Chronicles
Chronicles was the twelfth Magic: The Gathering set, released in July 1995.
The set is notable for being the only tournament-legal non-Core Set that introduced no new cards. All cards in the set were from the Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark expansions (14 from Arabian Nights, 21 from Antiquities, 71 from Legends, 19 from The Dark). Each card was white-bordered, while the cards in their original sets were black-bordered. Also, each card carried the expansion symbol from the set it was originally printed in. However, it was not considered an official expansion of the game.
Chronicles was printed so that new players, and other players who were unable to buy the sets originally due to their quick sellouts, would be able to have their own cards from those sets. The set collaborators were careful not to put the extra-powerful cards (like Arabian Nights' Juzam Djinn) into the set, so that those cards' market values would not be affected. Nonetheless, many popular cards, such as Legends Elder Dragons, were included. Also, some cards in the set would prove to become powerful as more players experimented with them. Arabian Nights' Erhnam Djinn, reprinted in Chronicles, proved to be exceptionally useful in concert with the 4th Edition's Armageddon, and a powerful deck (named Erhnamgeddon) arose from this combination.
Bill Rose, Vice President of R&D:
| “ | Wizards has no plans for another reprint expansion. We will continue to publish new editions of the Core Set with new and different reprints, as well as include reprints in expert-level expansions.
We're happy with the Standard cardpool size maxing out at around 1500. Two three-set blocks plus one Core Set is just over 1500 cards. |
” |
Set details
It was sold in booster packs of twelve cards (9 from the commons print sheet and 3 from the uncommons print sheet).
The set's rarity breakdown is: 40 commons (3@C4, 30@C3, 7@C2), 30 Uncommons (25@U3, 5@C1), 46 Rares (46@U1). Each of the C4 rarity cards has 4 pieces of art, making collectors view this as a 125 card set.
Chronicles was printed in English and Japanese only.
A similar set called Renaissance was released into German, French and Italian markets.
Misprint
- Wall of Shadows has the Antiquities expansion symbol when it should have the Legends symbol.[1]
Reprints and rarity
References
- ↑ Magic Arcana (Friday, July 19, 2002). "Anvil of Shadows". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.