Alliances Magic The Gathering Cards
Alliances was the fourteenth Magic: The Gathering set and eighth expert
level set, released in June 1996. It was released 8 months after
Homelands, which is the longest gap between expansion sets in the
history of the game. It is now the middle set in the Ice Age block
since the July 2006 release of Coldsnap. Prior to the Coldsnap release
it was the third and final set in the Ice Age block.
Although Alliances did not feature new keywords, it did introduce the
alternate casting cost mechanic. This mechanic, printed in each of the
five colors, allowed the player to cast spells without paying a mana
cost. Alliances alternately allowed a player to remove a card of the
same color as the spell from the game; thus, the first batch of
alternate casting cost spells were also known as "pitch" spells, a
player could "pitch" a card from hand to play the spell. Force of Will,
for example, allowed a player to remove a blue card in hand from the
game and pay 1 life instead of paying its 3UU casting cost. This pitch
spell went on to become a popular tournament staple.
Alliances experimented with different levels of rarities of cards. It
was also the only set besides Chronicles to be printed in 12 card
packs, making it difficult to utilize in drafts with standard 15 card
packs.
Alliances was the last set to feature multiple non-basic-land cards
with more than one artistic conception, a feature begun in Fallen
Empires as a way to add variety to the multiple copies of common cards
that a typical player would collect. Many players complained that they
were unable to identify certain cards by a single distinctive artwork.
Wizards of the Coast rethought their policy and have since limited
cards within a set to a single artist's representation, with four
exceptions: The cards Skyship Weatherlight, Tahngarth, Talruum Hero and
Ertai, The Corrupted, all from Planeshift expansion, as well as
Brothers Yamazaki, from the Champions of Kamigawa expansion.
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