Planar Chaos

Planar Chaos is the forty-first Magic expansion and was released in February 2007 as the second set in the Time Spiral block. Prerelease Events were held on January 20, 2007.

Set details
Planar Chaos contains 165 all new black-bordered cards (50 rares, 55 uncommons, and 60 commons), including a 45-card "timeshifted" subset (ten rares, 15 uncommons, and 20 commons). The theme of this expansion is "the (alternate) present"; to fit the theme of the block ("time"). Its expansion symbol is a depiction of two overlapping planes. There are no artifacts in Planar Chaos.

Timeshifted
The 45 timeshifted cards in Planar Chaos (also known as colorshifted or planeshifted) represent cards being reprinted from an alternate reality. They are each functionally identical to an old card, with the crucial exception of their color (and possibly with a different creature type, or referencing a different color or land type in its abilities). Cards that were timeshifted in Planar Chaos had a slightly different border, and their title and types were written in white instead of black. In contrast to Time Spiral, they had regular colored expansion symbols.

Marketing
Planar Chaos was sold in 15-card boosters, four preconstructed theme decks and a fat pack. The decks and the fat pack contained a Pro Tour Players Card. The booster packs featured artwork from Radha, Heir to Keld, Jedit Ojanen of Efrava and Darkheart Sliver. The prerelease card was the foil alternate art Oros, the Avenger. The release card was Hedge Troll. The set was accompanied by the novel of the same name, written by Scott McGough and Timothy Sanders.

The booster packs included eight "normal" commons, three "timeshifted" commons, two "normal" uncommons, one "normal" rare and one "timeshifted" rare or uncommon card (there are three times as many "timeshifted" uncommon cards than there are "timeshifted" rare cards, making it three times as likely that an uncommon will appear in this slot).

Additional art for several tokens was designed for Magic Online.

Flavor and Storyline
Dominaria’s temporal fabric is no longer fraying at the edges — it’s ripping down the middle. The time rifts have not only merged the past with the present, but also splintered the timeline into thousands of alternate histories. These divergent Dominarias overlap with the known world in bizarre ways, combining the familiar with the shockingly new. Teferi, having lost his Planeswalker's spark, still struggles to mend the planar rifts before they corrode the very structure of the multiverse. With his allies Jhoira and Venser, he has already succeeded in restoring the wayward region of Shiv to its natural place in Dominaria, healing one rift. But danger awaits them as the trio attempts to teleport to Urborg: the chaos of an alternate Dominaria…

Mechanics
Flash, split second and suspend were introduced in Time Spiral. Echo, flanking, kicker, madness, morph are all keywords used in previous sets. Planar Chaos marked the first appearance of spells with echo costs that did not match their casting costs, as well as the first appearance of single color split cards.

Vanishing is introduced in this expansion, which works similarly to fading from Nemesis. Vanishing uses time counters to interact with suspend cards and induces sacrifice at the removal of the final counter to make the mechanic more intuitive than its predecessor.

In keeping with the theme of alternate realities converging, Planar Chaos features numerous cards with abilities "usually" assigned to another color:
 * White received shroud (then "This creature can't be the target of spells and abilities.") (e.g. Calciderm), regeneration (e.g. Revered Dead), countering (e.g. Mana Tithe) and returning creatures to your hand (e.g. Stormfront Riders</c>).
 * Blue received vigilance (e.g. Serra Sphinx</c>), discard (e.g. Piracy Charm</c>), giving creatures +X/-X or -X/+X (e.g. Shaper Parasite</c>) and the ability to destroy creatures (e.g. Pongify</c>).
 * Black received first strike (e.g. Spitting Sliver</c>), lifelink-like effects (e.g. Vampiric Link</c>), control effects (e.g. Enslave</c>), tapping creatures (e.g. Midnight Charm</c>), and spell/damage redirection (e.g. Muck Drubb</c>).
 * Red received reach (e.g. Needlepeak Spider</c>), trample (e.g. Battering Sliver</c>), fear-like effects (e.g. Skirk Shaman</c>), "pump" effects (e.g. Fatal Frenzy</c>), returning opponent's permanents (e.g. Stingscourger</c>) and spells that target flying creatures (e.g. Hammerheim Deadeye</c>).
 * Green received flying (e.g. <c>Giant Dustwasp</c>), haste (e.g. <c>Reflex Sliver</c>), life gain/damage prevention (e.g. <c>Essence Warden</c>), card-drawing effects (e.g. <c>Harmonize</c>) and returning creatures from the graveyard (e.g. <c>Deadwood Treefolk</c>).

Creature types
The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Hellion.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Angel, Ape, Assassin, Avatar, Beast, Bird, Cat, Centaur, Cleric, Dragon, Drake, Druid, Elemental, Elf, Fungus, Gargoyle, Giant, Goblin, Horror, Illusion, Insect, Kavu, Knight, Lhurgoyf, Merfolk, Phoenix, Rebel, Rogue, Serpent, Shade, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Sliver, Snake, Soldier, Spellshaper, Sphinx, Spider, Spirit, Treefolk, Troll, Vampire, Wall, Warrior, Wizard, Wurm, Zombie.

Cycles
Planar Chaos has ten cycles and three vertical cycles:

Notable cards

 * <c>Aeon Chronicler</c> saw widespread play as an uncounterable card advantage machine and possible finisher in blue control decks.
 * <c>Damnation</c>, a colorshifted <c>Wrath of God</c> with similar artwork giving black control decks a strong board sweeper.
 * <c>Detritivore</c>, a red card that continually would destroy non-basic lands in a Standard format filled with them. It was also used in combination with <c>Wildfire</c> from 9th Edition in land destruction decks, providing an able finisher.
 * <c>Extirpate</c>, a strong card punishing Combo decks.
 * <c>Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth</c>, a land that turns other lands into Swamps and which saw widespread tournament play, e.g. in Extended Hexmage Depths deck.

Theme decks
The preconstructed theme decks are: