Magic: The Gathering — Revised Edition

Released in April 1994, Revised Edition (often called Third Edition) was the sixth Magic set overall and the third core set. It followed the tiny, quickly-sold-out Alpha and Beta printings and the larger Unlimited, and it was the first base set to pull in cards from black-bordered sets beyond Alpha and Beta. With an estimated 500 million cards produced, Revised finally solved the distribution crisis that had made earlier Magic cards nearly impossible to find — this was the printing that got the game into mass retail.

The set is infamous among collectors for how it looked. The cards came out noticeably paler than their Unlimited counterparts, with a washed-out cast and a missing bit of 3D beveling on the card frame — a production error that gave Revised its distinctive faded appearance. Like Unlimited it used white borders, so players learned to tell the two apart by the frame: Unlimited's picture box has a beveled edge, Revised's does not.

Revised still carried serious firepower. It included the dual lands and staples like Sol Ring and Demonic Tutor, though thirty-five Unlimited cards — including the legendary Power Nine — were cut from it. For most players who came to Magic in 1994 and 1995, Revised was the set: the pale, ubiquitous printing whose cards filled the first binders and the first kitchen-table decks.