The long history of Dragon Whelp

Some cards have withstood the test of time. Some cards that were printed in the very beginning, in the Alpha set, are still being reprinted in very recent sets. They got the card balanced enough to warrant such reprints.

It's interesting to examine how such cards have changed over time, as they often reflect the history of Magic, and how its rules and terminology have changed. One card that I find particularly interesting is Dragon Whelp. Let's examine its different incarnations (the ones that have changes from previous ones.)

This is the version printed in Alpha. The "+1/+0" boost is expressed a bit differently than it is today. Also, referring to how much mana has been spent on an ability is not something you see much in modern cards. However, the most prominent difference to modern cards is that the concept of sacrificing permanents was not yet established, and instead they were just "destroyed."

This was, in fact, the exact same destruction effect that eg. lethal damage would cause, or any spell that says "destroy." This meant that if the condition triggers and destroys Dragon Whelp, it could be saved via regeneration (a game mechanic that has existed since the very beginning.) I don't know if this was the original intent of the card's designers.

Note how the condition on mana amount has no time limit on it (ie. that the limit is only for mana spent on one turn.) This was most probably an oversight, and the original intent was for it to be only during one turn.

This is the version printed in Revised:

The maximum mana condition has now been fixed to apply to one turn only. Curiously, the "+1/+0" effect now specifies no time limit. (I'm assuming that at this point it was kind of implied that all such effects apply only until end of turn unless otherwise specified.)

Even more curiously, the creature is now "killed" rather than "destroyed" at the end of turn. This seems to be a rather non-standard term, which was quickly changed back in the next reprint.

This was printed in Fourth Edition. This seems to be the most "complete" and unambiguous wording for the pre-6th-edition terminology. The "+1/+0" is again until end of turn, and it's again "destroy."

Curiously, the third-person style of the rules text of the previous versions has been changed to a second-person style.

This is the version printed in Time Spiral. There's a quite significant change in the text, which is now much closer to modern terminology. It's now "gets +1/+0", instead of referring to spent mana it refers to how many times the ability has been activated, and it's now "sacrifice" instead of "destroy."

These are, technically speaking, functional changes. If the last part activates, it's not possible to save it anymore via regeneration (because regeneration only affects destruction effects, and sacrificing isn't one.) And hypothetically if you could activate the ability without paying its mana cost, or if you could pay it with something else than red mana, it wouldn't now make any difference (unlike in earlier versions which talked about spent mana.)

This is the most modern printed version. "At the end of turn" has been changed to the more unambiguous "at the beginning of the end step" (which makes a difference in some cases) and "this ability has been played" has been changed to the more modern "activated."

This is not, however, the most up-to-date version of the card. The rules text has been updated in Oracle, which says:

R: Dragon Whelp gets +1/+0 until end of turn. If this ability has been activated four or more times this turn, sacrifice Dragon Whelp at the beginning of the next end step.

There's a subtle difference, and not only in the order of the wording. Notice how it now says "at the beginning of the next end step." The word "next" makes a functional difference. (In practice it means that if the fourth activation happens after the beginning of the end step, it will have to be sacrificed at the beginning of the end step of the next turn. The printed version did not have this consequence.)