the "from the vault" story was a "cute little cover" to make the announcement more interesting and expressed surprise that any players took the story at face value. He apologized for the confusion Wizards R&D had created and made it clear that the set is indeed a newly designed one. Mechanics Several mechanics were introduced in the Ice Age block. The most notable of these was permanents of the "Snow" supertype. Ice Age introduced basic snow-covered lands, and cards that had effects based on Snow permanents. 'Coldsnap followed that with creatures, artifacts and enchantments of the Snow supertype. Other mechanics introduced included cumulative upkeep and cantrips. Ice Age was also the first set to print single-colored legends. Alliances did not introduce any new named mechanics, but did introduce a number of cards that could be cast by discarding one or more cards instead of paying a mana cost. Besides expanding on the cumulative upkeep, pitch cards and snow permanents mechanics, Coldsnap introduced the Recover and Ripple mechanics. Cards Ice Age consists of 383 cards. Of these 121 each are common, uncommon, and rare. The remaining 20 cards are basic lands distributed solely in Starter Packs. There were 56 cards of each color, 25 multicolor cards, 45 artifacts, and 33 lands in Ice Age. There are 199 cards in Alliances. Including alternate art, there are 31 cards of each color, 10 multicolor cards, 26 Artifacts, and 8 Lands. Coldsnap contained 155 cards. Four theme decks were released, which included some cards that were reprints of older cards from both Ice Age and Alliances. The reprints kept the original artwork but used the new borders, updated Oracle wording and the original expansion symbols were given rarity colors. Notable cards Notable cards in Ice Age included , , and Notable cards in Alliances included , , , , and Notable cards in Coldsnap included , , , , and . Reviews Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix (Danish) (Issue 9 - August/September 1995) References Further reading External links Wizards' official page on Ice Age Wizards' Official page for Alliances WotC Official page for Coldsnap MTG Salvation article on Ice Age MTG Salvation article on Alliances MTG Salvation article on Coldsnap MTG Salvation article on Cumulative upkeep MTG Salvation article on Cantrips MTG Salvation article on Pitch card MTG Salvation article on Recover MTG Salvation article on Ripple MTG Salvation article on Snow permanents Magic: The Gathering blocks