To start, I was forced to make some guesses of what the set will be composed of, since the 249 card set is 20 more than MM13, which came in at 229 cards. The breakdown of MM13 was 101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythics. That is the basic 249 card set type, minus the 20 basic lands, that we see in Shards of Alara, Zendikar, Scars of Mirrodin, Theros, and Magic Core Sets 10 through 14. Now, there is only one other 249 card set, and that one is Gatecrash, which has no common lands, just like MM15. The composition of Gatecrash is 101-**80**-60-53-15, 80 uncommons rather than 60. Additionally, there are four other sets (Return to Ravnica, Magic Core 15, Khans of Tarkir, Dragons of Tarkir) with breakdowns of 101-80-53-15-XX, and when we drop off the basic lands (XX), we have 249 cards. Given the preponderance of evidence indicating that the 101-80-53-15 breakdown is likely, that is what I have decided to use.
ASSUMPTIONS
Additional, mostly factual (minor speculation such as pack breakdowns based solidly in historical patterns) information used to attain these numbers is as follows;
15 cards per pack, consisting of 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or mythic rare, and 1 foil. A mythic rare distribution of one per 8 packs on average. That gives us 10-3-.875-.125-1 of each type of card per pack, respectively.
An estimated average value of 5 cents per common, 20 cents per uncommon, $3 per rare, and $40 per mythic rare. The estimated value of the mythic rares is very important to these calculations, as they are the bulk of the value in the boxes. The average value of the 13 mythics that have been spoiled/leaked at this point is somewhere around $45, give or take a few bucks. If the last two are kind of crappy, and worth maybe $20 ea, that would pull EV down to around $40.
A multiplier of 2x for foil values. Very conservative on the more in-demand foils, but that is fine.
Foils are not printed at the ratio of non-foils, they are printed, apparently, evenly from what info I can find. So your odds of any one foil card being a mythic rare are 15/249, of a regular rare 53/249, of an uncommon 80/249, and a common 101/249.
DATA
OBSERVATIONS
First of all, the values of just the plain-jane cards seem to reflect the approximate realities of most boxes, you're paying a premium to be the ripper. However, the whole foil in every pack deal really tilts this set heavily towards being a better value to open than to leave sealed, given the quality of the Mythics we are likely to see in this set. With about $837 in EV per case in regular cards alone, they're a solid play to open via drafting, essentially leaving you paying $120 ($1.25 a pack!) out of pocket to draft what may be one of the best draft-formats ever. That is some nice bang for your buck! The foils really ramp things up by adding an additional $600 of EV per case, for an astounding EV of ~$1,440 per case! That's a huge 33.29% premium to MSRP. If you have these boxes, it's almost a no-brainer to either throw them aside, or open them. They're simply being sold far too cheap, given our earlier assumptions on card values.
WHERE IS EV EQUAL TO MSRP?
So, let's say you wanted to know where EV will be roughly equivalent to MSRP, assuming the foil multiplier at 2x stays the same. You'd have to see values drop to 5 cents per common, 10 cents per uncommon, $2 per rare, and $26.50 per mythic. [With those values, we have an EV of about $961 per case, or just $1 over MSRP.](http://i.imgur.com/CkTRJYL.jpg) Does anybody really think you're going to see an EV of $26.50 per mythic rare with Tarmogoyf as the top card? In order to attain that kind of average value of mythics, we're talking about sub-$100 Tarmogoyfs, $35 Dark Confidants and Vendilion Cliques, $25 Kozileks, $25 Emrakuls, $25 Mox Opals, you get the idea. That would require MM15 to have a very substantial print run, in the realm of diluting the outstanding populations of each mythic by 25%, minimum, and more realistically 35% or so. I don't see WotC being that aggressive with a product like MM15, it isn't their style to be aggressive with reprints, given how they've been burned when basically shocking the market with volume reprints in the past. **coughcoughchroniclescough**
MY PREDICTIONS
Boxes of MM15 will move fast. Supply may be higher than last time, but we're not talking about a massive, exponential increase, and we know demand is sky high for these boxes. These boxes will be impossible to find at MSRP within 2-3 weeks of launch, and a second wave, if one is planned, will sell out equally quick, assuming similar production run sizes. Once MSRP stocks are exhausted, values will move up to about $300/box pretty quickly, and will stabilize in that region for a while, beginning a fairly sharp creep to the $350 region, which should be hit by next summer, barring unforeseen additional reprints or further waves of MM15 being released.
It is important to realize as well that when looking at it from this point of view that you need to be either set up as a shop and or be interested in trading heavily and or just need everything that they print essentially. If you own modern decks its likely that buying this product in large scale will result in being forced to trade and or sell parts of what you obtain from this.
I think this view is very useful at looking at the potential worth of the product but its also going to be spread out all over the place meaning you need to be set up to move singles or just need everything from a product like this. This point of view is best set up for those who are in business to move singles if you ask me.
If there is significant room for meat on the bone it becomes more interesting for those who are just looking to fill up their collections but the closer the cost is to the worth of the pulls the more it makes sense to buy singles instead. Thanks for this interesting bit of thought as I find it interesting to look at.
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It is important to realize as well that when looking at it from this point of view that you need to be either set up as a shop and or be interested in trading heavily and or just need everything that they print essentially. If you own modern decks its likely that buying this product in large scale will result in being forced to trade and or sell parts of what you obtain from this.
I think this view is very useful at looking at the potential worth of the product but its also going to be spread out all over the place meaning you need to be set up to move singles or just need everything from a product like this. This point of view is best set up for those who are in business to move singles if you ask me.
If there is significant room for meat on the bone it becomes more interesting for those who are just looking to fill up their collections but the closer the cost is to the worth of the pulls the more it makes sense to buy singles instead. Thanks for this interesting bit of thought as I find it interesting to look at.
Thing is, the values of the commons/uncommons and garbage rares don't impact overall pricing too much. You can easily get solid money for the good rares and mythics by throwing them on, say, eBay and selling them at auction. You don't necessarily have to be set up to sell cards direct via a B&M or website when you have a venue like eBay that will take a cut (~12% fees/overhead is nothing compared to what a B&M pays) and give you quick liquidity. Liquidity isn't a big problem with Magic, unalike other collectables. I didn't originally add percentages of EV, but that's easy to do and I just did it.
Common Total - 3.61%
Uncommon Total - 4.86%
Rare Total - 26.03%
Mythic Total - 65.5%
Total Totals - 100%
The mythics, with 65.5% of your EV, are only going to be, on average, 4.446 cards per box. The 26.108 rares per box are 26.03%. Between the two of those, we'll round up and say 31 cards are accounting for 91.53% of your EV.
your formula is off for the foils. You do not get 5 foil rares nor 1.4 foil mythics per box
From a box of Modern Masters? We're not talking about a regular product here. The only information I have been able to find is that they are printed evenly for Modern Masters, and until I find information that indicates otherwise, or you present information that indicates otherwise, I have to work under that assumption.
I plan to watch as many booster box openings on YT as I can tonight, of the original Modern Masters, to refine my numbers. Hopefully I can get 10-15 boxes worth of data, 250ish packs should be good enough to eliminate a nice chunk of the potential randomness.
your formula is off for the foils. You do not get 5 foil rares nor 1.4 foil mythics per box
Exactly.
Without some person or organisation opening 50000 or more packs and recording everything we'll not find out exact amounts, but the best guesses made about MM1 were that foil rares were 1 in 14 or 1 in 15 packs. (That's counting both red symbol R1 and gold symbol R2 rarities as rares)
Also while this is a smaller issue, this is yet another post that ignores what is known about printing processes and rarities. R1s (mythics) are *known* to be 1 in 121 packs, R2s are 2 in 121 packs, and both are printed on the same print sheets (1 copy of each R1, 2 of each R2).
Most importantly this totally ignores the impact that MM2 will have on prices. After all, when all that was known about Khans was six cards - Sarkhan at R1, and the fetches at R2, you might have calculated the EV to be about USD 6 per pack from just the fetches. Somehow that did not last and Polluted Delta did not remain a USD 120 card. Now MM2 won't drop any USD 120 cards to sub USD 20, but it will crash the prices of desired R2s that are not chase cards. Noble Hierarch might fall 40%, for instance, and Goblin Guide might fall 80%.
Gotta say I am really impressed, I will certainly never deny you put thought into what you say with confidence.
For the sake of thought, in the comparision of chronicles and MM do you think that the increased size of player base plus the introduction of the mythic rarity might help cushion the price falls more than calculated? I mean most people who open one of these high end mythics will most likely keep it for play rather than selling it, so that could help filter some of the mythics out of the availible market right there (Granted that this is a human behavoir factor that should be considered somewhat unpredictable).
Lastly, this is purely hypothetical, even if MM2015 is not aggressively reprinted, if a third and/or fourth MM reprint set comes out with roughly the same high price mythics(termagoyf and Bob) would it not have the same effect of lowering them by 25% to 35% in the long run?
I ran similar calculations for MMa, but cannot find my excell sheet just now. But I would like to point out that if MM2 is similar to MMa, the foil propabilities are:
0,125*24/15 for a foil mythic, meaning 1 foil mythic for every 5 boxes, or 1,2 for a case.
0,875*24/15 for a foil rare, 1,4 foil rares per box, 8,4 per case
3*24/15 for foil uncommon, 4,8 per box
11*24/15 for foil commons, 17,6 per box
I don't know how you got to 1,446 foil mythics per box or the 5,1 foil rares per box, but the formula must contain a major flaw somewhere. I did a few reverse engineering runs using your foil propability numbers and couldn't get a consistant results back. Just use the propabilities above and it should be pretty smooth sailing.
The only possible uncertainty is due to the number of commons. Since there are no land-slot, there might be 10 or 11 commons for each rare/mythic. With MMa some boxes were very close to 1/3/10 and some 1/3/11. Having one less common boosts the number of uncommons up by one and gives more double foil rare/mythic boxes.
But as your biggest single value gainer (foil mythics) dropped to 1/7th of it's EV, I would suggest redoing the calculations before buying too many cases. This set will be like previous MMa, some boxes will gain you value, some will be even when the set comes out, but card values will drop and some will loose you value. Only big operawtions opening hundreds of boxes will be able to trust on propabilities, for smaller operations, you will need some serious luck to make money if buying a case at MRSP. Remember that you have to beat the eBay minimum of 12 % fees.
Boxes at 200$ during release will most likely do fine, but 240$ few weeks after, not so much.
I guess the OP made the following assumption: "The printed volume of foils at each rarity is equal. Thus the probabilty that your foil is of a given rarity is given by P=X/249, where X is the number of unique cards in the set at the relevant rarity".
This would give the probability of a foil mythic in a pack as P=15/249=0.06, and foils per 24-pack display at 1.44.
I don't at what ratios the foil sheets are printed, but with the mythics printed once on the rare sheet and the rares printed twice on the rare sheet, we know that the numbers for mythics and rares must match up at 1:2.
Anyone know how many common and uncommon foil sheets are printed? And what are the dimensions of the common and uncommon sheets? I know that there is supposedly an "extra" common on the common sheet, which is printed at a lower frequency on the sheet than the other commons. Can't remember at what ratio this common is printed to the others, but it could fit with 3:4. That would give a common sheet of 403 cards, which fit with 13 x 31.
So if that works, and they print an equal number of foil sheets, that would meant that there are 403 foil commons for every 15 foil mythics, rather than the 101:15 ratio used in the OP's calculations.
Unsure about the uncommon sheet, 80 is such an easily factored number so the uncommon sheets could be anythin
Another thing that I didn't take into account is that presumably the numbers of cards per sheet are also selected in such a way that they can print the 1:3:10 ratio of cards for boosters with some integer number of each sheet. Otherwise, at the end of each printing campaign they would waste parts of a sheet.
Good move, I believe that the thread will get more hits here.
As for the foil propabilities. Wotc prints each rarity sheet only as many times as necessary for boosters. (For full sets there's different sheets, if I understood correctly). Commons are printed on several sheets, with usually each common occuring four times. Sometimes one or two cards show up once more or once less (uncommon common). Each sheet is 11 x 11 cards always, but sometimes there are filler cards, which are removed in production.
The end result is that there are 10 commons for each rare or mythic, or 5 copies of each common for each copy of a certain rare. Uncommons are printed in similar way. For each rare sheet there are three uncommon sheets (if they fit on one sheet) and 2,5 sets of common sheets.
MMa was the first ever set with a guaranteed foil in each pack (well all-foil Alara might count for nit-pickers) and the foils appeared to follow the normal rarity distribution. I personally believe that they use the normal machinery for printing the foil sheets, cutting and sorting the cards into 'booster-like' batches, but instead of packing the cards are transported into the hopper for basic lands. So they are inserted into boosters in the ratio the normal cards would appear in a booster, so 10 or 11 commons, 3 uncommons and one rare or mythic.
Naturally as WotC has been fighting against box mapping, there's some algorithm for mixing the batches up a bit. At least so that the boosters don't follow each other directly (so if you open a foil uncommon, you buy the next three packs to certainly hit the foil rare). MMa boxes were so roomy that boosters did move around and get mixed. Few mappers were really unhappy.
But I can with some authority say that there will not be 1,44 foil mythics in average MM15 box. Nor over 4 foil rares.
As long as people will trade gold coins for magic beans (pieces of cardboard) why would Hasbro stop selling it?
People are assuming "limited print run" means "speculation profit guarantee". That would be horrible, any growth of the game would be brick walled if that happened.
But I can with some authority say that there will not be 1,44 foil mythics in average MM15 box. Nor over 4 foil rares.
Yeah if it is anything like MM1... you average about 2 foil rare/mythic a box (not each... combined). Either that or the 4 boxes me and my friends opened were consistently unlucky. Keep in mind there are only 24 packs in a box... so if it does follow the typical distribution as default user mentions (would make sense) than the real average is 1.6 per box (1 out of 15 packs * 24 packs)
1.5 mythics per box is definitely not happening.
The ratio of foils to packs in regular packs is ~1:4 (1 foil in 56 cards).
The ratio of foil rares and mythics to packs in regular packs is about 1:36 and 1:216 respectively - you average about one foil rare per box and about one foil mythic per case.
Foils are 4x as common in MM packs as they are in regular packs, but boxes are also 2/3rds the size. This means that a rare will average about one in 9 packs, or less than three per box (2.667). And a Mythic will average about one in 58 packs, or fewer than one in two boxes (.413 per box).
From the sound of Default User's posts, these numbers may be twice as high as the actuality.
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Yeah, sorry, I have been running around like crazy lately. I did get some time to watch about 10 boxes worth of openings, and the numbers I came up with suggest that foil distribution is actually equivalent to non-foils, with only two mythics in those ten boxes, along with about 20 rares and a good number of uncommons. I only watched users who opened multiple boxes and posted them, rather than just people who did a single box, to reduce the odds of people cherrypicking only the good boxes to post.
It suggests a foil breakdown per box of MM13 as follows;
Which should be the same for MM15, and that will greatly impact my suggested EV, so I've gotta run through everything one more time.
Hopefully I can redo everything tonight at some point, I'm about to start another 11 hour shift at work, and I need to update my MM15 preorder pricing (whoa!!) and hunt down another preorder I'm waiting to hear back about.
Well, now that the entire set is known, I figured I would go ahead and toss up a current valuation of the singles/set/box values as I usually do for standard sets. It should be noted of course that many of these cards will likely drop as a result of the increased supply, but I suspect many have already started to lower slowly due to the impending reprint, so we will see how things shape up (as always and as shown from Modern Masters (the first one) the rares will take the larger hit, while the mythics will take a smaller hit or remain stable over time depending upon the cards.)
Mythics (worth $2 or more):
Tarmogoyf: $160
Vendilion Clique: $50
Dark Confidant: $45
Mox Opal: $35
Emrakul the Aeons Torn: $35
Kozilek Butcher of Truth: $35
Karn Liberated: $35
Ulamog the Infinite Gyre: $30
Bitterblossom: $30
Elesh Norn Grand Cenobite: $20
Iona, Shield of Emeria: $20
Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker: $15
Primeval Titan: $12
Tezzeret the Seeker: $12
Total value of mythics: $535 (15 mythics)
Rares (worth $2 or more):
Cryptic Command: $40
Noble Hierarch: $40
Fulminator Mage: $20
Wilt-Leaf Liege: $20
Daybreak Coronet: $18
Leyline of Sanctity:$18
Splinter Twin: $15
Spellskite: $15
Blinkmoth Nexus: $10
All is Dust: $10
Eye of Ugin: $7.50
Creakwood Liege: $6
Hurkyl's Recall: $5
Apocalypse Hydra: $5
Necroskitter: $4
Puppeteer Clique: $4
Surgical Extraction:$4
Niv-Mizzet the Firemind:$3
Etched Champion: $3
Mirran Crusader: $2.50
Mystic Snake: $2
Sunforger: $2
Total value of Rares: $270 (53 rares)
Uncommons (worth $1 or more):
Remand: $7.50
Electrolyze: $2
Lightning Bolt: $1.50
Cranial Plating:$1.50
Eldrazi Temple: $1.50
Artisan of Kozilek:$1
Dispatch: $1
Dismember: $1
Incandescent Soulstoke: $1
Expedition Map: $1
Total value of uncommons: $25
Commons (worth at least .50):
Smash to Smithereens: $2
Vines of Vastwood: $1.50
Darksteel Citadel: .50
Thoughtcast: .50
Vapor Snag: .50
Gut Shot: .50
Total value of commons: $8
Complete set Value:
Mythics: $535
Rares: $270
Uncommon/Common sets: $30
Total set value: $835
Overall average box value (with foil adjustment):
Mythics: $535/15 = $35.67/mythic x 3 mythics/box = $107
Rares: $270/53 = $5.10/rare x 21 rares/box = $107
Uncommon/Common sets: $30 x .9 = $27
Foils (adjusted lower): $40
Total overall average box value (with foil adjustment): $281
All in all, not too bad, at least from an overall average perspective. The problem of course, is that both the rares and mythics are rather top heavy, with the top few rares making up the majority of the rare value, and of course the skew that tarmogoyf has to the overall average for the mythics. As such, when buying boxes, there is going to be a great deal of variance all around, most boxes should average themselves out, but there will be plenty of low value boxes, to go along with some high value boxes in the mix. As for individual packs, unfortunately there are plenty of bulk rares in the set, that it really is a bit of a crapshoot as far as that goes, as some have said, its a bit like buying a lottery ticket and hoping for the best. The foils as mentioned, were adjusted lower, simply due to the fact that the true overall average value would skew so much worse than normal, that I preferred to go with a more conservative estimate (which even then could end up much lower, or could be crazily higher). Values will drop from here though, so this is only a starting valuation, for now though the $280 overall average box valuation at least gives a ballpark idea in addition to the singles values shown, what you would be working with. Anyhow, enjoy the information, will see about posting an update to the above information after the set has been released.
It's just really sad that I'm not seeing much in the way of casual all-stars that are being cratered from this set, like Doubling Season, Meloku, Academy Ruins, Swords, Woodfall Primus, etc from MM1. Not even Azusa! It's just jank filler and mostly good Mythics and Cryptic Command. I'm thinking whoever designed this set designed it to maintain mythic value and not worry about anything else, really. Because that's what a top heavy set does - maintain mythic single prices and crater everything else.
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To start, I was forced to make some guesses of what the set will be composed of, since the 249 card set is 20 more than MM13, which came in at 229 cards. The breakdown of MM13 was 101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythics. That is the basic 249 card set type, minus the 20 basic lands, that we see in Shards of Alara, Zendikar, Scars of Mirrodin, Theros, and Magic Core Sets 10 through 14. Now, there is only one other 249 card set, and that one is Gatecrash, which has no common lands, just like MM15. The composition of Gatecrash is 101-**80**-60-53-15, 80 uncommons rather than 60. Additionally, there are four other sets (Return to Ravnica, Magic Core 15, Khans of Tarkir, Dragons of Tarkir) with breakdowns of 101-80-53-15-XX, and when we drop off the basic lands (XX), we have 249 cards. Given the preponderance of evidence indicating that the 101-80-53-15 breakdown is likely, that is what I have decided to use.
ASSUMPTIONS
Additional, mostly factual (minor speculation such as pack breakdowns based solidly in historical patterns) information used to attain these numbers is as follows;
15 cards per pack, consisting of 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or mythic rare, and 1 foil. A mythic rare distribution of one per 8 packs on average. That gives us 10-3-.875-.125-1 of each type of card per pack, respectively.
An estimated average value of 5 cents per common, 20 cents per uncommon, $3 per rare, and $40 per mythic rare. The estimated value of the mythic rares is very important to these calculations, as they are the bulk of the value in the boxes. The average value of the 13 mythics that have been spoiled/leaked at this point is somewhere around $45, give or take a few bucks. If the last two are kind of crappy, and worth maybe $20 ea, that would pull EV down to around $40.
A multiplier of 2x for foil values. Very conservative on the more in-demand foils, but that is fine.
Foils are not printed at the ratio of non-foils, they are printed, apparently, evenly from what info I can find. So your odds of any one foil card being a mythic rare are 15/249, of a regular rare 53/249, of an uncommon 80/249, and a common 101/249.
DATA
OBSERVATIONS
First of all, the values of just the plain-jane cards seem to reflect the approximate realities of most boxes, you're paying a premium to be the ripper. However, the whole foil in every pack deal really tilts this set heavily towards being a better value to open than to leave sealed, given the quality of the Mythics we are likely to see in this set. With about $837 in EV per case in regular cards alone, they're a solid play to open via drafting, essentially leaving you paying $120 ($1.25 a pack!) out of pocket to draft what may be one of the best draft-formats ever. That is some nice bang for your buck! The foils really ramp things up by adding an additional $600 of EV per case, for an astounding EV of ~$1,440 per case! That's a huge 33.29% premium to MSRP. If you have these boxes, it's almost a no-brainer to either throw them aside, or open them. They're simply being sold far too cheap, given our earlier assumptions on card values.
WHERE IS EV EQUAL TO MSRP?
So, let's say you wanted to know where EV will be roughly equivalent to MSRP, assuming the foil multiplier at 2x stays the same. You'd have to see values drop to 5 cents per common, 10 cents per uncommon, $2 per rare, and $26.50 per mythic. [With those values, we have an EV of about $961 per case, or just $1 over MSRP.](http://i.imgur.com/CkTRJYL.jpg) Does anybody really think you're going to see an EV of $26.50 per mythic rare with Tarmogoyf as the top card? In order to attain that kind of average value of mythics, we're talking about sub-$100 Tarmogoyfs, $35 Dark Confidants and Vendilion Cliques, $25 Kozileks, $25 Emrakuls, $25 Mox Opals, you get the idea. That would require MM15 to have a very substantial print run, in the realm of diluting the outstanding populations of each mythic by 25%, minimum, and more realistically 35% or so. I don't see WotC being that aggressive with a product like MM15, it isn't their style to be aggressive with reprints, given how they've been burned when basically shocking the market with volume reprints in the past. **coughcoughchroniclescough**
MY PREDICTIONS
Boxes of MM15 will move fast. Supply may be higher than last time, but we're not talking about a massive, exponential increase, and we know demand is sky high for these boxes. These boxes will be impossible to find at MSRP within 2-3 weeks of launch, and a second wave, if one is planned, will sell out equally quick, assuming similar production run sizes. Once MSRP stocks are exhausted, values will move up to about $300/box pretty quickly, and will stabilize in that region for a while, beginning a fairly sharp creep to the $350 region, which should be hit by next summer, barring unforeseen additional reprints or further waves of MM15 being released.
As I said, I aimed to be fairly conservative with values, but yeah, I agree, $14 worth of uncommons per box does seem somewhat low.
Regular commons and uncommons made worthless.
Rares dropped to $2.50 each average.
Mythics dropped to $30 each average.
Foil commons and uncommons made worth $0.10.
Foil multiplier still at 2x.
EV is still over MSRP.
I think this view is very useful at looking at the potential worth of the product but its also going to be spread out all over the place meaning you need to be set up to move singles or just need everything from a product like this. This point of view is best set up for those who are in business to move singles if you ask me.
If there is significant room for meat on the bone it becomes more interesting for those who are just looking to fill up their collections but the closer the cost is to the worth of the pulls the more it makes sense to buy singles instead. Thanks for this interesting bit of thought as I find it interesting to look at.
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This kind of post is interesting and well-thought-out, but it's not a rumor.
Thing is, the values of the commons/uncommons and garbage rares don't impact overall pricing too much. You can easily get solid money for the good rares and mythics by throwing them on, say, eBay and selling them at auction. You don't necessarily have to be set up to sell cards direct via a B&M or website when you have a venue like eBay that will take a cut (~12% fees/overhead is nothing compared to what a B&M pays) and give you quick liquidity. Liquidity isn't a big problem with Magic, unalike other collectables. I didn't originally add percentages of EV, but that's easy to do and I just did it.
Based on my original numbers, EV % is as follows.
Common Basic - 3.34%
Uncommon Basic - 4%
Rare Basic - 17.51%
Mythic Basic - 33.35%
Basic Totals - 58.2%
Common Foil - 0.27%
Uncommon Foil - 0.86%
Rare Foil - 8.52%
Mythic Foil - 32.15%
Foil Totals - 41.8%
Common Total - 3.61%
Uncommon Total - 4.86%
Rare Total - 26.03%
Mythic Total - 65.5%
Total Totals - 100%
The mythics, with 65.5% of your EV, are only going to be, on average, 4.446 cards per box. The 26.108 rares per box are 26.03%. Between the two of those, we'll round up and say 31 cards are accounting for 91.53% of your EV.
Wasn't sure since it applies to MM15 and a large part of my valuation is based on rumors/leaks. Thanks though!
From a box of Modern Masters? We're not talking about a regular product here. The only information I have been able to find is that they are printed evenly for Modern Masters, and until I find information that indicates otherwise, or you present information that indicates otherwise, I have to work under that assumption.
I plan to watch as many booster box openings on YT as I can tonight, of the original Modern Masters, to refine my numbers. Hopefully I can get 10-15 boxes worth of data, 250ish packs should be good enough to eliminate a nice chunk of the potential randomness.
Exactly.
Without some person or organisation opening 50000 or more packs and recording everything we'll not find out exact amounts, but the best guesses made about MM1 were that foil rares were 1 in 14 or 1 in 15 packs. (That's counting both red symbol R1 and gold symbol R2 rarities as rares)
Also while this is a smaller issue, this is yet another post that ignores what is known about printing processes and rarities. R1s (mythics) are *known* to be 1 in 121 packs, R2s are 2 in 121 packs, and both are printed on the same print sheets (1 copy of each R1, 2 of each R2).
Most importantly this totally ignores the impact that MM2 will have on prices. After all, when all that was known about Khans was six cards - Sarkhan at R1, and the fetches at R2, you might have calculated the EV to be about USD 6 per pack from just the fetches. Somehow that did not last and Polluted Delta did not remain a USD 120 card. Now MM2 won't drop any USD 120 cards to sub USD 20, but it will crash the prices of desired R2s that are not chase cards. Noble Hierarch might fall 40%, for instance, and Goblin Guide might fall 80%.
For the sake of thought, in the comparision of chronicles and MM do you think that the increased size of player base plus the introduction of the mythic rarity might help cushion the price falls more than calculated? I mean most people who open one of these high end mythics will most likely keep it for play rather than selling it, so that could help filter some of the mythics out of the availible market right there (Granted that this is a human behavoir factor that should be considered somewhat unpredictable).
Lastly, this is purely hypothetical, even if MM2015 is not aggressively reprinted, if a third and/or fourth MM reprint set comes out with roughly the same high price mythics(termagoyf and Bob) would it not have the same effect of lowering them by 25% to 35% in the long run?
0,125*24/15 for a foil mythic, meaning 1 foil mythic for every 5 boxes, or 1,2 for a case.
0,875*24/15 for a foil rare, 1,4 foil rares per box, 8,4 per case
3*24/15 for foil uncommon, 4,8 per box
11*24/15 for foil commons, 17,6 per box
I don't know how you got to 1,446 foil mythics per box or the 5,1 foil rares per box, but the formula must contain a major flaw somewhere. I did a few reverse engineering runs using your foil propability numbers and couldn't get a consistant results back. Just use the propabilities above and it should be pretty smooth sailing.
The only possible uncertainty is due to the number of commons. Since there are no land-slot, there might be 10 or 11 commons for each rare/mythic. With MMa some boxes were very close to 1/3/10 and some 1/3/11. Having one less common boosts the number of uncommons up by one and gives more double foil rare/mythic boxes.
But as your biggest single value gainer (foil mythics) dropped to 1/7th of it's EV, I would suggest redoing the calculations before buying too many cases. This set will be like previous MMa, some boxes will gain you value, some will be even when the set comes out, but card values will drop and some will loose you value. Only big operawtions opening hundreds of boxes will be able to trust on propabilities, for smaller operations, you will need some serious luck to make money if buying a case at MRSP. Remember that you have to beat the eBay minimum of 12 % fees.
Boxes at 200$ during release will most likely do fine, but 240$ few weeks after, not so much.
Set to default
This would give the probability of a foil mythic in a pack as P=15/249=0.06, and foils per 24-pack display at 1.44.
I don't at what ratios the foil sheets are printed, but with the mythics printed once on the rare sheet and the rares printed twice on the rare sheet, we know that the numbers for mythics and rares must match up at 1:2.
Anyone know how many common and uncommon foil sheets are printed? And what are the dimensions of the common and uncommon sheets? I know that there is supposedly an "extra" common on the common sheet, which is printed at a lower frequency on the sheet than the other commons. Can't remember at what ratio this common is printed to the others, but it could fit with 3:4. That would give a common sheet of 403 cards, which fit with 13 x 31.
So if that works, and they print an equal number of foil sheets, that would meant that there are 403 foil commons for every 15 foil mythics, rather than the 101:15 ratio used in the OP's calculations.
Unsure about the uncommon sheet, 80 is such an easily factored number so the uncommon sheets could be anythin
Another thing that I didn't take into account is that presumably the numbers of cards per sheet are also selected in such a way that they can print the 1:3:10 ratio of cards for boosters with some integer number of each sheet. Otherwise, at the end of each printing campaign they would waste parts of a sheet.
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As for the foil propabilities. Wotc prints each rarity sheet only as many times as necessary for boosters. (For full sets there's different sheets, if I understood correctly). Commons are printed on several sheets, with usually each common occuring four times. Sometimes one or two cards show up once more or once less (uncommon common). Each sheet is 11 x 11 cards always, but sometimes there are filler cards, which are removed in production.
The end result is that there are 10 commons for each rare or mythic, or 5 copies of each common for each copy of a certain rare. Uncommons are printed in similar way. For each rare sheet there are three uncommon sheets (if they fit on one sheet) and 2,5 sets of common sheets.
MMa was the first ever set with a guaranteed foil in each pack (well all-foil Alara might count for nit-pickers) and the foils appeared to follow the normal rarity distribution. I personally believe that they use the normal machinery for printing the foil sheets, cutting and sorting the cards into 'booster-like' batches, but instead of packing the cards are transported into the hopper for basic lands. So they are inserted into boosters in the ratio the normal cards would appear in a booster, so 10 or 11 commons, 3 uncommons and one rare or mythic.
Naturally as WotC has been fighting against box mapping, there's some algorithm for mixing the batches up a bit. At least so that the boosters don't follow each other directly (so if you open a foil uncommon, you buy the next three packs to certainly hit the foil rare). MMa boxes were so roomy that boosters did move around and get mixed. Few mappers were really unhappy.
But I can with some authority say that there will not be 1,44 foil mythics in average MM15 box. Nor over 4 foil rares.
Set to default
People are assuming "limited print run" means "speculation profit guarantee". That would be horrible, any growth of the game would be brick walled if that happened.
Yeah if it is anything like MM1... you average about 2 foil rare/mythic a box (not each... combined). Either that or the 4 boxes me and my friends opened were consistently unlucky. Keep in mind there are only 24 packs in a box... so if it does follow the typical distribution as default user mentions (would make sense) than the real average is 1.6 per box (1 out of 15 packs * 24 packs)
The ratio of foils to packs in regular packs is ~1:4 (1 foil in 56 cards).
The ratio of foil rares and mythics to packs in regular packs is about 1:36 and 1:216 respectively - you average about one foil rare per box and about one foil mythic per case.
Foils are 4x as common in MM packs as they are in regular packs, but boxes are also 2/3rds the size. This means that a rare will average about one in 9 packs, or less than three per box (2.667). And a Mythic will average about one in 58 packs, or fewer than one in two boxes (.413 per box).
From the sound of Default User's posts, these numbers may be twice as high as the actuality.
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It suggests a foil breakdown per box of MM13 as follows;
Commons - 17.143
Uncommons - 5.143
Rares - 1.5
Mythics - .214
Which should be the same for MM15, and that will greatly impact my suggested EV, so I've gotta run through everything one more time.
Hopefully I can redo everything tonight at some point, I'm about to start another 11 hour shift at work, and I need to update my MM15 preorder pricing (whoa!!) and hunt down another preorder I'm waiting to hear back about.
Mythics (worth $2 or more):
Tarmogoyf: $160
Vendilion Clique: $50
Dark Confidant: $45
Mox Opal: $35
Emrakul the Aeons Torn: $35
Kozilek Butcher of Truth: $35
Karn Liberated: $35
Ulamog the Infinite Gyre: $30
Bitterblossom: $30
Elesh Norn Grand Cenobite: $20
Iona, Shield of Emeria: $20
Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker: $15
Primeval Titan: $12
Tezzeret the Seeker: $12
Total value of mythics: $535 (15 mythics)
Rares (worth $2 or more):
Cryptic Command: $40
Noble Hierarch: $40
Fulminator Mage: $20
Wilt-Leaf Liege: $20
Daybreak Coronet: $18
Leyline of Sanctity:$18
Splinter Twin: $15
Spellskite: $15
Blinkmoth Nexus: $10
All is Dust: $10
Eye of Ugin: $7.50
Creakwood Liege: $6
Hurkyl's Recall: $5
Apocalypse Hydra: $5
Necroskitter: $4
Puppeteer Clique: $4
Surgical Extraction:$4
Niv-Mizzet the Firemind:$3
Etched Champion: $3
Mirran Crusader: $2.50
Mystic Snake: $2
Sunforger: $2
Total value of Rares: $270 (53 rares)
Uncommons (worth $1 or more):
Remand: $7.50
Electrolyze: $2
Lightning Bolt: $1.50
Cranial Plating:$1.50
Eldrazi Temple: $1.50
Artisan of Kozilek:$1
Dispatch: $1
Dismember: $1
Incandescent Soulstoke: $1
Expedition Map: $1
Total value of uncommons: $25
Commons (worth at least .50):
Smash to Smithereens: $2
Vines of Vastwood: $1.50
Darksteel Citadel: .50
Thoughtcast: .50
Vapor Snag: .50
Gut Shot: .50
Total value of commons: $8
Complete set Value:
Mythics: $535
Rares: $270
Uncommon/Common sets: $30
Total set value: $835
Overall average box value (with foil adjustment):
Mythics: $535/15 = $35.67/mythic x 3 mythics/box = $107
Rares: $270/53 = $5.10/rare x 21 rares/box = $107
Uncommon/Common sets: $30 x .9 = $27
Foils (adjusted lower): $40
Total overall average box value (with foil adjustment): $281
All in all, not too bad, at least from an overall average perspective. The problem of course, is that both the rares and mythics are rather top heavy, with the top few rares making up the majority of the rare value, and of course the skew that tarmogoyf has to the overall average for the mythics. As such, when buying boxes, there is going to be a great deal of variance all around, most boxes should average themselves out, but there will be plenty of low value boxes, to go along with some high value boxes in the mix. As for individual packs, unfortunately there are plenty of bulk rares in the set, that it really is a bit of a crapshoot as far as that goes, as some have said, its a bit like buying a lottery ticket and hoping for the best. The foils as mentioned, were adjusted lower, simply due to the fact that the true overall average value would skew so much worse than normal, that I preferred to go with a more conservative estimate (which even then could end up much lower, or could be crazily higher). Values will drop from here though, so this is only a starting valuation, for now though the $280 overall average box valuation at least gives a ballpark idea in addition to the singles values shown, what you would be working with. Anyhow, enjoy the information, will see about posting an update to the above information after the set has been released.