Portal Second Age

Infobox mtgset
Background = Silver
Expansion Name = "Portal Second Age"
Expansion
Expansion Symbol =
Symbol Description = pentagon
Release Date = June 24, 1998 Fact|date=April 2007
Mechanics = none
Keywords = none
Size = 49 or 165 cards
Expansion Code = PO2
Development Code = None
Block Name = Portal Sets
First Set =
Second Set = "Portal Second Age"
Third Set = Portal Three Kingdoms
Previous Set = ""
This Set = "Portal Second Age"
Next Set = "Unglued"

Portal Second Age is the name of the second starter level set which came out on June 24, 1998 Fact|date=April 2007. The set contains 165 cards in all languages except Portuguese, which contained 49 cards.

et history

Portal was WotC's first major attempt at a set that new players could come into the game and understand. Back before the major rules changes brought forth by , was a very complicated game. The easiest way to describe the difficulty was that in the game, timing rules themselves took dozens of pages of rules to describe; today, they are covered using a simple structure: the stack, which operates as LIFO..

Portal Second Age was the second attempt. This set continued with the similar concepts of Portal, but reduced the set size and set the cards up in a simpler, more straightforward style.

As of October 20, 2005, all cards in Portal Second Age are legal in Vintage and Legacy tournaments.

Mechanics

No new mechanics were introduced with Portal Second Age. There were several "simplifications" made to the game through things left out of the set.

*Instants -- Instants did not exist within the set. Instead, every "one-shot" spell was a sorcery; however, some sorceries could be played at particular times uncommon to sorceries but normal for instants. Most of these cards have since received errata making them Instants. For example, the card Deep Wood has the following text: "Play Deep Wood only when you're attacked, before you declare blockers."
*Rules Text -- All rules text was in boldface. All flavor text and reminder (italicized) text was not boldface. To separate rules text and flavor text, the cards utilized a line with a slight bulge on both top and bottom; this makes the line look like a very elongated diamond.

Also, Portal Second Age had two changes from Portal, in an effort to smooth the transition to more advanced sets:

*Creature Types -- Portal Second Age cards had creature types, and were the first to word them as "Creature -- "type" that was adopted with 6th Edition.
*Wording Changes -- In Second Age, "block" remained as it was, replacing "intercept" from Portal. Similarly, "graveyard" re-replaced "discard pile", and "library" re-replaced "deck".

External links

* [http://www.wizards.com/magic/starter/portal/welcome.asp Wizards' official page on Portal and Portal Second Age]