Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition is a new product created by Wizards of the Coast in order to celebrate the card game’s original launch in 1993. Each box will contain just four packs of 15 cards. Each card will have a unique card back, and none of them will be tournament legal.
This commemorative, collectible product, as Wizards calls it, will cost $999.
Sales start online beginning Nov. 28, with delivery for consumers in North America expected before the end of the year. According to a post on the official Magic website, the set is intended to represent the full 30-year history of the game by rereleasing some of its oldest cards in a highly collectible format. Wizards is hoping to invoke the same rush of opening a pack of cards from the Alpha or the Beta set. That includes the potential to find multiple cards from the Power Nine — including a remake of the iconic Black Lotus.
Cards will feature “touched up” art where needed, and will exclude some cards.
“We wanted to be nostalgic,” Wizards said on its blog, “but not everything met our modern standards.” For instance, Crusade — which was removed from the Magic archives in 2020 along with several other cards — will be absent from this set. Contract from Below, Darkpact, Demonic Attorney, Earthbind, and Weakness have also all been excluded.
Here is the official description of just what you can expect inside the box:
Each display of 30th Anniversary Edition will contain four packs of pure nostalgia reimagined in a modern context. Each pack contains 15 cards, 13 cards in the modern frame — 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 7 commons, and 2 basic lands — plus one basic land in the retro frame, one additional retro frame card, and a token.
Friendly local game stores will also be able to get in on the action. All Wizards Play Network stores will receive one copy of Magic: The Gathering 30th Anniversary Edition for display purposes, while Premium WPN stores will receive three.