How to Make Everyone Happy

One thing that I think would be a good idea is, if the core set in the
eleventh edition goes back to having white borders, is for a thin
black border around the edge of the white border to be present. A pile
of white-bordered cards can be distinguished from the side from a pile
of black-bordered cards, and making the cards distinguishable is
something that is desired to be avoided.

In the city where I live, at least two card shops are still selling
booster packs for Homelands and Fallen Empires at ordinary prices. One
card shop still has starter packs for the Sixth and Seventh editions
in stock. And another place, a comic book store, has piles of
individual cards - including uncommons as well as commons - available
for ten cents each. Since these cards don't include the ones most
sought after, just the ordinary ones, they do include cards from older
booster packs and older editions of the core set; I've even found
cards from Portal and Starter there.

Thus, I'm a little surprised that the restrictions of the Standard
Format are necessary to make a Magic tournament broadly accessible,
even if some similar restrictions are required. By the time of the
Sixth Edition, after all, there weren't any more super-powerful cards
like Black Vise left in the core set, were there?

But as I'm new to Magic, it might well be that the tumultuous early
history of the core set didn't end with the Fifth Edition, and there
are still some cards in, for example, the Sixth Edition core set that
would give a player an unfair advantage over someone with access only
to the Tenth Edition.

I think that, following the exemption for basic land cards from
Unglued, though, there should be a similar rule for basic land cards
in general - so that one could use basic land cards from the Fourth
Edition even in a Limited tournament, for example.

Now to get to one of the biggest controversies in the world of Magic:
the Gathering.

Despite the controversy over Chronicles, one store in my area still
has Chronicles booster packs at a modest premium.

Once a card is rotated out of the core set, or the expansion it
belongs to has ended its print run, its value as a collector's item
obviously is enhanced if it will never be reprinted - even if the
reprint is visually distinct, if it supplies an ability in play that
was previously only available with the original old card, it will
detract from that card's value.

On the other hand, for old cards that are being sold for hundreds of
dollars to have the potential to dominate the game is problematic as
well.

The Unglued card set was distinguished by silver borders.

Gold borders were used for reprints of decks used by famous players
which also had distinctive backs, and therefore which were not for
playing.

I'm thinking that many Magic players would appreciate the availability
of a card set like this:

The cards would have thin black borders around the very edge, and
would have regular backs. They would (largely) be reprints from pretty
much the whole history of Magic: the Gathering; something like Battle
Royale, but the set would be larger than a standard set.

Some of the cards would have white borders, and others would have gold
borders. Ordinary cards, say like a 1/1 creature with flying and a
casting cost of two mana, and, of course, the (original five) basic
lands, would have white borders. This is intended to allow _those_
cards to be played in the more restricted formats, since equivalent
cards would be available in the current core set whatever it was.

The gold-bordered cards would not necessarily be rares; they might be
uncommon or even common. But they would be cards from two groups. One
is those cards from the past that have abilities not seen in today's
cards. Not just the Power 9; not just the cards that made it to the
restricted list; but also items like Urza's Power Plant/Tower/Mine. Or
even just any card that hasn't *almost* been in the core set from 10th
Edition all the way back to Alpha.

The other would be new cards that would act as effective
countermeasures to some of the most powerful older cards included in
this set.

In this way, a *real* Black Lotus could be played in formats that
exclude the gold-bordered cards from this set... while a gold-bordered
Black Lotus _from_ this set could only be played in formats that allow
all the other gold-bordered cards from this set.. including, perhaps,
Basic Land - Nice Swamp (Tap for one black mana. If this card is in
play, Black Lotus, Mox Ruby, Mox Pearl... don't work) and its
counterparts in the four other land types, or some countermeasure
which isn't *quite* so totally refuting, but which comes... close.

I would include Rukh Egg in the set, but with an erratum.

By the way, the snow-covered basic lands would be in this set, and
they'd have gold borders.

I think that this would be a way of achieving a nice balance between
preserving the value of authentic old cards on the one hand, and
keeping the whole game available to people just entering the game on
the other.

The idea is to include *every card ever printed* with perhaps one or
two _really_ unbalancing exceptions excluded if they can't be
accomodated by adding cards to the set that balanced them out in some
appropriate fashion. So there would be more than three sheets, which
would mean that its booster packs would have, at least in effect, a
nonstandard distribution of rarities.

Thus, instead of something like the Collector's Series, something that
is playable - but with limits.

John Savard