Box-Mapping 2!

I got some extra box-mapping data from the Pojo and Reddit threads, so I've added them to my data.

The new spreadsheet:

Does this new info change any of my predictions from the last Box-Mapping post? Let's see:

• The total number of RR and higher still matches expectations. 
• Total Rares Theory: Still good.
• The bands of RRs is still mostly visible, but box 5 is shifted pretty far. 
• RR Bands Theory: Weakened, but still good.
• The SRs aren't positioned like mine at all, so my prediction about them being next to RRs is invalid.
• SR Location Theory: Dead.
• The RRRs all seem to be 2 packs from an RRR, so my theory that they push the nearest RR could still be true.
• RRR Location Theory: Still good.
• The SP was on the opposite side of the box, so we can't tell much there.
• SP Location Theory: (see next theory)
• Only 2 of the dead zones (rows that only ever had Rs) still remain, BUT the SPs are both the only things keeping their row from being a dead zone. 
• I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these dead zones (rows 1, 5, 16, and 20) can only have Rs or SPs.
• Deadzone Theory: Revised, now the "SP/R Zone Theory"
• The RRRs and SRs are much more equally distributed now.
• Back Half of the Box Theory: Destroyed.

As before, if you have any new box mapping data, let me know so we can keep narrowing this down.

What does a booster box get you?

As you saw in yesterday's post, I opened up 4 Madoka Magica booster boxes (80 booster packs) and tracked what cards I got. In today's post, I'll be talking about how many copies of each card I got in total. I'm focusing on each card number and getting a playset of 4 copies, so I'll be merging R/RRs with the SRs, RRRs, and SPs that are parallel copies of them.

Here they are, sorted by card number:

Summary of the data:

• I got at least 1 of every non-parallel card, and the parallels helped me hit 4 copies on several cards.
• There are only 2 cards with only 1 copy and both are RRs.
• I got at least 2 copies of each rare, and 4 copies of several.
• I got 3 copies of only two RRs, and my SP pushed one of those to 4.
• I got an average of 2.85 copies of each card.

Based on that, here are some estimations:

• Opening 4 boxes will get you at least 1 copy of each card.
• 6 boxes will get you a an average of 4 copies of each card, but you'll have some cards with less than 4.
• A case (16 boxes) will have at least 4 copies of every card.
• 4 boxes gives you no extras (over 4 copies) to trade.
• A case will give you almost 320 extras.

And from those estimates, I can give this advice:

• Buy 2 boxes if you want to build just one specific deck, since you can trade the cards you don't care about for the ones you need.
• Buy 4 boxes if you want at least 1 of each card, but you'll probably need to trade away non-extra cards to get some cards you want.
• Buy 6 boxes if you want 4 of each card, since you can trade your extras for the ones you opened need more of.
• Buy 16 boxes if you want 4 of everything without needing to trade.

Have you had different experiences, or do you have different strategies when buying boxes? Let me know below.

A Bit of "Box-mapping"

A couple of days ago, the 4 English Madoka Magica boxes I preordered arrived in the mail.
I opened them up, but kept careful track of what each rare was and where in the box it was. I put all of that in a spreadsheet so I could look for patterns.

Let's get into the numbers:
Total Rare or higher: 80 (of course, since I opened 80 boosters)
R: 60
RR: 16
SR: 2
RRR: 1
SP (signed): 1
Even at a glance, this all fits perfectly within the predicted pattern, but I got lucky with the SP, since they are about 1 per 8 boxes.
Also, as predicted, I got exactly 8 of each Climax Common in the set, and 4 of each Climax Rare.

Here's where the cards were in the boxes (Pack 1 is the front of the box, 20 is the back):

This isn't a big enough sample size to be sure, but it certainly looks like there are a few overlapping patterns:

• RRs occur in or near packs 4, 8, 14, and 18.
• SRs can be near RRs, but don't replace them.
• The RRR seems to have pushed the RR that should have been there away. With only 1 RRR, we can't really make any assumptions about its pattern.
• The SP was the last pack in the box, but with just 1, we can't tell much.
• There are dead zones of only Rares in packs 1, 5, 6, 9-11, 13, and 16.
• All the SR, RRR, and SPs are in the back half of the box.

With that data, I'm going to conclude that the back half of the box is the best bet for rarer cards, and that packs 10 and 11 are the least likely to have RR or better.

I do admit this isn't enough information to know anything for sure, but with more data we could see the trends better. Did you open any boxes and keep track of their order? Are you opening any boxes soon and want to record the order? If so, let me know and we can learn more together!