Really digging these "I guess I'm not going to go to bed" release times

Another reason the tap symbol was updated was because in foreign language versions of the game, "tap" started with a letter other than T. They wanted a more universal symbol that could be understood by all players worldwide. Which is another testament to how the game was truly exploding in popularity at the time, even beyond English-speaking borders.

As usual, great show! I'd like to add a couple notes about 4th Edition (one of my favorite sets of all time). 1) The tap symbol was changed also because of Magic becoming more and more multilanguage. Not in all language "tap" starts with T. Engagé in French, girado in Spanish, virado in Portuguese,... 2) I'd like to point out a little bit the great job that they did in 4th Edition to clean up the general templating of the cards. - They removed some cumbersome text (like the "does not fly" on the Revised Giant Spider). - They started to print separate abilities in separate lines (check for example Revised vs. 4th Mana Vault or Shivan Dragon, or the Antiquities vs. 4th Mishra's Factory). - They specified the counter type, (like the charge counters on the mana batteries, which were "anonymous" counters in Legends). - They always wrote "banding" instead of "bands" on some cards (like Benalish Hero and Timber Wolves). Bye from Italy and keep on the great work!

Teenage me absolutely rocked the cargo shorts and jammed the pocket player’s guide in there.

Really love Patrick's breakdown on ABU duals not seeing continued reprints. Pulling back on power level in order to open design space early on is not an angle I'd ever considered. Food for thought 🤔 Great episode, fellas!

I clicked on this video thinking "Cedric is going to call it 4th ed-ish-ee-own at some point isn't he?" 20 seconds in I am not dissapointed bless this show

Chris Rush created the mana symbols both times. I talked with him about that, and he told me the change was required due to a technology advance in the prepress process. Originally the mana symbols and text were all Encapsulated Post Script, but I think the new symbols might be Vector or something.

You missed one on the Circle of Protection cycle -- Circle of Protection: Artifacts was also in this set. Different rarity (Uncommon vs Common for the others), but hey, it's there. It's also there in 5th Ed.

Can we just have Patrick reading from the players guide? I'd watch that video

I've been eagerly awaiting this episode while devouring the previous ones repeatedly. Can't get enough of them.

You guys should add the 10 guesses for the magic card Cedric is thinking of for every set would be a good way of testing patrick

The reason for changing the tap symbol was the Non-English card releases. The translation for Tap doesn't necessarily start with the letter T in other languages, so the tilted T wasn't intuitive enough to be functional.

One key innovation of Fourth Edition that wasn't touched on here: it's the first set sold in opaque boosters. Booster wrappers from Alpha through Revised/Fallen Empires had white translucent borders through which, when sufficiently manipulated, the cards - including the rare - could be identified. 4E, Ice Age and subsequent releases rectified this.

Happy to have 4th edition has one of my complete sets that's worthless to everyone but me. I started in 96, but these were the cards I learned with.

Thanks for talking about the land problem. I vividly remember not being able to play at first because all of the stores were sold out of starter decks and we could only find booster packs.

Thanks for the shoutout regarding discovering Alternate 4th. Hopefully you'll soon do an entire episode just on Alt 4th....

Oh editors. You’re the ones that make these videos memorable

Alternate 4th Edition is absolutely worth more than the regular version. It’s estimated that 1/2 of 1% of the print run is the alternate version. Sure, Summer is way more valuable, but the alternate 4th goes for a good 10x the regular 4th. Set collectors, and misprint collectors building cubes are a big reason why.

This series has been wonderful. Please keep this up!

I'm looking forward to the Ice Age episode! I started playing magic in 4th edition, but Ice Age is what really had an impact on me. Loved that set so much!

Ah the tap symbol. I remember learning (and teaching others) how to play in the mid 90s, and with every single person, when they first heard "tap your card to ___," they would, you know, TAP it. Not turn it sideways, but give it a little boop with their finger.

Seriously how do these absolute legends have less than 7k subscribers? Best magic videos on the internet by far.

I think Fourth Edition is particularly memorable, as it has become the main set of cards in the MicroProse Magic: The Gathering video game (Shandalar). Even though by the time the game came out Fifth Edition was already released, I guess many players (for whom the video game was their first or most accessible contact with Magic) might treat the Fourth Edition set of cards as the defining one for the game at that stage of its history.

That is a very nice Mickey Mantle behind Patrick's head. Love it

6th edition was my favorite release. Started in 97 so maybe that's part of it

After seeing Bronze Tablet at the end I'm surprised there's no comments about 4th Edition being the last set with ante cards and how some foreign editions don't have them like Portuguese.

This is the only show that can keep my attention for 2 hours

4th edition and Ice Age starter decks were my first introduction to MTG so I have been eagerly awaiting these episodes!

The mana batteries were quite popular with casual players. They also 100% fit into the philosophy of the time. One of the defining intentions of artifacts was to give colors abilities they didn't normally get within their color but at a higher cost. So the argument that they didnt fit at the time because 'mana was greens ability' doesn't work for the philosophy of the game at the time. It's using current philosophies of the game to judge sets from a period where the design philosophies were different.

Thanks so much for these video's guys. So much nostalgia.

"Call me the one ring, because this is one of one" Patrick Sullivan

I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t a mention of the satanic panic and how unholy strength got it’s art changed.

Just found this channel by this video, keep up the old school. Thank you.

I'm surprised Patrick missed that the reason Wizard's went with a strict 121/121/121 commons/uncommons/rares was they were massively simplifying the printing and collating process because 121 is the number of sheet. Easier to fudge a few cards up or down in rarity than do all the weird math they'd been doing with including cards multiple times on a sheet to get different levels of rarity out of the same sheet.

4th Edition is a masterpiece. So many iconic cards and the colors were much better than Revised. And the beginning of the Premodern era.

I remember being a kid withvery limited money; and early enough in my mtg-life that I had very few decks. The reason I gravitated to a product like 4th edition is because I knew I'd get cards that I could use, even if I could only buy 1 booster pack. I wasn't going to get something that was the start of a theme deck I wasn't likely to get more of soon. And the way my friends and local groups played it was pretty much constructed with no idea about banned cards or limiting to particular sets; so later as our collections developed we still would reach for core sets just to beef up our collections, again with stuff we figured we could use. New editions are something we'd get at Christmas or Birthdays when we could get enough cards at once that we could make whole decks just out of the cards we were getting right then

My experience was, when I was opening 4th edition when it was released, I was newish, came in right before this set but after revised. Lands were very easy to come by. My LGS had stacks, just countless stacks, and they gave them away to people who were learning. I'm sure many LGS's were doing that as well.

I presume the 20/20/20 rule worked reasonably well when 6 of the noncreature were the moxes and Black Lotus. Without that, 20 lands probably won't get it done to cast Serra Angel on turn 5.

57:33 Gotta say that at least in Europe, alternate 4th is significantly more expensive than regular.

Been watching these since the first episode. The editing in this episode had me dying! Thank you for the content. Much Love!

Nice job covering Renaissance here. Renaissance is cards that are in 4th, and Chronicles is cards that aren't in 4th. They're really not the same thing, and yet people constantly compare them.

About the 20-20-20 rule. Around Pro Tour #1 NY (the one you could just phone in to qualify) the best player in my country had this insane deck with like 28 or 30 lands... and he played SINBAD which was in 4th edition. everybody knew a 1/1 for 2 that did nothing was a bad card. and wait, it did more than nothing! it could make you discard your counterspell! then he somehow kept beating all of us with his silly cards.... again and again.... and soon all the real tournament players played 24-26 lands... and modern deck design was a step further. Of course I don;t claim this person invented playing enough lands, tons of players all over the world discovered this, but this player was a huge influence on my development as a tournament player. I was too young to fly across the ocean to a 'free' pro tour, but i started playing PTQs and managed to qualify a couple of times in later years

Continues to be the best magic content out there!

From way back in the day, I remember hearing that Smoke originally had flavor text which read, “smoke on the water” and Lightning Bolt originally had flavor text of “Fire in the sky.” I don’t know if this was just an urban legend from the early days of MTG, or if there is any veracity to that claim. Can Patrick shed any light on this old urban legend (I mean some people did rip up Chaos Orbs back in the day, after all)?

Been waiting on this one. Great episode!

The tap idea too, you know it had to be done because there's a non zero amount of people who started playing and then instead of turning the card sideways, they just tapped with a finger. Like oh I want this to land to make me green mana, and they just start jabbing each of their lands one at a time like a piano. That'd be the most common use of the word tap in english, after that would be probably tap dancing. The idea that it means turn it sideways is non-intuitive unless someone shows you. When I've tried to teach people, that comes up incredibly frequently unless they already have some knowledge of card and board games that you must teach them a new meaning of that verb.

Fourth Edition is one of my top 5 favorite sets of all time. I still have a sealed booster box!

You should talk about the Unreleased set Spectral Chaos.

Alternate 4th edition cards are collected and are absolutely more expensive than their normal counterparts based on the rarity of the print variation. Sure, it's no summer magic, but saying that they're the same price as normal 4th is flat out incorrect. Sure, SCG has a section for them, but don't have any in stock (they rare) and they are priced sometimes 10x a regular 4th edition version (Shivan Dragon @$80).

The point you make about dual lands strangling the design space and making it so "Well, we have Taiga and Badlands, why would I want that new land?" (ESPECIALLY once we get Fetchlands--maybe we never do if the OG duals are in 7th Edition) extends to the Reserve List as a whole. People gripe about those old powerful cards being locked away; it's unfortunate, especially for some of the fun ones that aren't that powerful (Gauntlet of Might). Cards being reserved like that allows the game to move forward in a way that it couldn't if they could just reprint Ancestral Recall and make Vintage an easy format to play.

I feel like part of why the mana batteries were there might have been that so many of the other artifacts that produce mana were cut-with the Moxen and Lotus being cut for revised and now Sol Ring and Basalt Monolith leaving for 4th, they probably saw the batteries as fulfilling a role which had been previously occupied by those.

4th Edition...my first...and you always remember your first!

for 4th edition, at the time the way it was positioned for new players is that this set has your basic cards you need to build off of. Your Shivans, your Serra Angels, etc. So until Wizards wanted to introduced some rule changes / get rid of some problematic cards from type 2, it just stuck around. Me and my friends just wanted to buy Mirage, visions, tempest, weatherlight, etc. It was nice to jump back in and have some cards be relevant but then also be able to buy new set packs.

So my interpretation of the inclusion of the Mana batteries in 4th ed was that they were trying to "replace" the moxen with a more modestly powered cycle, and saw the batteries as filling a similar role...like obviously in retrospect that's not the case, but if you squint hard enough it sorta makes sense why someone might think that. Idk, not based on any knowledge of the real reason, but that's where my mind went in explaining their inclusion.

Best name and art for me was Island Fish Jaconius. Saying "I play Island Fish Jaconius" just sounded so big and prestigious. The big eye looking at you with the sunset/sunrise in the background. Just the ominous feeling of the card.

For core sets, you should have a category for "card that should have been added but wasn't" (from the appropriate sets they drew from).

AGHHH IM SO HYPED FOR ICE AGE NOW AWESOME JOB

Good stuff as always!

I never noticed the rectangle in the tap symbol, and even if I did I don't think I would have realized it was to symbolize a card being tapped 🤯

As to alternate 4th, it was known of in late 1996. It was at the tail end of 4th, and it was a substantial print run of starter decks. The starter decks do not have inner seals, and at the time were considered to be of inferior quality as the cards were often damaged fresh out of the pack. People avoided them -- they were easy to spot as they were made in the United States, unlike the rest of the print run (Belgium). I saw cases of these on the U.S. West Coast.

Love it Man so true about those circle of protection spells

Give John the editor a special segment!

Great show!

One major reason for the tap symbol changing was all these other languages that launched the game. A T was just very confusing for somebody in Japan or France

Another great video. Btw, I caught a glimpse of that mystical tome on the top right shelf and went to twitter to check you guys politics and was not disappointed.

I was lucky enough to be in Germany at the time Renaissance was printed, and still have quite a few of them!

Truly an experience!

I love to see these

My first proper Core set. We had that starter box and everything. Still have a few of the little bead counters in my center desk drawer, actually

Using counters (as in kitchen counter) for counters is a very appealing joke to me.

loved this episode. other card i’d say for smothering tithe award is sylvan library

My first mtg product was the 4th edition gift box. Still love the set, and still got my blue glass bead life counters! Best card: Balance Best limited card: Pestilence

29:07 actually killed me 😂 kudos editor

Vampire: The Masquerad was Wizard's attempt at a game designed for multiplayer from the beginning. Games could take a looooooooong time so it never took off locally.

back in the day being casual you could build nice decks in 4th. Like black decks with Dark Ritual, Black Knight, Hypno, Sengir Vampire. Friends and I had a great time starting in 4th. There's junk in the set but it was a good starting point.

Feeding them jackal pups with some core set knowledge

Do they keep the colour hate stuff around for so long to help firm out the feeling of the colour pie / identity?

I wish Cedric also talked about what, in his opinion, is Magic's worst engine level flaw.

We quickly decided COPs weren’t fun and then used them for our proxies. Good use for them.

I liked Vice and Rack "combo" because it forced people to either use cards or take damage but they couldn't use too many cards or they would take damage. Was it a good strat? No, but I was a middle schooler back then and I didn't really learn the rules of the game until 1999-2000. I remember sacing my opponents Goblin cards because we didn't know that you had to control the Goblin to sac it, lol. Once someone that knew how to play joined our group it changed EVERYTHING (not literally), lol. I didn't know how to play because I just got a bunch of random cards and never even knew there was a rules book... I'm guessing the same thing happened to the other people I played with or they just didn't want to correct anyone? I don't know, it's weird...

back in the day we actually untapped Mana Vault for 4 mana

Personally, even as someone who has a good sized collection with a lot of lands already, I like getting basic lands in my packs. I’m also a little weird it seems, because I actually like using different artwork for my lands. When I build a deck I intentionally use as many versions as I can, even for non land cards. I will almost always avoid using the same artwork if I can. And I don’t mind white border cards. Sometimes I like them a little more actually.

I’m surprised that in the list of combos in the starter manual there was no mention of basalt monolith + power artifact. Did ppl not know about it at the time?

MTG's biggest design flaw is they keep printing cards that don't allow you to play the game.

Yeah I couldn't name those 15 right after listening to them. Lol

I'm only 11 minutes and 45 seconds in when cedric and pat are talking about the wizard rule about white borders. I recall portal 3 kingdom was printed as a white border set in both english and chinese and didnt have a black border version.

I agree with everything you say about duals going out of standard increased the richness of the game. However, never reprinting them again ever, does also diminish the game. Removing them from standard does allow lots of design space but you still have to allow availability of game pieces for the eternal formats like legacy and edh. I say this as a guy that has duals too. It's not just some guy bummed out that they can't play with these cards. It's just really bad that you can't play with them as much even if you have them, because card availability makes paper legacy and vintage games a lot harder to find (outside of casual proxy friendly environments).

I know I'm a little late to the discussion on this and I really hope you guys see this message (which I doubt) but what do you think the game would look like if they just kept reprinting the og duals nonstop? And just allowed us to have "perfect" mana?

I got 14 of the 15 and learned wall of bramble is a card so at least I learned something.

Cedric your hard work is immeasurably appreciated, my guy. Keep being an amazing human

Saving this video for when it isn't 1 in the morning lol

Man Patrick you look really hot or sunburnt either way I feel for you. Love the series guys you’re awesome .

I am loving these videos, and when I was just a kid, I started playing with 4th and Ice Age…. So a little while ago….

It's stripmines all the way down 😂😂😂

The only thing I hate about the dual land 4th edition decision is that it ran head first into the reserved list. If we had them for just one more set we wouldn't have had as much of the hand wringing over the accessibility of legacy (and it probably did more damage to the legacy playerbase over the years than anything else).

This is why you have production meetings so everyone is on the same page about counters. 😢

Late night drop you love to see it

Bronze tablet is one of the most powerful card in shandalar (if you are playing a regular campaign and are not cheating cards into the game) Because it allows you to duplicate moxes from AI opponents that have a mox in their deck. You just make sure they have less than 10 life and then you pop the bronze tablet, and they will give you the mox. One day I even got an extra black lotus this way because the ai had played it and not used it, and they are too dumb to sac it in response

I am so hype for the Ice Age episode

I think the removal of the dual lands is the moment where Magic becomes able to define formats. Formats and the experience within are defined by the mana available. Legacy? The best: OG duals and fetches. Go wild, kids. Modern? Very close but with Shocks; there's a price to playing many colors now. Players can't just jam 15 shocks in a deck and not die to their mana; they need to supplant those Shocks with other lands too. Pioneer? No fetches by design; WotC decided this was not going to be the experience in that format because Modern has it already. Standard environments are also defined by what lands are available; we saw 3 color piles when Ravnica had Shocks and checklands. In other times, it was hard to play anything but allied colors because only a few multilands were available. If you're just printing the dual lands over and over, none of this happens.