The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering published seven expansion sets from 1993–1995, and one compilation set. These sets contained new cards that "expanded" on the base sets of Magic with their own mechanical theme and setting; these new cards could be played on their own, or mixed in with decks created from cards in the base sets. With Magic runaway success, many of the printings of these early sets were too small to satisfy the rapidly growing fanbase. Cards from them became rare, hard to find, and expensive. It was not until Fallen Empires and Homelands that Wizards of the Coast was able to print enough cards to meet demand; additionally, Wizards of the Coast published Chronicles, a reprint set that helped fix many of the scarcity issues with the earliest sets. In 1995, Magic would adopt a new paradigm: "blocks" of expansion sets. Multiple expansions would all take place in the same setting, and progress a storyline. This was first seen with Ice Age into Alliances, and evolved into a form that would last for many years in 1996–1997 with Mirage, Visions, and Weatherlight. Arabian Nights Arabian Nights was the first Magic: The Gathering expansion set, published in 1993. The set is composed entirely of new cards. The expansion symbol of Arabian Nights is a scimitar. The setting of Arabian Nights is inspired by the themes and characters of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights with some of the characters and places coming directly from these tales. The Arabian Nights also provides the flavor text for most of the cards in the set. Arabian Nights stands out as being one of the only two card sets primarily based on public domain real-world fiction (the other being Portal Three Kingdoms), as opposed to other card sets based on settings created exclusively for Magic. Richard Garfield, Magic creator, acted as the sole designer for the set, and developed it in parallel with other teams working on what would become Ice Age and Mirage. The Ice Age design team, composed of Jim Lin, Chris Page, Dave Pettey, and Skaff Elias, was called upon to become the development team for Arabian Nights as well, but instead of playtesting the set they managed only to submit some comments because their schedule was so tight. At that point in Magic development, the role of expansions was relatively undefined, and Garfield intended for Arabian Nights