Do you remember Magic: The Gathering's one-and-done Multiverse Gift Box?
By 1996, Gift boxes and boxed sets were nothing new to Magic: The Gathering (as can be seen in our video about the game’s earliest boxed sets), but in November of ’96 a new Magic gift box came out that was quite different than those that came before it.
In part as a promotion for the upcoming set, Visions, which would release early the following year, was the Multiverse Gift Box.
Unlike previous box sets and similar, the Multiverse Gift Box did not include any pre-constructed decks, not did it have a definitive set list (technically speaking). Instead, the gift box consisted of a laminated cardboard box adorned with card art from previously-released Magic: The Gathering cards.
Inside of that box are six booster packs, but not just any booster packs. Four of the packs are from different sets and in different languages. The other two are special packs of Visions, a set that would not come out until February of 1997, meaning that if you picked up a Multiverse Gift Box when it came out in November of 1996, you’d be opening up cards from a set that’s nearly four months in the future (which was rather nifty, really).
WATCH: A LOOK AT THE MULTIVERSE GIFT BOX
The Visions pack, however, aren’t exactly normal.
In fact, they can almost be considered a Visions subset as each pack contains 15 out of a maximum possible 25 cards that can be opened from them (and that’s opposed to the 167 cards in the overall Visions set). Further differentiating these early Visions cards from the overall actual set is the fact the words “Special Edition” appear on the back of the pack wrapper.
Of course, that’s not all that made these new Visions cards different from normal.
Between the Multiverse Gift Box release and the actual set release, three cards – Dark Privilege, Peace Talks, and Necrosavant – all have differently-cropped card art. Further, the preview version of the card King Cheetah lacks card name capitalization in the flavor text. The card Viashino Sandstalker has a similar issue. Also, there is a difference on text formatting on the cards Ovinomancer and Peace Talks between the Multiverse Gift Box and Visions printings, though neither have any effect on actual gameplay.
And, as for the complete 25-card list of “Special Edition” Visions cards that could be found in these Multiverse Gift Box packs of Visions, it included commons:
- Gossamer Chains;
- Jamuraan Lion;
- Warrior’s Honor;
- Knight of the Mists;
- Shrieking Drake;
- Undo;
- Dark Privilege;
- Urborg Mindsucker;
- Wicked Reward;
- Goblin Recruiter;
- Rock Slide;
- Talruum Champion;
- Bull Elephant;
- Feral Instinct;
- Giant Caterpillar, and;
- King Cheetah.
Uncommons consisted of:
As for rares, there’re only four:
As for the non-Visions packs, Multiverse Gift Box came complete with a French-language Homelands booster pack, a Japanese-language booster pack of Chronicles, an Italian-language booster of Alliances, and a German-language Renaissance booster pack (we’ll eventually do a video about Renaissance – I promise!).
As for where you could have found the Multiverse Gift Box back when it was new, a number of local game stores and comic book shops stocked a limited amount of them, as did some chain mall stores such as The Game Keeper and Electronics Boutique (yes, even E.B. sold Magic: The Gathering back in the day mixed in with computer software, video games, and a small selection of anime on VHS.)
These days, the Multiverse Gift Box (which originally retailed for $20) can be found online for more than $400 sealed.
