Mechanics
- Cycling cards allow a player to discard that card and pay a mana cost to draw a new card, effectually replacing the card with a new one. In Urza's Saga, the cost for cycling is always two colorless mana. When the mechanic reappeared in the Onslaught and Shard of Alara blocks, other mana costs were used as well.
- Echo is a mechanic that requires the player to pay the casting cost for a permanent again on his/her next turn, or it must be sacrificed. Echo cards generally have lower mana costs than comparable non-echo cards, in exchange for the double payment. All are creatures in Urza's Saga and almost all cards with echo are green or red.
- Free spells were a mechanic that was exclusively used on blue cards. These spells allow the player to untap the same number of lands as the card's converted mana cost upon resolution, freeing land for other use. This was abused by various decks that could generate more than one mana per land, thus effectually generating mana instead of just casting a free spell.
- "Sleeping" Enchantments were enchantments that would change into a creature when an opponent triggers a condition, usually by playing a certain type of spell.
As a side note, the rules for the Trample ability were simplified in Urza's Saga.
Read more about this topic: Urza's Saga
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