The Magic Librarities

This is great! There is another way to get some insight into the sheet alignment that can be used here (and it agrees with what you've already done). (An older write-up about this theory is also in my "Calculated print sheets..." main post.) Sometimes cards in packs are out of order. At least for US...

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 12, 2022 11:12 pm

I can confirm that Charles is aware of the pack collation method, because he's asked me about it several times. He told me that he had saved the pack opening data for many Arabian booster packs. He never seemed to understand how it works though, so maybe that's why it's not used in their video.

Charles had actually emailed me as well. I did tell him that I didn't think I had enough data to finish the common sheet (which he was less interested in), and that I thought the uncommons were intractable without box openings being recorded, but maybe I wasn't clear that collation could be useful in conjunction with other methods. (I didn't see any sign of misunderstanding, but I guess we didn't exchange that many messages.)

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 12, 2022 11:12 pm

How many pack openings did you look at in total?

54 packs. (Probably there would be a few new ones if I look again. It's been a while since I went trawling for Arabian Nights videos.)

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 12, 2022 11:12 pm

It would be interesting to find out the complete pattern that was used for Arabian Nights. It would require at least a full box opening.

The pattern of stripes in general is something I've been interested in, but I have multiple box openings of some other sets and have never really detected a pattern.

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 12, 2022 11:12 pm

1. The official WotC Arabian Nights checklist says that Moorish Cavalry is C4 & C1. Once you have the sheet layout, you can see that it's actually C3 & C2. I included this updated information in the Facebook Complete Sets Group when I created that group roughly 3 years ago. Having the sheet layout is the only way to discover this information.

I had missed this, thanks for pointing it out.

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:59 am

These used to be available on the WotC website, and Crystal Keep also had them available.

dragsamou wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 13, 2022 12:17 pm

Unfortunately Crystalkeep is not working for me for themoment (not the first time I can't access

This references to the counts for all the light versus dark cards is still available for Wizards (although not the full counts for all cards): https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2002-08-08

cataclysm80 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 13, 2022 9:59 am

Now the question is why those 10 cards: Metamorphosis, Desert x2, Dandân x2, Flying Men, Hurr Jackal, Ghazbán Ogre Kird Ape, Sandstorm doesn't have a known Light/Dark variants like the others ? Desert Nomads is the only one having a colorless mana out of the 10, maybe, the difference is to be seen into the color mana ? Mountain shouldsn't be concerned as it's a C1.[/b]

I was also wondering about this. The list I see for possible light/dark variants would be Desert, Dandân, Unstable Mutation, Flying Men, Hurr Jackal, Ghazbán Ogre, Sandstorm, Kird Ape (not Desert Nomads).

I guess as the only known difference for this region is the mana symbols, and the colorless, black (via Stone-Throwing Devils), and now white (via Camel) are known to be different. I guess it may have been possible to predict the possibility of the Camel variation by carefully comparing white cards that were already known to have light/dark differences (Army of Allah, Moorish Cavalry, Piety, War Elephant) as the difference in the white mana symbol ought to appear between those as well.

Could this strategy be used for the green, red, and blue mana symbols as well? (Desert is the only of the cards that has no mana symbol of any kind.) Instead of looking for copies of e.g. Dandân with different mana symbols but not knowing whether any card is actual from the light quadrant or not, try comparing the blue mana symbol of light and dark Giant Tortoise. If there is a difference in the blue mana symbol for Giant Tortoise, then probably there is for Dandân as well (and if not, probably not).

Separate comment I had about the video, but forgot about when reading my previous post (and somewhat of a wild tangent):

I knew about the quadrants for early print sheets (via "Arabian Nightmare"), but I was a little surprised to see that the model for the placement of the sheets was so particular.

I think it is interesting to compare the the English versus Italian Legends sheets. For all three (common, uncommon, rare) sheets, the Italian sheet is the result of taking the English sheet and moving the 5 rightmost columns to the left of the sheet. Possibly this could be explained by the quadrants being assembled in a different arrangement. This would imply that for the English sheet the width-5 quadrants were on the right (which is the wrong arrangement according to the Arabian Nights video). (If that was wrong, it would help explain why it was "corrected" for Italian Legends.)

But there's also another angle to this. If you look at the English Legends rare sheet, there is also a pretty clear quadrant-aligned color pattern -- cards in the upper left quadrant are almost all white and colorless, the upper right is almost all black and gold, the lower left is almost all blue and green, and the lower right is almost all red and gold. But, this pattern is aligned as though the 6x6 quadrant really is in the bottom right, where it is "supposed" to be. So another explanation is maybe that all the sheets did indeed have the 6x6 quadrant in the bottom right, but when the Italian sheets were being created, the person who did it was following the English sheet but accidentally thought that the 6x6 quadrant was in the bottom left, and then the printer swapped them back to put the 6x6 in the bottom right as they were supposed to be (but in doing so messed up the intended sheet layouts).

Of course, all this is wildly speculative.

(If left and right quadrants had been swapped for Arabian Nights, collation would have detected it, so that at least is not a concern.)

Very exciting to see this published! Some comments: 1) I checked the sheets against pack openings from videos I've collected. It's pretty much consistent. (They didn't mentioned using this method in the video, but I guess they're aware of it, so this may or may not be independent verification.) I ha...

Maybe people know the sheet size for Japanese printings, but I've never seen it discussed. I'm pretty confident the size of the sheet is 112 (or a closely related number) as I've done many sequence reconstructions that come out to 112 or just below 112. (For example, commons are usually 4x27 + 3x37 ...

I also recreated the Ice Age sheets based on this calculated layout, and the rare sheet photo posted in another thread: Beautiful! first, apparently more common, layout of the two common sheets Don't know if I ever mentioned it here, but my theory is the Gaze of Pain sheet is form earlier printings...

First post updated: Updated top row of Exodus Belgian Commons (based on color). Updated top rop of Urza's Saga Belgian Commons (based on color). Added Urza's Destiny Belgian Common sheet. Added Mercadian Masques Common and Uncommon sheets (probably shared between Belgium and USA). Added Nemesis Bel...

Let me know which one ones you need to be added in the Uncut sheets compilation Hi Alexis, Of course I like to see the sheets, but I don't think any of these are needed for my work, so no need to rush. Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough video data for these older sets to do much with rare...

Let me know which one ones you need to be added in the Uncut sheets compilation Hi Alexis, Of course I like to see the sheets, but I don't think any of these are needed for my work, so no need to rush. Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough video data for these older sets to do much with rare...

I have added the 8 Portal sheets Very much appreciated! I wasn't able to find any swaps on the portal sheets yet, but I was able to find swaps from the Tempest sheet you posted. It seems swaps occur between the first two cards in each row. Lethe, if you're on Facebook, send me a friend request ther...

Great post, about Visions, you need also to take into consideration the Visions Preview cards (Made in USA) that came in specific boosters: http://www.magiclibrarities.net/145-rarities-multiverse-gift-box-cards-english-cards-index.html Yes, the data I posted is only for normal English packs, not fo...

It's nice to see someone else working on this. I haven't devoted as much time to it as I would have liked. Here's a quick write up of what I'd done a couple years ago. http://forum.magiclibrarities.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10077&p=89967#p89967 I don't remember why I started working on this in ...

mmgun wrote: ↑

Tue May 15, 2018 12:46 pm

looks like you were right :-)

mmgun wrote: ↑

Tue May 15, 2018 12:49 pm

the uc sheet as well:

Fantastic! Seeing the original sheets is always the best, so thanks for digging these up!

I've updated the first post with some info about Fourth Edition and Mirage. I didn't get as much as I wanted yet, but I think it is still significant.

mmgun wrote: ↑

Sat May 12, 2018 5:37 pm

the maddening wind is located wrong in the big picture, according to these:

Very nice :) This does match my layout.

mmgun wrote: ↑

Thu May 10, 2018 4:54 pm

Here the partial UC sheet:

Think you for sharing! It is very similar to what I came up with. The only mismatches I see are Soul Barrier + Mind Warp (I have Soul Barrier + Icequake), Orcish Healer + Withering Wisps (I have Orcish Healer + Mind Warp), Drifts of the Dead + Nacre Talisman (I have Drift of the Dead + Sunstone), and Force Void + Icequake (I have Force Void + Withering Wisps). These are all the same color at least. I can't tell well enough if any of these would have had evidence beyond color or miscut shape (e.g. artist). (I assume the horizontal layout is arbitrary, but then am not sure why Maddening Wind is put where it is or why Nature's Lore and Thunder Wall didn't get paired.)

BillBo wrote: ↑

Fri May 11, 2018 3:30 am

This is fascinating to follow, folks — don't stop now!

I'm glad you're interested! I think I will have more information to add soon. (Mirage...)

There is a hopper for each rarity of card, and the cards get pulled from the hoppers in the correct ratio to make booster packs, 11 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare, or whatever todays ratio is (it's more complex these days with mythics, foils, basic lands, and tip cards, etc.). If 18 commons were accide...