Talk:Alliances

Alliances rarity breakdown

The Alliances_Checklist.txt at Wizards site lists only 9 C3's and Gorilla Shaman at U5 (U3+U2). Does anybody know if this is correct or the current rarity breakdown with 10 C3's and 5 U6's, which Cold Alice reestablished without a comment after I tried to change it? The Wizards checklists are known to be flawed (for example the homelands one). Sloth 15:17, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

I find that Magic Librarities information is more reliable then Wizard's. --GeoMike 15:26, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Where Does it list rarity breakdowns? Sloth 15:47, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Not Magic Librarities - I'm drawing a blank as to the correct website, I'll find it tonight when I get home. --GeoMike 16:16, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Maybe you mean crystalkeep? Sloth 16:29, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I got the information from them http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/ --GeoMike 18:15, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Well at the moment the rarity breakdown in the article is neither the one from crystalkeep nor the one from wizards, but it's still quite believeable because it would mean 110 cards per printing sheet for every rarity. Maybe someone with more knowledge then us two should comment on this. Sloth 19:31, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

I have two sources about the rarity breakdown. One is a checklist that was included in Scrye Magazine when Alliances was released (which I still have) and the other is crystalkeep. However, for crystalkeep, this is the link that must be checked: http://www.crystalkeep.com/magic/lists/files/list-al.pdf. It's the one called "Fancy PDF" dated June 1997. The text version from July 1998 is incorrect and Kjeldoran escort is listed as C2 where it should be C3. My scrye Magazine checklist is identical to the fancy PDF on crystalkeep. Back then Ice Age and Alliances set had equal cards per commonity for each color. Alliances was printed on sheets on 110 cards and Ice Age on sheets of 121. For Alliances, the booster pack breakdown was 1 rare, 3 uncommon and 8 common. So, for every rare sheet, there was 3 uncommon sheets and 8 common sheets. Thus, with 110 boosters, you would get the following cards in quantity order

- 2 of each 46 rare at R2 46x2 (92 rares)

- 6 of each 3 rare at R6 6x3 (18 rares;+ 92 above = 110 = 1 sheet)

- 6 of each 40 uncommon at U2 6x40 (240 uncommons)

- 16 of each 40 common at C2 16x40 (640 commons)(these had 2 pictures and were actually C1 each)

- 18 of each 5 uncommon at U6 18x5 (90 uncommons; +240 above = 330 uncommons = 3 sheets)(these had 2 pictures each were actually 10 at U3)

- 24 of each 10 common at C3 24x10 (240 commons; + 640 above = 880 commons = 8 sheets)(these had 2 pictures and one was C1 and the other C2)

As can be seen in bold above, there were actually five different rarities in Alliances (U2 being equal to R6). Many sources group Alliances rarities the following way : - Rares are the R2's - Uncommons are the R6's and U2's - Commons are the C2's, U6's and C3's Now, how should it be shown on Wiki? Should cards be grouped by quantity or by what sheet type they were printed on. I'll leave that up to you. --Cold Alice 21:42, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanx for the info Cold Alice! I think your source is quite believeable, so I leave the breakdown as is, but group the cards by quantity as was done in the other sets articles. Sloth 07:57, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

As extra info, you'll notice that the spoiler list http://www.wizards.com/magic/generic/cardlists/Alliances.txt on WOTC site contradicts the checklist http://www.wizards.com/magic/generic/cardlists/Alliances_Checklist.txt. Kjeldoran escort is listed as common 2/1 (i.e. first version is C2 and second version is C1) on the spoiler list while both versions are listed as common 1 on the checklist.--Cold Alice 20:10, 18 August 2008 (EDT)