Customer Reviews

Magic: The Gathering -- Official Encyclopedia, Volume 1: The Complete Card Guide

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4 star:		(1)
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Volume 1 covers 4th Edition, Chronicles, Ice Age, Alliances, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Homelands. There's also a section devoted to discontinued cards (leading off with, of course, Black Lotus and the original Mox cards). Cards that were removed but reintroduced before this book was published are not listed as discontinued. A page near the end of the book displays 6 of the most significant promotional cards that weren't just previews of upcoming releases.

Each set of cards covered is provided with an introduction, describing any new twists added for that set (including new types of decks that came about as a result), and any famous (or infamous) cards in that set. (A blowup of the artwork of Mirror Universe figures prominently for Legends, along with "The entire R&D team would have to be hit by a bus before we'd reprint Mana Drain.") The introductions are generally pretty entertaining and provide an informative overview (including descriptions of storylines that were added or updated by the release being described).

The individual cards for each set are listed in alphabetical order; they're shown at about 3/4 actual size. The versions of Magic that included those cards (at the time of printing) are specified, as well as any errata. The card lists' images are enough to hold the attention of even a casual collector, since the flavor text is legible and the artwork is printed well.

After covering the individual sets, the book presents "Misprints and Oddities", such as the Wyvern cards. (Errors in text are covered either with short errata for the individual cards, or in "Overlong errata" for text errors that were to big to include where the card was described.) The book concludes with a "Deckbuilders Indexes" section, as in the later volumes of the Magic encyclopedia.

Very nice book if you're curious about older cards. I liked getting a chance to see all the old cards together, to see some some cards I'd never seen before because they're too rare.

I've had this book for years. I took it off the shelf and brought it over to an RPG game at a friends house. Just so I could do some causal reading. Everyone wanted to see the book. Even people who don't play Magic the Gathering (MTG).

If you collect magic cards, or play - these books are an excellent resource. If you want to see what the older cards look like, they are in this book.