Portal Three Kingdoms

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Portal Three Kingdoms
Chinese character for the number 3
Released	July 6, 1999
Size	180 cards
Keywords	Horsemanship
Mechanics	"Zodiac" cycle
Designers	Henry Stern (lead)
Dev. code	None
Exp. code	PTK
Third set in the Portal block
Portal Portal Second Age Portal Three Kingdoms

Portal Three Kingdoms is the third Magic: The Gathering expansion of the Portal block, and the third starter level set. Like the other expansions in the Portal block, Portal: Three Kingdoms is designed for beginners to Magic. The setting is heavily based on the Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Each card, including each basic land, was illustrated by a Chinese artist.

Set History

Portal Three Kingdoms was released mainly in Asia-Pacific markets. These cards were printed in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. A very short English printing run was done, but these versions of the cards were released primarily in Australia and New Zealand and are relatively difficult to find.

On October 20, 2005, the DCI legalized cards from the Portal expansions. Now, almost all cards in the Portal block are legal in Vintage and Legacy tournaments. Allowing this set to be played in tournaments had the effect of making many cards from this set very expensive, like Imperial Seal, Imperial Recruiter, Loyal Retainers and Ravages of War. The value of those cards now often exceeds 250USD a piece. Many cards from this set are now worth more than 5USD, making the sealed booster box from this set one of the most expensive along with Alpha, Beta and Unlimited.

Horsemanship

Portal Three Kingdoms is the only starter level set to introduce a new keyword ability into the game: "Horsemanship", an evasion ability that works like flying in that creatures with horsemanship can be blocked only by creatures with horsemanship. Creatures with horsemanship can block creatures without horsemanship as well, but not be blocked by creatures with flying, likewise Horsemanship creatures can not block flying creatures. As such, these creatures are effectively 'unblockable' by almost all other creatures.

In a tournament context, Three Kingdoms, like all other Portal sets, can only be used in Vintage and Legacy formats where many decks function with limited or no creature base. Three Kingdoms is also legal in the recently added Commander format. There was controversy when the set became tournament legal, as some players thought that cards with the horsemanship ability should be errata to have flying instead. Wizards of the Coast initially considered making this change but decided against it, stating that the creatures with horsemanship are rare and not aggressive enough to make an impact on vintage formats. Horsemanship has become an obscure ability due to the limited production and geographical release of the set, and Wizards have stated that it will be unlikely that horsemanship will return on new cards in the future.

With the release of Time Spiral, Wizards returned a vast number of older pre-8th Edition keyword abilities and mechanics; horsemanship was not among the mechanics that returned. The Magic the Gathering Online set Masters Edition III included a number of cards from the Portal Three Kingdoms set including ones with horsemanship.

External links

• Wizards' official page on Portal Three Kingdoms