City of Brass

City of Brass was first released in the 1994 expansion Arabian Nights, Magic: The Gathering's debut set. The card was designed by Richard Garfield and features artwork by Dan Frazier, whose illustrations captured the mythic, desert aesthetic central to the set's theme. The card's ability to provide any color of mana at the cost of one life remains a hallmark of land design, balancing power with a recurring drawback that forces players to weigh resource acceleration against survivability.

The Pro Tour Collector Set, which includes this version of City of Brass, was released in the late 1990s as a commemorative product. These sets were designed to showcase decks that performed well at high-level competitive tournaments, serving as both a educational tool for players to study professional strategies and a collectible memento of Magic's growing organized play circuit. Because these cards were printed with unique gold-bordered backs and were not tournament legal, they are distinct from the original expansions, intended primarily for kitchen-table play and display.