Almost identical pulls from booster boxes

[Alatar]

Hey,

I don't know if this has been discussed previously, sorry if it has!

Basically I recently bought 2 Fellowship booster boxes about 3 weeks apart, but from the same retailer on ebay. I pulled almost exactly the same rates in the second box as I had in the first, and it really annoyed me 

Does anyone know why this might have happened? I'm guessing that boxes that came off the production line next to each other might contain similar rates, but that seems a stupid thing to do! Or maybe I just have terrible luck, but I doubt it, I think only 2 of the cards were different.

If anyone's interested heres a youtube playlist of me opening the first box: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doFAb3A- Yw

And in this latest video I can be found wondering why lady luck hates me so much (after I've gone through recent ROTEL pulls) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL0hZkMlk s

[Air Power]

I remember discussion back when Fellowship first came out about Decipher using poor randomization so there were certain box types.  For example, I think one was called the "toys" box because lots of the rares were equipment.

This is really a memory of a rumor that I heard 13 years ago, so I'm not sure if it was ever confirmed (I assume that it isn't something Decipher would admit).  Since you get almost all of the cards in 1 box of a small set, it wouldn't have been apparent for Mines or Realms.  I don't think TT suffered from the same issue.

I know that at least twice I've opened consecutive packs to find the same 3 uncommons in the same order.

[sgtdraino]

I have always heard that the way to get the best distribution, is to get booster boxes with consecutive numbers. Each booster has a little tag in it that gives the serial number of that box as it was manufactured.

[ramolnar]

Decipher, like other manufacturers, did not fully randomize cards. It's really expensive. Decipher used 11 by 11 card print sheets - which is why we had 121 rares, uncommons, and commons in large sets. In the large sets, the 121 rares were divided into four groups. Each box contained 30 or 31 "fixed" rares from a group and 5 or 6 random packs. There were also fixed orders for uncommons and commons.
For some reason, I still have the lists for draft boxes and Two Towers. For instance, in Two Towers the following four rares usually appeared in order: aldor, mauhur, forbidden pool, new fear. I don't have the lists for Fellowship, but I was told a similar pattern existed.

This isn't just Decipher, by the way. Magic had fixed common order for a long time, where players would memorize the common runs for advantage in draft.

[Ringbearer]

This went up to return of the king. I know WK and small hope and arwen were in the same box.

[Alatar]

Thanks everyone for the info! I'm sad to say it happened again, I got the same fixed cards from another box I ordered from the US, so now have tons up for trade!

It really is irritating though, I can't understand why it was done, even though they were printed in sheets of 121 etc, surely it wouldn't have been TOO hard to properly randomise them. But then again if it's a common thing amongst most manufacturers I must save some money for them. Grr..

[sgtdraino]

If you're placing an order somewhere, it doesn't hurt to see if they can do consecutive serial numbered boxes. Although with product becoming scarcer, this is probably becoming more difficult to do.