Back in 1998, Wizards of the Coast was experimenting on a way to increase the attractiveness of Magic cards by applying a foil layer on their front side. For this reason, one card from each color template was selected from the latest Magic set, Exodus, and a series of test prints were issued. Due to the absence of multicolored cards in Exodus, one additional card, Pygmy Hippo, was added from another set, Visions. The test prints feature different grades of intensity of the foil layer and vary set symbols and the shoorting star symbol to cover the whole spectrum of possible templates.

Aside from the foil project cards, few other test prints have been leaked into the public. There is a Beta Lightning Bolt which features a metallic plaque professionally embedded into the backside of the card. Furthermore, there is a high quality copy of a Fork made entirely of brass. Both cards are believed to be unofficial, and maybe unique, third-party items created as samples to offer Wizards of the Coast alternate card creation techniques in hope of engaging in business. A better view of the brass Fork can be gained in a video created by of Marc Gembinski (MPG format).

The Japanese Tempest Horned Turtle card has been given a holographic treatment, appearing as a pattern of crystalline triangles on top of the card surface. This card has existed in other languages, including English, but most copies have been destroyed. It is possibly another experimental foil card, preceding the Exodus foil project. An even earlier attempt to use the hologram technology for Magic cards has been made on a single Dragon Whelp card, where the original artwork had been replaced by a separate hologram  embedded into the cardstock. This method had supposedly been rejected because of its high production costs.

The textless foil Lighting Bolt and Serra Avatar are one of few test cards which had been added to Japanese Urza's Destiny print sheets. While most of them were destroyed, a handful of them survived and were erroneously distributed in Japanese Urza's Destiny boosters. More miscellaneous test prints are known to exist.

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Metal Fork video

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