Fifth Edition

Fifth Edition

Fifth Edition (5th Edition) is a core set that was released in March 1997. It is by far the largest version of the Magic: The Gathering core set, surpassing both Fourth Edition and Chronicles. The set contains 449 white-bordered cards (132 rare, 132 uncommon, 165 common, and 20 basic lands).

Fifth Edition contains a total of 429 cards, not including the basic lands, compared to the 363 of Fourth Edition. Of these, only 235 appeared in Fourth Edition. The rest are cards from earlier sets which have been rotated in. The largest rotations come from Ice Age, but they also include cards from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, The Dark, Legends, Fallen Empires and Homelands, as well as a few returnees from Revised that were taken out of Fourth Edition. Fifth Edition is the first core set with cards having new artwork (entirely new artworks for 218 cards). Estimated print run is 800 million.

In designing Fifth Edition, over a hundred of the cards from Fourth Edition were removed. Quite a few of these removals were for game balance reasons. Many spells had long been recognized as being undercosted in comparison to others of similar power. Some of these, such as Strip Mine, Channel, and Mind Twist, were already banned from the Standard tournament environment for being too powerful, so everyone expected them to leave. Others, such as Serra Angel, had been predicted for removal in every revision of the basic set. But some, such as Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt, had been staples of deck construction for so long that most players took them for granted.

Not all the "powerful" cards were removed, however. Several spells were widely predicted to be departing. Armageddon and Wrath of God, for example, were thought by a lot of players to be both overpowered and out of character for white; their retention came as a surprise to many. Similarly, many players expected Black Knight and White Knight would be leaving. Also, some very powerful cards (like Necropotence) were rotated in from earlier sets, causing surprise and (in some cases) uproar among players who thought they wouldn't have to deal with them in the Standard environment any more.

Fifth Edition was the first core set without ante cards. A number of cards which were scorned by players as too weak were also removed, to make additional room for more popular cards. These included the five color-changing "lace" spells, as well as Cyclopean Mummy and Wall of Wood. However, due to the large amount of cards from Fallen Empires and Homelands, which were considered to be weak sets, there still was some dissatisfaction with the Fifth Edition card mix.

Fifth Edition was also the first version of the base set to use the cosmetic changes that were introduced in the Mirage expansion (including a slightly expanded text box and border, more visible power/toughness numbers and reminder text).

From Fifth Edition on, non-monocolor lands started having a bronze colored text box. This was set as a standard, and the color scheme carried on to all subsequent expansions and editions of the game until the Eighth Edition card frame redesign. Previous expansions' land text boxes had featured unique colors for each set or block (e.g., Mirage and Visions).