Second Urza Block
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The Urza's Saga Block is Infamous for being one of the most, if not the most broken set ever created, so bad that the CEO of Wizards called design up and threatened that doing it again will make you fired. It's know for containing many broken artifacts (even though the theme was meant to be enchantments)
Notable Cards
Oh boy, you're in for a ride. This block has tons of cheese.
Memory Jar
This card pretty much gives you a brand new hand for 5 mana. This was during a period in Magic's history with a disgusting amount of 1-turn-wonder combo fodder (not just from Urza's Saga but from Tempest block as well) and ways to rapid fire cards onto the table, plus enough cheap non-land mana sources that getting 5 colorless on your first turn wasn't hard at all. The result was that Memory Jar became the first and (so far) only card to be banned from Standard before it was ever legal. Wizards offered you replacement packs if you opened an Urza's Legacy booster with a Memory Jar, it was such an embarrassment at the time.
Tinker
A fairly straightforward spell: pay three mana, sacrifice an artifact, then search your deck for another artifact and put it into play.
Yes, you read that right. No, nothing was left out. The artifact you find goes directly into play, and its casting cost is completely ignored. Tinker lets you play any artifact in your entire deck for the price of three mana and an Ornithopter.
Tolarian Academy
The most overpowered land ever printed, Tolarian Academy gives you one blue mana for each artifact you control. A lot of artifacts cost zero mana. Several cards in Urza’s Block were “free”, in that they untapped the lands used to cast them, on the assumption that each land only generated one mana.
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Necropotence lets you pay one life to draw a card at the end of the turn. Since one life is worth a lot more than one card, Necropotence is pretty good. This is true even though you don’t get to see what cards you’re drawing until the end of the turn - you have to decide how much life you’re willing to spend in the hopes of drawing something useful. Yawgmoth’s Bargain is exactly like Necropotence, except that you get the card immediately, so you can just dig until you find the card you want and then stop. It costs twice as much as Necropotence, and is still format-warping in Vintage.
Yawgmoth’s Will
Yawgmoth’s Will is a black sorcery that costs three mana and lets you play cards in your graveyard for the rest of the turn. Dark Ritual was reprinted in Urza’s Block. You do the math.
Free Mechanic
Many cards had a free mechanic: pay more mana than usual for a spell, but you get to untap lands equal to the amount of mana paid. That is already pretty powerful, but then is boosted by the fact that there's lands that tap for more than one mana, and the fact that two creatures had the free mechanic but didn’t bother to check if you’d actually paid the cost you were getting refunded for. It's considered one of the Mechanics you can't balance as well: Making it cost more mana makes it better.
| Settings of Magic: The Gathering | |
|---|---|
| Pre-revisionist: | First Magic Sets - First Urza Block - Arabian Nights Legends - Homelands - Ice Age - Mirage |
| Weatherlight Saga: | Portal Starter Sets - Second Urza Block Tempest Block - Masques Block - Invasion Block |
| Post-Weatherlight: | Otaria Block - Mirrodin - Kamigawa - Ravnica - Time Spiral |
| After the Mending: | Lorwyn - Alara - Zendikar - New Phyrexia Innistrad - Return to Ravnica - Theros - Tarkir - Eldraine - Ikoria |
| Two-Block Paradigm: | Kaladesh - Amonkhet - Ixalan |
| Post Two-Block Paradigm: | Eldraine - Ikoria - Kaldheim - Strixhaven |
| Never in a standard set: | Fiora (Where the Conspiracy sets take place) - Kylem (Battlebond) |