Morningtide

Morningtide is the second set in the Lorwyn block. It is the 44th Magic expansion and was released on February 1, 2008.

Set details
Morningtide contains 150 cards (50 rare, 40 uncommon, and 60 commons). The theme of this expansion is tribal, based on class rather than race. Its expansion symbol is a depiction of a sun rising in the morning, or a flame. Morningtide is the second and final set of Lorwyn block. The following set, Shadowmoor, would not be part of the Lorwyn block, as originally announced, but the first set of a new block, codenamed "Jelly" and "Doughnut". However, these two blocks would rotate into and out of official tournament formats as though they were a single block. Morningtide introduced Tribal Equipment, Prowl, Reinforce, and Kinship. The set was accompanied by the novel of the same name, written by Cory J. Herndon and Scott McGough.

Flavor and Storyline
The set continues the "celtic fairytale" setting of Lorwyn. Rhys, once a prominent hunter among the elves, has two big problems. He's being blamed for a cataclysmic event that killed many of his fellows. Even worse, his horns are broken, which makes him ugly. This makes him doubly damned in the eyes of his society. Knowing his skill and reputation, they are pulling out all the stops to bring him to their vicious brand of justice. As if he didn't have enough to worry about with his own skin, he has to deal with the Aurora.

Marketing
Morningtide was sold in 16-card booster packs, four preconstructed theme decks and a fat pack. The decks and the fat pack contained a Pro Tour Player Card. The booster packs featured artwork from Sigil Tracer, Pyroclast Consul and Earthbrawn. The prerelease tournaments for this set were held on January 19–20, 2008. The promotional prerelease card for Morningtide was Door of Destinies with alternate art, a card that helps emphasize creature types, the theme of Morningtide. The promotional release card was Earwig Squad which shows the Prowl mechanic. The launch party was held on February 1–3, 2008.

Like Lorwyn boosters before them, boosters of Morningtide come with a bonus sixteenth card that is either a rules card or a creature token from Lorwyn or Morningtide. One face of the Morningtide bonus card has one of five different rules tips or is one of fourteen different creature tokens, meaning either one the eleven tokens printed in Lorwyn or one of the three printed in Morningtide. The other face has one of six advertisements for organized play programs, magicthegathering.com, and Shadowmoor.

Tips & Tricks
The tips & tricks cards are:
 * 1) Rules Tip: Creature Types
 * 2) Rules Tip: Kinship
 * 3) Rules Tip: Prowl
 * 4) Rules Tip: Clash
 * 5) Rules Tip: Equipment

Tokens
The Morningtide tokens are:
 * 1)  1/1 Faerie Rogue creature with flying, produced by Bitterblossom, Notorious Throng and Violet Pall.
 * 2)  5/5 Giant Warrior creature, produced by Feudkiller's Verdict</c>.
 * 3)  2/5 Treefolk Shaman creature, produced by Reach of Branches</c>.

Themes
Morningtide expands upon Lorwyn's flavor and theme by shifting the tribal focus away from the eight races of Lorwyn (kithkin, merfolk, faeries, elementals (flamekin and greater), goblins, giants, treefolk, and elves) to the five classes of Morningtide (soldiers, shamans, wizards, warriors, and rogues).

Clash spells
Morningtide has a number of spells with clash that you return to your hand if you win the clash.

Counter boosters
A few Morningtide cards have abilities that say that certain other creatures you control come into play with additional +1/+1 counters on them.

Choose a creature type
A number of Morningtide cards tell you to choose a creature type, then base their effect on how many permanents of the chosen type you control.

Mechanics
The new mechanics introduced in Morningtide are Prowl, Kinship, and Reinforce. Prowl and Kinship are class-specific keywords for Rogues and Shamans, respectively, and Reinforce appears on multiple non class-related cards.


 * Prowl is an alternate cost to play a spell, which may be used if you have dealt combat damage with a creature that shares a creature type with the card that has Prowl. For example, Latchkey Faerie</c> costs normally, but if you have dealt combat damage with a Faerie or a Rogue this turn, you may play it for its Prowl cost, . Additionally, some cards with Prowl have abilities that only occur if they have been played for their Prowl cost.
 * Kinship is an ability word which means, "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with ~, you may reveal it. If you do, [effect]."
 * Reinforce is an activated ability which reads, "Reinforce N[mana]". You may pay a card's Reinforce cost and discard it from your hand whenever you can play an instant. If you do, put N +1/+1 counters on target creature. Reinforce works well with the tribal counter creatures from Morningtide, allowing creatures that do not have the required class to receive +1/+1 counters and trigger these creatures' effects.

Cycles
Morningtide has eleven cycles:

Pairs
Morningtide  has one mirrored pair.

Reprinted cards
The following cards have been reprinted from previous sets and included in Morningtide:
 * Boldwyr Intimidator</c> was last seen in Future Sight as a futureshifted card. It was included in Morningtide for its class-changing abilities on other creatures.
 * Elvish Warrior</c> was last seen in 9th Edition and was first printed in Onslaught. It was included in Morningtide as it is one of the five classes (warrior) featured in Morningtide.

Functional reprints
Morningtide has one functional reprint:


 * Fencer Clique</c> is a functional reprint of Wayward Soul</c> from Exodus, save for creature type.

Notable cards

 * Bitterblossom</c> one of the main reasons faeries dominated Lorwyn/Shadowmoor-block constructed tournaments.
 * Mutavault</c> praised as the best manland since Mishra's Factory</c>.
 * Spitebellows</c> a 6/1 creature for  which deals 6 damage to target creature when it leaves play; or, if the evoke cost is paid, deals 6 damage to target creature for the very low cost of.
 * Reveillark</c> became the backbone of the Standard "Boat Brew" deck, as well as having a potent combo deck with Mirror Entity</c> and Body Double</c> from Time Spiral/Lorwyn Standard.

The following common cards feel like functional reprints but are not:
 * Disperse</c> returns a nonland permanent to its owner hand for . Echoing Truth</c> with the same casting cost, returned target nonland permanent and all other permanents with the same name as that permanent to their owners' hands. <c>Hoodwink</c> with the same casting cost, can target lands, but no creatures or planeswalkers. <c>Venser's Diffusion</c> returned a nonland permanent or a suspended card for.
 * <c>Negate</c> feels like a reprinted card; "counter target noncreature spell" is one half of the split card <c>Spite // Malice</c>. Spite's casting cost is, while Negate is simply . It is, more often than not, better than <c>Flash Counter</c> and <c>Extinguish</c>. The spellshaper <c>Stronghold Machinist</c> countered noncreature spells at a cost of , tapping and discarding a card.
 * <c>Prickly Boggart</c> is a 1/1 creature with fear for, surprisingly this simple card has never been printed at such a low cost. <c>Squirming Mass</c>, a 1/1 creature with fear in Urza's Destiny cost.

Preconstructed decks
Morningtide features four class tribal theme decks.