Pack busting is a joke.

Urzashead

Ive busted dozens of the last 2 set paying 320 a pop with tinkitty to show for it. Litterally almost zero mythic or rare except the dupe garanteed rare.

I get a reward pack of a set i own almost every card in that set. Mythic mythic mythic rare uncommon. On freaking pack. Any other set woulda been fine. 

Is why i stopped paying for crystals 2 months ago. 

ArielSira

The past week I opened 3 premium packs of Hour (different days/times) as the percentages look really nice (76% rare, 38% mythic) and all 3 only had the guaranteed rare.

Imagine actually spending 3 x €15 on crystals to buy these packs 😆

Volrak

Packs seem to drop cards as advertised.  If drops are random per card, then literally anything is possible in the immediate term, even though long term averages tend more and more to the odds that were used to generate the drops.  (RNGesus giveth, RNGesus taketh away.)  Like you, I also don't pay for crystals.

Tilwin90

I agree regarding drop rates...
Regarding unlucky streaks and rages I agree, I have been on that side of the table a couple of times. It's kind of like gambling though: if you don't open packs, there's no way you are going to get new cards, hence improve your collection and game. 

What you can do is try to invest smartly - therefore plan your investments and don't just slam those crystals blindly. Factors that can influence your investment are:
- Standard vs. Legacy investments (I am all for Standard unless you are luxury player - the more places you can play with those cards, the better)
- Rotations - we are waiting for the 3.0 new rotation schema (as Brigby suggested in a recent post), so I would wait for that before any further investments.
- Number of cards available in the set - if you lack a lot of cards from a set, the chance of dupe is naturally smaller (not impossible, but smaller). In theory cards of the same rarity have an equal chance of drop, though this has never been confirmed or infirmed. Without crafting and excluding exclusives it would be easier to check this against players' collections.
- Chase cards - if for instance you lack a lot of high quality rares from RIX, it might be a good idea to invest in RIX packs.
- Crafting - this naturally combines with chase cards and the number of cards available, but the fewer cards you are missing from a set, the more potent crafting becomes in that set. Naturally it also matters the quality of the cards you seek.
- Daily rewards - with so many IXN packs dropped from Across Ixalan for example, you might find that it is better to focus instead on other sets (this is debatable)


I have worked on a spreadsheet that allows estimating the number of packs you need to open (of each type) to get a favorable chance of getting a new card of a specific rarity. This should give you an idea on what to push your investments in. You can find it here . It is readonly as it needs to be personalized so please make a copy on your own google spreadsheet account to play with it. I also don't have all drop rates so if anyone wants to help fill it please PM me with screenshots of single packs rates and I can update it (ultimately the single card rates are identical inside the same set & for the same rarity).

Urzashead

I dont see why anyone would buy a pack that wasnt the newest set. 

Mburn7

Urzashead said:

I dont see why anyone would buy a pack that wasnt the newest set. 

Maybe because they are cheaper and someone might be missing really good cards from the set?  Before they started re-running the DOM elite packs I was still buying DOM boosters.

babar3355

This sounds like another plea for a pity timer... and I completely agree.  The feel bad moments from opening 10 PPs and getting 0 mythics is pretty discouraging.

ArielSira

Urzashead said:

I dont see why anyone would buy a pack that wasnt the newest set. 

Orbssss. I wouldn't mind a dupe mythic either for example.

GrizzoMtGPQ

They said a pity timer is coming. I wouldn't be surprised if it came in 3.0.

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Gunmix25

Urzashead said:

Ive busted dozens of the last 2 set paying 320 a pop with tinkitty to show for it. Litterally almost zero mythic or rare except the dupe garanteed rare.

I get a reward pack of a set i own almost every card in that set. Mythic mythic mythic rare uncommon. On freaking pack. Any other set woulda been fine. 

Is why i stopped paying for crystals 2 months ago. 

M19 was not kind to me... I ended up with 22 PP and only 1 mythic. I feel your pain, I really do.  

So yeah, this set was weird... some players got Mythics bleeding out of their ears... others (the majority it seems) received diddly squat.

to counter this I just grind Totp and Aixn aggressively as well as any event that dropped jewels. Watched the 1st round of Elite packs and decided which pack I was going to clear out with jewels. TBH the tactic worked out better than anticipated. Downside was I was pretty burnt out from grinding out 800+ jewels every 21 days over three months

Urzashead

They need to change the garanteed rare to garanteed rare or mythic.  

Mburn7

Urzashead said:

They need to change the garanteed rare to garanteed rare or mythic.  

Thats what it used to be back in the Big Box days (2.5x more packs for 600 crystals).

When they changed to the current pack structure they downgraded it to a rare only

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Gunmix25

journeymage said:

I ain't afraid of no packs

*plays ghostbusters theme music*

Who you gonna call?

Packbusters!

*creepy eerie music*

I ain't afraid of no pack

Packbusters!