Editing Booster Packs

[[File:boosters.jpg|thumb|right|600px|One of each of the booster packs produced over the course of the game's lifetime.]]

'''Booster Packs''' were the primary distribution method for cards in the [[Lord of the Rings TCG]]. In this game, boosters are randomized packages of 11 cards -- 7 Common (C), 3 Uncommon (U), and 1 Rare (R), with caveats for each major era.

== Movie Era ==
During [[Movie Block]] (the first 10 sets), each card had two versions: standard and Diffraction [[Foil]].  Foils were inserted randomly into booster packs, replacing one of the Common cards.  In [[The Fellowship of the Ring]] set (and presumably for all movie-era sets), the odds of which card was inserted as a foil varied based on its rarity, which was as follows<ref>Information pulled from pre-release FOTR information on the Wayback: [http://web.archive.org/web/20020417203305/http://www.decipher.com:80/lordoftherings/articles/foilprogram.html]</ref>:

* 1 Common foil every 13 packs
* 1 Uncommon foil every 18 packs
* 1 Rare foil every 26 packs

Each of these chances was calculated independently, which results in each booster having a ~17% chance of having at least one foil, which is about 1 in 6.  This 1 in 6 chance is what Decipher advertised on its website, promotional material, and on the booster wrappers themselves. 
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== Draft Packs ==
In [[The Fellowship of the Ring]] and [[The Two Towers]], boxes of Draft Pack product were also produced.  Each of these packs had 29 cards and were themed around batches of cards--there would be runs of 5-10 cards common to a single culture in a row.  Each pack had 1 rare, but the remaining distribution is uncertain.  These packs were intended to be used during draft events (and to offload extra printed product). 


== Set 9 - Reflections ==

[[Reflections]] booster packs were a different beast, containing 18 cards apiece and largely being used as a vehicle for dumping excess print stock from earlier sets.  The 52-card Reflections set contained 26 Rare and 26 Rare Plus (R+) cards, with each booster breakdown as follows<ref>Information pulled from the Reflection information page on Decipher's website on the Wayback: [http://web.archive.org/web/20061006194920/http://www.decipher.com/indexes/index-lotrreflections.html]</ref>:

* 2 cards from the Reflections set (most Rare, some randomly replaced with Rare Plus)
* 16 cards (Rare, Uncommon, or Common) pulled from overstock on the following sets:
** [[The Fellowship of the Ring]]
** [[Mines of Moria]]
** [[Realms of the Elf-lords]]
** [[The Two Towers]]
** [[Battle of Helm's Deep]]
** [[Ents of Fangorn]]
* International overstock inserted randomly (anecdotally, around 1 card per pack)

In addition to the standard distribution above, some packs (at an unknown rarity) were so-called God Packs, where every card included in the booster was an overstocked foil.  It's difficult to pin down how many of these existed, but they are well-attested by the community.  They can't have been more common than 1 in every 20 boxes or so, and possibly rarer.  

== Shadows Era ==

With the release of [[Shadows]], the parallel foil sets were discontinued and replaced with the concept of Rare Foils (RF), a.k.a. [[Legends]] cards.  Rare cards were randomly replaced with one of 18 RF cards selected from among the set's most iconic cards.  With the release of [[Black Rider]], this system was expanded to also have a chance of instead replacing the Rare with a [[Legends Masterworks]] card, which was one of the RF cards treated with alternate template art.  This art was originally developed for [[The Countdown Collection]] and was modified slightly to be used here.  


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