Issue with Mythic Dupes in Elite Boosters

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Mathistopheles
Mathistopheles Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
in MtGPQ General Discussion
Hi everyone, 

I have had a few very awkward encounters with D3Go! Involving my Elite Booster Pack that I recently earned. 

To maximize the chances of getting a masterpiece (and knowing about the rule that D3 will give you a re-roll if you open a dupe in your Elite Booster that you scratched and clawed together 400 Mana Jewels (unobtainium) for), I purposely waited until the current set of Masterpieces were in the vault, as I owned 4 of the 5 mythics being offered this time, and 0 masterpieces. 

I first made the purchase when the Elite Booster rotated, as I really like the offerings this time as opposed to the "Voltron" supports they had in the last elite booster. Plus the already owned mythics, I felt I had the best chance. 

Pull 1 - Dupe mythic. Email D3Go, and they take a few days, but credit my account for another Elite Booster after removing Dupe Mythic. 

Pull 2 - Dupe mythic, but a different one. Email D3Go, and again, it takes a few days, but give my another Elite Booster again, same rules. 

Pull 3 - Different Dupe mythic.

A 1/8 chance by now of pulling a duplicate, as I owned 4 cards and did not own the other 4 cards. (1/2)^3. Email D3Go, receive another Elite Booster with the same rules. 

Pull 4 - Same Dupe mythic as pull 2.

Now a 1/16 chance, unless the distribution of mythics to masterpieces in Elite Boosters is not 5:3, as the odds would claim to be. Sent an email to D3Go, letting them know I waited for THIS rotation, and I did not want to wait for Amonkhet release, as the Elite Boosters would soon have Amonkhet mythics that I likely do not have, and would not be a good way to invest, when the original purchase was for the present Elite Booster list. 

If we assume that we have a 5/8 chance of pulling a mythic, the odds that one would pull 4 consecutive mythics is (5/8)^4 = 625/4096, approximately a 2 in 13 chance. This means that 11 times out of 13, one would expect to pull a single masterpiece. With my background in math and statistics, this means that with a sample size of 1 (just me), nothing can be done. What do your pulls look like from Elite Boosters? I have opened 2 other Elite Boosters before this cycle, and gotten 2 mythics. 

I fear that the next Elite Booster I receive due to the dupe mythic will be after Amonkhet releases, in which case, D3 effectively pushed my issue off until I ran a MUCH lesser chance of receiving a dupe mythic, and just receiving a mythic from an elite booster. 

Just for the sake of math, if we say I have opened 6 elite boosters, the odds of having opened 6 mythics if the drop rate is the same is a paltry 5.9%. Can someone at D3 please give us some intel as to the perspective odds of opening any one random rarity in their packs? I bought both Tezzeret and Ajani, the Unyielding, in addition to buying a few exclusive mythics. 1 of which, Baral, I never would have bought in his present form, as he now just sits in my collection with not much to do. 

As much as I love this game, I may very quickly turn into someone who says Not.Another.Dime if I do not get some proper answers to my questions, or if I get pushed off until Amonkhet releases. 

Comments

  • mournfen
    mournfen Posts: 89 Match Maker
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    Question for clarification if I use jewels and get a mythic already in my collection they will refund them? I ask because I thought it was if you say purchased 2 elite packs and got a dupe they would refund you.
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
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    So you assumed an equal distribution?
    Look up the elite pack polls - it looks like your chance of getting a mp are around 10 percent. With a 90% chance of pulling a mythic, your experience doesn't look that strange anymore
  • Mathistopheles
    Mathistopheles Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
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    @mournfen, If you use the Mana Jewels and receive a mythic that is already in your collection, email support before you convert duplicate cards into runes. They will ask for your UID, and in-game name, along with the card you received that was a dupe. The sooner you do it, the better. 

    @Laeuftbeidir, the odds of getting any masterpiece from the elite booster are 10%? I really don't like how non-informative D3Go is being with this game; leaving it all to the masses to find out information, while ensuring that we pay extra $$ to receive these kind of extra "benefits" that were thrust upon us. Meanwhile, all players get a relative kick in the face with having to pay to open up deck slots, while we don't even get a free deck slot for each of "Standard" and "Vintage" formats, either. 
  • Phillmoore
    Phillmoore Posts: 207 Tile Toppler
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    Wow. I wish I had known that re dupe mythics.  Thought the offer was only dupe masterpiece.  I have purchased a few using unobtainium and so far all been either duplicate mythics or the lowest of the low option that always sits in the set.  Sigh. 
  • Mickleberry
    Mickleberry Posts: 48 Just Dropped In
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    Laeuftbeidir said:
    So you assumed an equal distribution?
    Look up the elite pack polls - it looks like your chance of getting a mp are around 10 percent. With a 90% chance of pulling a mythic, your experience doesn't look that strange anymore
    Agreed. The new math would be as follows:

    If you get an elite booster where the possibilities are 3 masterpieces and 5 mythics, 4 of which you own, then...

    Probability of a dupe mythic = p = 0.9 * 0.8 = 0.72 (or 72 percent)

    Since it's a random selection with replacement, the probability of 4 straight elite packs with a dupe mythic would be (0.72)^4 = 0.26873856, or a little under 27 percent.

    The probability that you get five of these in a row is (0.72)^5 = 0.1934917632, or a little under 20 percent.

    So it stands to reason that, factoring law of averages, this sort of thing happens to about 1 in every 5 people that have 4 out of the 5 mythics in an elite booster.
  • Mathistopheles
    Mathistopheles Posts: 13 Just Dropped In
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    Yeah, still not encouraging numbers. Sadly, the next opportunity to get something (assuming the Elite Booster remains the same) is also a 72% chance of a dupe mythic, and only a 10% chance of any random masterpiece, making the odds of getting a Rashmi (the last mythic I do not have) only 18%.

    Assuming a dupe mythic, by the time the next re-roll gets back around, Amonkhet will likely be in the Elite Boosters, screwing over the chances (making it 90% likely to get a random mythic instead of a masterpiece). 

    "No sir, I don't like it."
  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
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    The ten percent is not a 100% certain number - the math is discussed in one of the polls. But it is in that area, and I kind of assume the chances might have even numbers, since set by humans. D3 doesn't tell a thing about those numbers, so it's based on polls in the forum and pages like

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JUeuf0BcOlNHpt3dA7SQ838ws7AOlWMEz-4AAG2dYrE/htmlview#gid=696990607


    Where players can add their collected data to gather enough data to have reasonable numbers.

    Since you open dozens of booster for every elite pack.. Well, you have a comparable background when it comes to math like me, so you know how my post would go on. Thanks for doing the math, @Mickleberry
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Phillmoore said:
    Wow. I wish I had known that re dupe mythics.  Thought the offer was only dupe masterpiece.  I have purchased a few using unobtainium and so far all been either duplicate mythics or the lowest of the low option that always sits in the set.  Sigh. 

    It is. They let you Reroll mythics as a one time offer, but didn't check. So people abused it. 
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
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    Deliberately gaming the system.  Ouch.  You realize that D3/Hibernum will never do this again, right?

    This is why we can't have nice things.

  • jetnoctis
    jetnoctis Posts: 128 Tile Toppler
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    Gaming the system? More like the system is abusing us. Do you really think it fair to work your butt off to earn 400 mana jewels and be content with a dupe mythic of utterly inconsequential value, especially when it's coupled with them slashing all avenues at mythic prizes from events? HA! 
  • Azerack
    Azerack Posts: 501 Critical Contributor
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    jetnoctis said:
    Gaming the system? More like the system is abusing us. Do you really think it fair to work your butt off to earn 400 mana jewels and be content with a dupe mythic of utterly inconsequential value, especially when it's coupled with them slashing all avenues at mythic prizes from events? HA! 
    Yeah, I'm with this. The forums have been clamoring for a (proper) way to avoid duplicates and the best thing they had was to change the card packs to smaller amounts. This did nothing for the duplicate process.

    I would actually have wanted to hear MORE people doing the same thing as the OP so that customer care could complain to the developers and they would be more prone to looking into a way to stop duplicates, the easiest way, in most opinions, is to have the Elite pack NOT give a user a duplicate of a card they already have. Even with crystal packs still giving duplicate rares and mythicals, once you get your unobtanium, you deserve a proper reward, not a reward of "Sorry, create an email, submit it to the company, wait for a week, try again" and STILL ending up with a duplicate after that. And it might even help promote people spending crystals on the "Trials" if they knew they could get a non-dupe every time they finally got that 400 jewels.

    Nope, I wholly applaud our fallen angel of calculation in his endeavor and hope eventually none of you/us will have to email D3Go about duplicates.
  • Steeme
    Steeme Posts: 784 Critical Contributor
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    jetnoctis said:
    Gaming the system? More like the system is abusing us. Do you really think it fair to work your butt off to earn 400 mana jewels and be content with a dupe mythic of utterly inconsequential value, especially when it's coupled with them slashing all avenues at mythic prizes from events? HA! 


    The initial intent was that if you opened a dupe you get a free retry.  That ended up changing so that you if get a subsequent dupe then you can keep trying until you get a non-dupe.  That part is fine.

    The part that is gaming the system is intentionally choosing an elite pack selection where you have all the mythics, then wasting customer support's time while you trade in dupe after dupe.  What you don't realize is that once they see players doing this, they will no longer do this ever again, so the rest of the community suffers for your greed.  In addition, the cost of customer support having to deal with all of these tickets is a cost that, you guessed it, the rest of the community will pay for (or did you think customer support was free?).

  • jetnoctis
    jetnoctis Posts: 128 Tile Toppler
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    I understand that,however what I am arguing for goes before customer service ever gets involved, which is that they should code the elite pack to give you a non dupe. And while theoretically this does mean one could get all the cards in the elite packs, if someone wants to spend that much money to support the game, they should be free to do so. 
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2017
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    Steeme said:


    The initial intent was that if you opened a dupe you get a free retry.  That ended up changing so that you if get a subsequent dupe then you can keep trying until you get a non-dupe.  That part is fine.


    As far as I know the policy has never changed to what you're describing. In fact I'm pretty sure the last time this was brought up, brigby strongly hinted that those who continue doing this would be ruining the gesture of goodwill for everyone else. 

    What you don't seem to understand @jetnoctis is, no vast sums of cash need to trade hands to get guaranteed masterpieces. In this current elite pack for example, I already own all the mythics. There hasn't been an elite pack since it's inception where I didn't at least own 3-4 out of the 5. 

    And as someone pointed out, I'm not motivated enough for a top 10 coalition, so my kld/aer mythic collection is nowhere near the most complete compared to some people here. Under your system of no dupes ever, the majority of jewel redemption by the top players will be masterpieces. About twice every 3 weeks if they feel inclined to also grind trials?

    This is the reason we're going through this period of austerity now, and you want to go down that same road... This time with masterpieces? 

  • jetnoctis
    jetnoctis Posts: 128 Tile Toppler
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    That won't be the case for AKH elite packs, because no one will have had more than half a block's worth to acquire mythics from event rewards. 
  • Ohboy
    Ohboy Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
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    jetnoctis said:
    That won't be the case for AKH elite packs, because no one will have had more than half a block's worth to acquire mythics from event rewards. 

    So it's OK for Kld block? Which is the subject matter at hand. 

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