By the introduction of the Seventh Edition, a year and a half after its purchase by, and now a susidiary of, the toy giant Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) had settled in with a set schedule.
Foils, first introduced in 1999 in the Urza's Legacy (ULG) expansion set, appeared in the Seventh Edition as black-bordered 'premium' cards. On the 10th anniversary of the original Limited Edition Alpha release, huge changes to the card layout were introduced with the release of the Eighth Edition: card frames were narrowed, fonts were modernized, card titles and power/toughness were framed, artist names were left-justified, reduced and bolded, colors were blanched, the tap symbol simplified. These changes would later become a major part of the decision to demarcate the line for WOTC's new eternal format, Modern.
The Ninth and Tenth editions further cemented the new look with very few innovations, keeping its twin priorities of acting as an introductory set for new players and as a bridge between the rotating sets of Standard, constantly replenishing the environment with cards containing evergreen abilities. Perhaps because players were starting to tire of yet another set of worthless Craw Wurms and Giant Cockroaches, sales started to drop. To stop the slide, WOTC started printing Tenth Edition in the more-popular black border and introduced the new hotness first introduced in Lorwyn, planeswalkers, in Magic 2010 (or M10). Changing the version number from an ever-increasing meaningless number to one that includes the year closely followed software companies chosen method at the time to keep its products fresh and modern; this was the last core set to follow a two-year cycle.