Weatherlight

Weatherlight is the eleventh Magic expansion, released in June 1997 as the third set and second small expansion of the Mirage block. Weatherlight also saw the beginning of the Weatherlight Saga, the most important Magic storyline that would continue through 2001.

Set details
The set contains 167 black-bordered cards (50 rare, 55 uncommon, and 62 commons). It is considered an expansion for Mirage, as well as for the basic set. Its expansion symbol is the Thran Tome, an important artifact of the Legacy whose contents change depending on who reads it. Among the information contained in the Tome is the components and intended operation of the Legacy itself.

Marketing
The set was sold in booster packs containing 15 cards (1 rare, 3 uncommon, and 11 common). All boosters featured the same artwork from the card Steel Golem. While previous sets only included allusions to an overarching story, Weatherlight was the first set to explicitly tell an ordered narrative focused on developed, archetypical characters. The new approach to designing and marketing Magic proved to be a huge success both popularly and commercially. Weatherlight also set the stage for the books of the Rath Cycle storyline.

Storyline
Four thousand years after Urza and Mishra reopened the portal to Phyrexia, the evil lord Yawgmoth sits poised to invade his one-time home - Dominaria. The plane's only hope for survival is a cache of powerful artifacts known collectively as the Legacy. When put together to assemble a powerful doomsday weapon, these artifacts will have the potential to destroy the dark powers that will try to invade the planet. The focal point of this weapon is a flying ship called Weatherlight, and its intrepid crew searches the planes to find all of the pieces of the Legacy before the invasion commences. Only the reluctant leadership of Gerrard Capashen and the skills of Squee the cabin boy and Tahngarth the hulking minotaur will save the day. It doesn't help that captain Sisay has been kidnapped, and they have to travel to the plane of Rath to save her before they can complete their destiny. And Gerrard, of course, will have to live up to his own overwhelming responsibilities by facing his blood brother Vuel, who has changed his name to Volrath and sold out any semblance of goodness he had by becoming Yawgmoth's first in command.

Magic online
Weatherlight was released on Magic Online on December 12, 2007. Release events began on December 14, 2007.

Themes and mechanics
Weatherlight was designed completely independently from the group that designed Mirage and Visions, but it was decided for coherency to use elements of the earlier two sets to make the third set feel like part of the block. However, the Weatheright design team embraced a theme that had nothing to do with the previous sets; it is the first set where the graveyard is strongly mechanically relevant.

Weatherlight contained no new named mechanics. It contained the following previously used mechanics: Banding, Cumulative upkeep. Two themes include:


 * "Graveyard order matters" Cards which refer to the order of cards in a player's graveyard (see Spinning Darkness),
 * "Sacrifice buyouts" Creature cards which have triggered abilities that tell you to sacrifice them unless you pay a cost or perform an action (see Barrow Ghoul).

Creature types
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Aboroth (later changed to Elemental). Avizoa (later changed to Jellyfish), Barishi (later changed to Elemental), Behemoth (later changed to Elemental), Gatekeeper (later changed to Horror), Peacekeeper (later changed to Human), Thundermare (later changed to Elemental Horse), Undead (later changed to Horror and Wraith).

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Atog, Bear, Bird, Cleric, Cyclops, Djinn, Dragon, Drake, Dwarf, Elemental, Elephant, Elf, Falcon (later changed to Bird), Fish, Ghost (later changed to Spirit), Giant, Goblin, Griffin, Hound (later changed to Dog), Illusion, Knight, Merfolk, Minotaur, Ogre, Ooze, Orc, Rat, Serpent, Snake, Soldier, Spirit, Treefolk, Unicorn, Wall, Wizard, Wolf, Wurm, Zombie.

Cycles
Weatherlight has three cycles:

Functional reprints
Weatherlight has two functional reprints:


 * Cloud Djinn is a functional reprint of Cloud Dragon from Portal, save for creature type.
 * Fallow Wurm is a functional reprint of Thundering Wurm from Portal.

Notable cards

 * Gemstone Mine</c>
 * Lotus Vale</c> was very popular, although it was very vulnerable to land destruction.
 * Null Rod</c> has become a powerful artifact stopping cards in Vintage tournaments.
 * Redwood Treefolk</c> is one of the first cards that improved upon its predecessor. It cost the same as Ironroot Treefolk</c> at  but had a power/toughness of 3/6 instead of the latter's 3/5.

Theme decks


The Mirage block theme decks were designed for MTGO, as these expansion sets were printed before theme decks were first printed in the Tempest block.

The pre-constructed theme decks are: