April 1995

A year after the Revised edition ushered in the first rotation of the basic set, it was time for another. The Fourth Edition set marked the biggest changes yet for core Magic. Fifty-one cards were moved from the basic set, and all the basic lands were moved onto a separate press sheet. This left room for 122 cards to rotate in from expansions—roughly a third of the entire set.
In January, the DCI created a new tournament format called Type II. In this format, all of the out of print cards from the basic set and all but the two most recent expansions were banned. Because of this new format, the Fourth Edition changes turned the tournament scene on it head, remove many staple cards from Type II but bringing back some card previously not allowed.
In this rotation, cards were remove for the same reasons as they were in the first: they were confusing or unbalancing. Wizards’ definition of “unbalancing,” however had changed considerably over the year. Any card on the Restricted or Banned Lists was an obvious choice for removal, but the designer widened the field from those “broken” cards to also include cards they felt were overpowered or undercosted.
For example, the Revised edition set contained ten rare lands—the “dual lands”—that each counted as two land types and could produce two colors of mana. These cards had no major drawbacks, so including four in any two-color deck was almost automatic. Because they unbalanced the set the dual lands were eliminated in Fourth Edition. A number of creatures felt to be too good for their cost were also dropped, including Juggernaut, Kird Ape, and Sedge Troll.
The highest number of cards rotated in were Legends cards, though all the expansions were represented. Several Legends rares, including the highly valued Carrion Ants and Killer Bees, were reprinted as uncommons. Fourth Edition caused huge disruptions in the single card market as reprinted cards dropped in price and newly out of print cards soared.