how can you tell if pokemon cards are first edition to Spot a Fake 1st Charizard Why does my “1st” edition

This is called fizzling . Smart opponents will try to make your targets illegal before your triggers resolve

While most decks are looking for a good mix of lands and spells in their opening hands, you are looking for a hand that contains a dredge card, an enabler, and at least two lands, one of which produces green

The short version is that both are important elements for evaluating a card, and these specific tutors represent an extreme in card quality for an incredibly minimal cost, which is what makes them so powerful

Why is this so hard

That's not to say that everything in the set was dynamite, but there were so many hits that it's often hard to remember all the strong cards in the set