4th Edition (Magic: The Gathering) - Physical Attributes

Physical Attributes

Fourth Edition included the beveled border missing from the previous core set, Revised. The colors were also much brighter and crisper than Revised's wash-out appearance. 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 pentagram pattern present on the card back. Finally, an overall red 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. 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.