The Card Wizard cracks Shards of Alara #1

[ximbabwe0228]

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Almighty. You will be president one day.

[Predator9710]

Does the book contain Ravnica or Darksteel? What about tournament packs?

[cereal2627]

genius!!!

[PatronSaint210]

Lol calm down I know they build statues of guys like you. People are always like oh MTG is gay you guys are nerds. Well I don't see them having a hobby that can rake in big bucks.

[CAYOMluver]

this is useless if you buy booster packs individually and the person selling them puts them in a different container in different order

[xrustynailsx]

Ok theres jus one lill flaw with this whole concept man. Boosters now a days cost around 3 and a half bucks and in order to net gain a profit from this you need to pull sumthin worthwhile in your first 4 booster packs that your buyin which you did. However how would you gain any profit from buying an entire booster box set? They go for around 96 bucks or so now a days. Basically in order for your mappin to work you need to have the shop keeper open a fresh untampered with booster box set.

[xrustynailsx]

@xrustynailsx

Honestly you could try mappin a booster set box that has only sold like 4 or 5 boosters but like another person stated vendors take the pricey cards out. Askin a shop keeper to open a freshly new booster box set when theres already a perfectly good one opened already is usually seen as fishly. Most would jus say take a hike and buy from the ones already opened. The only logical way for this to work is concentrate on all the sets the vendor is sellin.

[xrustynailsx]

@xrustynailsx

Then you can proceed to wait for one of the booster box sets to be near empty so they have to open a fresh one. It's not seen as fishee if the booster box set only has like 3 or 4 paks left in then anyway. Sry for the long response comments youtube has a character restriction.

[FlloydOwnsAll]

This is amazing... I might have to check this book out...!

[Jeeriosthedrummer]

jeezus i love how he flips out at the end

[ilikeapplesauce7]

where can i get the book ITS AWESOME

[recardwizard]

@ilikeapplesauce7 - You can get it from rossedwardsbooks.blogspot.com. Thanks for reading! -RE

[nick30075]

If you want to give away any of those excess commons/uncommons, I know a good home... .

[papercutpictures]

When I go in to the card store, I buy a few packs thinking there's a chance I'll get a Jace TMS or a Baneslayer. Unknown to me, the merchant has already removed all the bomb mythics for his single sales, and is conning his customers into thinking they can get them from random boosters. Chiz chiz chiz. I hate this.

[recardwizard]

@papercutpictures - The real danger is from internet vendors and ebay. Local card shops risk having people notice they never get anything good there, and then people stop buying and they go belly-up. Plus a good local shop will go through so much product every week it wouldn't matter. But if you buy loose packs online, there's a pretty good chance they contain mostly leftovers...

[papercutpictures]

@recardwizard yeah it stinks. I wrote to Mark Rowewater to ask if there's some way they can prevent code breaking in this way.

[martineau1988]

somebody shud buy me a booster box...im poor. ):

[agentzchango]

Noticed you never see his face. The voice is added after...

Just kidding, I believe this works.

[recardwizard]

@agentzchango - You caught me. I got the idea from "Super Mario Frustration." (What? No floah? What the f---? What is a bloopah doin' theah??!"

[dragonmann47]

lol you predicted that youtube will change the sidebar=P

[piplup10203854]

does this help to see if you got a planeswalker? i would like to buy the book but at the moment i don't buy a lot of magic boxes but i do plan to once i get a job. can i get it from amazon, the printed edition.

[853genesis]

if you buy a box don't you hust open all packs sooooooo why mapping if you like yeyeyeyey got that then pf pff pff unless like pff yeyeye pf pf pf pf yeyeyeyeyey you know

[akyl021]

Does the book have the mathematics on futuristic packs?

[recardwizard]

@akyl021 - The book DOES teach the method of mapping so you can apply it to future sets. Obviously I don't know what cards will be in future sets any more than you do, so there are no actual maps of future sets. :)

[relnic09]

Sometimes, but only in the rare occasion. That hinted the pictures on the pack, would get exactly the card on the picture. For example, a Hellkite Overlord and I actually got it. Mostly it's random. But I like videos explaining about the type of rares to find.

Keep it up! Thank you.

[donov25]

You are a genius! but if youve already bought them why not tear them open??

[owned1778]

your a genious!!!!!!!!

[metalikafire]

Or a fake...

[recardwizard]

@metalikafire And just how, pray tell, could this have been faked?  You know, considering hundreds upon hundreds of people have bought the book and used the system themselves...

[DanielHoward777]

^^ hurray dream theater fan, your more awsome than i thought you were

[CoryAlan89]

After watching all your videos I'd build you a statue. Anyways, I was wondering if you could hook me up with a site or a book where I could check Magic card values. Greatly appreciated, and I'm totally getting the book this Friday. Thanks again.

[JONIMASAKIS]

hey i havent understood wth is this....what do you do with magic the gathering...explain please

[JoshuaJapsNET]

this is pretty cool, good job at doing this, you make every magic player proud, now people can get some good cards without being scared what you might pull out.

[iCobalt]

This is pretty crazy, but what purpose does it serve?

[DeadHand1992]

how the fuck

[Amanisawesome]

does this still work for alra reborn and m

10.

[eagledare]

LOL XD

Love the "king of the nerds" spontaneous rage-off.

[KillerHamster]

I spot a Chaos in Motion DVD. Awesome!!!

[recardwizard]

Good eye! Yeah, I'm a Dream Theater fanatic, which is why there are so many DT references in my other book, Improve Your Writing from A to Z. :) I think I had just bought the DVD the day I made this video.

[asdfers]

I AM BUILDING YOU A STATUE!!

[DonThomasko]

8:51 LMAO XD

Why do you rage like that? That came out of NOWHERE.

[btross55]

i got an elvish piper and the guy next to me got a summit and a grove, which i hated, but i got the better deck and went 3-1. anyways i have the map in front of me. i know that sarkhan was 4 away from erosion. did you just miscount the slots or was there a disruption?

[Jumpinthemosh]

After sitting down at the M10 pre release and the guy next to me and myself both got 6 packs from different boxes. we both got dragonskull summit, sunpetal grove, and elvish piper.

seems pretty mappable.

[sweido]

8:55 is the best line I've ever heard in my life

[CH4LLY]

Haha, that's awesome.

[hbomb360]

holy shit u called ajani and sarkhan

[irisiridos]

Bought your book, first try yielded an ajani vengeant from 4 packs, wasted a 5th chasing a sarkhan that wasn't there. Definitely takes practice, but two thumbs up nevertheless.

[KainBlueriver]

Hi there, Ross! Just wanted to let you know that the book also works in Spanish Shards of Alara, and probably any othert mappable edition. Thanks for the time you took to do this book!

[HxCBlake7861]

Are you working on Alara Reborn right now?

If so does it look the same as conflux or is it coming along nicely?

[recardwizard]

Same as Conflux... not cost-effective to map. Sorry to disappoint!

[Slyboogy07]

we dont want it just to rip money cards, we want to find cards that we need for use

[bonqueeeda]

holy shit.

[waya121]

How many cracked sets/blocks are in your book?

[whitehiliter]

I bought your book a while ago and it has worked wonders for me.

[Zontronalonathon]

holy shit i just got a box of alara i got a sarkhan and ajani then all of the other rares you got and godsire just like you said it would be, so do they onlyprint a couple of sku's for booster boxes too then?

[recardwizard]

That's not really how it works... there is a distribution order, and any given box covers a 36-pack span of that order. The book explains everything in detail. :) Thanks for looking!

[atbestvague]

I am quiote disappointed the end of this video was cut short.

"Lemme tell you something, they build statues of guys like me..."

You're my kind of people. I use the statue line all the time. Wanted to see where you'd go with it :/

[blingblingchicken]

Is there anyway you could let me know? i just have to figure it out on my own? if it is in your book i couldn't find it. i found the tenth edition one but couldnt find it about shards.

[atbestvague]

As far as I can tell, due to the minuscule amt of foils per box, tracking them wouldn't be cost effective. Very few boxes would allow for the possibility to locate a worthwhile foil, and only about one in four packs even has a foil, which you would have to run into before having a starting point for your search. I admittedly have yet to buy the book, I want to see if Reborn tracks first, so feel free to scorn me if I'm wrong. Foils COULD be an occasional supplement to tracking rares, if LUCKY

[blingblingchicken]

Hi i recently bought your book and was trying to figure out the map for the foils in a box. I recently opened a shards booster box and pulled three foils in the three packs that i opened. and was curious how to map the foils in a box of shards? is it the same as in tenth edition? or is it completely different.

[recardwizard]

It's both different and not. Foil rares are still 32 packs apart over the span. It's the order of what comes in between that changes.

[Vinceisg0d]

You say you draft afterwards with the packs.

Isn't this somewhat wrong? You know what the packs don't have, hell, you know what they do have.

Isn't that unfair to the other drafters?

Does your store know about this? They have to.

[recardwizard]

It's the risk any store takes when they allow loose booster pack buy-ins. In fact if you buy a pack other than from a sealed box, you never know if the guy before you got the foil Tarmogoyf and you're drawing dead. As the book explains, the only way to be sure is to buy sealed boxes or singles.

[LimitxKing]

can this technically work in a store? because some stores i know just open a box and you just take a booster from it and buy it

[recardwizard]

Technically? From a sealed, freshly-opened box, yes. Of course that doesn't prevent the shopkeeper from throwing you out of the store when they see what you're doing.

[owningnewbs]

lol yeah i wouldnt recomend looking through the packs and maping them out in front of a store staff

[GaleonBlazer]

I've read in some comment that you didn't mapped Lorwyn yet. This may mean that will be other editions of the book, maybe at the same price? And for the ones who buy the book now? Those ones should pay twice its price for having all editions' maps?

That's not fair at all.

[recardwizard]

New editions will not repeat the content of old editions. That way every book still has value. I definitely want to be fair to everyone who already bought in. So far, Second Edition is set to have 11th Edition, Alara Reborn, Conflux (parring), Eventide (parring), and I'm doing some work on Ravnica and some other sets to see if I can derive some maps.

[insidiousDeAd]

Well i think he might have switched this booster with sarkhan while he was outside the cam, tough time but possible : )

[WarsongFox]

Nope, this is real.

[ybaboknarf]

hi ross, is the conflux map ready yet?

[JesssDebaser]

pretty cool, my friend said he talked to someone that knows you (they play at gamenightz in metro center mall). Any possibility to buy a copy of the book locally?

[Edricama]

Why would anyone who doesn't play Magic watch through the very end of this video? =S Are there really people who bother to stay the duration of something just to make fun of it? Scary...

[recardwizard]

You sure can! Just follow the link in the video information, above and to your right.

[motorhead592]

can u tell me how u know its rare or mythic rare or whatever??

[recardwizard]

I use Magic powers.

[WarsongFox]

lol

[DireHippo]

Hell yes it works. 4 packs opened = Manaplasm, Crucible of Fire, Hellkite Overlord, and Elspeth-knight Errant. Thanks Ross.

[AncientSionX]

Do a video where we can see you pulling out the cards out of the booster while being watched from the cam. When you busted the mythics the pack and your hand were outside the feed.

[recardwizard]

Well, in most instances they were not outside the frame, but I did notice a few were. I put up a video called The Card Wizard Answers the Skeptics 1/2 that should satisfy you on these issues. :)

[UnholyBurgerr]

Who would you sell the packs to? just people on ebay?

[recardwizard]

Whoever you like. I don't even bother selling them anymore... I just draft them, so it becomes cost-effective rather than paying again redundantly for draft product. I know many dealers ebay them. Others keep packs on hand to trade at tournaments.

[EgMadsen]

Hi, this is really cool. Could you try to do this in Lorwyn? i would like to see a video of that. Good job by the way!

[recardwizard]

I haven't mapped Lorwyn yet, but Lorwyn is definitely mappable (a partial map is in the book).  If I can get my hands on a few cases on the cheap, I will probably try to complete the map, and then it would be video time. Tough to do right now because Lorwyn is still full price but the secondary market for its top rares is way down.

[Skylink]

lol, the black book is white! Conspiracy! This is awesome. I had a feeling this was true a long time ago. Ever since I got the same six commons at the front of four straight packs. Going to buy this now. Thanks.

[edennista123]

Haha thats badass

[CHAPOSAAA]

y am from ARG. Could y buy the book here? in the case.. where?

[recardwizard]

My friend and ex-business-partner runs an ebay business and he is my "unofficial official seller" for international buyers, since Amazon charges too much for shipping. Search ebay for the book and you'll find a worldwide listing that has the book at the regular price and International 1st Class shipping, which is as cheap as we could make it. Thanks and take care!

[askme32055]

What are the chances you'll have the Conflux map by release date? I buy 6 cases of every set and would love to give this a try. It won't help me necessarily with that many boxes, but I think it would be great fun to do a few boxes.

[recardwizard]

I am working on it. The plan is to have a Conflux update ebook of some sort available on or about the 6th of February. It's going to be a very busy week for me prepping it! :)

[CHAPOSAAA]

OH shit!!! You are the god of the Magic, dude... simply

[recardwizard]

Thank you, thank you.  Try the steak. We'll be here all weekend. :)

[Suburbankidd]

You....my friend....are a freaking GENIUS!

[Makingnewnamesisdumb]

A Stroke of Genius.

[NightfallGemini]

this is pretty amazing. I'm going to have to take a look at the book.

I noticed you're at ASU. majoring in statistics or mathematics?

[recardwizard]

Actually, I am an ASU grad, twice over. BS in Justice Studies and JD in law. I did take all the stats classes in the BSJS program, before they took it all away and changed it to a BA in social inquiry (making it worth much less). Nice to see a fellow Sun Devil keeping it real out there!

[secretspy1]

so do you nessisarily need a 'full' booster box? or can i go into my local magic store with about 6 packs gone and do it? it would look stupid, but when my friends watch me pull sharkan-voll and the other mythics with only buying the packs their in i will be looked at as a hero. (it would be funny too. i would tell them i have laser vision.)

[darkstorm516]

Sorry for all the questions but where can you a booster box at

[recardwizard]

I buy from the same internet dealers as everyone else... Potomac, Dave and Adams, Collectors Cache, Hills Wholesale Gaming, etc. Just search Ebay and they are all selling boxes on there. Enjoy! :)

[Hygiene11]

Does it work on German boxes too?

[recardwizard]

Hi! I have tested it on Japanese and Russian boxes and it works. I have never tested it on German boxes. It probably does work, but you should try one or two boxes to be sure, before you order entire cases. :)

[gizmo20k]

Hi small question, is it only possible to pick mythic rares or can i pick the normal ones with with method too?

[recardwizard]

It's possible to pick either type.

[darkstorm516]

One more question. Where did you get the guide that tells the value of the cards?

[iforgot120]

Bahahaha this video is hilarious, all information aside.

Why did the end get cut? It was funny and it just ended.

[recardwizard]

I did that on purpose, kind of like the end of the album version of Pull Me Under. :)

[docjones77]

Ok, that sold it for me. You are one of the good guys.

[61tyler61]

how much does a box like that cost??

[movieguru18301]

about $86.50 on amazon

[iforgot120]

$200 million if you buy a box from me.

[darkstorm516]

okay

[darkstorm516]

Are you going to post a demo on the track for elspeth the knight errent

[recardwizard]

If I happen to open one while I'm filming, yes. The videos are totally unrehearsed, filmed without any chance of a re-do, so whatever is in the box is what I get to show. I did notice none of those boxes had Elspeth. Sometimes that's just how the assortment ends up. :)

[ambotdong]

your a fucking Genius thanks to you

[electricturf]

I'm never buying an opened box pack of magic again. I've been noticing my dealer pulling all the Tezzerets and Sarkan Vol's during drafts. So, to all those crooked dealers, fuck you!!!

[recardwizard]

Hey, at least now you know what they were doing, instead of just wondering if it was bad luck. The more you know...

[hateyellow]

I'm waiting for an E-book version. Any chances I could get a permit to translate your work in to my language[Thai]? We only have about 200 players in Bangkok.

[bloodangelus12]

Totally against it, dude. If people start using this method to the point where we would all be reluctant to open a package from an opened box, I couldn't really imagine how the community will be able to survive, having as little members as it is.

Remember why we all agree that the stores shouldn't let anyone rub the package to figure where promo cards are... It's to keep things fair and square to everyone.

[thirdeyebrown]

Haven't you been reading the comments?  Dealers are ALREADY doing this stuff. For once, someone is teaching the rest of us so we won't be so easy to take advantage of. Besides the book is already published so I'm pretty sure your objection comes a ltitle too late...

[bloodangelus12]

What I'm against was translating the thing into Thai. It was a reply to hateyellow.

[altec770]

So will there be an E-book? If so will it be out the same time as the paper one and will it be updated with new sets or will it be just like the paper book?

Thanks,

Altec

[recardwizard]

Still working on the e-book side of the equation. There are issues, I won't bore you with them here, but I'm definitely a child of the technology age so I want this available in electronic format. I can't promise anything as to how soon it might be.

[Socialism4Ever]

I left a comment on your profile... this rocks!

I'll be waiting to get my copy ASA it's ready!

[Nibluck]

Won't WOTC change the sequence of the cards after they have found out about your book?

[Filobel]

The book doesn't have the actual print runs in it though, does it? I'm guessing it just tells me how to figure out the print run and how to use it, but I still need to open like a case to actually calculate it.

[recardwizard]

Response to Filobel and Nibluck: Actually, the book does give some of the maps. 10th, Shards, and a few other sets. Even if they change the sequence later, the book teaches how to analyze the collation so you can get the most out of future sets... with or WITHOUT unraveling the map. :)

[Lemt]

Print runs are a fact, but they are REALLY hard to figure out. Or rather, you have to crack quite a lot of boxes to figure them out. They are very useful when playing drafts, so you know what to expect. I think I'll buy this book.

[mtgfan1aa]

japoniano sometimes you can get mythic rares in tournament packs but not all the time.

[WickedDealer]

Dude you got way to much time on your hands, seriously.

[japoniano]

A point for fatpacks and tournament packs I guess...

Does anyone know if Mythics appear in Tournament Packs?

[recardwizard]

Mythic rares do appear in tournament packs, at the same frequency as usual (15 out of every 40 tourney packs will have one, or just over a third... consistent with 1 Mythic: 8 Rares in boosters).

And yes, Fat Packs and Tournament Packs just got A WHOLE LOT BETTER.

[al678876]

i got hellkite overlord in my tournamnet pack

[jordman5]

well thats if all the stores are going to do that and hopefully the stores would know this an they would lose profit cause less people are buying packs

[nucleartime]

Eh, the card store I go to uses fresh boxes for drafting most of the time. I think you have to for WotC sanctioned events, start with a sealed booster box.

My friend tried considering weighing cards for foils, as I have a very accurate scale-0.001g, but we never got around to it.

[recardwizard]

Weighing doesn't work for Magic cards, as they are the same weight whether foil or not, but the Black Book does explain how to avoid being ripped off by "searched" boosters from before 4th edition, hot-glue reseals, etc. As these practices are "tampering" in the explicit sense, the book's treatment of these practices is condemnatory, not instructional.

[nucleartime]

Eh, you can weigh Pokemon packs though. Or so my friend says.

[jordman5]

are you going open more boxes like shadowmoor or eventide? maybe even lorwyn or morningtide?

[spiffy144]

I'd be happy just to subscribe to the collation list. Nice to see that it works.

[Gregandthensome]

I am not looking forward to the day people use this to choose the packs they draft with.

[joep041188]

you cant choose without opening first, so for draft is no problem

[SeanIsanwa]

This is really scary. This pretty much means that we are never going to open a good rare from certain card shops ever again unless we buy a sealed box.

[recardwizard]

As the book explains, packs from card shops owned by reputable dealers are probably safe. Even if they use these methods, they go through so much product it has near-zero impact on the odds of you pulling good stuff from packs. Online dealers are another story. There are online dealers and ebay dealers that do this and sell packs with nothing but junk left in them. This book helps the buyer be better informed and harder to take advantage of.

[SeanIsanwa]

But, knowing this information, wouldn't all card shops just start selling single packs that have junk in them?

[recardwizard]

It's a matter of volume.  Your average card shop could "map out" a dozen cases of each expansion and be fully stocked for months, and buying singles takes care of them the rest of the way. In the meantime they will sell twenty times as much product running drafts and such. See what I mean? It would barely make a dent.

[recardwizard]

So, I guess in answer to your question: Could they just sell all junk packs? Sure. They can already do that. I'm not the first to figure this out... just the first to write a book about it. Will the shops do that? Some will, but most, I think not. An owner won't want his shop to become known as the store with the "dead packs." Also, there are only so many hours in a day, and it takes a lot of time to "map" the packs. Most dealers are not that industrious.

[aciddimensions]

Too true! Some are just in it to turn a hobby into a small profit and are actually pretty lazy! ;-)

[TheRAD666]

How much the book will be ???

[TheRAD666]

And how come you seem to open all the same card in all 4 video , Tezz, empyrial, and the sphinxs?

[recardwizard]

The book will be out in early to mid December. See the video description at right for details.

Are you sure all four of the Shards boxes have the Tezzeret sequence? Two of them should have Sarkhan Vol, who cannot occur in the same box as Tez, barring a collation error at the factory. I thought I posted two of each. If not, my error. Thanks for looking!

[recardwizard]

List price is $14.99. I have no idea whether it gets discounted or anything... that is Amazon's call and they control all that. It's 150 pages long and is in trade paperback format.

[thirdeyebrown]

I knew it! I freaking knew it! The game shop near me ALWAYS has so many of the hot cards but I never see them open anything! I, for one, will buy this book just to protect myself as a collector and buyer!

[recardwizard]

That was kind of the idea. I used to be a dealer but I just play now. Seeing things from the other side of the fence, I felt it was time to level the playing field a bit.

[Monkeyboardman]

What sets did you crack and which are you going to crack ??

[recardwizard]

I did Shards and 10th for the demo clips. I also did some Planar Chaos and more Shards that I will probably post when the book is available for sale, just to show off some more.

[Monkeyboardman]

And the book will tell me how to crack the sets myself? (Got to much time on my hands :D)

[Sudit507]

Damn...you beat me to it ahaha xD good job mate I think I might skip the work left for me and just buy your book..or I'll do it anyway because if they scramble it, at least I know how to find it again. Damn how many days you've spent trying to figure this out ? xD

[Alicabob]

Can your book tell me what commons and uncommon's will be in a pack?

[recardwizard]

The book does not address the lower rarities, though the same methods of evaluating the packs should still work at uncommon and common.

[proffessors]

Wow. I hate when companies set an algorithm. I understand why they do it, but I did this same thing with Yugioh and was able to tell, after a couple of weeks, that you could find any rare you wanted. To be honest I hope they scramble them soon...

[recardwizard]

It doesn't matter how they "scramble" it. As long as the cards are packed by machines, it is not random. The Shards of Alara sequence was actually very, very well hidden, and it took a couple of cases to sort out, but no matter what the factory does, a sequence of some kind is in there.

[Alicabob]

Basically what your saying is the only way for WotC to correct this is to hire people to pack the cards. So in other words, it will never be fixed.

[Alicabob]

I love you. it is one step behind gay love but I love you.