Calculated Unglued Common/Uncommon sheets

[jeremy]

I opened a box of Unglued and recorded the sequence of the cards to determine the sheet layout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97AcErP2tQk

Common Layout


Uncommon Layout


Pack Assembly
Unglued packs consist of 1 land, 1 rare, 2 uncommons, and 6 commons. Tokens are included on the uncommon sheet. When packs are assembled, there are eight machines counting commons, and four machines counting uncommons, one machine counting rares, and one counting lands.
Each common card counter draws from a separate "bin" of cards, likewise for uncommons. The first pack in the box will get six commons from one bin, the second pack will get six commons from the next bin, etc. This means that in a single booster box, there are eight runs of commons from (at least) eight different sheets.
Packs are in the box mostly arranged in order of the rare sheet (uncut sheets are known to exist), but there is a small amount of re-arranging. The rare in the pack can be used as a "key" based on the known rare sheet to determine the pack number when they are out of order in the box. When packs are sorted by the rare, packs 1, 9, 17, 25, 33, and 41 contain a run of commons from one sheet, packs 2, 10, 18, 26, 34, and 42 contain a run of commons from another sheet, etc.
All unglued sheets are 10x11.
The common sheet layout is somewhat shuffled for the appearance of randomness in a pack. The uncommon sheet repeats the same sequence four times, with the exception of the squirrel and sheep token in one of the sequences. The rare sheet is similar to the uncommon sheet, except the last repetition of the sequence is altered to accomodate the "Free-For-All"/"I'm Rubber, You're Glue" pair.
Because the cards are collated one row at a time, it is not possible to determin the sheet edges based on regular pack openings alone.
The right and left edge of the common sheet are guessed based off a series of connecting cards with a back printing error. The top and bottom are guessed to avoid two neighboring chaos confetti. Additionally, I have seen one miscut "Clam-I-Am" over "Growth Spurt", meaning the sheet edge is not between my second and third rows.

The edges of the uncommon sheet are guessed to allign with the rare sheet, so the two U3s (Sheep Token and Squirrel Token) are in the same locations as the two R3s ("Strategy Schmategy", and "Ashnod's Coupon").

For reference, the four uncommon runs in my box were:

miss demeanor, sorry, spatula, clay pigeon, goblin token, charm school, checks and balances, jumbo imp, ultimate nightmare, flock of rabid sheep, urza's contact, pegasus token, lexivore, censorship, handcuffs, goblin tutor, hungry hungry heifer, bronze calendar, soldier token, get a life, common courtesy, volrath's motion sensor, ricochet, gerrymandering

zombie, miss demeanor, sorry, sheep token, spatula, squirrel token, clay pigeon, goblin token, charm school, checks and balances, jumbo imp, ultimate nightmare, flock of rabid sheep, urza's contact, pegasus token, lexivore, censorship, handcuffs, goblin tutor, hungry hungry heifer, bronze calendar, soldier token, get a life, common courtesy

gerrymandering, urza's science, zombie, miss demeanor, sorry, sheep token, spatula, squirrel token, clay pigeon, goblin token, charm school, checks and balances, jumbo imp, ultimate nightmare, flock of rabid sheep, urza's contact, pegasus token, lexivore, censorship, handcuffs, goblin tutor, hungry hungry heifer, bronze calendar, soldier token

urza's science, zombie, miss demeanor, sorry, sheep token, spatula, squirrel token, clay pigeon, goblin token, charm school, checks and balances, jumbo imp, ultimate nightmare, flock of rabid sheep, urza's contact, pegasus token, lexivore, censorship, handcuffs, goblin tutor, hungry hungry heifer, bronze calendar, soldier token, get a life

[dragsamou]

Hi

Looking at your data, something is missing: On which sheets the 5 basic lands are placed (they aren't on the Rare sheet).
Do they have, their own sheet ?

[jeremy]

Yes, the lands are on their own sheet, repeating left to right: Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest Plains.

The "Unglued filler card" I believe is actually from Anthologies, which had some reprinted Unglued tokens.

[dragsamou]

Yes, the lands are on their own sheet, repeating left to right: Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest Plains.

The "Unglued filler card" I believe is actually from Anthologies, which had some reprinted Unglued tokens.

The Unglued filler according to the owners of them were found in Unglued boosters. Anthologies was 120 white bordered cards and 10 tokens (Pegasus, Goblin). At this point while some previous 2 x 60 preconstructed decks cards sheets did have a filler, for Anthologies, it wasn't a possibily to have a silver filler on that sheet. So, there's 2 possibilities eithers the Tokens silver bordered from Anthologies came from previous Unglued sheets (No difference between Unglued tokend and Anthologies tokens were ever found at this point. Or, they came from Only Anthologies tokens sheets that could be on a 11 x 10 sheet. Therefore what was the point of having a filler, when 55 Pegasus tokens and 55 Goblins tokens could be placed on it (Anthologies have 5 tokens in each decks, 10 in total) ?

[jeremy]

I highly doubt the Anthologies tokens came from previous Unglued sheets since they'd be discarding a lot of Uncommons.

It's possible Anthologies tokens were printed on 10x11 sheets like Unglued, in which case it would be very strange to have a filler as you say.

My theory is that the Anthologies tokens were printed 11x11, to match the deck sheet. This would make 60 of each token plus one filler.

One solid silver filler popped up in the Facebook misprint group some time ago. The poster claimed they found it in an Anthologies box set, but the set had already been opened, so it's not certain the filler originally came from that set.

The Commons in my Unglued box completely cover the calculated sheet layout, so there's no room for a filler there. The calculated Uncommon sheet is not completely covered by the box, but the box does cover one of the sequences without the squirrel and sheep tokens, and sequences without those tokens. I have not seen any pack openings indicating a different missing uncommon card in the sequence, which again leaves no room for a filler.

[lethe]

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 packs, this most often happens as a transposition between two adjacent cards. These transpositions are not random; they tend to appear at certain positions, and the distances between those positions are usually a multiple of the sheet width (this is originally an observation made by Nima). This suggests that certain columns are more likely to be transposed, but it doesn't tell us which column unless we have a known sheet to compare to. In general, there aren't a lot of good US sheets to use as examples, but what I've found from what is available is that usually swaps occur among the first three columns (counting from the left edge). For newer packs, swaps between 2 and 3 seem most common, and for older packs, I think columns 1 and 2 are maybe more common. (As an example, take the known Tempest common sheet against the swaps I reported in my reconstruction.)

You have one transposition in your common data (last card of pack 38 and first card of pack 30 numbering by order the packs appear in the video) between Double Play and Krazy Kow. And, you have placed this pair in the first two columns of the first row, so transposition theory is corroborating your left edge alignment!

[jeremy]

I've found from what is available is that usually swaps occur among the first three columns (counting from the left edge). For newer packs, swaps between 2 and 3 seem most common, and for older packs, I think columns 1 and 2 are maybe more common. (As an example, take the known Tempest common sheet against the swaps I reported in my reconstruction.)

You have one transposition in your common data (last card of pack 38 and first card of pack 30 numbering by order the packs appear in the video) between Double Play and Krazy Kow. And, you have placed this pair in the first two columns of the first row, so transposition theory is corroborating your left edge alignment!

Good observation! I didn't know transpositions were more likely in certain columns, but I'm not surprised. Must be something about how the cutting machine sweeps cards into a stack.