Hi everyone,
today I want to share with you some calculations I made about Splinterlands Untamed packs.
Is buying and opening packs worth it or is it a waste of money?
I started with this question yesterday, after a really lucky airdrop (2 Chaensus out of 105 packs eligible). I become greedy and I thought to increase my eligible pack base.
So first question is: how much valuable is a single pack?
Considering the drop rates and the DEC burning rates of cards, we can fill up the following table:
| Rarity | Foil | DEC burn | Drop probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| COMMON | Regular | 10 | 73,7 % |
| Gold | 500 | 1,50 % | |
| RARE | Regular | 40 | 19,6 % |
| Gold | 2000 | 0,40 % | |
| EPIC | Regular | 200 | 3,92 % |
| Gold | 10000 | 0,08 % | |
| LEG | Regular | 1000 | 0,78 % |
| Gold | 50000 | 0,02 % |
Using potions changes probabilities, but I omitted from the table for simplicity. By multiplying each DEC burn value with its probability and then summing up, we obtain the average burn rate of an untamed card: 62 DEC. Considering also potions:
| No potions | Gold | Legendary | Both |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | 93 | 78 | 101 |
So we have a first conclusion here: potions are not statistically convenient. Also considering the cheapest ones (with guild and combo discount: 36 DEC/charge for gold and 28,8 DEC/charge for legendary), they cost more than the value added.
So from here on we will neglect potions.
A single untamed pack has an intrinsic burn value of 312 DECs.
Of course this value is considerably lower then 2000 DEC price, but let's start using $ for doing some further consideration.
Packs can be purchased at 2$ or at 2000 DEC. This prices are locked, despite the fact that DEC/$ rate continually fluctuate. For example, at the moment of writing 1 DEC is 0,0007$ worth. So to buy a 2$ pack using DECs is enough spending 1,4$. Moreover if we consider the maximum guild (10%) and bulk (13%) discounts I conclude that we are able to buy a pack for 1,10$.
This value is still far from the 312 DEC (0,22 $) intrinsic burn value of a pack. And of course, If DEC price is low we just spend less money for less valuable cards, nothing more.
There is 1 more variable that we can add to the equation: Airdrops.
Considering data contained in this post by 
So we can conclude that AT TODAY an untamed pack (at a net of discounts and airdrops) statistically costs 0,90 $. Still above to 0,22$ of burn value.
So it's not worth it??
Keep calm. Introduce the last element: MARKET.
If people buy packs for a certain price, then cards acquire value regardless their burn values. For this reason, if we look at peakmonsters data, we see:
0,97 $
Hell yeah 😎😎😎 Market has been high recently, resulting in pack market-value higher than its cost!!
Actually all this reasoning is "theoretical" and strongly dependant on future airdropped cards and on large amounts discounts (if we neglect guild and bulk discounts we obtain a price of 1,2$ 🤔). It approaches reality only at large numbers of pack openings. At smaller numbers something else prevails:
CHANCE
For this reason I don't like opening packs, I rather prefer building my collection finding good deals on the market. A good opportunity would be to buy packs to have airdrops, but then do not open them.. just tokenize and resell in the future (when untamed will be ended). But yeah this means put a bunch of money on hold, while I prefer to invest them on cards, to be better in battles!
I love the balance of this game. The more I go in-depth, the more I find it really finely designed!
Amazing!
That's all guys, please let me know if I wrote something inaccurate or wrong, and in general what do you think about packs!! Thank you! 🍻🍻
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