I have seen a few conversations in discord and elsewhere that have people thinking a black foil will be more regular than a max regular or gold foil, I find that hard to believe so I thought I would run the numbers - sorry going to be a few tables of figures here.
So lets start with the basics, ignoring starter packs as there are no gold or black foils.
Total Packs & Cards
| Pack Type | Packs Available | Cards per Pack | Total Cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 5,000,000 | 5 | 25,000,000 |
| Alchemy | 1,000,000 | 5 | 5,000,000 |
| Legendary | 500,000 | 5 | 2,500,000 |
| TOTAL | 6,500,000 | — | 32,500,000 |
If we completely sell out we will have 32,500,000 cards in circulation plus additional commons and rare regular foils from starters.
But how do those 32.5 million cards break down by foil?
Expected Black Foil Cards
| Pack Type | Total Cards | Black Foil Rate | Expected Black Foils |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 25,000,000 | 0.025% | 6,250 |
| Alchemy | 5,000,000 | 0.25% | 12,500 |
| Legendary | 2,500,000 | 0.125% | 3,125 |
| TOTAL | 32,500,000 | — | 21,875 |
Expected Gold Foil Cards
Lets break this one down:
Standard
25,000,000 cards
2% Gold Foil chance
Expected Gold Foils = 500,000
Alchemy
Guaranteed 1 Gold Foil per pack = 1,000,000 Gold Foils
But 0.25% of the cards will be Black Foils = 12,500 Black Foils which replace Gold Foils
Adjusted Gold Foils = 987,500 Gold Foils
Remaining cards expected Gold Foils = 4,000,000 * 2% = 80,000
Expected Gold Foils in Alchemy Packs = 1,067,500
Legendary
2,000,000 cards
2% Gold Foil chance
Expected Gold Foils = 50,000
Which gives us a total of 1,617,500 Gold Foils and we can assume everything remaining is Regular Foil.
| Foil Type | Expected Total Cards |
|---|---|
| Regular Foil | 30,860,625 |
| Gold Foil | 1,617,500 |
| Black Foil | 21,875 |
| Total | 32,500,000 |
How do those Foils Break down by rarity?
Assuming evenly split across rarity
| Rarity | % | Regular Foil | Gold Foil | Black Foil | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 75.2% | 23,207,188 | 1,216,360 | 16,452 | 24,440,000 |
| Rare | 20% | 6,172,125 | 323,500 | 4,375 | 6,500,000 |
| Epic | 4% | 1,234,425 | 64,700 | 875 | 1,300,000 |
| Legendary | 0.8% | 246,885 | 12,940 | 175 | 260,000 |
| Total | 100% | 30,860,625 | 1,617,500 | 21,875 | 32,500,000 |
So how many max CC cards will there be, if we sell out and combine all cards?
| Rarity | Regular Foil | Gold Foil | Black Foil |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 58,018 | 32,008 | 16,452 |
| Rare | 53,675 | 14,680 | 4,375 |
| Epic | 26,838 | 6,459 | 875 |
| Legendary | 22,446 | 3,230 | 175 |
| Total | 160,977 | 56,376 | 21,875 |
Obviously these numbers can be affected by potions but even then... and yes we may see a number of black foils on the market that outweigh the number of max cc common cards but that is down to common cards not being combined over the number of black foils being more available, it should be easier to combine 400 common cards than find a black foil.
Please check my math but it feels like some people are under estimating the value of a Black Foil.
