The Glimmer | 25 Years of Foil Magic Cards

This video traces a 25-year history of the production, development, and evolution of foil Magic cards.

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🎵 Music:
Chaos Theory - Ava Low
All Parts Equal - Airae
Orthosie - Ben Elson
Douze - Ben Elson
Darkwave - Ben Elson
Shadowed - John B. Lund
Saints Vs. Sinners - Katori Walker, Timothy Infinite
Tree of Life - Broad Sky
Ribeye - Timothy Infinite
Milestones - Timothy Infinite
Perceptive Perspective - Auxjack
I Feel Funny - Curli Loxx
Cross Eyed - Auxjack
counting zzz - baegel
5 Min Call - Lakey Inspired

📘 Chapters:
0:00 Card Kingdom
0:31 BASILISK
1:03 A Flash of Lightning
2:38 A Brief History of Holograms
5:32 Test Prints and Business Partnerships
9:17 Sheets of Rainbows
12:16 The 7th Edition Paradox
20:20 The Question of White Borders
25:40 Shiny New Technique
30:26 Playing With Marked Cards
38:25 Premium to the Premium
50:26 Project Booster Fun
57:23 Every Frame a Foil
1:03:51 The Serialized & Printed 500
1:12:14 The Eventuality of Plastic Lunchboxes
1:24:17 25 Years of Foil Magic Cards
1:28:14 Oddities and Odd Printings

🖊️ Full Script & Sources:

#mtg #magicthegathering

[holopollock]

The change in tone from wow to annoyed when explaining 2020 is iconic

[Silvermage]

"The story of middle earth is one of greed. And to communicate that message, Wizards printed serialized sol rings"
SOOOO good

[kevincastner]

"When there is only one Mountain, everyone knows what it means to reach the top."

You sir, are a Wordsmith.

[armthesharks]

'The metaphor is too poignant and on the nose... After all, it's only a card game.' Hits hard as FUCK immediately after the listing of how many LOTR foils there were. Wow.

[varsoonhks]

"Long gone are the days of opening Masterpieces in Draft Boosters."
Long gone are *Draft* Boosters.

[thomaslepage]

This Pringles documentary goes really hard!

[HeyApples]

I respect that Sam was able to strike the balance of dispassionately narrating this topic while simultaneously finding room to highlight its absurdities and excess. Reading the full list of LOTR treatments. The collage of Elesh Norn variants. The subtle highlight on a random foil which just happened to be Increasing Ambition. I see you there. I see you.

[nicmastoridis]

“Everything is special, but only for a little while” is such an impactful line.
Thank you so much Sam for all the time, work, and research you dedicate to this magnificent game—no matter how recurrent it has become.

[theomninerd]

The restraint it took to just say "zero-six-nine" and "four-two-zero" in that section is admirable

[dcnole]

It's still crazy to me that, 26 years later, you can still obtain a lovely, lightly-played Lightning Dragon promo from that day in 1998 for under $50. It's not only gorgeous, reasonably rare, and reserved-list, but it's history.

[HighTechRedneck]

"New foils could manufacture new demand" as a foil Increasing Ambition graces the screen... Wonderful imagery!

[Bronythepony]

I don’t play magic. I have no desire to play magic. I don’t play ANY trading card games and yet, not for the first time, I find myself over on this channel watching a 90 minute documentary about foil card printing. Well done, my friend.

[DrunkenPilotVideos]

I remember going to the pre-release for Lost caverns of Ixalan with my brother. We were joking and I remember saying "what if we opened a cavern of souls". As we opened the cards I saw it, as my brother was looking at a card on his right hand, he hadn't noticed that in his left he had it, Cavern of Souls, full art AND foil. Then seeing the shock in his face as he looked over as I told him he was holding something of great value.
It might not be the most expensive version of the card, but for my brother and I it will be the one we will always remember. The one we found as we had a fun afternoon together.

[theonlymegumegu]

1:27:00 "but never before have i felt such distance between the nodes"

dang, that hit

[TavisKingsChannel]

Thanks for the shout out at the end! 😃
I've been involved with the prototype / test print premium cards, and have been slowly working towards creating a video for each type.
You saw the Beta holograms, and the holographic Dragon Whelp. The first MTG foil was a Tempest Horned Turtle, which I'll eventually put into a video.
I've started a more in depth video for Exodus foils, but got interrupted by other more urgent projects. White border foils were tested with Exodus cards.
I handled and documented the Lightning Dragon test print sheets, and was heavily involved with authenticating the prototype Blastoise, which I took to CGC in 2020.
Modern card frame test prints were done in foil, and you mentioned the 5th Dawn holofoil test prints. WotC used plain foil for MTG and holofoil for Pokemon, but after losing Pokemon, the tried holofoil with MTG.
There were several series of test prints involved with creating the holofoil oval security stamp introduced in 2014.
Someone sent me test print inventions for a video, and there's also textless foil test print Eldrazi.
More recently there's been Swarovski crystal encrusted Magic card test prints.
Lots of cool stuff!

[maellelamour]

I started Magic with the first Mirrodin bloc in middle school, and the first foil I oppenend was a foil Platinum Angel. To me, it was the most powerful card ever (you cannot lose the game, how could any card be better ?!) and I still have that card 20 years later. It's heavily played after years of playing it unsleeved on the concrete floor of my school's playground and I now know it'w not as powerful as 11 years old me thought, but it still holds a very special place in my collection.
Thanks for this amazing video !

[shoeless]

My only experience with MTG was in college when i dated a girl for a couple years who loved it, and I often played with her and her friends. But after we broke up I moved back towards my own hobbies

I haven’t thought about magic in at least 5-6 years.

So when I say your videos are fantastic and profoundly entertaining, even for people who don’t keep up with MTG, I mean it.

Excellent work

[TheIronRegalia]

One of my favorite parts of any Rhystic Study video is when the video ends and I am left with that fire in me, a mix of reverent awe for the work that went into the video and an inspiration to change the way I interact with Magic: the Gathering. Bravo, a masterpiece as always.

[krauseandreas]

When everything is special, nothing is special.
That perfectly encapsulates the development.
Thank you for your lovely video

[MarkAvo]

I still have the foil lightning dragon I got in ‘98 and, to this day, it’s still one of the jewels of my collection.