Choking Sands

Choking Sands was originally released as a common card in the 1996 Mirage expansion for Magic: The Gathering. The card was later featured in the 1997 World Championship Decks, a product line designed to allow players to play with exact replicas of the decks used by the top eight finishers at the World Championship. These decks are historically significant for providing a snapshot of the competitive meta-game during the late 1990s, featuring unique gold-bordered backs to distinguish them from standard tournament cards.

The artwork for the card was provided by Roger Raupp, a prolific fantasy illustrator who contributed dozens of pieces to the game throughout the 1990s. Raupp’s work on Choking Sands captures the desolate, arid atmosphere of the Mirage setting, utilizing a dark, textured palette to evoke the mechanical effect of destroying a non-basic land and dealing damage to its controller. While the card itself saw limited play in high-level tournament contexts, its inclusion in the 1997 World Championship product cemented its place in the history of the game's early professional circuit.