In What Order were the Sets Designed / Printed / Released ?

Questions about Magic items and events.

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BillBo
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Post by BillBo » Tue Nov 05, 2013 3:32 pm

cataclysm80 wrote:This list is in the order that the sets were designed and/or printed.
That's cool, Tav, thx for sharing both your list and your reasoning.

How reliable do you all think are the release dates WotC states:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Articl ... llproducts

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Post by dragsamou » Tue Nov 05, 2013 3:36 pm

BillBo wrote:
cataclysm80 wrote:This list is in the order that the sets were designed and/or printed.
That's cool, Tav, thx for sharing both your list and your reasoning.

How reliable do you all think are the release dates WotC states:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Articl ... llproducts

BillBo
English released dates never were a problem, but when it comes to Foreign, it's another story :)
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Post by cataclysm80 » Tue Nov 05, 2013 3:47 pm

BillBo wrote: How reliable do you all think are the release dates WotC states:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Articl ... llproducts

BillBo
I just gave it a precursory glance, not an in depth analysis, but I'd say it's mostly reliable, with room for improvement.

The first thing I noticed is that they had Alpha, Beta, Unlimited all with the same release date, which is obviously incorrect.

I also noticed an odd discrepancy with the Homelands release month. My old Homelands list that I printed off the Wizards website around 2003 shows a November 1995 Homelands release. The website now shows a October 1995 release.

The lists I printed out long ago have actual dates instead of just months for Alliances and several other sets also.

Tav
Last edited by cataclysm80 on Tue Nov 19, 2013 4:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by BillBo » Wed Nov 06, 2013 3:59 am

cataclysm80 wrote:The lists I printed out long ago have actual dates instead of just months for Alliances and several other sets also.
Tav: Any plans to make those publicly available? (nor rush, though). BillBo
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Post by cataclysm80 » Wed Nov 06, 2013 4:10 am

BillBo wrote:
cataclysm80 wrote:The lists I printed out long ago have actual dates instead of just months for Alliances and several other sets also.
Tav: Any plans to make those publicly available? (nor rush, though). BillBo
Yes actually, I planned on putting them in this thread.

Tav

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Post by BillBo » Wed Nov 06, 2013 6:10 am

cataclysm80 wrote:Yes
=D>
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Post by Neuron » Sat Nov 09, 2013 9:55 pm

Hi,

I mostly agree with this list, yet, some single editions I would switch:


Unlimited = no copyright date

switch to slightly larger art box
Arabian Nights = no copyright date
Antiquities = no copyright date

switch to tilted T tap symbol
Revised = no copyright date
Legends = Large 1994 date
The Dark = Large 1994 date
Summer = Large 1994 date

Armada Comics promo = Small 1994 date
--> I didn't look at the promos, but why is the small date here before the medium?

Sewers of Estark / Arena = Medium 1994 date
Nalathni Dragon = Medium 1994 date
Fallen Empires = Medium 1994 date

black cards switch to text box without "chinks"
Italian black border = Medium 1994 date

switch to tilted card with arrow tap symbol and small 1994 date

French black border

German black border

--> Switched French with German: All German Islands have a French copyright clause. To explain that is very difficult, if German is put before French.

French white border 3rd = Small 1994/1995 dates
Windseeker Centaur = Small 1995 date
Ice Age promo cards (including Fylgia & Prismatic Ward) = small 1995 date
switch to new white mana symbol here.

Italian white border 3rd = Small 1995 date

[German white border 3rd ]

--> German was later than Italian. The textbox of latter is darker colored similar to French wb. (see below)

English 4th = Small 1995 date

German white border 3rd

--> Llanowar Elves has the flavour text that was introduced in English 4th Edition. The textbox is similar dark as English 4th. (see below)

Italian The Dark = Small 1995 date
switch to new font here. now has dot instead of slash over i
Italian Legends = Small 1995 date
Renaissance = Small 1995 date
Foreign 4th


Image

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Post by cataclysm80 » Tue Nov 19, 2013 4:55 am

BillBo wrote:
cataclysm80 wrote:
BillBo wrote: How reliable do you all think are the release dates WotC states:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Articl ... llproducts

BillBo
I just gave it a precursory glance, not an in depth analysis, but I'd say it's mostly reliable, with room for improvement.

The first thing I noticed is that they had Alpha, Beta, Unlimited all with the same release date, which is obviously incorrect.

I also noticed an odd discrepancy with the Homelands release month. My old Homelands list that I printed off the Wizards website around 2003 shows a November 1995 Homelands release. The website now shows a October 1995 release.

The lists I printed out long ago have actual dates instead of just months for Alliances and several other sets also.

Tav
Tav: Any plans to make those publicly available? (nor rush, though). BillBo
I looked into this a bit more. My old lists seem to still be available on the Wizards site through the link you posted above. If you click on the sets, several different lists are available for each set. However, sometimes the lists have the release date of the set, and other times the lists show the release date of the list. It's not clearly labeled which is which and can be confusing. I've looked into it, and October is the correct release month for Homelands. Also, Homelands was the first set to be simultaneously released in all languages, so it's the sets prior to Homelands which we are trying to put in order.

The following link is the best place I've found for release dates...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ma ... ering_sets

Tav

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Post by dragsamou » Tue Nov 19, 2013 10:06 am

cataclysm80 wrote:
BillBo wrote:
cataclysm80 wrote:
BillBo wrote: How reliable do you all think are the release dates WotC states:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Articl ... llproducts

BillBo
I just gave it a precursory glance, not an in depth analysis, but I'd say it's mostly reliable, with room for improvement.

The first thing I noticed is that they had Alpha, Beta, Unlimited all with the same release date, which is obviously incorrect.

I also noticed an odd discrepancy with the Homelands release month. My old Homelands list that I printed off the Wizards website around 2003 shows a November 1995 Homelands release. The website now shows a October 1995 release.

The lists I printed out long ago have actual dates instead of just months for Alliances and several other sets also.

Tav
Tav: Any plans to make those publicly available? (nor rush, though). BillBo
I looked into this a bit more. My old lists seem to still be available on the Wizards site through the link you posted above. If you click on the sets, several different lists are available for each set. However, sometimes the lists have the release date of the set, and other times the lists show the release date of the list. It's not clearly labeled which is which and can be confusing. I've looked into it, and October is the correct release month for Homelands. Also, Homelands was the first set to be simultaneously released in all languages, so it's the sets prior to Homelands which we are trying to put in order.

The following link is the best place I've found for release dates...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ma ... ering_sets

Tav
Hi Tav

There's also info here:

http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/products/index.php

Regarding Unlimited while it says December 1993, looks like it was released in:
"This set was first released in January 1994 and sold out by
late March 1994."

4th Edition: April 1995
"Cards were available from May 3, 1995 well past the end of the run in April 1997."

Etc....

So , if you look at both websites, for some of them, dates are not the same.
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Post by mystical_tutor » Tue Nov 19, 2013 3:39 pm

cataclysm80 wrote:The first thing I noticed is that they had Alpha, Beta, Unlimited all with the same release date, which is obviously incorrect
This has been interesting reading. I need to see if I can find the lists I printed out while in Korea. Those were early but not sure I still have them.

Tav;

I sure hope the release date for First (Limited) is just one date. It is easy to forget that there are no 'alpha' or 'beta' publications--only Limited and Unlimited. The edition was released at GenCon of that year so you can nail that date down easily. If you want an 'official' date, just look up when GenCon happend that year. If any subsequent printing by WotC or anyone else lists a different date, please disreguard. Almost the entire company (I don't remember if Jesper was there or not) was present and it has to be as official as anything because they did take orders and deliver product.

Want a humorous story from the "release".
While demoing the cards that they had just received from CM by air, in order to make the con (now you know why so many details were missed in the first part of the printing). Which they had to go on the cuff for the air shipment cost.... oh, I don't think I'm supposed to mention that...knoff knff.
Back to the story. The owner of a distribution company (I am not sure if they still exist or not so won't say who) was quite impressed with the game. In fact he was so impressed that he did something they never expected. He ordered a WHOLE CASE!!!! The first BIG sale ever. Talk about a celebration...
Back at The basement in Kent WA. the had broken out the libations to celebrate their success. They got a call from the above distributor asking a question..... "What is your return policy?" Well after coming up with something on the spur of the moment they were told that he was considering returning the case. Bummer, Downer, bad day.....
Well, it never came back, as you can well imagine. But that is not the end of the story (are you still awake?).
Ice Age release (again at a GenCon--so date is easy to find). Peter ends up 'manning' the booth while everyone else is at the event. Place is empty. This is Milwaukee. Peter looks over the edge of the floor he is on to see in a booth below, sorting through the new cards, the distributor mentioned above. "Hay, ...... I still have that check for you and am waiting for that box you wanted to return.....".

Tav, you gotta be careful about getting an old fart started on the old days.

Gary
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Post by cataclysm80 » Tue Nov 19, 2013 11:29 pm

... continued from above...

Next I put the promo cards into the list. The Ice Age Promos have the old white mana symbol and were sent to be printed at the end of January 1995 (before the rest of the Ice Age cards). These should be the last cards printed with the old white mana symbol.

Windseeker Centaur was available in January of 1995, before the Ice Age Promos had been sent to be printed, so I placed Windseeker Centaur before the Ice Age Promos. Interestingly, in order for Windseeker Centaur to be available in January, it may have been printed in 1994 with a 1995 copyright date. This is a reminder that copyright date is part of the card design process and doesn't necessarily indicated which year a card was printed. (there are also other examples showing that copyright date isn't neccesarily when the card was printed. One of those examples is Ice Age cards being printed in both 1995 & 1996 retaining their 1995 copyright date for the entire print run.) I placed Windseeker Centaur after French white border because of the 1995 copyright date. The Harper Prism promo cards were also available in other languages, and those foreign language releases still need added to the list.

Dragon Con attendees received a post card, with Nalathni Dragon being mailed out in October of 1994.

Sewers of Estark & Arena were available in September 1994.

The most interesting and puzzling promos are the Armada Comics Promos. The two cards were probably both designed and printed together, but the first was available in a July 1994 comic book, and the second was available in August 1994. These two cards show the small copyright date and were available BEFORE any of the medium copyright date cards. The Dark had already been sent to the printers, Dave Howell moved to working on the foreign cards, The new production team created Summer and sent it to the printer (for about 2 months from what I've heard), then Summer was destroyed. 4th Edition was originaly scheduled for a September 1994 release, but the decisions to rotate cards in and out of the set and standardize the card wording caused a delay. These two promo cards were designed after Summer, but to have made it into the July comic books and resemble 4th edition, they must have really rushed to have them designed and printed. (I think this should be the time frame of the test prints in the other thread.) Because the small copyright date appears before the medium, the medium date is only used for a couple months, and then we go back to the small date again, I have to wonder if the use of the medium sized date was a mistake which was corrected when it was found a couple months later.

After the switch to the new white mana symbol, it is more difficult to order the sets. 1995 was a VERY busy year! I suspect that the goal of simultaneous release was created to avoid repeating the hectic schedule of 1995.

Italian & German white border 3rd are listed on the same line because I don't know which came first. More research needs done on that subject.

We know that Italian The Dark was the first foreign expansion available. This is confirmed by the cards having the older font with slashes over the lowercase i. I have heard that Italian Legends was released very shortly afterward (maybe a couple weeks), but it shows the newer font with round dots over the lowercase i.

Ice Age was the first expansion available in French, German, Spanish, & Portuguese, which places it before Renaissance in the list. More research needs done to seperate foreign Ice Age into its seperate languages on the list. I know that French & Spanish both use the later font style, but I still need to check the other languages. (English Ice Age uses the older font style.)

Renaissance was released after English Chronicles, but before foreign 4th.

foreign 4th needs more research to seperate it into its seperate languages on the list.


Tav

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Post by cataclysm80 » Thu Nov 21, 2013 8:42 am

dragsamou wrote: Trying to find precised released dates of some Editions or Extensions is a real nightmare
dragsamou wrote: WOTC documented very few things,
Finding the exact month of a release, is a real nightmare, it can take weeks, monthes or years and for some, I still don't have an answer, cause ,no one was able to provide one including some WOTC employees.
dragsamou wrote: Hi Tav

There's also info here:

http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/products/index.php

Regarding Unlimited while it says December 1993, looks like it was released in:
"This set was first released in January 1994 and sold out by
late March 1994."

4th Edition: April 1995
"Cards were available from May 3, 1995 well past the end of the run in April 1997."

Etc....

So , if you look at both websites, for some of them, dates are not the same.
Thanks for the Crystal Keep link Alexis.
Librarities is also a great place to find release dates for most magic items. (Thanks for all your hard work!)

Currently, new Magic sets are released on Fridays. This is the official release date.
The gaming stores receive the new sets before then, but aren't allowed to sell any of them until the release date.

Official release dates were created as a way to orgainize the simultaneous release of new sets. That is the purpose of a release date.

Homelands was the first set that had simultaneous release on a specific date.

Sets prior to Homelands did not have simultaneous release, which I think means that the gaming stores were allowed to start selling the new set as soon as they received it. Some stores were physicaly closer to the distributors than other stores, and recieved their cards first. Not everyone recieved cards at the same time. The result is availability dates that vary from region to region for the earlier sets. This can explain the slight date differences between the websites. It is also why only a month (without date) is listed for those sets release. It is why there are no pre-releases before Homelands. It is why WOTC can not provide exact release dates (they don't exist).

Even though we may not be able to know each sets exact release date, we CAN still put the sets in the correct order using the information that is available. Having the sets listed in the correct order is the real reason I started this thread. I want to organize my global sets chronologicaly to show the progression and development of Magic cards.

Tav

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Post by cataclysm80 » Thu Nov 21, 2013 11:10 am

mystical_tutor wrote:
cataclysm80 wrote:The first thing I noticed is that they had Alpha, Beta, Unlimited all with the same release date, which is obviously incorrect
This has been interesting reading. I need to see if I can find the lists I printed out while in Korea. Those were early but not sure I still have them.

Tav;

I sure hope the release date for First (Limited) is just one date. It is easy to forget that there are no 'alpha' or 'beta' publications--only Limited and Unlimited. The edition was released at GenCon of that year so you can nail that date down easily. If you want an 'official' date, just look up when GenCon happend that year. If any subsequent printing by WotC or anyone else lists a different date, please disreguard. Almost the entire company (I don't remember if Jesper was there or not) was present and it has to be as official as anything because they did take orders and deliver product.

Want a humorous story from the "release".
While demoing the cards that they had just received from CM by air, in order to make the con (now you know why so many details were missed in the first part of the printing). Which they had to go on the cuff for the air shipment cost.... oh, I don't think I'm supposed to mention that...knoff knff.
Back to the story. The owner of a distribution company (I am not sure if they still exist or not so won't say who) was quite impressed with the game. In fact he was so impressed that he did something they never expected. He ordered a WHOLE CASE!!!! The first BIG sale ever. Talk about a celebration...
Back at The basement in Kent WA. the had broken out the libations to celebrate their success. They got a call from the above distributor asking a question..... "What is your return policy?" Well after coming up with something on the spur of the moment they were told that he was considering returning the case. Bummer, Downer, bad day.....
Well, it never came back, as you can well imagine. But that is not the end of the story (are you still awake?).
Ice Age release (again at a GenCon--so date is easy to find). Peter ends up 'manning' the booth while everyone else is at the event. Place is empty. This is Milwaukee. Peter looks over the edge of the floor he is on to see in a booth below, sorting through the new cards, the distributor mentioned above. "Hay, ...... I still have that check for you and am waiting for that box you wanted to return.....".

Tav, you gotta be careful about getting an old fart started on the old days.

Gary
That's alright Gary, anytime you want to talk about the old days, I'm all ears! I think of you every time I see a Mystical Tutor now. I'm sure that you could add a lot to this conversation. If you could find your old lists that you mentioned, I'm sure it would be fascinating. Especially if it had anything to do with what order the foreign 4th sets were released!

Gen Con started on August 19th in 1993, so that's the day Wizards started selling Alpha at Gen Con. According to the following links (one of them dating back to September 1993) Six Hundred Thousand Alpha cards were sold to distributors before Gen Con, and Peter also sold Alpha to game stores while driving across country to Gen Con.
http://mtgarchive.net/wiki/GenCon_1993
http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/gencon-93/

I completely agree that Beta should not have an official release date.
However, Beta is noticeably different from Alpha. Not just the corner rounding, but also cards were added to the set, casting costs were changed, etc. (that's for the benefit of other readers, I'm sure Gary is fully aware of the differences between Alpha & Beta)
Even without a release date, if I wanted to chronologicaly locate Beta in my card collection, I would always put it between Alpha and Collector's Edition.

Tav

EDIT: One of the links listed above doesn't work anymore. I was able to dig up the text from it and post it below for future reference.
Dave posted this to USENET on September 8th 1993, so these events were pretty fresh in his mind at the time.
snarke wrote: Enchanting the Masses,
or
What the Wizards did at GenCon.

We arrived on Wednesday and managed to get people into the hotels w/o much trouble. Setting up the booth was more interesting, since we'd bought a new backdrop, and the first anybody had actually seen it was sitting in it's black boxes in our booth. We managed, somehow, and were pretty ready for opening day on Thursday. New products were Thystram's Collectanaea, Chessboards: The Planes of Possibility (written by yours truly), and, of course, Magic: The Gathering.

We had airshipped about 600K cards over from Carta Mundi, our printer in Belgium, and had the whole shipment sell out to distributors before we left for GenCon. As a result, the last week before we went we were running around scraping together every deck we had left, so we'd have something to show on Thursday. We were supposed to have the rest of our first 2.5 million cards by then, but they were shipped to Oakland instead of Seattle, and would arrive by train on Thursday, after we were at GenCon. After dazzling footwork and frantic phone calls by Lisa Stevens, we found we'd have about 3000 decks for sale at GenCon. They would be air shipped from Seattle, and arrive Friday.

Thursday, we sold out what we had around noon, and started a reserve list. By the end of the day, we had reserves for about 100 decks. Nobody really pushed a product we didn't have yet, so it was a relatively quiet day, which was good. It gave our staff some time to settle into a routine.

Friday at 10:30 our shipment arrived, and we already had a line. That line lasted until noon, and picked up again around 3. There was a mad rush right at 6, when the hall closed. We were playing 2-3 demo games at a time in the booth, so people could see the cards moving around. This proved to be unnecessary on later days.

We started running two challenges Friday afternoon. At the booth was a "Challenge the Masters" competition, where one of our experts (usually Rick D.S. Marshall, the husband of Wizard's editor and a fanatic at assembling deadly decks) would offer all comers the chance to take him on. Why would someone challenge a person going by the title of "master?" Because the challenger would ante up a card from their deck, as normal, but we were ante-ing two booster packs. The final record was 1-18 for our master players. Each card that was won by the master was mounted on the wall behind him as a kill record.

[WARNING: SEMI-SPOILERS]

As anyone who saw these challenges can tell you, there were four decks that were being used, three of Rick's and one of mine. Generally considered the most dangerous was the 'decay' deck, which consisted almost entirely of swamp, sinkholes, and plague rats. Lots of plague rats.

The second worst deck was the "walk into this" deck, which had no creatures, no direct damage spells, really no offensive capability at all. What it had were counterspells, power sinks, black vices, brainguysers, and psychic venoms in abundance. In effect, the deck caused the opponent to kill himself. Tremendously frustrating.

The third deck was the 'white weenie' deck, and contained holy strength, benalish hero, and pegasus, along with plains. They all band, the pegasi fly, and they needed so few plains to cast that the challenger was usually quickly overwhelmed by the little buggers. The banding is a key to this strategy.

My deck goes by "The X Deck," which was originally eXperimental. It consists of forests, Llanowar Elves, wild growth, and sol rings to allow a lot of mana to hit the table fast, and mountains, fireballs, and disintegrates. A typical game against this deck has me playing mana cards on turns one-three, and doing a 6,7, and 8 point fireball on turns four through six.

Most such decks (we call them degenerate decks), have critical weaknesses, and if you know that's what you're up against, they're easily defeated. However, against a general deck, they're devastating.

It should be noted that one of the playtesters managed to come up with a deck at the con that makes all four of these look like dirt. I'll just say it was very green.

You might also note that of the five decks listed, the colors are black, blue, white, red and green, and green. You can make a killer from just about anything...

[END SPOILERS]

Far more interesting was the "weenie pack" challenge. We gave three of the playtesters a total of three decks and three packs. With just this raw material, they assembled three decks, and took on challengers, one card to one booster pack. The challengers, of course, were given no restrictions on their decks. They could play from a deck made from 20 booster packs, and enhanced by trades with anybody they could find. Despite this supposed handicap, the win-loss record was 28-4.

Lesson: Even if you only get one deck and one pack, and trade with only two friends, you can still put together a competitive deck.

Saturday we really got into gear, with our tournament starting at noon. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of rules confusions, and one round of 2 out of 3 ran for almost two hours. Someone recorded a blow-by-blow of the final set, but I don't have it here. The finalists were showing an excellent grasp of the game. The winner, Alex Parrish, was playing a red and black deck, and the 1st runner up was playing green-white. Alex took home a free membership in the Duelist's Convocation, our Magic Dueling organization, a Magic T-Shirt, a certificate, and a display case of (36) booster packs. That's 540 cards. Finalists got the membership an shirt, and the 1st runner up also received 5 booster packs.

Sunday, we were even more swamped. About 10:30, we started running two receipt books, and still had a line until closing.

What many of our staffers reported, and I experienced first hand, was that you could wander the Mecca halls and spot a game of Magic just about everywhere you went. Wearing a Wizards exhibitor badge gave me a celebrity status that was intoxicating to experience. Retailers were telling us that they were tremendously excited to have a hot new product. The last big seller, 2.5 years ago, was Vampire. Gamers would say "This is such a great game" over and over, until I walked away. Darwin Bromley, the head of Mayfair games, called Magic "The Babe of the Con."

Of course, what really stands out are the other company's reactions. TSR did nothing, of course. White Wolf had already expressed interest in the game, after just seeing prototypes. They reaffirmed their desire for a Deckmaster game based on Vampire: The Masquerade. It goes to playtest soon, and should be out early next year. R. Talsorian signed a letter of intent for a Cyberpunk game. Both they and the FASA Shadowrun team lamented that there isn't any good way to simulate network warfare, so the Cyberpunk Deckmaster is hopefully going to be a netrunner game. The Camarilla had already given serious thought to using Magic as an optional method of resolving battles between vampires. Presumably they'll switch over when the vampire Deckmaster is out.

Unfortunately, R. Talsorian beat FASA to the punch, so the Shadowrun Deckmaster that FASA wants will probably not be out in '94. The status of a Battletech game is still iffy, but an Earthdawn expansion set for The Gathering is very likely. I had more than one FASA artist tell me how excited they were about that, since their contract prohibits them from taking outside work on a competing product.

Other too-soon-to-say-for-sure items would include distribution in B. Dalton and Waldenbooks, and what might come from the Marvel (or was it DC?) rep that was seen around our booth.

But enough blue-sky speculation. Cold hard facts, that's what we need. Remember that shipment that came into Seattle? Well, a bit less than half of it was already spoken for before we left for GenCon. On Tuesday, the day before it actually reached our warehouse, it was all sold, and more. Some distributors called three times that day to increase their orders. The bad news is we won't have the rest of the print run until mid-September.

At the present time, our near-term plans for Magic include a new edition of the Gathering, visibly different on the face of the cards to distinguish them from the first edition, and a Collector's Edition complete boxed set of the cards, marked on the back so they can't be used w/o an opponent knowing of them. We're hoping to get all of the above out in time for Christmas. Also scheduled for a mid-December release is 1,001 Nights, the first expansion set for The Gathering.

The company hopes to maintain a strong presence at cons throughout the country. Those we can't get to ourselves we will cooperate with local people to provide prizes for tournaments and such. If you're involved with a con and wish to run such a tournament, call Wizards at XXX XXX-XXXX and ask for Steve, our Convention Coordinator.

I will see some of you at WorldCon. Drop by the booth and say hi.

I'm having so much fun!

Dave Howell, aka Snark
Production Manager, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
Keeper of the Magic FAQ
Last edited by cataclysm80 on Fri Sep 04, 2015 4:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

cataclysm80
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Post by cataclysm80 » Fri Nov 22, 2013 8:17 am

Neuron wrote: - French wb designed 1994 (indicates: BB First released - first sold out, even in 1994)

There are more indirect signs that the German translator had French cards to work from, at least with German Unlimited: Stone Rain is worded: "Zerstört ein Gelände" instead of "Zerstört ein Land." What does "Gelände" mean in English? - Terrain... strange enough. But what "land" is used to be translated into French? - Right, also terrain. He looked for the French word in an English dictionary ](*,).

Italian white border 3rd = Small 1995 date

[German white border 3rd ]

--> German was later than Italian. The textbox of latter is darker colored similar to French wb.
French Limited is one of the few foreign sets that we have a release month for. It couldn't have sold out in 1994 because it wasn't released until March 1995.

Well, I've found some interesting information about French Unlimited...

I think I've discovered why some of the cards in French Unlimited have a 1995 copyright. I was looking through my global sets comparing cards to see what changes had been made between foreign limited and foreign unlimited.
I found that German cards have lots of changes between limited and unlimited.
Italian cards have quite a few changes but there are also quite a few cards that have no differances other than the tap symbol, white mana symbol, white border, and copyright date.
French limited compared to French unlimited is almost identicle with the only difference on the vast majority of cards being the change to white border. The only French unlimited cards that I could find different from the French Limited cards are these 11 cards with the 1995 copyright. The 1995 copyright is not the only difference though.

It turns out that French Unlimited was designed in 1995. The French Unlimited designers took a short cut and used the computer files from French Limited, However, 11 cards from French Limited had errors that needed to be corrected before reprinting them. When the errors were corrected, these cards were given current 1995 copyright dates. Island Sanctuary was even given the new white mana symbol. (Island Santuary could not have received the new white mana symbol if the set had been designed in 1994.) The remaining cards were reprinted just as they were in French Limited, but with white borders now.

It looks like these 11 cards from French Limited are all misprints.
Island Sanctuary
Grizzly Bears
Scryb Sprites
Contract from Below
Nether Shadow
Will-O'-The-Wisp
Island Fish Jasconius
Black Vise
Jandor's Ring
Library of Leng
Primal Clay

I'd also say that all of the cards in French Unlimited except these 11 are misprints as they should have all had the 1995 date and probably the new white mana symbol if the designers job had been done more thoroughly.

I still think that French Unlimited had its design finalized before Italian Second Edition or German Unlimited. Looking at the amount of work required to convert each language from Limited to Unlimited, French being the easiest would be done first, Italian would be second, and German would be third. I also agree with what you had said about the textbox on German Unlimited being lighter colored, more like 4th Edition than like the other foreign Unlimited sets. I'm updating the list accordingly.

Near as I can tell, the white mana symbol change happened in February of 1995 (probably early in February). The Ice Age promos were sent to be printed at the end of January, and the white mana symbol hadn't changed yet at that point. English 4th used the new white mana symbol. English 4th was released around the very end of April, so allowing a couple months for print time, English 4th probably had its design finalized around the end of February using the new white mana symbol.

That's interesting about the German being translated from French. Are there other examples of this? It makes me wonder if the translators native language is French. Does anyone know if the same place did all of the translations, or if each language was sent to a different translator?

Neuron wrote:
Neuron wrote: Just wondering: Why do you place German Limited before French? Can you see differences in the copyright line between both?

Facts that vote for French > German:

- German Islands with French copyright text

French black border

German black border

--> Switched French with German: All German Islands have a French copyright clause. To explain that is very difficult, if German is put before French.
Hmm, I've looked at the German Limited Islands, and I agree that they have a French copyright. This wouldn't be possible unless the French translation had already been done.

Tav

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dragsamou
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Post by dragsamou » Sat Nov 23, 2013 2:58 pm

Hi Tav

Why looking for something, I found these old topics in The Archives:

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/forum/v ... php?t=2499

http://www.magiclibrarities.net/forum/v ... php?t=1372
Want/Have Lists.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8903
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1515
I Love you Dad.R.I.P.

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