Before I start this article, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Greg Haenig, also known as Urzassedatives from MTGS and uselessend on Mananation as well as twitter. I have been playing since before Mirage came out, and I have been involved in Magic rumor discussions and judgment calls since Masques block.

[caption id="attachment_12720" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Mirage Unopened Box"][/caption]

As I said in my last article, new information about MBS wasn't likely to be coming soon. Thanks to a little twitter discussion between my friend Sam Stoddard (@Samstod) and another user, I came to visit a most interesting document from Magic's past. The 'Mirage Rumor/Fact List'.

This was the equivalent of the rumor mill AND spoiler for Mirage, and it is quite a trip to see how much the discussions surrounding new sets has changed, and how much it has actually stayed the same. I will be posting excerpts from the document in the article to illustrate some of these instances.

Spoiler Section

fact: the 0 casting cost that gives 3 mana of any single color is real crap.

No one will use it (there's an enormous disadvantage)

Maro - The fixed lotus is probably the “worst” (read:weakest) card in the set. I mean bad as in Erosion bad.

While saying the card is useless and bad might not be a surprise to those who were playing around at the time the set was released, I was a little surprised that even MaRo was talking down on Lion's Eye Diamond. The card had little-to-no uses when it was released, and seems to be the first One with Nothing-style (discard hand aside) 'bad rare' that was made.

It paid off, clearly.

Mirage brought about rules changes for the game. The infamous mana source was invented, among other things. Anyone who has interacted with WoTC customer service might be amused at this email.

WoTC Customer Service

Mirage will also use the 5th edition rules, so get ready for things to

change a little for the better. Any rules in Magic you think are stupid?

Hopefully we fixed them for you.

Relax, man. This is a good thing. I know it's rough when you don't know

what the changes will be. That's why we're putting together a 5th/Mirage

rules changes spoiler sheet. This way you'll be able to see what's coming

beforehand. Expect the spoiler sheet in late this month, perhaps August

(Nobody here has any free time, but we'll get it out somehow). We didn't

get rid of manaburn...we changed it though...

Another striking inclusion in this spoiler was PLAYTEST cards. These are unfinished/discarded cards that were tested for the set, a complete taboo in modern Rumor Mills.

Shiva the Destroyer 3WW

5\6 Summon Legend

Flying, counts as a wall. Cannot block white creatures.

Unseen Wildlife GGG

Sorcery

Each player puts a Squirrel token in play under his or her control for each forest he or she controls. Treat the tokens as 1\1 green creatures."

You mean, Sunweb and Waiting in the Weeds?

[caption id="attachment_12721" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Sunweb and Waiting in the Weeds"][/caption]

Some other cards had disclosed sources that were not entirely kosher. People that 'saw' uncut sheets of the set reported in, for example.

A 'very reliable source' reported in a list of cards, and almost all of them are incorrect. The most amusing part about this source is that they clarified things at the bottom saying “some of these might be in Visions”.

??? (0) - Land

(**There are 5 of these lands, each with 2 opposing land types named, I will

quote the Black/White version.)

T: Search your library for a basic plains or swamp, and put that land

into play tapped. Shuffle this land back into your library.

Can we spot how many things are wrong with that 'spoiler'? Quality control has improved by leaps and bounds when it comes to the rumor game, that is for sure. It doesn't stop the same things from showing up every rumor season without fail.

There will be a new color. (yeah, right - Ed.)

There will be 'sky' cards -- cards that you can pay the casting cost

with either one color mana, or another. (U2, "Instead of paying the

casting cost, you may pay W2" or something like that... This is possible.)

So the 'new color' rumor is the oldest perpetual incorrect Magic rumor! The sky mana also shows how completely unfounded and unsupported things somehow get dragged into discussions. Amusing that the mechanic is basically hybrid mana though.

The bulk of the information in the spoiler comes from somehow who got ahold of a future Duelist issue which had the full set spoiler.

Looking back on how things used to be done makes me feel much better about how rumors are done these days, on the whole. Digging through the document for the article was a chore. The document is organized in a strange way, and has almost as much space devoted to speculation and inaccurate/false information as it does the legitimate information.

It also reminded me of how little phasing was utilized. Its rules were turned into something almost silly for M10. When it is phased-out, it 'doesnt exist', rather than go to some new zone or something. The act of phasing a permanent out, rather than giving something phasing was always much more interesting. See Frenetic Efreet and Rainbow Efreet for example. Throwing phasing on a bunch of blue creatures as a drawback didn't lend to making the ability too amazing.

The act of 'phasing out' is not as complicated as people think, either. Something that phases out doesn't change zones, it just 'disappears'. When it comes back, it comes back with all equipment, auras, and counters intact.

Cards phase in at the beginning of the controller's next UNTAP step. They did this to make sure the cards always phased in untapped. Modern design would probably have the mechanic trigger on the upkeep and just have a rider to phasing in being that the permanent becomes untapped, IMO.

Phasing out used to trigger 'leaves play' triggers, but phasing in didn't trigger 'enters play' triggers. Not really sure what the rationalization was for that.

To understand the present, we must reexamine our past. This should be no different when it comes to Magic rumors. In rumor seasons when it seems impossible to dig through the useless information to find the useful information, rest easy that it will probably still be easier to traverse than the Rumor/Fact list of years gone by.