The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering published nine base sets from 1993–2007, also referred to as core sets. The base sets were considered descendants of the original Limited Edition, and shaped the default setting and feel of Magic. These sets consisted entirely of reprinted cards. These cards were generally simpler than cards in expansion sets, omitting multicolored cards, and used only the original abilities and keywords of Magic such as Flying and Trample. This simplicity led to many cards from these sets being considered "staples" of deck design. All cards were given a white border to mark them as reprints, with a few exceptions (Tenth Edition, foil cards in Seventh-Ninth Editions). From Fourth Edition in 1995 onward, a new base set would come out once per two years in the spring or early summer; for tournament play, that set would be legal for two years in the Standard format until the next core set replaced it.
Early in the history of Magic, the sets sold out nearly instantaneously, and supplying the game's growing fan base proved tricky. Sales were also concentrated on the West Coast of the United States, where Wizards of the Coast was based. The earliest base sets—Unlimited, Revised, and Fourth Edition—helped provide the first experience with Magic for many players in areas where Magic had never been sold before, enabling them to catch up on the base game with cards that, while technically reprints, had never been available to them before. As the market became saturated, the base sets took on a changed role; they began to be marketed as the entry point for new Magic players, with less interest expected from dedicated Magic players who likely owned many of the cards already. Seventh Edition, released in 2001, was sold both as a "Basic" and an "Advanced" product, with the expansion sets of the time marked as "Expert". Eighth and Ninth editions were marketed similarly. However, sales were disappointing, an alarming problem for Wizards, as some entry point for newer players was required to keep Magic alive. In 2009, Wizards of the Coast changed their policy for base sets, and began making smaller base sets that included new cards, starting with the Magic 2010 set. According to Wizards of the Coast, the previous base sets had "been completely marginalized by the enfranchised player base", and change was required to make the base sets of interest to players of all skill levels once more.
Unlimited
Revised Edition (also simply known as Revised) was the sixth set and third core set released for Magic: The Gathering. Like previous core sets, it had no expansion symbol. Revised Edition cards are white-bordered and generally known for their washed-out look. The set was released in April 1994 and contained 306 cards. It was the first base set to contain cards from black-bordered sets other than Alpha and Beta.
An advertisement in the first issue of The Duelist stated that the set would have gray borders and be released with a "constantly changing card mix", the first of which would be 30 cards from Arabian Nights.
Printing and distribution
Printing of Revised began in early April 1994 and continued until April 1995, when Fourth Edition was announced. It is estimated that about 500 million cards of the set were produced, which fully eliminated the distribution problems of earlier sets. The cards of Revised were still widely available even well into 1996.
The cards of Revised like the cards of the preceding Unlimited Edition all had white borders, no expansion symbol, and the artist credit at the bottom left. However, the cards were far paler than their Unlimited counterparts, and the three-dimensional beveling of the cards was cropped out. The omission of the bevel in the card frame was an error. This gave the cards an appearance that was widely criticized as "washed out" and even unprofessional. The beveling was returned in 4th Edition, and the colors were much more vibrant in that set. The large print run meant that Revised basic lands were so numerous and common that it was uncommon to find any other lands in decks until several years later.
The collation of the cards made it possible for a basic land card to appear in the common and uncommon slots of a pack. This was intentional; the land cards were printed on the common and uncommon print sheets. Basic lands would get their own full print sheets in 4th Edition, making Revised the last tournament-legal set until Seventh Edition in which basic lands could be found in booster packs. Basic lands returned as a card slot in the Shards of Alara block of 2008.
Revised was the first base edition of the game to be sold in multiple languages. Black bordered, limited editions were produced in French, German, and Italian. Unlimited, white bordered editions in the same languages were produced after the limited editions had sold out.
Misprints
One card-printing error of note appeared on the card . This blue creature card was misprinted with a green border and a picture of another card, . The name, mana cost and rules text were all correct, though. The Revised version is now the most common due to the limited print run of the original, intended versions.
The card was missing the clause "and cannot be regenerated". This print run intended to fix some of the errors with Revised, including the washed-out color, but had problems of its own. The colors were considered too dark and the artist credited for stayed uncorrected as well as the artist credited for Serendib Efreet, although the Efreet had received its original color and art again. A new misprint occurred with the green card ; the so-called "blue Hurricane" is one of the rarest and most sought-after cards in the entirety of Magic because of its misprint with a blue border. On the secondary market it sells for thousands of dollars. The print run was recalled and destroyed; however, about 40 booster boxes that were shipped to England and Tennessee survived. No more than 11 or 12 of each rare exists.
This print run is known primarily for its extremely scarce and valuable cards and packs. Cards are distinguished by dark coloring and a 1994 copyright date displayed at the bottom, along with the artist credit. Booster packs look identical to normal Revised Edition packs, and as such, telling them apart is impossible without opening them. No starter decks were made.
Notable cards and card changes
Twenty Revised cards were originally in the Arabian Nights expansion, and another nineteen were originally in the Antiquities expansion. Thirty-five cards that were in Unlimited were not in Revised, including the Power Nine. A few of the cards that were removed from the base set reappeared in later sets, such as , which would be reprinted in Ice Age. A few others would be reprinted in Eighth Edition to celebrate the game's 10th anniversary. Cards removed were generally thought to either be confusing, or to have power level issues.
Notable cards include:
- The Dual Lands: , , , , , , , , and . These lands provide two colors of mana with the benefit of possessing two basic land types, an uncommon trait on non-basic lands. All future dual lands would be printed with restrictions. They are now a defining part of the Legacy and Vintage formats, due in particular to their ability to be searched for by the various Fetchlands released many years later. While many cards were removed from Revised for power reasons, the original dual lands were retained.
- – The original and most powerful "tutor" card ever printed. This card is restricted in Vintage and banned in Legacy. All future tutors were printed with restrictions or made more expensive like Odyssey's .
- - This blue card was printed with the wrong art and a green card frame, making it the most commonly seen misprint.
- – While all of the zero-casting cost mana artifacts were removed from Revised, Sol Ring remained with its single casting cost. Its mana acceleration has caused it to be restricted in Vintage and banned in Legacy.
- - By far the most broken card in the set, Channel was famous for enabling first-turn kills when combined with spells that had "x" in the casting cost, such as Fireball and Disintegrate. It was reprinted in Fourth Edition.
- and - notable for being the only Revised Edition cards to be removed from Fourth Edition but "make a triumphant return in Fifth Edition", in the words of Beth Moursund in the MTG Encyclopedia volume 2.
Fourth Edition
The Fourth Edition of Magic: The Gathering was the tenth set released for the game, and the fourth base set. The set was released in April 1995 and contained 378 cards. It was the first set to reprint cards from the expansions Legends and The Dark. Fourth Edition cards have white borders. The set has no expansion symbol.
Fourth Edition was the first Magic set to be printed in Asian languages. It was published in English, French, German, Italian, and as a first for a Magic set in Japanese, traditional Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese, which was printed primarily for the Brazilian market. Korean and Chinese Fourth Edition cards have been made with black borders, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish cards exist with white and black borders.
Physical attributes
Fourth Edition included the beveled border missing from the previous core set, Revised. The colors were also much more saturated than in Revised. This set was also the first core set to include a Wizards of the Coast copyright notice at the bottom of the card, in addition to the standard illustration credit.
Booster packs, for the first time in a core set, came in packs with cropped card art on the packaging. Up to this point, Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, and Revised all had a common-looking booster pack packaging. The cards Brass Man, Hurloon Minotaur, Mana Vault, Mesa Pegasus, and Spirit Link were shown on the booster packs. Starter packs were also improved, with mana symbols replacing the simple colored dots present on the card back. Finally, an overall red-brown theme was given to the packaging, which would persist for Fifth Edition before changing to green in 6th Edition.
Starter decks in this set included an additional rare, bringing the total to three. However, the starter decks contained fewer uncommons, going down to nine from the previous thirteen. Booster Packs included one rare, three uncommons, and eleven commons. Fourth Edition was the first set to offload its land printings to a dedicated land sheet. This freed up room on the other card sheets to include more spells. As a result, booster packs could now be produced without any lands, which Wizards decided to do. Fourth Edition lands were only available in starter decks. The change was mostly seen as a positive, since by this time lands were ubiquitous and players were unhappy to find a land in place of a "real" card.
Fourth Edition introduced the modern turned arrow tapped symbol, replacing the rotated "T" that had been introduced in Revised, as a universal tap symbol to include on cards in all language editions of the game. This symbol was first used in an expansion with Ice Age, which was released in the summer. Current cards still use the turned arrow, albeit with a slightly different illustration.
Cards removed
Like the previous core set and all core sets since, several cards were removed and new ones were added from Fourth Edition. Among those cards removed were those that had attracted controversy from those outside the game. Most of the cards whose art depicted nude or near-nude humanoid forms (including and ) were excised, as were many that had overtly religious themes (including and ), though one demon, , remained. One card, Unholy Strength had its artwork altered to remove a flaming inverted pentagram in the background (as compared to this). Also removed were the original ten "dual lands" (one for each pair of Magic's five colors). With the ability to tap for one mana of either of two colors, they were deemed too powerful. A number of other cards would also be pruned from the set for being too powerful, but some (such as ) would appear in future sets.
Alternate Fourth Edition
Wizards has used Cartamundi as their card printer since Alpha. For some undocumented reason, during the production of 4th Edition, the company experimented with using other vendors. Some cards were printed by the United States Playing Card Corporation, and had a thicker stock along with a glossy overcoat on the back. While these cards were not intended to be released, some starter packs were leaked out into public circulation. The cards do not glow under blacklight, unlike normal cards, and did not have the normal dot design on the back.
Notable cards
- – This card can act as a Wrath of God, Armageddon, and Mind Twist all at once if played at the right time. It was one of the few extremely powerful cards left in the 4th Edition. Even after its restriction, it was still able to warp tournament formats.
- – While most of the cards deemed too powerful were removed from 4th Edition, this one was actually added in. Strip Mine was originally from Antiquities but had not been included in Revised. Tournament play quickly showed that Strip Mine was too powerful and it was eventually restricted to one per deck in Standard and Vintage. Today it is banned in Legacy. Over time, Wizards of the Coast has come to downplay land destruction as an element of the game and Strip Mine has not been reprinted since in a regular set in part due to this policy.
Fifth Edition
Fifth Edition was the seventeenth Magic: The Gathering set, released in March 1997. It contained 449 cards, counting multiple illustrations of the basic lands, making it the largest card set in the game's history. It was the first edition of the core set to reprint cards from Fallen Empires, Ice Age, and Homelands.
Like its predecessors, Revised and Fourth Editions, Fifth Edition made numerous changes to the game's rules and card mix. The set's designers stated in The Duelist that they wanted to prune from the base set cards that were too powerful or too weak. Many overpowered cards from Limited and Unlimited Editions that had survived the past two rotations were removed from Fifth, but a handful, including , still survived. Unlike its predecessors, though, Fifth Edition also removed many cards that Magic<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Design and Development team saw as just a little bit too good, but not quite so powerful as to heavily disrupt tournaments, including , , and . Many of these cards were brought back in later sets after the designers had re-evaluated their impact on play. A few cards that were in Revised but had been cut from Fourth were brought back as well.
Fifth Edition also set a new precedent by changing the artwork and/or flavor text on many cards, especially the five basic lands, each of which was given four new illustrations to replace its original three. This was done so that WotC would not have to continue to pay for the use of many arts done for earlier sets, as originally artists were paid royalties for their artwork being used, instead of a flat fee as is done today for new Magic art.
Fifth Edition was the first version of the base set to reprint cards from the Fallen Empires and Homelands expansion sets; it also reprinted more cards from those sets than any other version of the base set has. Because those expansion sets were perceived by some players as weak, there was some dissatisfaction with the Fifth Edition card mix. However, many of the reprinted cards were good enough to be used in tournaments, and at least one Ice Age card, , was later considered so overpowered as to merit banning from a number of sanctioned tournament formats.
Fifth Edition was the first version of the base set to use the cosmetic changes that were introduced in the Mirage expansion (including a slightly expanded text box and bolder, more visible power/toughness numbers) It was also the last version of the base set to use what are sometimes referred to as the "old rules". The rules were drastically changed in Sixth Edition.
Sixth Edition
Sixth Edition, also known as Classic, was released on April 27, 1999. It contains 350 cards including both reprints of cards from previous core sets as well as new reprints from expansion sets through the Weatherlight expansion. Notable changes included:
- The "batch" system of spell resolution was replaced with the "stack" system in Sixth Edition. Previously, spells resolved in complicated batches, in which a player could only respond to the spells in the batch. Also, once a batch began to resolve, no more spells could be played until the entire batch of spells resolved. This was replaced with the stack system (much like a computer stack), in which spells could be added regardless of what was on it. Eighth Edition was released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the original release of Magic. Every previous expansion had at least one card reprinted in Eighth that had not been reprinted in the base set before, with a series of votes on the Wizards website deciding what got reprinted. Eighth was also the first base set with a promotional card given to players who played in a prerelease tournament. Eighth features many cards from older base sets and expansions. While many of these cards were powerful during their original print run, on the whole they were not perceived as measuring up to the power in Standard at the time, known for "Affinity" decks powered by cards from the Mirrodin block. Thus, few cards in Eighth Edition saw tournament play.
A new card face was introduced in Eighth Edition. In Champions of Kamigawa, Wizards restored colored mana symbols in card text boxes.
Several tournament staples which had appeared in 7th Edition, including , , , and , were not present in Eighth Edition. The Circle of Protection series, a perennial core set entity, remained in the set but changed from common to uncommon. A number of simple cards, such as , were reprinted only for products directed at new players and were not present in booster packs.
Ninth Edition
Ninth Edition was a Magic set released on July 29, 2005.
Tenth Edition
Tenth Edition was a Magic set released on July 13, 2007, replacing Ninth Edition as the core set of cards for standard tournament play. The symbol for Tenth Edition is the Roman numeral "X". As part of their "Selecting Tenth Edition" promotion, Wizards of the Coast gave fans the chance to manage a part of the set's brand. Tenth Edition is also the first core set to include legendary creatures (two of each color), bringing back flavorful relics of Magic's past such as , and .
Foil cards in Tenth Edition do not have reminder text. Many use the extra space to add flavor text that does not appear on the nonfoil versions. Others, such as , simply center their existing text in the text box for added impact.
The keywords defender, double strike, equip, fear, first strike, flash, flying, haste, landwalk, lifelink, protection, reach, regeneration, shroud, trample, and vigilance are in Tenth Edition. Of these, defender, double strike, flash, lifelink, reach and shroud appeared in core sets for the first time. Tenth Edition also reprinted several cards from previous sets with changed rarity, such as and .