@Klooher, yes it's possible to scam people. Most of us don't do that. If we were, it'd be pretty poor business to tell people what we were doing and how to do it themselves. We do it because it's a fun puzzle, that allows us to explore another aspect of the game we all love. And, although it's by no means the main intent, we raise awareness of mapping. These threads popping up as people post info attract others attention and get them to learn about it. I can't tell you how many people come into each season's set and ask "does this actually work?" It's probably half the posts in any given thread. If we can show them that "this is surprisingly easy to do" (once the map's solved) or "hey, it's a really bad idea to buy loose packs online," then that's a plus for the magic community as a whole.
I've mapped a box of RTR. It's possible; it's fun; most of all, it's great to hand people packs and say "hey, enjoy the _________" then watch them react to opening it. It's a wonderful way for people to learn about mapping and see it in action. I can tell you for certain they'll all check twice before buying loose packs!
Re-reading this, it sounds a little mean. I'm sorry about that. I'm not always the best with words/making them come off precisely the way I want. Just wanted to try and explain my (and I believe others) motivation for what we do here.
For anyone posting box information, it will greatly help everyone working on the map if you could post which sleeve each rare came from.
With this information we should be able to complete the map extremely quickly.
For example, you could mark each card with the first initial of the guild that the sleeve belongs to, (G.D.S.O.B. for the Gruul, Dimir, Simic, Orzhov or Boros guild sleeve.)
Or you can use anything to represent each sleeve (numbers if you want) as long as it is consistent through that particular box.
For this (sleeves), I'd recommend using the last number of the sleeve ID. If you look at the back of a pack, with the barcode on the upper right, there's a number on the bottom left corner. The 5 sleeve designs are the last digit of this number. For instance: A pack of RTR with NivMizzit on the front is #15048886000003 EN. Golgari Guildmage ends in 4 instead of 3, etc. This should allow fairly consistant numbering for everyone. I don't have anything from GTC (forgot to keep the sleeves) so I can't tell you what the are currently.
since I played Magic some years ago, I just wanted to get back into some competetive play and I read this box mapping threads attentively.
I would be grateful if you can answer me two little questions:
1. Is it possible to do this mapping on cases or displays manufactured in belgium? cause I don't want to pay ~30$ shipping fees for every single display overtime. So in addition is it useful to buy this book from ross in case you're living in europe? I don't really have the time to figure it out myself
Probably I will post some "belgium" box content on friday when I get them if it helps but I also read that these apps from Vinz are only working for us-made boxes...
Sad story I would buy all 4 otherwise
2. Once I get into the whole technique of mapping, am I able to create new maps for new editions? Maybe I can help you to improve programs because i studied some parts of operations research and it seems like these boxes follow certain patterns...
Thanks
& kind regards
As far as I know, Wizards isn't/stopped doing a Belgium printing. Check your boxes to be sure but throughout RTR we never saw a Belgium printed box. Or, the boxes were printed there but use the USA mapping. Traditionally, the Belgium maps were a lot easier to break, which may have inspired this change.
Have you put any thought into how the foils are currently being placed into boxes? I was thinking of going back through RTR and seeing if I could find patterns in the cases. They apparently come from sheets similar to the foils. Maybe they run different tracks for Common/Uncommon/Rare&Mythic rares.
Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to check the cases to see if they follow the pattern of any of the rare tracks.
I worked on this (foils) for RTR. It's actually one of the easier methods to determine row shift, if you're working with full boxes. The brief version, (I don't feel like digging through the RTR mapping thread for it) is: Commons occur every 8 packs, Uncommons every 20, and Rares every 32. Rares occur 2 pack before commons, uncommons are 1 pack before (when they match, 20 doesn't divide into 8 well). There's also occasionally foils which I couldn't predict.
Commons, Uncommons, and Rare foils do follow patterns. It's easiest to find with commons as you have enough data in a single box. For UC and Rares, you need several (ie a case). There are perks to this, in that maps have followed from box to box in a case. I have yet to determine a pattern within a case, mainly due to lack of foil case data for RTR. (I found 2 among the 100+ boxes) The best tip I can offer is try really really hard to find pictures of foil uncut sheets. There was one for M13 and I think one cropped up for RTR later on. They're given away as prizes at some events, and it's a piece of cake to work from those.
As for GTC, from the info so far, dnelegend's box seems to follow the foil pattern perfectly, with rows 7 and 8 switched. Not as sure about thatsnailguy's box. (No offense meant, sometimes these things get completely garbled.)
And, on a personal note, if anyone's willing to record common's/uncommons data, I'd be super appreciative. There was a bit of data in the RTR mapping and it got me interested. Unfortunately, a box isn't a ton of data to work with (2-3 on the other hand might be). If you do, it's easier in my opinion to record card number rather than write out each name, but I'd take anything I can get. If you just want to record UC, I'll take it, heck I'll even take individual pack data for commons (PM me that, I doubt everyone here wants the spam)
For decisive proof, I've mapped my own box of RTR. It's fairly easy to do, once you get the hang of it. Mapping is probably a part of why Angel of Serenity and Jace 4.0 dropped so much. As to what you do with sealed packs when you're done, it's up to you. Personally, it's kinda fun to trade people a sealed version of a card. (The looks on peoples faces and the responses you get when giving them are amazing!)
And thank you yowamushi, I'd missed the post for GTC mapping, it'll be great to get started.
He does what any Azusa deck is supposed to do and ramps up. I stay alive by throwing wrath's down as fast as I can pull them. Several turn in, he plays Genesis Wave for 20. I'm sitting with 6 mana open and a Reiterate in hand. So, this being exactly (far, far beyond) what you hope for, I copy/buyback his wave. Mine resolves, I get my 20 cards and, low and behold, I have 8 mana open! So, with his still on the stack, Reiterate/buyback again! I end up repeating this a total of 4 times (not enough stuff in the library for me to pull another one). In the process I've manged to pull out almost all my lands and have a good pile of mana open. I also have these two gems: Planar Portal and Elixir of Immortality. I crack the elixir, use the portal to pull Comet Storm out of my brand new sparkly library, count up my mana (Doubling Cube played a part here), and Comet Storm for the win.
Or, put more simply: Genesis Wave for 20; In response, win.
And the best part: He still refuses to play Genesis Wave against me.
It's weird, cause I can see it perfectly. Can you see it now? I haven't changed anything, but may be you opened the thread while I was correcting a tag mistake in the main post.
I'm not seeing anything either (not even an "Invalid attachment specified...") when I use Firefox, and a not much more (an icon indicating a picture files is supposed to be there) when I try with Chrome. The rest work fine for me though.
First off, since you box is made in belgium, you will have to use the Belgium map that is posted earlier in the thread than the map I posted(which is for USA boxes). I will start off by saying that I am not a master with the Belgium map and it seems to be somewhat off, but I am not sure. I know the Belgium boxes can vary quite a bit as well. I looked at your box and I am not entirely sure what is going on in it. Would you mind opening a few more packs for me. In particular, could you open the packs in the left column, rows 7 and 9. They are on either side of Craterhoof. It is possible there might be a Bonfire or Temporal Mastery in there, but I am not sure. Could you also open the packs from rows 5 and 11 from the center column? Hopefully I will have a better idea what is going on after that. I am guessing that row 2 of the center column is Slayers' Stronghold, row 5 of the center column is Spirit Away, and row 12 of the center column is Herald of War. I would also guess that row 3 left column is Conjurer's Closet, row 1 left column is Descendants' Path. I am not sure about any of those, but they are educated guesses. Hope it helps and hope that with some more information I can tell you what the rest of the cards in the box are.
I worked on it a bit as well. I have agreement with you for most of the center column. I suspect the left column, rows 7 and 9 are Druid's Repository, and Silverblade Paladin respectively. If I guessed it right, your box will look something like (prediction are in caps):
Left:
BURN AT THE STAKE or TYRANT OF DISCORD
Terminus
CONJURER'S CLOSET
Dread Slaver
Lunar Mystic
DRUID'S REPOSITORY
Craterhoof Behemoth
SLIVERBLADE PALADIN
Cavern of Souls
DEMONLORD OF ASHMOUTH
TYRANT OF DISCORD
Malignus
Center:
Vexing Devil
SLAYER'S STRONGHOLD
Terminus
?
SPIRIT AWAY
Angel of Glory
Otherworld Atlas
Gloom Surgen
Descendant's Path
?
Cavern of Souls
? (May be Herald of War)
Right, if Herald IS in the last pack of Center:
?
SPIRIT AWAY
HOUND OF GRISELBRAND
?
Griselbrand
RIDERS OF GAVONY
?
DEMONLORD OF ASHMOUTH
KILLING WAVE
?
REFORGE THE SOUL
DEMONIC RISING
Right, if Herald IS NOT in the last pack of Center:
BRUNA,LIGHT OF ALABASTER
?
HOUND OF GRISELBRAND
?
Griselbrand
?
CHAMPION OF LAMBHOLT
?
KILLING WAVE
?
REFORGE THE SOUL
?
Looks like you've managed to pull most of the good stuff at this point (baring whatever portion we can't see in the right column). As to mapping the rest of the right, look at the pack directly below Decedent's Path (Center, row 10). Compare it to the map to see if it looks like a portion of either this:
Otherworld Atlas
Vexing Devil
Tyrant of Discord
Dread Slaver
Harvester of Souls
Stolen Goods
Revenge of the Hunted
Somberwald Sage
In short, commons/lands show up every 8 packs (after accounting for row displacement), uncommons and occasional lands every 20, and rares every 32 (although occasionally they're every 16)
And for those just showing up, the map is Post #149
Figure I could help out too now that I've found something. Managed to figure out a bit on foils and cases. Nothing too special once the map was solved! Thanks a TON jmalex, you're awesome!
Foils:
If packs are arranged by the map (ie remove the row distortions) foils are added into packs in a very definite pattern. The spacing between them is:
-Commons and lands: Every 8 packs gives a foil common or land (there are 7 packs between, following the map order right to left, top to bottom by row).
-Uncommons: Every 20 packs (19 between one and the next). There will occasionally be lands as well as 80 UC doesn't fill a sheet of 11x11. The uncommon track "starts" one pack to the right of a common. It returns to agreement after with 5 cycles of the Commons or 2 cycles of the Uncommons
-Rares: Foil rares are added in every 32 packs (31 in between). Unless you're rather lucky, you'll probably only get 1 per box. They will always be found 2 packs to the right of a rare.
Other foils. Seemingly at random there's a few foils I haven't been able to account for. I'm not sure where they come from and they don't seem to follow a pattern I can determine. For the most part they're uncommons, but there's been a rare as well.
Case Information:
A case of 6 boxes contains two sets of maps. 3 boxes of each case will match one another and trace the map from one to another. Foils follow the map through this as well and follow the sheet photo pandafarmer posted:
Here is a picture of a foil rare sheet... and no I don't know of a better picture.
From top to bottom of a case, foils are placed by row from right to left.
I have not looked at foil common/uncommon patterns, if someone runs across a pic of either uncut sheet, it'd be awesome to get our hands on. I also haven't been able to determine which boxes in a case follow which map. It takes a while to dig though the data and sort it all properly. Also of note, I'm just working on the data posted here. I haven't tried mapping this myself on a box. Might try in a few days and I'll post how it goes if so.
Row Displacement
Also of interest. From what I've seen, row displacements don't seem fully random. Lets assume we start from an unmodified box as this is what the factory does. If row displacement occurs (I can't tell when at this point) they will pull rows 1 and/or 7 and shift them down (the same amount). So, if we have rows: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and they shift both down 2 we would end up with a final box that we open that looks like: 2,3,1,4,5,6,8,9,7,10,11,12.
Ah, ok. Yeah that's making more sense now. I was actually able to string all of my lists together and assemble them into the map you posted so, looks like I was on the right track at least. Had the patterns but didn't figure out how they meshed.
Thanks for helping me out!
I guess the one question I have about this is: when you're building the maps, what clues you in that you have a shift versus a intermixing. For instance, in your most recent box, you have, as you said, a 1-2-1-2 pattern:
1-Dark Imposter
2-Archwing Dragon
2-Hound of Griselbrand
1-Dual Casting
2-Restoration Angel
2-Desolate Lighthouse
1-Moonsilver Spear
2-Exquisite Blood
etc.
In this case the 1's are directly on the map, every 3 spots, while the 2's are just read from the map (ie there's slots in the map where 2's have replace 1's, but there are no gaps between 2's)
If you feel PM would be a better avenue for this question, let me know. Just trying to get a better understanding for this.
I actually broke the (BEL) map for this a month or so back. I'd been waiting to see if:
1) I could find a box to test it on and make sure I had it right, and
2) finish moving,
before I posted it up here but... never got around to a box so figured I'd at least some of it here. I have the papers which may be a bit cleaner than the excel I've attached but they're buried somewhere in one of my boxes. I'll try to find them sometime this week and post it all up here.
What I found:
Pack arrangement is in a string, Top to Bottom, Left, Center, Right
There's several different strings of rares (as many as 9, there's not enough data to know if they're strung together or not) which are cycled with either one or two other paths. At the termination of one string, one of two events will occur.
One new string will replace it,
Or two will take it's place, in this case, one of the two strings will start one or two cycles prior to the string terminating
This is probably not the best explanation. I've posted a rather messy version of my results in the attached excel file so take a look if you'd like. Data is from the excel sheets that were compiled previously (THANKS A TON ALL OF YOU!) My maps can be seen in the BELmapping sheet, with Data showing my maps as compared to the lists that were compiled.
@Klooher, yes it's possible to scam people. Most of us don't do that. If we were, it'd be pretty poor business to tell people what we were doing and how to do it themselves.
I've mapped a box of RTR. It's possible; it's fun; most of all, it's great to hand people packs and say "hey, enjoy the _________" then watch them react to opening it. It's a wonderful way for people to learn about mapping and see it in action. I can tell you for certain they'll all check twice before buying loose packs!
Re-reading this, it sounds a little mean. I'm sorry about that. I'm not always the best with words/making them come off precisely the way I want. Just wanted to try and explain my (and I believe others) motivation for what we do here.
For this (sleeves), I'd recommend using the last number of the sleeve ID. If you look at the back of a pack, with the barcode on the upper right, there's a number on the bottom left corner. The 5 sleeve designs are the last digit of this number. For instance: A pack of RTR with NivMizzit on the front is #15048886000003 EN. Golgari Guildmage ends in 4 instead of 3, etc. This should allow fairly consistant numbering for everyone. I don't have anything from GTC (forgot to keep the sleeves) so I can't tell you what the are currently.
As far as I know, Wizards isn't/stopped doing a Belgium printing. Check your boxes to be sure but throughout RTR we never saw a Belgium printed box. Or, the boxes were printed there but use the USA mapping. Traditionally, the Belgium maps were a lot easier to break, which may have inspired this change.
I worked on this (foils) for RTR. It's actually one of the easier methods to determine row shift, if you're working with full boxes. The brief version, (I don't feel like digging through the RTR mapping thread for it) is: Commons occur every 8 packs, Uncommons every 20, and Rares every 32. Rares occur 2 pack before commons, uncommons are 1 pack before (when they match, 20 doesn't divide into 8 well). There's also occasionally foils which I couldn't predict.
Commons, Uncommons, and Rare foils do follow patterns. It's easiest to find with commons as you have enough data in a single box. For UC and Rares, you need several (ie a case). There are perks to this, in that maps have followed from box to box in a case. I have yet to determine a pattern within a case, mainly due to lack of foil case data for RTR. (I found 2 among the 100+ boxes) The best tip I can offer is try really really hard to find pictures of foil uncut sheets. There was one for M13 and I think one cropped up for RTR later on. They're given away as prizes at some events, and it's a piece of cake to work from those.
As for GTC, from the info so far, dnelegend's box seems to follow the foil pattern perfectly, with rows 7 and 8 switched. Not as sure about thatsnailguy's box. (No offense meant, sometimes these things get completely garbled.)
And, on a personal note, if anyone's willing to record common's/uncommons data, I'd be super appreciative. There was a bit of data in the RTR mapping and it got me interested. Unfortunately, a box isn't a ton of data to work with (2-3 on the other hand might be). If you do, it's easier in my opinion to record card number rather than write out each name, but I'd take anything I can get. If you just want to record UC, I'll take it, heck I'll even take individual pack data for commons (PM me that, I doubt everyone here wants the spam)
And thank you yowamushi, I'd missed the post for GTC mapping, it'll be great to get started.
One on one EDH about 1.5 years ago. I'm playing essentially a RWB burn deck (Technecally Oros, the Avenger). My opponent's playing Azusa, Lost but Seeking
He does what any Azusa deck is supposed to do and ramps up. I stay alive by throwing wrath's down as fast as I can pull them. Several turn in, he plays Genesis Wave for 20. I'm sitting with 6 mana open and a Reiterate in hand. So, this being exactly (far, far beyond) what you hope for, I copy/buyback his wave. Mine resolves, I get my 20 cards and, low and behold, I have 8 mana open! So, with his still on the stack, Reiterate/buyback again! I end up repeating this a total of 4 times (not enough stuff in the library for me to pull another one). In the process I've manged to pull out almost all my lands and have a good pile of mana open. I also have these two gems: Planar Portal and Elixir of Immortality. I crack the elixir, use the portal to pull Comet Storm out of my brand new sparkly library, count up my mana (Doubling Cube played a part here), and Comet Storm for the win.
Or, put more simply: Genesis Wave for 20; In response, win.
And the best part: He still refuses to play Genesis Wave against me.
I'm not seeing anything either (not even an "Invalid attachment specified...") when I use Firefox, and a not much more (an icon indicating a picture files is supposed to be there) when I try with Chrome. The rest work fine for me though.
I worked on it a bit as well. I have agreement with you for most of the center column. I suspect the left column, rows 7 and 9 are Druid's Repository, and Silverblade Paladin respectively. If I guessed it right, your box will look something like (prediction are in caps):
Left:
BURN AT THE STAKE or TYRANT OF DISCORD
Terminus
CONJURER'S CLOSET
Dread Slaver
Lunar Mystic
DRUID'S REPOSITORY
Craterhoof Behemoth
SLIVERBLADE PALADIN
Cavern of Souls
DEMONLORD OF ASHMOUTH
TYRANT OF DISCORD
Malignus
Center:
Vexing Devil
SLAYER'S STRONGHOLD
Terminus
?
SPIRIT AWAY
Angel of Glory
Otherworld Atlas
Gloom Surgen
Descendant's Path
?
Cavern of Souls
? (May be Herald of War)
Right, if Herald IS in the last pack of Center:
?
SPIRIT AWAY
HOUND OF GRISELBRAND
?
Griselbrand
RIDERS OF GAVONY
?
DEMONLORD OF ASHMOUTH
KILLING WAVE
?
REFORGE THE SOUL
DEMONIC RISING
Right, if Herald IS NOT in the last pack of Center:
BRUNA,LIGHT OF ALABASTER
?
HOUND OF GRISELBRAND
?
Griselbrand
?
CHAMPION OF LAMBHOLT
?
KILLING WAVE
?
REFORGE THE SOUL
?
Looks like you've managed to pull most of the good stuff at this point (baring whatever portion we can't see in the right column). As to mapping the rest of the right, look at the pack directly below Decedent's Path (Center, row 10). Compare it to the map to see if it looks like a portion of either this:
Vexing Devil
Tyrant of Discord
Dread Slaver
Harvester of Souls
Stolen Goods
Revenge of the Hunted
Somberwald Sage
Infinite Relfection
Wolfir Silverheart
Desolate Lighthouse
Primal Surge
Wild Defiance
Arcane Melee
Sigarda, Host of Herons
Best of luck!
Check out my post a page back: #197
In short, commons/lands show up every 8 packs (after accounting for row displacement), uncommons and occasional lands every 20, and rares every 32 (although occasionally they're every 16)
And for those just showing up, the map is Post #149
Foils:
If packs are arranged by the map (ie remove the row distortions) foils are added into packs in a very definite pattern. The spacing between them is:
-Commons and lands: Every 8 packs gives a foil common or land (there are 7 packs between, following the map order right to left, top to bottom by row).
-Uncommons: Every 20 packs (19 between one and the next). There will occasionally be lands as well as 80 UC doesn't fill a sheet of 11x11. The uncommon track "starts" one pack to the right of a common. It returns to agreement after with 5 cycles of the Commons or 2 cycles of the Uncommons
-Rares: Foil rares are added in every 32 packs (31 in between). Unless you're rather lucky, you'll probably only get 1 per box. They will always be found 2 packs to the right of a rare.
Other foils. Seemingly at random there's a few foils I haven't been able to account for. I'm not sure where they come from and they don't seem to follow a pattern I can determine. For the most part they're uncommons, but there's been a rare as well.
Case Information:
A case of 6 boxes contains two sets of maps. 3 boxes of each case will match one another and trace the map from one to another. Foils follow the map through this as well and follow the sheet photo pandafarmer posted:
From top to bottom of a case, foils are placed by row from right to left.
I have not looked at foil common/uncommon patterns, if someone runs across a pic of either uncut sheet, it'd be awesome to get our hands on. I also haven't been able to determine which boxes in a case follow which map. It takes a while to dig though the data and sort it all properly. Also of note, I'm just working on the data posted here. I haven't tried mapping this myself on a box. Might try in a few days and I'll post how it goes if so.
Row Displacement
Also of interest. From what I've seen, row displacements don't seem fully random. Lets assume we start from an unmodified box as this is what the factory does. If row displacement occurs (I can't tell when at this point) they will pull rows 1 and/or 7 and shift them down (the same amount). So, if we have rows: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and they shift both down 2 we would end up with a final box that we open that looks like: 2,3,1,4,5,6,8,9,7,10,11,12.
Thanks for helping me out!
I guess the one question I have about this is: when you're building the maps, what clues you in that you have a shift versus a intermixing. For instance, in your most recent box, you have, as you said, a 1-2-1-2 pattern:
1-Dark Imposter
2-Archwing Dragon
2-Hound of Griselbrand
1-Dual Casting
2-Restoration Angel
2-Desolate Lighthouse
1-Moonsilver Spear
2-Exquisite Blood
etc.
In this case the 1's are directly on the map, every 3 spots, while the 2's are just read from the map (ie there's slots in the map where 2's have replace 1's, but there are no gaps between 2's)
If you feel PM would be a better avenue for this question, let me know. Just trying to get a better understanding for this.
1) I could find a box to test it on and make sure I had it right, and
2) finish moving,
before I posted it up here but... never got around to a box so figured I'd at least some of it here. I have the papers which may be a bit cleaner than the excel I've attached but they're buried somewhere in one of my boxes. I'll try to find them sometime this week and post it all up here.
What I found:
Pack arrangement is in a string, Top to Bottom, Left, Center, Right
There's several different strings of rares (as many as 9, there's not enough data to know if they're strung together or not) which are cycled with either one or two other paths. At the termination of one string, one of two events will occur.
One new string will replace it,
Or two will take it's place, in this case, one of the two strings will start one or two cycles prior to the string terminating
This is probably not the best explanation. I've posted a rather messy version of my results in the attached excel file so take a look if you'd like. Data is from the excel sheets that were compiled previously (THANKS A TON ALL OF YOU!) My maps can be seen in the BELmapping sheet, with Data showing my maps as compared to the lists that were compiled.
Best of luck and looking forward to cracking RTR!