor, a lot of its reprints already appeared in Magic 2010 and/or Magic 2011, either as new printings or reprints from earlier sets.
 * Notable changes
 * The added artifact Manalith</c> is strictly better than <c>Sol Grail</c>, from Alliances, but strictly worse than <c>Darksteel Ingot</c>, from Darksteel.
 * The Leylines cycle consisting of <c>Leyline of Sanctity</c>, <c>Leyline of Anticipation</c>, <c>Leyline of the Void</c>, <c>Leyline of Punishment</c> and <c>Leyline of Vitality</c> which are rare enchantments that cost plus 2 mana of the appropriate color. Each can start the game in play if it is in a player's opening hand.

Notable cards

 * <c>Phantasmal Image</c> is a cheaper Clone variant with the Illusion ability, used in tournaments in tribal decks to put onto the battlefield an other copy of a significant creature of the tribe (usually a lord). With the old legend rule it was used to kill a legendary creature difficult to kill, such as <c>Emrakul, the Aeons Torn</c>.

Intro packs
The intro packs are:

Event decks
The event decks are: