Time Spiral is a Magic: The Gathering expert-level block consisting of the expansion sets Time Spiral (October 6, 2006), Planar Chaos (February 2, 2007), and Future Sight (May 4, 2007). It is set on the plane of Dominaria, the first time that that plane had been visited since 8th Edition.
The theme of the block was time. Time Spiral focused on the past, and is laden with references to previous Magic: the Gathering sets. The references are reflected in the card design, which incorporates special rules from older sets, and in special "Time shifted" cards, which are cards reprinted from older sets using the older card design (abandoned three years previous with the 2003 release of Core Set 8th Edition.) Planar Chaos focused on the present, referencing previous Magic: The Gathering cards, but changing them in some way, such as changing their color or shifting their permanent type. Future Sight focused on the future, both in that it includes cards from settings not yet explored in previous sets as well as including game mechanics that did not exist until later sets.
Time Spiral is typical among the first sets of a Magic: the Gathering block in that the cards are sold in four different forms. Four different theme decks, 60 card decks with themed, fixed composition were released, each featuring a different aspect of the set. The cards were sold in randomized packs, both as the typical 15-card booster packs and in larger 75-card tournament packs.
Conception and design
Time Spiral In his preview articles, Mark Rosewater described Time Spiral as an expansion focused on the past, with its successors, Planar Chaos and Future Sight, to be centered around the present and future respectively. This design was achieved through keywords and mechanics that interact with time, as well as cards based on those in previous sets, to promote a sense of nostalgia. Time Spiral was codenamed "Snap" during development.
The size of the set had been in dispute prior to release, as Wizards issued two different sizes for the set, 301 and 422. Retailers were initially told that the set would include 422 cards; Wizards of the Coast sent a retraction email explaining that the set would in fact be 301 cards in size. The set size was then confirmed to be 301 cards, with 121 commons, 80 uncommons, 80 rares, and 20 basic lands. The confusion came about because Time Spiral was released with a 'sub-set', 121 timeshifted cards in addition to the 301-card basic set. After the set officially went public, Rosewater said that Wizards of the Coast had released the apparently conflicting figures by accident, but ended up just as happy to have done so after seeing the speculation they fueled.
Time Spiral booster packs marked Wizards of the Coast’s then-new and current premium card distribution method, where premium cards replace commons, as opposed to replacing a card of the premium's standard rarity.
Nostalgia Creature card types from previous block sets, such as Kavu, Merfolk, Thallids, and Slivers, returned, in addition to new incarnations of old cards. Eight keyword abilities from past sets also returned in Time Spiral, with some keywords not having appeared since 1997: Buyback, Echo, Flanking, Flashback, Madness, Morph, Shadow, and Storm. Old non-keyword mechanics like slivers, rebels, spellshapers, and nightmares also appear on new cards. There are also several cards that directly allude to older, well-known cards, such as the Magus cycle: creatures that are similar to the cards , , , , and .
Planar Chaos Designed by Bill Rose (lead designer), Matt Place, Mark Rosewater, and Paul Sottosanti, and developed by Devin Low (lead developer), Zvi Mowshowitz, Brian Schneider, Henry Stern, and Mike Turian, Planar Chaos was tasked with representing the present in a set focused on the cycle of time. The design team considered a number of ways to represent an alternate present, including the introduction of purple as a new color. Eventually, the team chose to represent alternate realities where elements of the color pie were shifted, placing spell types and abilities into unusual colors. These alternate realities were epitomized by the set's 45 "color shifted" cards. Unlike their predecessors in Time Spiral, these cards were direct reprints of previous cards, save for shifts in color, land or color references in card text, card name, and creature type. Some of these are instantly recognizable by veteran players as reprints of extremely famous and iconic cards, like being a black reprint of the white card , or being a colorshifted version of . Others are reprints of much more obscure cards, and might not have been recognized as colorshifted without the altered border, such as being a reprint of and being a color-shifted . Color-shifted cards in Planar Chaos are distinguished by an altered version of the modern card frame; the card name and type are printed in white text instead of black, and their respective text bubbles feature much more saturated background colors. Color-shifted cards feature standard set symbols, unlike the timeshifted cards from Time Spiral. This was far from the first time when cards received functional reprints in new colors; from Legends, for example, was a color-shifted reprint of . However, this was the first time when color-shifted reprints of previous cards were explicitly indicated as such.
Timeshifted cards in Planar Chaos are also distributed differently. In each pack, three common cards are of the Timeshifted variety and an uncommon is replaced with either a timeshifted rare or uncommon. Foil cards, instead of replacing a card of the same rarity, replace a common card. As such, it is possible to receive a booster with up to three rare cards: one normal, one foil, and one timeshifted. The uncommon timeshifted cards show up in a 3:1 ratio to the rare timeshifted cards, so the average out of 4 boosters is 3 uncommon and 1 rare timeshifted card.
In addition to color-shifted cards that perfectly replicated the functions of previous cards, with only colors, land types, and creature types changed, Planar Chaos also features color-shifted, alternate-timeline versions of famous cards with sometimes radically altered or remixed functionality but the standard border. From the Rath and Masquerade cycles, , , and became and . From the Odyssey and Onslaught cycles, became and became . Five new dragon legends were created in enemy-color combinations, based loosely on the five dragon legends in friendly-color combinations from Invasion.
Future Sight Future Sight contains 180 cards. The expansion symbol is an eye looking through a rift portal. The designers of the set are Mark Rosewater (lead), Matt Cavotta, Devin Low, Mark Gottlieb, Ryan Miller, and Zvi Mowshowitz. The developers of the set are Mike Turian (lead), Matt Cavotta, Matt Place, and Brian Schneider. Another Magus cycle—creature cards that refer to cards from the past—made its appearance as well; the cycle in Future Sight echoes enchantments from past sets. For example, the card has the same ability as the enchantment .
Although in practice a number of Future Sight cards were inspired by cards from the Un-Set Unhinged, the finished cards were presented as previews from the future. For example, Future Sight also introduced a new card supertype, Tribal. Tribal cards have a set of subtypes that are shared with creature types; Tribal cards give creature types to noncreature cards. The Tribal type had been planned for the Lorwyn set, and was "preprinted" on the card , a "Tribal Enchantment - Rebel Aura". Similarly, the card created a copy of a card from Lorwyn, , and the card mentioned the not-yet-printed card type "Planeswalker."
Future Sight also was originally to include the Planeswalker cards, but the design was not ready on time, so they were included in the Lorwyn expansion instead.
Timeshifted cards To further represent the temporal chaos afflicting Dominaria, Time Spiral was released with an additional sub-set of 121 "Timeshifted" cards, reprints of select cards from every set prior to Mirrodin. The "Timeshifted" cards were updated to meet the current rules and keywording. To differentiate them from normal cards, "Timeshifted" cards are printed in the pre-8th Edition card frame, with a purple Time Spiral expansion symbol. The "Timeshifted" cards are distributed one per booster pack and three per tournament pack (taking the place of common cards), and also appear in the preconstructed decks. According to DCI-distributed tournament primers, "Timeshifted" cards are tournament legal where Time Spiral or the set of original printing are.
"Timeshifted" cards also appear in Planar Chaos, but are not direct reprints of older cards; instead, they are "color-shifted" versions of well-known cards (same mechanic, different color) and are printed in alternate frames, with normal rarity symbols (as opposed to purple ones from Time Spiral "Timeshifted"), and as a regular part of the set.
Future Sight has "Timeshifted" cards as well, as first confirmed by Mark Rosewater. In the same way as Planar Chaos, these "Timeshifted" cards are not direct reprints of older Magic cards, but rather cards that may appear in future sets. These cards have normal rarity symbols as opposed to purple, and are considered a part of the expansion, not a separate sub-set. Also, the "Timeshifted" cards in Future Sight have been given a new frame. Another difference is that Future Sight has many mechanics spread among many cards, instead of several focused mechanics. With Future Sight, the frame design of the "Timeshifted" cards is entirely new. On "Timeshifted" cards in Future Sight, the card's mana cost appears in bubbles curving down the left side of the card right next to the picture, appearing in the traditional order of colorless mana, white, blue, black, red, and green from top to bottom. In the top left corner of each card is a symbol that tells the card type; for example, a symbol of claw marks represent a creature card. This design was a Future Sight "Timeshifted" feature only, and was used to give the cards a futuristic feel.
Storyline
Time Spiral As with all Magic: the Gathering sets in this period, Time Spiral is accompanied by a tie-in novel of the same name. The novel Time Spiral, written by Scott McGough, expands the setting and events depicted on the cards of Time Spiral into a full story. During the Phyrexian invasion 300 years ago, Teferi phased out the (sub)continents of Shiv and Zhalfir before phasing out himself. Teferi has now returned to Dominaria to prepare for the return of Shiv and Zhalfir. However, Dominaria is not as he knows it: the stress of constant warfare and apocalypse (the Brothers' War, the Phyrexian invasion, and Karona's War), combined with mana-draining rifts created by the overlaying of Rath and Skyshroud (among other events across the multiverse, such as the near-destruction of Ulgrotha), have set off a chain reaction that has created ripples in the temporal fabric of the planes. The unphasing of Shiv threatens to tear these rifts, destroying the plane of Dominaria, and in turn the entire multiverse.
After the defeat of Karona at the end of Judgement, the rifts in the planar fabric began to act as mana sinks, draining the Dominarian lands of mana. Life on the plane became harsh, and the temporal rifts caused people and objects from Dominaria's past to be "dropped" into the present, leaving people stranded in unrecognizable lands thousands of years from their time.
Planar Chaos The temporal stresses being applied to Dominaria have expanded, causing multiple parallel universes (versions of Dominaria where history played out differently) to merge into the already colliding past-present-future of current events.
Future Sight