Ashnod's Altar

Ashnod's Altar first appeared in the 1992 Antiquities expansion, a set centered on the lore of the Brothers' War. It was designed to represent the dark experiments of Ashnod, the chief artificer to Mishra, who utilized sacrificial altars to imbue artifacts with power or manipulate the forces of life and death. The card mechanics, which allow players to sacrifice creatures for colorless mana, established it as a cornerstone of engine-building strategies in Magic: The Gathering.

The Fifth Edition printing, released in 1997, utilized the original artwork by Anson Maddocks. In this version, the illustration depicts a grim, monolithic structure reflective of the brutal aesthetics favored by the Mishra faction during the Phyrexian-influenced conflicts of the setting. While the Fifth Edition printing removed the set-specific flavor text found on the original version to accommodate standard formatting, the card remained a staple in competitive and casual formats due to its unique utility in generating mana from creature-based resources.