Shards of Alara
Shards of Alara
five-shard crystal
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| Released |
October 3, 2008 |
| Size |
249 cards (15 Mythic Rare, 53 Rare, 60 Uncommon, 101 Common, 20 Basic Lands) |
| Keywords |
Exalted,Unearth,Devour,Cycling
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| Designers |
Bill Rose (lead), Aaron Forsythe, Devin Low, Mark Rosewater, Mark Gottlieb, Brian Tinsman, Mike Turian, Matt Place, Erik Lauer, Alexis Janson, Ken Nagle, Mark Globus, Graeme Hompkins, Noah Weil, Mike Mikaelian |
| Developers |
Devin Low (lead) |
| Development code |
Rock |
| Expansion code |
ALA |
| First set in the Alara block |
| Shards of Alara |
Conflux |
Alara Reborn |
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Conflux
five-shard shield
|
| Released |
February 6, 2009 |
| Size |
145 cards (10 Mythic Rare, 35 Rare, 40 Uncommon, 60 Common) |
| Keywords |
Domain |
| Mechanics |
5 color cards / abilities |
| Designers |
Bill Rose (lead), Mark Globus, Mark Gottlieb, Kenneth Nagle |
| Developers |
Mike Turian (lead), Graeme Hopkins, Erik Lauer, Devin Low |
| Development code |
Paper |
| Expansion code |
CON |
| Second set in the Alara block |
| Shards of Alara |
Conflux |
Alara Reborn |
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Alara Reborn
bound shards
|
| Released |
April 30, 2009 |
| Size |
145 cards (10 Mythic Rare, 35 Rare, 40 Uncommon, 60 Common) |
| Keywords |
Cascade, Cycling, Landcycling |
| Mechanics |
Cascade, Cycling, Landcycling, Exalted, Unearth, Devour, Hybrid |
| Designers |
Aaron Forsythe (lead), Mark Gottlieb, Alexis Janson, Brian Tinsman |
| Developers |
Matt Place (lead), Dave Guskin, Alexis Janson, Erik Lauer, Mike Turian
|
| Development code |
Scissors |
| Expansion code |
ARB |
| Third set in the Alara block |
| Shards of Alara |
Conflux |
Alara Reborn |
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The Alara block is a Magic: The Gathering expert-level expansion block, consisting of the expansion sets Shards of Alara (October 3, 2008),Conflux (February 6, 2009) and Alara Reborn (April 30, 2009). The Alara block focuses on multicolored cards, in particular cards with three or more colors.
Bill Rose was its lead designer for Shards of Alara, and Devin Low was its lead developer. Shards is a multicolor set which revolves around three-color combinations. Its tagline is, "Five worlds share one fate." The set consists of 249 cards, with 20 being basic lands, 101 being common, 60 uncommon, 53 rare, and 15 mythic rare. It was the first set to contain cards of the mythic rarity.
The design of Shards of Alara focuses on five different "shards" which originally formed a single world. Mechanically, each shard consists of one of the five magic colors and its two allied colors. Each shard has its own key worded mechanic or strong overarching theme, and its own creature types. The five shards were designed separately by three person design teams.
Shards of Alara introduced several changes in Wizards' design and publishing approach. Sets from Shards forward have a smaller number of cards, to reduce the size of the card pool for Block and Standard constructed tournament formats. A new level of rarity, "Mythic Rare", was added; mythic rares replace a booster pack's rare card in 1 out of 8 packs. Also, as part of a move to make products more beginner friendly, booster packs include a basic land in place of one of the commons, and pre-constructed decks will be rebranded as "Intro Packs" including a 41-card preconstructed deck and one booster pack. There were design changes to the fat pack, which for Shards of Alara includes five distinct box arts and the replacement of the usual set novel with an excerpt from A Planeswalker's Guide to Alara.Shards was the last set for which tournament packs were released. These changes held for Conflux and Alara Reborn.
Shards of Alara also brings new planeswalker cards to the game. The first multicolored planeswalker to be revealed publicly was the red and green Sarkhan Vol. It was followed shortly by the white and red Ajani Vengeant, which is a new form of Ajani Goldmane from the Lorwyn set, and was the promotional card at Shards prerelease events and Launch Parties in September/October 2008.
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Wikipedia
