Customer Reviews:
 Still doling out a few expansions at a time... February 8, 2002
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Volume 5 covers Magic: The Gathering Starter Level Set for 2000, Mercadian Masques, Nemesis, and Prophecy. I wish the powers-that-be would get their act together and collect everything to date into a single volume. Instead, as usual, this volume only deals with expansions released since the previous volume of the encyclopedia.Before launching into the expansion chapters, the usual introductory material includes a Magic timeline, including the 'for beginners' decks (e.g. Portal), the basic sets, and the expansions. This volume has been padded a little with profiles of 3 of the artists, including some alternate sketches of various cards, e.g. Grim Elf of Vengeance, which was pulled from the Unglued set as *too* grim and vengeful for that expansion. Each set of cards covered in Volume 5, as usual, is provided with an introduction, describing any new twists added for that set (including new types of decks that came about as a result), and any famous (or infamous) cards in that set. (A blowup of the artwork of Lin Divvi, Defiant Hero appears in a sidebar for Nemesis, "This Rebel's Too Cool for School".) The introductions provide an informative overview (including descriptions of storylines that were added or updated by the release being described). (Volume 1's introductions were more entertaining, due to the much higher number of problem cards in earlier decks.) The individual cards for each set are listed in alphabetical order; they're shown at about 3/4 actual size. The versions of Magic that included those cards (at the time of printing) are specified, as well as any errata. The card lists' images are enough to hold the attention of even a casual collector, since the flavor text is legible and the artwork is printed well. After covering the individual sets, the book gives an overview of 1999 World Championship decks. Three pages near the end of the book discuss, respectively, Misprints & Oddities (such as the alpha-version Orcish Oriflamme with a casting cost of 1 rather than 3), Promotional Cards, and Playtest Cards. The book concludes with a "Deckbuilders Indexes" section, as in the earlier volumes of the Magic encyclopedia.
 High price for nothing, really June 4, 2001
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
What can I say? The fifth installment of the Encyclopaedia series delivers the same old story -full-colour listings of the beautiful cards in several expansion packs (including, but not limited to, Nemesis, Mercadian Masques, Prophecy). It also includes some one-read articles giving a brief account of several artists, the history of Magic The Gathering, the history of Wizards and the Coast, as well as a very short guide to collecting. Hardly worth the paper they're printed on, really, as after giving them a cursory glance you'll just be ogling the fancy card artwork. I notice that the encylopaedias have been getting slimmer and slimmer, while remaining the same price as well. An oversight...or a marketing scheme? :)My verdict: if you really like Magic the Gathering, this book gets four stars (not five because of low-fat content and paper-wasting articles)...but for everybody else, this book is a three star, if not two. High price and thinning content are the main reasons for that.
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