I'm speaking of unique cards. I know there are over 16,000 cards but many of these are the soul attendants and evolving wilds, cards that do the exact same thing as other cards with a different name. Has anybody seen an estimate on this?
The "functional reprint" question is very tricky. I'm not sure what purpose that's for, and it really depends on how you define functional reprint - whether you use Wizards' policy for the Reprint list or a more broad definition that counts Civic Wayfinder to be equivalent to Borderland Ranger.
And nowhere close if you consider non-English and foil cards. New expansions have 18 different versions of each card.
To answer the TC somewhat, reprints and functional reprints aren't too common. I'd estimate 1-5% of the unique list are functional reprints, so ~10-11k cards with unique functionality.
The "functional reprint" question is very tricky. I'm not sure what purpose that's for, and it really depends on how you define functional reprint - whether you use Wizards' policy for the Reprint list or a more broad definition that counts Civic Wayfinder to be equivalent to Borderland Ranger.
To answer the TC somewhat, reprints and functional reprints aren't too common. I'd estimate 1-5% of the unique list are functional reprints, so ~10-11k cards with unique functionality.