Asia Pacific Land Program

Before Wizards of the Coast decided to print the Euro lands and give them away with boxes, the APAC (Asia Pacific) region had already got their own in the same promotion manner. The lands were given for the Tempest set and they feature the same criteria in terms of illustration, in which real Asian landscapes were used to represent the five basic lands. Magic at that time was quite new to the region except Japan, and therefore the APAC lands were introduced to give its fame a boost in the region including countries like Australia and New Zealand.

Compared to the Euro lands which each of the three packs was given away with different releases, the three APAC packs were given in a random manner in Tempest booster boxes. The first cycle came with a red envelope, with the famous illustration of Japanese sunflower field as a plains, Hong Kong as an island, New Zealand’s rainforest as a swamp, The Philippines’ terraces as a mountain, and Japan’s traditional woods as a forest. The second envelope which was blue in color featured the iconic Uluru in Australia as a plains, a beautiful Japanese maritime temple rock among the waters as an island, yet another Japanese traditional graveyard as a swamp, a Taiwanese river among the hills as a mountain, and a Chinese jungle landscape as a forest.

The last cycle has some more iconic locations, as the Great Wall represents a plains, the entire Singapore represents an Island, Indonesia (famous for its water landscape) as a Swamp, Korea in a dense greenery landscape with a temple as a forest, and another one of the most iconic Asian spots, Mount Fuji (Japan’s most famous volcano) as a mountain. All these APAC lands which were in print for only a short period of time have acquired a high monetary value over the years, and this is what makes them different from the Euro lands which got a reprint later on.