FRIDAY NIGHTS: Prereleasing

[Lord Hosk]

One rather large store that runs Chicago events and has had players with their sleves and cloths in protour and GP top eights recently was caught opening, box mapping and reshrink-wrapping "factory sealed" product and rumor around town that they were resealing packs but wizards let them slide with a stern warning because of the volume they move.

Be careful keep your head up and as professor staff said:

The lesson: If you have an awesome local game shop, treasure them. Buy their cards and sleeves even if you can save $0.50 by buying online. Cherish your LGS if they're awesome.

[Clypheous]

Is box mapping really a huge problem, or is it just a few bad eggs around. And if it actually works, why doesn't Wizards modify their randomization method to eliminate it?

You're making me nervous about getting back into paper magic people!

[Graham]

It can be a problem, but most places are good.
And it does work, kind of, but they have been changing their methods. It's a lot harder now that it used to be.

Our LGS cracks open the boxes and puts random boosters into their "display" box, so they're totally randomized.

[korvys]

I'm not sure where I read it, but I believe they've changed it completely now, with Theros being the first off the line with the new production methods, so things should be good.

On the other hand, if you LGS is box mapping, they'll probably just move onto other shady stuff, and you'd be best to move on to another store.

[Lord Hosk]

According to the person I talked to rares will now not be just cut and stacked but large stacks will be "shuffled" in some way so that they will be truly random. Also as of dragons maze all packs are perforated along the heat seal so they cant be carefully opened then resealed.

The strange added advantage of this is you could potentially get a whole box full of the money mythics. Unlikely but possible, imagine buying a box and getting 10 voices.

[Clypheous]

It can be a problem, but most places are good.
And it does work, kind of, but they have been changing their methods. It's a lot harder now that it used to be.

Our LGS cracks open the boxes and puts random boosters into their "display" box, so they're totally randomized.

So, assume I haven't played paper magic in, say, 14 years. How am I supposed to know if my local game store is legit, or if they are maybe going to try to rip me off? Is it any safer to order off the internet? Well, maybe I can just use this as an excuse to not play paper magic for another 14 years and continue to just horde my Urza's block rares until they all get banned from tournament play!

[korvys]

Things should be fine from now on, as mentioned. Ordering online can be fine if you stick with a good vendor (like Card Kingdom, if you're in the US) rather than ebay.

You'll probably know if your store is suspect, if they do that sort of stuff, you'll probably hear about them from people in the community, doing other suspect stuff, as mentioned above, like keeping or selling promo cards, etc.

Plus, the people who do that stuff are often assholes, and really, who wants to hang out with assholes?

[Graham]

OH, yeah, no, NEVER buy boosters from eBay. They have likely been mapped.

[ZePancakes]

With buying older boosters, where would be the best place to order them? Being outside the US makes it a lot harder. When my LGS had some Scourge boosters I bought most of them haha.

[korvys]

I don't know, but I'm in the same country as you, so let me know if you find out.

[ZePancakes]

There was a store in QLD that were selling Shadowmoor and whilst I'd like to get in on that, I am uncomfortable ordering online from a place I have no knowledge about in terms of their ethics. There are selling it as a box or in separate boosters.

[Clypheous]

I was just browsing Card Kingdom (.com) and noticed that boosters for M14 are cheaper than ones for things like Gatecrash and stuff like that. Are the Core Sets just cheaper because they have fewer cards that are good, or just cheaper to try to suck people in or am I missing something?

[korvys]

The former, mostly. On the whole, the complexity of core sets is less than others, and in my opinion, this tends to lower the power a little as well.

[phlip]

Yeah, there's fewer superpowered cards in the core sets, and a lot of repeats, so there's fewer people buying packs just to crack them for cards (which, incidentally, can make those few high-powered cards there are in the set less prevalent, and more expensive as singles). The set is also a lot simpler, and so there's fewer people buying packs to draft with... though that's been changing, M13 was actually pretty fun to draft, and M14 looks like it might not quite reach the same level, but still is better than previous core sets.

[AdmiralMemo]

Question: What is box "mapping"?

Also, I heard of a guy using a micrometer to find packs with foils in them, and apparently, it works. I'm wondering how many shady LGSes do that.

[Master Gunner]

My understanding of box mapping is that there are predictable patterns to how the Magic Cards are placed into packs and then into boxes during the manufacturing process. So with the help of some tools, by opening a couple packs out of a box, you can know exactly which packs out of the box will contain the most valuable rares (or the specific card you want). You can then resell the remaining unopened packs on ebay or wherever and come out with a profit.

Here's a video of a guy demonstrating the process.