MtG: Arabian Nights print run

[nicholas.j.sauer]

WARNING! The following article contains detailed information on the
print run for Arabian Nights. If you are one of those people who like
mystery in the game don't read any further as this article will take
some of the magic out of it for you.

Well, it took me a little longer than I would have liked but, I figured
out how they did the Arabian Nights print run. Before I start I want to
give a big thank you to Bruce Schlickbernd for giving me the key that
unlocked this whole damn puzzle (namely that the Mountain card had to
be on the common printing sheet).

Following how they did the print run for MtG (see my previous posting) there
are two sheets of 121 cards each. Now, the first sheet is the common sheet.
It contains the following cards in the following quantities:

4 each of: Dandan, Giant Tortoise, Fishliver Oil, Bird Maiden, Desert Nomads,
Hurr Jackal, Rukh Egg, Army of Allah, Piety, War Elephant, Cuombajj Witches,
Stone-Throwing Devils, Oubliette, Ghazban Ogre, Sandstorm, and Metamorphosis.

5 each of: Flying Men, Unstable Mutation, Kird Ape, Camel, Moorish Cavalry,
Erg Raiders, Hasran Ogress, Nafs Asp, Wyluli Wolf.

11 Deserts and 1 accidental Mountain.

There were about 30,000 sheets of these printed up so there are a grand total
of 120,000 of each of the four timer cards, 150,000 of each of the five
timers, 330,000 Desert cards and 30,000 of the Mountain cards.

The second sheet is a not-common sheet of 121 cards. It includes:

3 each of: Brass Man, Flying Carpet, Jeweled Bird, Sandals of Abdallah,
Merchant Ship, Serendib Efreet, Sinbad, Magnetic Mountain, Ali Baba,
Abu Ja Far, Eye for an Eye, Khabal Ghoul, Sorceress Queen, Cyclone,
Desert Twister, Bazaar of Baghdad, City of Brass, Library of Alexandria,
and Oasis.

2 each of all the remaining cards.

There were about 10,000 sheets of these printed up (you get two not-common
and six common card in each pack, which is why the three to one ratio).
This gives a total of 30,000 for each of the three timer cards and 20,000
for each of the two timers. What through me for a loop early on was that
I was going by statistical data and the Mountains kept looking like
not commons. It wasn't until Bruce said that they were probably on the
common sheet that all the numbers quickly fell into place.

I should note that the categorization on the not-common sheet might be in
error as I had less of a statistical data base to work with for the not
commons.

Since there was a total of 40,000 sheets of 121 cards each printed, the
grand total for Arabian Nights is about 4,840,000 cards. However, see my
notes on print runs in the MtG article before you take this number (or any
of the above) as gospel.

Nick Sauer

p.s. The really tragic part is that I haven't even gotten my Arabian Nights
cards yet.