Hello all and happiest of days to each of you! Today, I want to make a case for Arabian Nights, the first expansion set for MTG, as the most influential set in the game's history!

Let's get started!

What is Arabian Nights?

Arabian Nights is based on the public domain collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights (which I've not actually read, sorry!). It's filled to the brim with many famous tales you'd recognize, including "Aladdin", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", and "Sinbad the Sailor" (all of which have modern movie adaptations).

Flavorful Depictions

To my mind, in addition to being the first expansion for Magic: The Gathering, Arabian Nights is also the first Flavor Forward set. It's stuffed with references to the many stories told by Shahrazad, as well as portraying the storyteller herself on a card which introduces a sub-game which evokes how she would spin tales to King Shahryar each night to prolong her life. We have Fishliver Oil giving something Islandwalk, and then King Suleiman in the stories has great control of Spirits and then can tap to destroy Djinns and Efreets. Erg Raiders defined aggro and Suicide Black for ages. Desert Twister was the best removal spell Green ever got until Beast Within, and it's very flavorful too! It's also defined pinpoint removal of anything until Vindicate came along later.

Elephant Graveyard is all about flavor too being the first land to feature Regenerate and care about a creature type (elephant in this case). Elephant wasn't a particularly relevant creature type at the time, so that's entirely a flavor choice! Flying Carpet taps to give something flying, but just for a turn. Flying Men is a Blue Scryb Sprites! Eye for an Eye is an iconic spell that references the Code of Hammurabi. Ghazban Ogre defined Stompy Aggro. I ran a tournament brew around Kird Ape, another great and flavorful creature. Island Fish Jasconius also is a big ol' flavor hit. Island of Wak-Wak is no Maze of Ith, but it'll do in a pinch fits the flavor. Shout out to Jeweled Bird for making big moves in my beloved Five Color Format work by swapping Ante'd cards into your graveyard and drawing a card. Merchant Ship makes sense conceptually and has great art. Nafs Asp is great as a pre-poison counter concept where the damaged player takes an additional damage during their next draw step unless they pay! Oasis also perfectly encapsulates its inspiration.

They even had a creature tell its story with its... creature type! This 1-drop 0/1 kills anyone who blocked or became blocked by it. Why? He's a Leper.

We also see the precursor for cumulative upkeep here in Cyclone, and prototypes of phasing and Oblivion Ring on one card in everyone's favorite Oubliette! Repentant Blacksmith has great flavor as a pro-Red dork and I think he's the first example of that as well. Then Sandstorm is a Green instant burn spell that works on flavor despite being very out of color pie by modern standards. Sandals of Abdallah, like the Oil, is a great flavorful way to give Islandwalk in artifact form, with some added spic. If the affected creature dies, the Sandals go with it, which isn't ideal, obviously, but it does make sense! When I saw Sindbad, I knew I had to build around him since he's a two-drop 1/1 Blue dork that taps to draw the top card of our library if it's a land, or discard it if not, and we know how blue needs lands. Unstable Mutation led to tons of Aggro decks as an Aura that pumps the size by +3/+3 and then drops it by one per turn.

Next up are these two great flavor hits. Old Man of the Sea is a beloved tapper and stealer of smaller powered stuff, and later we'd see this in things like Seasinger. How does he have that ability? Check out the creature type as a Marid! Also, a Genie type. Then this set also predated legendaries with flavorful pseudo-legendaries that played into their character like Ali Baba and then the above Aladdin that taps to steal an artifact and then run with it.

Ring of Ma'ruf is amazing, flavorful, and then gave us the Wish mechanic we have today! Now you will note that this costs five on a colorless artifact, and then needs another 5 mana to make it work. It both self-exiles and replaces a card drawn: those are some serious limitations sure, but can be worth it! Everyone loved Rukh Egg since it became a good flying 4/4 Roc...err...Rukh after hatching, represented by its death!

Sorceress Queen was great as a flavorful and fun Black take on Maze of Ith to drop their size to 0/2 (like Island of Wak-Wak for flyers), but on a fragile 3-drop. Once she was done with them, those dorks can be Shocked or double Timmed (Prodigal Sorcerer) too. Or after taking two from an Aether Flash... hmmm... that's a fun deck idea! Again, that's something that works for a Sorceress flavorfully. Then Wyluli Wolf seems like a fun and great way to tap and pump another dork's size (and that was the first effect like that to my mind). Also... Singing Tree (much like Island and Queen) drops an attacker's power and makes all of the sense while doing it.

Many Blue fans love Dandan as an Islandhome 4/1 2-drop beater too. Khabal Ghoul is a beloved powerhouse from the era moved to Zombies that grew from the number of creatures that died each turn, so you'd drop it after a Wrath or other sweeper to grow on a naked board and become a game winner. I know many Giant Tortoise too and we had something we called "Giant Tortoise Wars" at the multiplayer table.

Power

And now in addition to great flavor this set also gave us great power too, like the above lands or Diamond Valley to sac and gain life equal to a dork's toughness. Bazaar is nasty with the ability to tap and draw two and discard three. That's not even Looting, it's card disadvantage, but it was perfect for enabling Reanimation, Dredge, and other graveyard strategies. I picked up four back when they were around 40 each in college since they weren't great at the time. I built with and loved them and still do today! City of Brass taps for any color of mana and then you take a damage. That's worse than something like a Pain Land since there's no colorless option to avoid damage, and you'll always take that damage if it's tapped no matter what. So, Icy Manipulator is your enemy! Library of Alexandria taps to draw when you've got the full grip of seven cards. It's so powerful that it's banned and restricted in tons of places and we called it the "Power 10" not 9 for a while.

Next up are these three brokenly good dorks for their size-to-cost ratio, though each has disadvantages. They were played all over and are Genies too. That 3-drop 3/4 flyer in Blue pings you for 1 in your upkeep and is my fav. Then that 4-drop 4/5 green one gives one of our foe's dorks Forestwalk in our upkeep. So, if we've got no Forests? Yup, no issue! So that led to tons of play with Armageddon effects. Then that 4-drop 5/5 one pings us for one in our upkeep, which is pretty manageable considering what we get in return.

And now two fun power-meets-flavor cards! That black 4-drop 2/4 makes our non-dork artifacts unstealable, indestructible and protects them from being enchanted while it's untapped. I love this with a sweeper like Nevinyrral's Disk since all of your artifacts stick around in exchange for the life of your Guardian Beast. Love its flavor and power tons! Then that 3/3 flyer arrives for 4 mana in Green and then anyone can spend a to shoot all players and flyers for a damage. Lean into that tons, and it's great with regeneration, pro Green or indestructible to keep itself around. Although its not bad at sweeping the board and itself too, or killing a foe at low life like a Green Pestilence that anyone can activate!

Deserts

And then you'll note that another thing Arabian Nights does well is adding Land types that aren't basic with Deserts! They tap to ping an attacking dork after they hit the person's face. They are colorless lands too, so that's cool. Your Desert Nomads above can walk them and then are immune to their damage, as is Camel with their band. Great stuff!

This expansion set the flavor standard very high for future sets! It had tons of great creatures like Serendib Efreet, Kird Ape and Erg Raiders as well as some of the biggest sizes here like Erhnam Djinn and Juzam Djinn with disadvantages. This was in an era known for bad, small creatures and powerful spells like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell.

This was a flavor-first set, and then sometimes things here might be a little pricey like Aladdin's Lamp or the Ring above (or Aladdin's Ring for that matter as well) but that's because they were new and pushed cards and played into a great space.

This is the heavyweight that delivered a first round knockout. Most other sets couldn't even get close to hitting its heights that early in Magic's lifespan. It's so good for the game from flavor to power, and it gave precursors to legendary, cumulative upkeep, and more! So, obviously your milage and views may vary, but, for me, it's an easy argument to make that every expansion since is either standing in the shadow of Arabian Nights or on its shoulders.

Have an awesome day!