Did you know that, in certain Magic: The Gathering products, VHS tapes were included along with the cards?
For years, the Magic holiday gift boxes and bundles have been a constant during the Holiday season. Each one gives that little extra something something.
The 2024 gift edition, for example, featured Modern Horizons 3 and included 10 boosters, 15 foil lands, and a special Powerbalance foil card, in addition to the usual special counter die. Plus, all gift boxes can hold around 2,000 cards and can include extra goodies such as dividers, stickers, and so on.
There is a reason they are called a gift bundle after all.
But for many players, they don't realize just how far back these bundles go. Consecutively it dates back to 2012 when there was a special Return to Ravnica gift box that had 4 boosters and a special alternate art Dreg Mangler included. But this one came about as the first real gift bundle in 13 years, as there hadn't been one since 1999.
Why the long hiatus? There are a lot of reasons.
While the post 2012 boxes are meant to be gifts, the earlier gift boxes were deck heavy and were meant to draw new players into the game rather than be more of a storage/pack option. In 1999, Magic wasn't so expansion heavy just yet and was still firmly in the block system. They were still teaching new players. So the 1999 Starter gift box? It had 2 40 card theme decks, a poster, 2 playmats, a playguide, an instruction books, scoring counters an oversized Thorn Elemental card and an instructional video. On VHS.
Want to see an incredibly late 90s video that is all sorts of cringe? No? Well too bad. Here it is.
That's the big difference - earlier Magic was about teaching the rules and getting more people that later Magic didn't focus so much on. And that brings us to the first gift bundle - the 1994 Fourth Edition giftbox. In addition to a pair of starter boxes decks, there was a guidebook, 30 glass counters, a checklist...and that's it. No foils (because they hadn't been invented yet). No VHS tape because Magic wasn't THAT big yet. And no place to store 2,000 cards because no one had 2,000 cards yet (they probably did, but that's besides the point).
It was a simple battle.
And, believe it or not, there are other MTG products with VHS tapes included. That's for another article, though.
