Magic 2010

Magic: The Gathering 2010 Core Set

Magic: The Gathering 2010 Core Set (a.k.a. Magic 2010 and M10) is a Core Set that was released on July 17, 2009. The worldwide Prerelease took place July 11–12, and Launch Parties took place July 17–19.

With Magic 2010 the naming convention for Core Sets was changed. Instead of listing the number of the edition, the set is instead named after the year after the product was released. Doing a core set every year precluded Wizards of the Coast from doing other fourth sets, like Eventide, Coldsnap and Unhinged, but would provide a much more structured and predictable release schedule of three expert-level expansions and one core set each year. To accommodate this much more rapid core set turnover, the format rotation policy was changed. There would be only one rotation date per year, when the large Fall set was released.

The core set was getting a significant face-lift in an attempt to return it to some of its original resonant flavorful glory. Because of this, Magic 2010 was the first core set since Beta to feature new cards, some of which had a top-down design. Some new cards were answers to strong cards in the metagame. Magic 2010 was also the first core set with planeswalkers and mythic rares. There were no legendary cards in the set, unlike the previous core set. Core sets were now equal in size and make up as the first set of a block. Thus, Magic 2010 contained 249 cards (101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythic rares, 20 basic lands) instead of the approximately 300 cards of previous expansions.