Vintage Horizons

Vintage Horizons is the first set finished by Fungustober. It was inspired by the canon sets Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons 2, but instead of being designed to be straight-to-modern set, it was designed to be a straight-to-eternal set.

Set Details
The limited environment was designed to follow the idea of being straight-to-eternal, with many well-known reprints across the set, including but not limited to: Counterspell, Ponder, Cabal Therapy, Faithless Looting, Simian Spirit Guide, Wild Nacatl, and Arcbound Ravager. Because the set is custom, it does not need to adhere to the Reserved List, which means that many cards from it have been reprinted in Vintage Horizons, like Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Chains of Mephistopheles, Wheel of Fortune, Survival of the Fittest, Squandered Resources, all five of the Moxen, and Black Lotus. All of the reprints in the set have new art. Vintage Horizons contains 363 cards (18 basic lands, 117 commons, 123 uncommons, 77 rares, 28 mythic rares). 98 of those cards are reprints (not including the basic lands), making up just over a quarter of the set (27 commons, 37 uncommons, 24 rares, 10 mythic rares). Reprints are marked with a watermark to indicate the set they originated in.

All ten of the original dual lands from Alpha are included in the set at uncommon. This is to allow players to utilize them in limited instead of only receiving one or two in limited. Many of the reprints in the set are at various rarities with this in mind. For instance, Black Lotus and the Moxen are at rare in the set to allow drafters a higher chance of getting one.

As Vintage Horizons is a horizons-style set, it makes use of many mechanics. The full list is:

Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to cast for each artifact you control.)

Annihilator N (Whenever this creature attacks, defending player sacrifices N permanents.)

Basic Landcycling  (, Discard this card: Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand, then shuffle.)

Bestow  (If you cast this card for its bestow cost, it’s an Aura spell with enchant creature. It becomes a creature again if it’s not attached to a creature.)

Changeling (This card is every creature type.)

Cumulative upkeep  (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this creature, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)

Cycling  (, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

Dash  (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it’s returned from the battlefield to its owner’s hand at the beginning of the next end step.)

Decayed (A creature with decayed can’t block. When it attacks, sacrifice it at end of combat.)

Dredge N (If you would draw a card, you may mill N cards instead. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card.)

Echo (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay its echo cost.)

Enlist (As that creature attacks, you may tap a nonattacking creature you control without summoning sickness. When you do, add its power to this creature’s until end of turn.)

Eternalize  (, Exile this card from your graveyard, Eternalize only as a sorcery: Create a token that’s a copy of it, except it’s a 4/4 black Zombie [creature types] with no mana cost.)

Evoke  (You may cast this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it’s sacrificed when it enters the battlefield.)

Exalted (Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, that creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

Flashback  (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

Hideaway N (When this creature enters the battlefield, look at the top N card(s) of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.)

Ingest (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of their library.)

Modular N (This enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies, you may put its +1/+1 counters on target artifact creature.)

Ninjutsu  (, Return an unblocked attacker you control to hand: Put this card onto the battlefield from your hand tapped and attacking.)

Overload  (You may cast this spell for its overload cost. If you do, change its text by replacing all instances of “target” with “each”.)

Phase out (While permanents are phased out, they’re treated as though they don’t exist. Creatures may still attack and tap as normal on their controller’s next turn.)

Phyrexian Mana (H/Color can be paid with either [Color] or 2 life.)

Prowess (Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)

Rampage N (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.)

Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.)

Reconfigure  (: Attach to target creature you control; or unattach from a creature. Reconfigure only as a sorcery. While attached, this isn’t a creature.)

Renown N (When that creature deals combat damage to a player, if it isn’t renowned, put N +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes renowned.)

Replicate <Cost> (When you cast this spell, copy it for each time you paid its replicate cost. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Retrace (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)

Skulk (Creatures with skulk can’t be blocked by creatures with greater power.)

Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Vanishing N (This creature enters the battlefield with N time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from it. When the last is removed, sacrifice it.)

World supertype (If another World permanent would enter the battlefield, put CARDNAME into its owner's graveyard.)

[type of land]walk (Creatures with [type of land]walk can't be blocked as long as defending player controls a [type of land].)

The set also includes new keywords:

Land Exploit (When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice a land.)

Splice onto creature <Cost> (As you cast a creature spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card’s effects to that spell.)

Additionally, Vintage Horizons makes a few changes from canon. Devoid has been changed from a keyword to a supertype with rules meaning, and Wastes has been added as a land type. Fungustober also puts restrictions for abilities at the end of the ability's cost instead of at the end of the effect to create better information flow.

Themes and Mechanics
Vintage Horizons takes inspiration from across the history of Magic, and the set is meant to be a celebration of both Magic and Eternal Formats.

Heading text
The set has 10 two-color archetypes. In the early days of the set's development, each color had two archetypes, a "major" and a "minor" archetype that you could then mix and match with other archetypes in the set. This decision impacted a lot of how the set was structured, even after that archetype scheme was abandoned for a more normal archetype layout.

The archetypes in Vintage Horizons are:

/ Arifacts and Enchantments

/ Graveyard Artifacts

/ Lands and Artifacts in the Graveyard

/ Tokens Aggro + Domain

/ Enchantments

/ Artifact Sac

/ Storm

/ Lands in the Graveyard

/ Enchantments and Tokens

/ Elves and Noncreatures

Many of these are just two disparate things that have been combined into one, which is a direct result of starting the set as having 10 mono-colored archetypes that you could mix and match and then switching to 10 two-color archetypes halfway through development.

Notable Cards
The set has multiple cycles that appear in various places throughout the set. The first of these is the "Legends that have never gotten a card before and also Mishra because I forgot he already had a card" cycle. As the name suggests, it features legendary creatures from Magic's story that had not yet received a card (one of the characters in the cycle would later get a card in the canon set Dominaria United Commander), and also Mishra because Fungustober forgot that Mishra had already received a card in Time Spiral block. The second notable cycle in Vintage Horizons is the "fateshifted" cycle. The fateshifted cycle took legendary creatures that already existed and changed both their colors and a great amount of their personality. This is similar to Time Spiral's planeshifted legendary creatures. Members of the "fateshifted" cycle show up in Vintage Horizons' storyline. There are two other notable cards in Vintage Horizons, mostly for their appearance in VH1's story. Both of them are planeswalkers who are wholly original to the set, not appearing in any previous lore. The first is Lora, Argivian Metalworker, who is a 2 mana value artifact/enchantment planeswalker. The second of these planeswalkers is Marie, Blessed by The Empty. She is a colorless planeswalker that costs colorless mana and interacts with exile as a way to show her powers granted to her by the Blind Eternities.

Storyline
Despite the fact that Vintage Horizons is a Horizons-style set, which are usually supplemental and have no story, it has a storyline. The main storyline was never finished, due to Fungustober losing interest in the project. However, she did finish the first story, and she came up with a rough outline for the following stories. Additionally, she wrote snippets of what people would have been able to see if the story had been completed to post alongside card images when she was doing a spoiler season for the set. There would have been six story articles in all, referred to as "episodes" by Fungustober. The storyline would have taken place not too long before the events of Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow. The storyline was never released fully due to mismanaged expectations and goals that were far too lofty.

Episode 1: A Matter of Faith and Fangs
The first story of Vintage Horizons, which is the only one to have been completed (the second story was halfway completed before Fungustober gave up on the storyline), is known as A Matter of Faith and Fangs. In it, Thalia is chased by a beast and ends up in an alternate version of Thraben that was never attacked by the Eldrazi known as Emrakul. She finds that the town is run by an alternate version of herself that is a vampire. They have an argument with each other before one of the townspeople is captured by the beast, which causes both Thalias to go after it. Combining their strengths, they defeat the beast and return back to Thraben to try and find a way for the non-vampire Thalia to get back home.

Episode 2 (Unreleased)
As the story snippets for Episode 2 show, it was meant to follow Chandra, who would go to a plane for the Gatewatch to find some missing locals and end up stumbling into an alternate reality, where she battles alternate versions of Jace, Nissa, and herself who beat her by being coordinated. Chandra would get taken back to the three alternates' base, where she would be interrogated, and where the alternates would tell their backstories to Chandra. The alternate Chandra was the only survivor of a Consulate bombardment of a rebel base, and got "adopted" by Dhiren Baral, who taught her about countermagic and ice magic. Later in the backstory, Baral is jailed for his earlier bombardment of the rebel base, which was in a regular village, and a building that Chandra is in gets hit by an improvised aether bomb, throwing shards of broken glass at her and causing her to spark.

The alternate Nissa's family would have been killed by a group of wild beasts, and she would have been adopted by demon worshippers. Nissa would have eventually risen up the ranks of the cult to become the leader, after growing demon horns and wings, which gave her access to a book of dark magic. The cult would have then been attacked by a group of Kor from the skyclaves (as in this universe, they were never destroyed), which would have caused Nissa to search for a spell to decimate the attackers, which would have caused her to spark and meet the alternate Chandra.

Fateshifted!Jace's backstory would have been that he killed Alhammeret, which would have caused him to shut his mind away from any telepathic influences and become mute. He would have become trained by the Gruul, getting many tattoos from them, before meeting Fateshifted!Chandra and Fateshifted!Nissa.

Episode 2 would conclude by having Chandra and Fateshifted!Chandra argue for a while before they come to a common agreement to stop annoying each other and get Chandra back to the correct universe.

Episode 3 (Unreleased)
Episode 3 was supposed to follow three original characters from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor; Root—a female Boggart with a goal of mapping all of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Bwyr—a nonbinary Elf on a self-imposed exile after they made a mistake, and Connaghyn Keig—a male Kithkin who's just there for fun. After falling down somewhere, they would encounter an alternate version of the Faerie known as Endry, who became angry after his sisters died in the war against Oona. Not much is known about this story, as there hasn't been as much recorded for it as there has with other stories.

Episode 4 (Unreleased)
This story would have shown more original characters, this time from Zendikar. The four characters would have been part of a Zendikar Rising-era adventuring party, with Nesma, the Kor leader, Rask, a Human and potentially a warrior, Makalta, a Vampire rogue, Dezo Ril, a merfolk and potentially a wizard, and Rinya, an Elf cleric. The story would have had Nesma fall through and out of a skyclave that they are exploring, being saved only by an alternate version of Iona flying past. The rest of the adventuring party would have been captured by the Kor of the skyclave, which was not destroyed by the Eldrazi invasion in this universe, and Iona would force Nesma to battle against the skyclaves.

Episode 5 (Unreleased)
In Episode 5, the new crew of the Weatherlight would have gotten caught in a storm, bringing them to a desolate city with a giant library. Inside the library, they would have found an alternate Urza who had gotten along well with Mishra, and he would have helped defeat the Phyrexians by "reading." It is unknown quite what this means, and it is possible that he may have filled a Commodore Guff role in that universe's Phyrexian Invasion of Dominaria, although it's also possible that he could have just found things in books that helped them defeat the Phyrexians. This Urza would have talked to the new Weatherlight crew, and would have come to a realization why

Episode 6 (Unreleased)
This would have been the final article of the main story for Vintage Horizons, and would have had an explanation of who Lora was, and would have introduced a character known as The Interloper, with Fateshifted!Urza using The Weatherlight to bring all of the Fateshifted characters and the characters that had accidentally crossed over into alternate universes in the stories to a "space out of space," where The Interloper is attempting to combine all of the universes into one. Most of the fateshifted characters would have stayed behind, while Fateshifted!Urza and all of the main-universe characters would go to fight The Interloper, where all but Fateshifted!Urza would be defeated. Fateshifted!Nissa would then rally all of the fateshifted characters together, where they would rejuvenate the main-universe characters and defeat The Interloper. Urza would have then sent all of the characters back home to their respective universes. Fateshifted!Urza would clean up after the battle, and then leave the city in which his library stands, ending the story.

Side Story: Blessed by the Empty (Unreleased)
The side story Blessed by the Empty would have introduced Marie, a planeswalker from an unknown plane which is somehow ripped apart. It would have gone into the powers she gained from the destruction of her plane.

Marketing
The set started previewing with a modified version of the opening text for the first of the Vintage Horizons stories; Stepping through a threshold isn’t something most people think about. It’s simply something that is just… done. A threshold itself is almost never thought about, only used as a way to get from one place to another, as a connection between one area and the next.

Unless, of course, the threshold is closed. Then it becomes a challenge to be overcome, a roadblock in your path. But when it is free, when you are able to walk right through, there is no thought taken to the threshold itself, only the directions of towards and away.

It is no wonder, then, that when time is distorted and fracturing, and the barriers between worlds fade, that an unlucky few will walk right through.

Something is wrong. You can feel it. The air is different. It's not the air you know. This is the air of some other world, some other time. It fills every breath with an alien feeling, something you've never experienced before. This is not your world. This is not your time. This is....

VINTAGE HORIZONS Vintage Horizons has three booster pack variants:

Variant 1 features the set's Ancestral Recall artwork, variant 2 features the set's Gaea's cradle artwork, and variant 3 features the set's Mox Sapphire art.

Trivia

 * Vintage Horizons was originally going to be "Legacy Horizons", but Fungustober changed her mind.
 * Fungustober knew very little about Vintage when starting the set, and actually started watching videos about it after beginning the set to learn more about it.
 * One of the cards in the set, Frenzied Gorilla, is a reference to the "WIZARD COUNCIL 2021 BANNED SPELL LIST:" tumblr post. It's development name was even "Ketamine Ape."