MTG Salvation

Quote from Gdrake

Ok, tried mapping a box. Really confused. Box is made in the USA.

Opened row 5/6/7

I'm recording Left to Right, really confused why everyone writes right to left and then sometimes reverses on themselves.
Left Middle Right
Reforge the Soul Stolen Goods Dark Imposter
Descendant's Path Exquisite Blood Spirit Away
Desolate Lighthouse Divine Deflection Otherworld

Any suggestions? I can't tell where the heck I am in the sequence.

Well, I usually like to open one pack per row, rather than so many on a few rows. It allows me to more accurately determine which rows have shifted and to where.

But you could have any number of possibilities here.

One I'm seeing that you could have had row 12 shift up to row 7 and row 5 shift up to row 1. With an additional anomaly being Divine Deflection.

   Left                Middle                   Right
5 (B)                 (C)Wild Defiance         (C)Tyrant of Discord
1 (B)                 (A)                      (D)Moonsilver Spear
2 (A)                 (D)Demonlord of Ash      (D)Infinite Reflection
3 (C)Killing Wave     (B)                      (A)
4 (D)Reforge the      (C)Stolen Goods          (A)Dark Imposter
6 (B)Descendant       (C)Exquisite Blood       (D)Spirit Away
12(C)Desolate Li      (C)Deadeye Navigato      (D)Otherworld Atlus
7 (A)                 (C)Champion of Lam       (D)Angel of Jubilation
8 (A)                 (D)Harvester of Sou      (B)
9 (D)Archwing Dr      (D)Dual Casting          (B)
10(B)                 (A)                      (A)
11(C)Divine Defle     (A)                      (C)Terminus

Unfortunately you haven't opened enough A or B track to determine anything there, and as you can see I got Divine Deflection in a different location, so there might be some movement on the C track. There are plenty of rows that don't have a single pack opened, so those row shifts could be off too. It's difficult to tell without opening more.

I haven't figured out what or where the single rare card in Track A is yet.

Here is the current revised Track A (54 cards):

Ulvenwalk Tracker
Silverblade Paladin
Bruna
Bonfire of the Damned
Griselbrand
Slayers Stronghold
Hound of Griselbrand
Lunar Mystic
Ulvenwalk Tracker
Entreat the Angels
Temporal Mastery
Griselbrand
Primal Surge
Malignus
Dark Imposter
Silverblade Paladin
Misthollow Griffin
Hound of Griselbrand
Ulvenwalk Tracker
Sigarda, Host of He
Slayers Stronghold
Craterhoof Behemoth
Dark Imposter
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Temporal Mastery
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Malignus
Sigarda, Host of He
Primal Surge
Silverblade Paladin
Lunar Mystic
Descent into Madness
Misthollow Griffin
Slayers Stronghold
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
Bruna
Craterhoof Behemoth
Entreat the Angels
Hound of Griselbrand
Silverblade Paladin
Tamiyo
Dark Imposter
Bonfire of the Damned
Lunar Mystic
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Ulvenwalk Tracker
Slayers Stronghold
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Descent into Madness
Hound of Griselbrand
Dark Imposter
Lunar Mystic
Tamiyo

Any ideas what or where the last card might be?

I've also been compiling lists on Track B, C and D. But I've still got a little way to go on that.

It looks like rows 6-7 are commonly swapped from what I've seen.

I modified your list a bit. The cards marked with a ! I've personally verified, using the RTR Track A pattern.
The ones marked with / and \ I believe need to be swapped, but I haven't been able to fully verify it yet, so I haven't yet.

Ulvenwald Tracker
Bruna
Bonfire of the Damned
Griselbrand
Slayers' Stronghold
Hound of Griselbrand
Lunar Mystic
Ulvenwald Tracker
!Entreat the Angels
!Temporal Mastery
Griselbrand
Primal Surge
Malignus
Dark Imposter
Misthollow Griffin
/Ulvenwald Tracker
\Hound of Griselbrand
/Slayers' Stronghold
\Sigarda
Craterhoof Behemoth
Dark Imposter
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
!Temporal Mastery
!Tibalt
Malignus
/Sigarda
\Gisela
!Primal Surge
Silverblade Paladin
!Lunar Mystic
!Descent into Madness
!Misthollow Griffin
!Slayers' Stronghold
!Tibalt
!Bruna
!Craterhoof Behemoth
!Entreat the Angels
!Hound of Griselbrand
!Silberblade Paladin
!Tamiyo
!Dark Imposter
!Bonfire of the Dmaned
!Lunar Mystic
!Gisela
!Ulvenwald Tracker
!Slayers' Stronghold
!Avacyn, Angel of Hope
!Descent into Madness
!Hound of Griselbrand
!Dark Imposter
!Lunar Mystic
Tamiyo

Quote from mtggo

Also, the sequence of "A B D A B D D A A B C A C D C C B D C B D C" from RTR definitely comes very close to the 'A' track sequence I've seen looking at AVR boxes that contain both Griselbrand and Bonfire in them. If you mark the cards from the 'A' track and use an "x" as any card not on the 'A' track you get a sequence very close to the RTR sequence (with some displacement occurring).

The only thing that seems to be making this one more difficult is that the displacements appear more random than RTR (as in only one or two packs get moved sometimes, not the whole row). That could just be a symptom of not knowing the full tracks, but it looks that way to me.

YES! You are exactly right. I just modified one of my programs to try every single possible track A sequence where track A only appears 5 times. The highest result with 22 matches (out of 61 boxes) was the exact same RTR Track A pattern. 22 matches is quite high considering row shifting messes with most of these boxes.

I think we can almost confirm that the track sequence is exactly the same.

I have been trying to figure out the track A pattern in the main track sequence, (Let's say A is the track with mythics) It is definitely a 22 pack track sequence, just like it is with Ravnica. There are times I thought I had it, but with random row shifting it is difficult.

I currently have data on 61 US boxes from this thread (there were several posts that weren't region labeled so I skipped those to be safe) It would help if I had more than that to work from.

I wrote a quick program that would examine all 61 boxes and whenever it found a mythic card it would keep track of which card was 22 packs ahead of it, or 22 packs behind it. This tells us these cards are on the same track as the Mythic cards (since the track sequence repeats itself every 22 packs), and how frequently they appear on this track. (Assuming all of the mythics are on one track, as with Ravnica)

Here are the results of Non-mythic cards that appear on the mythic track and the frequency at which they appear (keep in mind, row shifting can generate false positives)

Frequency Card
14 Lunar Mystic
10 Ulvenwald Tracker
9 Hound of Griselbrand
9 Silverblade Paladin
6 Arcane Melee
6 Slayers' Stronghold
5 Dark Impostor
5 Wolfir Silverheart
4 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Druids' Repository
4 Soul of the Harvest
3 Deadeye Navigator
3 Descendants' Path
3 Divine Deflection
3 Dual Casting
3 Exquisite Blood
3 Otherworld Atlas
3 Tyrant of Discord
3 Vexing Devil
3 Zealous Conscripts
2 Alchemist's Refuge
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Champion of Lambholt
2 Demonic Rising
2 Harvester of Souls
2 Infinite Reflection
2 Restoration Angel
2 Rite of Ruin
2 Somberwald Sage
1 Angel of Jubilation
1 Archwing Dragon
1 Captain of the Mists
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Demonlord of Ashmouth
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Devastation Tide
1 Dread Slaver
1 Herald of War
1 Moonsilver Spear
1 Revenge of the Hunted
1 Riders of Gavony
1 Spirit Away
1 Treacherous Pit-Dweller
0 Burn at the Stake
0 Conjurer's Closet
0 Gallows at Willow Hill
0 Gloom Surgeon
0 Killing Wave
0 Lone Revenant
0 Reforge the Soul
0 Stolen Goods
0 Terminus
0 Wild Defiance

It's probably safe to assume those showing up 9 or more are on the same track.

I originally thought the 22 pack track sequence went:
AxxAxAxxAxxxAAxxxxxxAx

This would indicate only three tracks. But, I think I might be wrong about the track sequence. It doesn't work with many of the boxes, however, most boxes have row shifting.

If I compare this list of high-frequency cards to your list, I can see two cards we could probably think about adding to your list:
Silverblade Paladin
Arcane Melee

I'm currently working on mapping USA boxes of Avacyn. I've entered all of the US box data in to a database.

I've been trying to map it similarly to how the US Ravnica boxes are mapped, and have found a few patterns so far, but it has been slow going.

I've found a few groups of cards that like to appear together:

group 1:
Tamiyo the Moon Sage
Dark Imposter
Bonfire of the Damned
Restoration Angel
Druids Repository
Arcane Melee

group 2:
Dread Slaver
Archwing Dragon
Craterhoof Behemoth
Entreat the Angels
Captain of the Mists
Hound of Griselbrand

Group 3:
Killing Wave
Vexing Devil
Divine Deflection
Exquisite Blood
Arcane Melee

Is anyone still working on mapping US boxes of Avacyn? Or does anyone want to share progress?