Ninth Edition

2005

9th Edition was released on July 29, 2005, and contained 359 cards. Russian cards were introduced and printed with black borders. Traditional Chinese was discontinued after Mirrodin; it shouldnt see new printings for the next five years. The mana cost was shifted downwards after Darksteel.

Naturalize was available in boosters, theme decks, and a supplementary booster from the Core Game.

The card layout comprises many inconsistencies. Generally valid is: US-printed cards (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, S-Chinese) are weird cut, Belgium booster cards are back cut. There is also a Spanish made in Belgium booster print run, which was only available in Salvat magazines distributed in Spain.

The theme decks versions mostly correlate with a darker hue and bolder/bleedier text, except Portuguese, whose darker variant seems to be the most common. Whereas French and Russian theme decks contain front cut cards as formerly, Italian and German variants are back cut. In all Belgium-printed languages, the theme deck variants have upwards-shifted text, except French. French in turn has a second variant, which is back cut, not dark and has the text shifted both left- and upwards. In made in USA cards, the dark printings arent shifted except Portuguese, which has downwards-shifted text. Those shifts are definitely layout and not registration errors, as otherwise the set symbols had to be shifted same way. In fact, the symbols are shifted in a different way. In addition, they are smaller in non-foil cards than in their respective foil counterparts, except Portuguese non-dark, Japanese, S-Chinese, Russian, and Spanish made in Belgium. The latter in turn has a gray shading in the colorless mana circle instead of beige.