Unless they changed it, 1 in 64 cards is foil. A nice bonus but nothing to count on. VERY rarely will you miss out on a Searing Blaze and get a foil… Goblin Roughrider?

Yes, the foils take the place of a common. There's no big loss there in terms of completing common playsets but it will randomly give you an extra mythic or rare. Whether you count the foils in for the complete sets or not they serve as a nice bonus. Per the back of the booster packs the foils are about 1 in 70 cards (1 in 5 packs).

I think you're right on with most of those numbers (the chart didn't format well). The only real issue is that I don't know how well you could depend on the cases relieved to be in order unless you bought an entire pallet since there's no way to tell how they are stacked or unstacked in case form. It's not impossible, but pretty impractical. Also not included in either of our figures is that some of the missing mythics could be filled in with random foils.

Simply buying more as a rule of thumb doesn't work. The higher the variance in singles prices, the more variance there will be in your EV buying boxes unless you somehow eliminate that variance.

If what's stated in this thread is correct and you yield roughly one full playset of mythics from cracking two cases, then that is a unit of safe purchase (in successive boxes) for stabilizing your EV. If you don't want to be devastated by your last box ending three boosters before the next JtMS, you would try to buy two or four or six… cases to reduce the chances you don't get what you expect. Tacking on a third case would actually increase the possibility of getting screwed. Overtime it would all even out so if you've got a large operation it might be correct to just not waste time worrying about it, and to buy whatever suits YOUR situation the best.

In large sets there's no mystery, there are 53 rares and 15 mythics, 53×2+15=121… PERFECTO! So for every 121 consecutive packs you open in a large set you will get a full print run, 2xrares 1x mythics.

If there are 35 rares in a small set, with 10 mythics, then 35×2+10=80 rare slots to cover per print run. I could assume that means every 80 consecutive boosters in a small set yields 2xrares 1x mythics. I don't know exactly how small set print runs work with mythics so I can't be sure, but if so, here's what a few headbutts on the calculator tells me:

Full Runs
Needed Slots
Boxes
To
Build

1
80
36
72
108

2
160
144
180
X

3
240
216
252
x

4
320
288
324
X

The idea is for the number of boosters in the consecutive boxes opened to match up PERFECTLY with the number of rare slots needed for x number of print runs. You need to open 20 consecutive boxes (3 1/3 cases) to complete 9 perfect sets of mythics and 18 sets of rares for small sets. More likely, 10 cases for 27 sets. At that point the difference +/- one Jace makes is negligible anyhow.

If everything here is correct, then 9 boxes, or 1.5 cases, is 324 packs, and there are 320 rare slots needed to cover four print runs. That works out okay… though you'd probably want to double it to three cases, who knows if the half-case immediately follows the full case? Heck, even buying three cases, maybe you'd get case 15, 18 and 19. Does any dealer specifically endorse the cases they sell as consecutive? If so I'd imagine that's who I'd buy mine from. I'm not even sure if it's claimable, I don't know how it arrives or anything, but if it was like 12+ cases and the dealer cracks packs themselves as well, they could easily figure out the order the cases are placed in… because let's face it, if there's one thing we can always count on WotC to do, it's to keep the cards in order.

That's true. In fact the statistical average for a full playset in a large set is 13.3 boxes (just over 2 cases). The distribution of the cards over a single case is so regular though that it has to be intentional. It makes even more sense that a case like quantity would have a standardized distribution of rares and mythics when you consider that this model caters to the secondary market that cracks cases for singles sales at the beginning and even throughout the lifetime of a set. You can depend on getting playsets at 13. boxes if you are opening enough of them. If you're only opening exactly 13.3, you'll likely be a card or 3 short as Mathias says. That being said, if you're trying to sell off all the cards, not just the big ones and are successful, you can make some money as long as your acquisition cost is low enough.

Those are all good points and gave me an idea for a few new calculations to add for the next update. I've found that in opening one case (not just 6 random boxes, but a sequentially marked case) you end up with a playset of all the rares and about half a set of mythics. 2 sequential cases would yield almost exactly a playset of mythics. This is of course intentional. If someone is going to try and reproduce these results they will need to buy them all at one time and from one source. Random boxes (over time or random sources) totaling 12-13 will not yield the same consistency.

These last two core sets have been rather profitable, but I would never try to make money with my cost at $2.95 a pack.

@Chris I still can't see your pictures.

Here is the article from MaRo, I looked it up for you: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.asp…

@Martin

Kewl, thank you for confirming the rarity distribution. I'm glad I guessed right. I did miss that article that Rosewater wrote.

The EV calculations are from eBay. The totals represented are for every card in the set that has a record of sale in the last week or month (week is the priority unless unavailable) and then combined. Personally I look at the end results of those values as more of a guide to tell me what the best value will be out of packs. The things to keep in mind are that the values are real since they are only from actual auctions, but that eBay tends to cost less then online stores or shops, and they don't account for shipping. Rather then looking at any one value as gospel I think it's better to look at how they compare with one another.

So, Mythic rares indeed are R1 and normal rares R2, just like you wrote.

About the Pack EV you list at the end of every article: where do you take the data? ebay?
And does that mean I should buy M11 packs and sell the singles since I can get packs for $2.95