Magic: The Gathering started as this wild card game back in 1993, created by a guy named Richard Garfield. It exploded in popularity super fast, with players buying up packs to build decks and battle friends. The very first set was called Limited Edition, but people now know its print runs as Alpha and Beta. Alpha was tiny, just 2.6 million cards, and it sold out like crazy. Then Beta came along with about 7.3 to 7.8 million cards, fixing some mistakes from Alpha, like adding missing cards and new art for basic lands.[2] These early print runs had no expansion symbols, no copyright dates, just pure simple cards that felt special because there weren’t a ton of them.
After Beta, Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Magic, kept the hype going with Unlimited Edition. This was the third print run of the base set, still using the same cards as Alpha and Beta but with a new infinity symbol in the corner to show it was unlimited. Print numbers shot up here, but it was still controlled compared to what came later. Players loved it because prices stayed high, and collecting felt exciting. Then came Revised Edition, often called 3rd Edition or just Revised. This was the big shift. Revised took the core Base Set cards and mixed in some new ones from expansions like Legends and The Dark. It introduced black borders on rares, which looked sleek, and it became the go-to set for new players.
Revised had multiple print runs too. The first ones were in 1994, with print sheets that matched Unlimited pretty closely. But as demand kept growing, Wizards ordered more printings. The second Revised print run happened around late 1994, tweaking some arts and fixing tiny errors. By 1995, they did a third print run, which folks call 4th print or 4th Edition Base Set cards. These are the ones people talk about as the last true Wizards of the Coast Base Set run. Why? Because after that, everything changed in how cards got made and printed.
Picture this: Magic was booming, stores couldn’t keep shelves stocked, and Wizards needed to print millions more cards. They stuck with Carta Mundi, the Belgian company that handled all early printing.[1] Carta Mundi used these huge sheets with 121 cards each, cut down into individual playable cards. For Revised, the early print runs used specific sheet layouts. But by the 4th print, they switched things up. The card stock got a bit thicker, the colors popped differently, and the backs had a subtle texture change that collectors notice under light. Most importantly, the print sheets for 4th print Revised matched exactly what would become the official 4th Edition set in 1995.
4th Edition was announced as the next core set, updating rules, balancing cards, and adding fresh art. It dropped in April 1995 with 373 cards, including staples like Lightning Bolt and Serra Angel. The key point is that 4th print Revised cards from late 1995 used the identical print sheets as 4th Edition. Open a pack of 4th print Revised, and you might pull cards with art or text tweaks that only showed up in 4th Edition proper. For example, some commons had new borders or fixed flavor text that screamed “this is the bridge to the new base set.” Collectors realized this after the fact, grading these as the final hurrah of the old Base Set era.
Why does this make 4th print the last WotC Base Set run? Wizards treated Revised as the ongoing Base Set at the time. There was no hard line between Revised and 4th Edition in production. The 4th print run wrapped up the Base Set lineage because 4th Edition officially kicked off core sets as numbered editions: 4th, then 5th, 6th, all the way to 10th. After 4th print Revised, Wizards stopped reprinting old Base Set sheets altogether. No more Unlimited-style infinity symbols, no more Revised rarities without the new frame. It was the end of an era where Base Set meant those original 300-ish cards from Alpha days.
Dig deeper into printing history, and it gets fascinating. Early sets like Alpha had corner rounding issues—Alpha cards were slightly sharper than Beta because of die mismatches.[2] Revised fixed that uniformity. But overprinting became a problem fast. Take Fallen Empires, printed right after Revised started. It had 102 unique cards but ballooned to 187 variants with multiple arts per common. Carta Mundi overprinted by hundreds of millions, flooding the market.[1] Wizards had to order them to stop, destroy extras, and cancel two more runs. This messed with Revised production too, delaying sheets and shifting focus. By 4th print Revised, Wizards was learning lessons hard—control the supply or crash the collectible value.
Misprints tell the story too. Remember Serendib Efreet from Revised? Some copies had the wrong art, a blue cost on a green-bordered card, jarring everyone who opened packs.[3] Or Blue Hurricane from the scrapped Summer Magic Revised run, where ink issues turned it into one of the rarest cards ever because Wizards pulled the whole batch.[3] These errors happened across Revised prints, but 4th print had fewer because quality control tightened. Still, it’s prized because it captures that last moment before core sets evolved. Summer Magic was an aborted Revised printing in 1994 with blue backs and tint errors, but it wasn’t Base Set proper—too experimental.
The Dark, another early set from 1994, had a controlled 62 million card run.[5] It introduced dark arts and feel-bad mechanics, but print runs stayed tight. Base Set Revised overshadowed it, feeding new players the core experience. By 4th print, Wizards was prepping Ice Age and Alliances, shifting to expansion-heavy play. 4th Edition Base Set then reprinted powerhouses like Moxen (though nerfed later), but with modern rules text. Cards from 4th print Revised slot right into 4th Edition collections because of sheet overlap—pull a 4th print Underground River, and it’s visually identical to 4th Ed.
Collectors chase 4th print for rarity markers. Look for the “1995 copyright date” on the back, or the specific bevel on edges. Non-L symbol on Unlimited was gone by Revised, replaced by expansion icons. 4th print feels like the purest WotC Base because it was printed in Belgium under direct Wizards oversight, before outsourcing rumors or quality dips. Carta Mundi nailed consistency here—crisp mana symbols, vibrant foils absent back then, but perfect registration.
Market wise, early Base runs skyrocket. Alpha Black Lotus hit $3 million in gem mint.[2] Beta holds strong. Unlimited dips but holds nostalgia. Revised 1st print is accessible, but 4th print Revised? It’s the sweet spot—affordable yet historic. Prices climb because supply dwindles; old packs get opened, cards grade out. Wizards never reprinted these exact sheets post-4th print. 5th Edition in 1997 changed arts again, dropped power cards, added beginner-friendliness.
Thin
