Ravnica changed Magic: The Gathering forever 20 years ago

The story

Two decades ago, the Ravnica block concluded with Dissension. The way Magic players talk about the game has never been the same since.

From the source

When I first started playing Magic: The Gathering around 1999, I quickly became obsessed with green: beautiful art focused on fantastical nature scenes, towering treefolk, and plenty of cool elves. When I first considered dipping into a secondary color, I wanted to try out black. But the friend who taught me the game said I couldn’t do that. (Remember, we were kids.)

Pointing to the pentagon formed by the five mana symbols on a random card back , he said black was an enemy to green. You could only build a two-color deck using adjacent colors. For green, its allies are red and white. There wasn’t a simple term I could use to describe the green-white elves and angels deck that I went on to make, but all that changed a few years later.

May 5 marks 20 years since the Ravnica block ended with the release of Dissension . It was, unfortunately, a block I missed in its entirety, since I barely played the game in high school. When I returned to the game a few years later, I was baffled when I started hearing people use terms like “Selesnya” to describe my green-white deck.

Who and what

Key names and topics in this story: Ravnica, Magic, Gathering.

Where to follow next

• Read the full piece at www.polygon.com
• More from our Gaming coverage