Released | 10 September 2007 | ||
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Size | 195 cards (60 rare, 60 uncommon, 60 common, 15 basic land) | ||
Expansion code | MED, ME2, ME3, ME4 | ||
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Masters Edition is a series of Magic: The Gathering expansions that have been released exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online. Each set consists of reprints from early Magic sets that had yet to be released to Magic Online. To date, four incarnations of Master's Edition, as well as a spinoff have been released:
Invasion was the first expansion released on Magic Online. Since then, the older expansions from Mirage forward have been retroactively released with accompanying draft and sealed queues. The sets before Mirage, however, were not built for limited play and would not present a fun or balanced draft environment. Because of the nature of the online environment, most cards enter the system through drafting. The Masters Edition series is Wizards of the Coast's solution to bring the game's earliest cards online in draftable sets.
Beginning with Masters Edition III, cards from the Portal set were included in the Master's Editions.
All cards in each Masters Edition set are available in regular and premium foil versions. As all of the cards were originally released before the foiling process was introduced to Magic and most have not been reprinted since, these cards are now available as premium foils for the first time and exclusively for Magic Online. Masters Editions II, III, IV have had tribal themes; the original Master's Edition did not.
Similar concept were later used in the design of Modern Masters in paper format, as well as the Vintage Masters in Magic Online.
Masters Edition was originally meant to be drafted with 10th Edition but its popularity led Wizards to create Masters Edition-only drafts. The set was heavily focused on nostalgia and included some of the most popular casual cards from the early sets. Notably, it was missing powerful early cards like the original dual lands.
While Masters Edition was rather unspecifically designed to bring some older cards to Magic Online, Masters Edition II was designed to bring more specific cards to the environment. The second installment of the series was to bring the youngest, previously unreleased cards to Magic Online. It thus consists mainly of cards from Fallen Empires, Ice Age, Homelands, and Alliances.