Nice. More seriously, I always wondered if you could learn something about how the creators approach Weiss from where cards slotted into their set. Are certain positions reserved for certain types of cards? Has this changed over time? It’s always hard to choose a starting point, because it always seems arbitrary. Since it’s arbitrary anyway, let’s start with something stupid. However, starting with this stupid number reveals some interesting notes about how Weiss sets are structured and how that structure changed in the early years of the game.
Data
A detailed list of every set released is available at Heart of the Cards. The site also has translations that are sorted by card number, making finding cards numbered 69 pretty trivial. This data is combined with the previous data set I used to identify if the genre of sets had changed to get date information. I also collected the level, colour, and character type of each card.
This analysis covers all sets that have a card number 69 in them that were released before the date this post was written. This means only full boosters made the cut. There are 132 Weiss Cards that sport the number 69. The years with the most 69 cards were 2016 and 2018 with 14. The year with the fewest 69 cards was 2011 with 6[1].
The colour of 69
The vast majority of cards numbered 69 are red. Please look forward to my shitpost article about how red is the best colour in Weiss. Of the 132 cards numbered 69, 107 of them are red, or 81% of them. When you look at how sets are commonly structured, this makes perfect sense. Weiss sets are typically 100 cards with 25 cards of each colour. The colours are always ordered: Yellow, Green, Red, and Blue. Therefore, in a typical set, red occupies cards numbered 51-75. The number 69 falls in that range.
What’s more interesting is when the card 69 is not red. This generally occurs when a colour is omitted from a set. When this occurs, one or more of the colours pick up the slack. This usually moves the starting position for red forward from 50 closer to 30. This can also move the end point for red further up too if red did not receive many of the cards from the omitted colour. If this is the case, 69 will fall under blue instead of red. If red was the recipient of extra cards, 69 will remain in red. There is only one case where 69 fell into green or yellow, and that is in the large original Kancolle set. That set had 150 cards split relatively evenly between the four colours. The midpoint of the set was card 75, putting 69 solidly into green.
What kinds of cards slotted in at 69?
While 69 has been solidly red over the history of Weiss, the type of card that sits in slot 69 is a more interesting question. Slot 69 is near the end of reds cards in a typical set, so it runs the gamut of character, event, and climax. In sets with 25 cards per colour and each set colour having three climaxes, card 69 sits on the threshold of where characters end and events begin! If the set has four climaxes and three events in each colour, card 69 is the first red event. If the set only has two events or fewer climaxes, slot 69 is the last red character card.
Every full set from 2008 was a set with at least three events, so every card in slot 69 was a red event. However, the set design methodology changed pretty quickly as the creators of the game noticed that players used less events than they anticipated. In 2009, only three of the ten slot 69’s contained an event, the rest were characters. From then on, events in slot 69 were rare.
The most common card in slot 69 were characters. These characters tend to either be vanillas or back-ups given how late they are in Red’s print order. The vast majority of them are commons for this reason. However, the Blue 69s tend to be of higher rarity due to the fact that they are higher in blue’s print order. Rarity for blue 69’s run the gamut from Common to SSP. Slot 69 containing a climax card is also indicative of an odd card order, but may occur if red is smaller in a set with more of one of the other colours or if a colour is omitted entirely.
Are there any notable numbers 69?
There are a few:
- Lucky Star: Konata and Kagami: It’s a vanilla, but it’s a combo that is commonly shipped. So take that as you may if you are not the police.
- Haruhi: Trouble Girl Haruhi is the set’s burn combo that shows up in most Haruhi based builds. A surprisingly good level 3 for a common.
- Crayon Shin-Chan: Shin Chan’s penis. Not actually, but that is on the first card of the set.
- Love Live Sunshine: “Mirai no Bokura wa Shitteru yo” Kanan Matsuura: A runner that gets size when you have low stock.
- Bang Dream Girl’s Band Party: “Pure Passion” Rinko Shirokane: A really good backrow card for BangDream that allows you to change your trigger on resonate and has a good brainstorm.
- Sneaker Bunko: Freya, First Royal Princess of Jioral: I would be more surprised if the card in slot 69 for Sneaker Bunko wasn’t a sex act at this point.
Wrapping Up
Turns out that choosing a stupid card number to profile lea to some real insight. Card slots, even those close to a boundary between colours in a standard set layout, will tend to have consistent colours. This means that one could use the colour of a card slot that is typically the last card in a colour, a multiple of 25, to detect an odd colour structure reliably. The type of card can also vary depending on set structure. The decline of events in this slot showed that events were printed less in general. At the end of the day, some of these cards were pretty good too. I hope y’all enjoyed farting around with card numbers, next time, I think I’ll pick one of the boundary cases.
If you enjoyed us diving deep into a single card slot, check out our players live every Wednesday and Friday night on Twitch! Wednesday Streams start at 6pm MST and Friday streams start at 6:30 MST
[1] The prior year had 9. How do I 96 guyz?
Wild Wild Weiss 
One thought on “Weiss by the numbers: Facts about cards numbered 69”