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4th (fourth) edition starter deck contains 60 cards and rulebook. The distribution is 3 rare, 9 uncommon, 26 common, and 22 land. Released in April of 1995, 4th edition is a core set. The set contains 378 white-bordered cards (121 rare, 121 uncommon, 121 common, and 15 basic lands).
The Fourth Edition of Magic; the Gathering was the tenth set released for the game, and the fourth base set (or "core set"). 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. Forth edition is discernable from the Revised edition by the 1995 copyright date on the bottom of the card.
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 only with black borders while Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish cards exist with white and black borders.
Fourth Edition included the beveled border missing from the previous core set, which was 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 came in packs with cropped card art on the packaging for the first time in a core set. 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 5th 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. |
