Antiquities Spoilers and Set Information

Ashnod's Altar | Illustration by Anson Maddocks

Ironically, Antiquities is a bit of an antique itself. It released in Magic's infancy, less than a year after Limited Edition Alpha and Limited Edition Beta, and it has all the hallmarks of the earliest MTG sets. Antiquities didn’t do much in terms of advancing or further defining the color pie, but it had wide-reaching implications for the future of Magic lore. Ever heard of the Brothers’ War? That originated here.

Antiquities is a puzzling set to look at through the lens of 30 years of Magic, with its emphasis on artifacts over other permanents and the strange ways in which different colors interacted with that card type. It’s also home to some all-timer Magic cards.

Let’s brush off the dust and see what treasures we can dig up. No, not actual Treasures. Please, keep those buried.

Antiquities Basic Information

Ornithopter | Illustration by Amy Weber

Set Details

Set Symbol
Set Code	ATQ
Number of Cards	85 cards (+15 alternate arts)
Rarities	28 Commons, 37 Uncommons, 20 Rares, 15 Alternate Arts
Mechanics	Returning mechanics from Alpha, Artifacts Matter

Important Dates

About the Set: The Story

Antiquities marks Magic’s first wide-scale attempt at making the lore a focal point of the cards. Alpha had plenty of name-drops for Urza, Mishra, Dominaria, and so on, but Antiquities used those names to weave an entire saga into the cards. Here we learn of the origins of the Brothers’ War, a years-long battle between brothers Urza and Mishra, who harnessed the power of the Mightstone and the Meekstone to lead mechanized armies against one another. Yawgmoth and the Phyrexians are mentioned across various cards, as are secondary characters like Drafna, Titania, and Hurkyl.

Antiquities is a very strange set by today’s standards, which is understandable. For example, of the seven blue cards in the set, only one is a creature. White has a million damage prevention effects (four actually, but it feels like a million with only seven white cards in the set). Green’s punishing your opponents for playing artifacts, which is actually in line with modern expectations. I’d say it was the Wild West of Magic, but Outlaws of Thunder Junction has that covered.

Antiquities Mechanics

Antiquities doesn’t actually introduce any new mechanics to Magic. It cycles back through a lot of the mechanics introduced in Alpha, but each mechanic appears in limited quantities. Trample, flying, first strike, banding, and ante all appear on various cards, but very few overall.

Artifacts Matter

Most of Antiquities’ mechanical identity is tied to artifacts. In fact, of the 85 unique cards in the set, only four total either don’t mention artifacts or aren’t artifacts themselves. Those are Strip Mine and the Tron lands.

In other words, this set was very much trying to establish how different colors interact with artifacts, resulting in plenty of strange designs, like a red counterspell in Artifact Blast or repeatable artifact removal in black on Gate to Phyrexia.

Antiquities Card Gallery

White

Blue

Black

Red

Green

Colorless

Land

Notable Cards

Power Artifact

Power Artifact’s best known for its infinite mana combo potential with Basalt Monolith, but there are so many Monolith combos at this point that you could probably save yourself $200+ on this Reserved List card.

Gate to Phyrexia

Gate to Phyrexia’s worth mentioning as one of the only mono-black cards that destroys artifacts. It took some time for Magic to work out the color pie as we know it today, so color-pie breaks like this slipped through in the early years.

Ashnod’s Altar

Early Magic set? Artifact themes? Yup, there are going to be some broken cards here. Ashnod's Altar is one such artifact, high up on the lists of best sacrifice outlets and most combo-centric cards in the game.

Candelabra of Tawnos

I don’t know how good Candelabra of Tawnos was at the time it released, but it’s certainly considered a broken artifact now. That’s due to all the different ways there are to make lands tap for extra mana, which makes Candelabra's untap ability a type of mana doubler with even higher potential. It’s often associated with High Tide, and there’s a much fairer Magus adaptation: Magus of the Candelabra.

Millstone

Millstone hasn’t been good in years, but we owe this card for coining the term “mill,” which was used so regularly by players that it was eventually adopted as an official keyword action.

Ornithopter

Sure, it’s free, but how good can a 0/2 really be? Turns out good enough to make Ornithopter a huge player in Modern during the 2010s era of Magic. Affinity’s a thing of the past, but there are still plenty of unfair decks trying to exploit the power of 0-mana plays.

Mishra’s Workshop

Mishra's Workshop continues an early trend of overpowered mana-producing effects. At least it’s limited to artifacts only, but so is Tolarian Academy, and look how that ended up.

Strip Mine

You know a card’s messed up when the “fixed” version is also incredibly strong. That’s the case with Strip Mine, which later received a downgraded version in Wasteland. Strip Mine’s activated ability is a strictly better land destruction effect, regardless of which of the four Antiquities arts you use.

Urza’s Lands

The “Tron” archetype refers to decks that want to assemble Urza's Tower, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Mine. Three lands, 7 mana. Easy! Entire decks have been built around these lands, and they’re super memeable, too. Got any three cards that loosely work well together? Congratulations, you’ve “assembled Tron!”

Available Products

Booster Packs

Antiquities was sold in 8-card booster packs, an anomaly compared to most sets. A single pack could run you over $1,000, so maybe don’t mix this one into your weekly chaos Drafts.

Booster Boxes

Given the small size of booster packs, Antiquities booster boxes included a total of 60 packs. There are a lot of digits in the price tags of boxes today, if you can even find one that’s available for sale.

Wrap Up

Mishra's Workshop | Illustration by Kaja Foglio

Well, time to put this one back up on the shelf. It’s always fun to look back at some of Magic’s earliest sets, but Antiquities is certainly a bit of an oddity. It’s a convergence of super powerful all-timers like Strip Mine and Ashnod's Altar, combined with… Rakalite. There’s a lot of power here, but just as many question marks, too.

Antiquities is a fair bit before my time as a Magic player, so I’d love to hear any stories you might have about the set. Was it revolutionary when it came out, or do you have any pet cards from the set? Let me know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

Thank you for making Draftsim your #1 stop for all things Magic!

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you’ll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.