weakening of the land by the coming ice age. Mechanics The Dark introduced no new mechanics. However, it did utilize several themes that would be used later on in Magic sets, especially the payment of life to activate abilities. "Sacrifice", where a player has to sacrifice something to gain the upper hand against an opponent, usually life or creatures. and are examples. "Tribal", a theme that would later be more prominent in Magic, had a presence here, largely in the Goblin tribe. Cards such as and boosted Goblins, while destroyed them. "Cooperation of enemy colors", where cards interacted favorable with enemy colors such as . "Self-hosing", where cards were good against their own color. allowed black to destroy black creatures (something Black had trouble doing before), while and were more direct. Notable cards The Dark has a reputation for having a somewhat weak power level compared to earlier sets, and slowed the speed of the game down. Initial problems with powerful cards in earlier sets had led Magic designers to more closely tune cards for balance. – One of the iconic red creatures in early Magic, Ball Lightning has been reprinted several times and spawned multiple imitator cards in later sets that were also one-shot attacks with haste, such as and . – This was the first card that penalized players for using non-basic lands. It was designed from a top-down flavor perspective that flooding the land with red light should transform lands to produce red mana. It has proved a staple in the Modern format, and sees occasional play in Legacy as well. – Although The Dark generally has a rather low power level, Maze of Ith quickly made it to the lists of restricted cards. Unlike today, even Standard had a restricted list back then, but Maze of Ith was on the Vintage restricted list for some time as well. Maze of Ith has a somewhat strange rarity; it is the 44th uncommon in the set, but does not appear on the uncommon sheet. Instead, it appeared on the common sheet, but 1/3 as often as the actual commons. As a result, it was printed somewhat more than the other uncommons, although still less than the commons. – This zero cost card can completely remove a graveyard. It is thus a useful sideboard card, so that a deck can deal with graveyard strategies. – This card is widely