Card and Deck Scarcity

While I didn't come close with DICE, after 3900 packs and some extras bought on the market, I now have a full CHAOS LEGION card deck, up until this point at least. This includes the 3 airdrop cards that were released today with a 1:350 card to pack ratio, which means that I "should get" 11 cards of each - enough for a single maxed legendary.

This is my legendary set so far:

Not all cards are created equal though and while I have played Queen Mycelia from the Earth Splinter hundreds of times, I don't think I have ever played Zyvax Vuul from the Dragon Splinter. However, I am pretty happy with the haul of Legendaries, even though I was hoping to get a little more "gold" action from 3900 packs. But, I did get not one, but two of this fellow today, the only playable card with Bloodlust:

Which means I had to head to the market to buy two regulars in order to MAX mine. While slow, I think this bad boy is going to get some air time with a lot of players and I suspect more bloodlust is on the way. For good measure and since I already was half way, I also bought 2 gold foil versions early after the drop also - if not for the appreciation value, for the 12500 CP each is worth that might be needed for LAND.

These are the airdrop cards (so far) based on number of packs:

Blight, Baakjira, Uriel, Lira, Iza and Grum. Other than Doctor Blight, the rest are going to be available in packs which if I heard correctly, have a drop rate of one Legendary for every 12.5 packs opened.

These are all the CHAOS LEGION Legendaries that have been printed so far and it is quite interesting to have a look at both the printed so far and what is circulating. For example, if 100 Legendary cards were printed and 5 were maxed (takes 11 cards each) there would be 50 in circulation - (45 singles + 5 maxed cards). Because combinations can't be reversed, they are counted as one card and the BCX for the circulation would still be 100. This means that the "Regular circulation BCX" + the "gold circulation BCX" adds up to the total print. This chart is loaded on the fly, so there are discrepancies in the numbers as people are currently combining some of them, but as an example for the Blights that are out of print:

Regular BCX = 19818
Gold BCX = 783
= 20601
This is the "total BCX printed" you can see in red.

However, gold foil versions only take 4 cards to max, however, most people don't combine their gold cards, at least at the moment.

But, this is where at least for me, it gets interesting. As you can see, there are far more total GRUM, IZA and LIRA cards printed than BAAKJIRA, and this is because more packs have been sold since the release and airdrop of Baakjira, even though the airdrop was calculated at 1:300 for Baakjira and 1:350 packs for the latest three.

This should mean that based on scarcity alone, Baakjira should be more expensive than the latest ones, but demand is also going to have an effect on price here. But, there are other things to consider with this too, as while they are all "available" in packs, the more airdrop cards that are released, the lower the chances of getting any individual one.

For example, if there was only one legendary available and a person bought 125 packs, they can expect (based on odds) that they will get 10 copies of it, as the drop rate is 1:12.5 packs on average. However, if there are two legendaries available, while they can still expect 10 legendaries, they can expect to get 5 of each. If there were 5 legendaries available, they can expect to get 2 of each. Currently, there are twenty legendaries that are available in packs (Blight was presale only), which means that out of 125 packs, a person can expect to get 10, but that is statistically going to only mean 1 copy of half of them.

While my math isn't great, this should mean it would take 35,000 sold packs to print 100 copies of an individual card at 1:350. However, if one legendary is 1:12.5 packs it would take for any individual one to be printed 100 times, 1,250 packs sold, which is far less. But, with 20 legendaries out there, it will take 25,000 to have each of the cards printed another 100 times - which is still less than the airdrop.

But, there is a monumental difference here, isn't there?

For example, I have 3900 packs which attracted 35 airdrop legendaries today, but lets go with the "average" of 33 for this number, which is 11 of each and enough for maxed versions. However, for me to be able to get the chance at the same cards (1:12.5), I wouldn't need to just buy 137.5 packs x 3 (412,5 packs), as I would also get one of the other 17 legendaries available in that mix. This means that I would have to buy 2,750 more packs to be sure. But, since I already have my 3900 packs, I don't actually (if it stays at 1:350) buy any more packs in order to max legendary cards. Now, I know that they won't all be legendary cards, but hypothetically, as there are 13 airdrop cards that will also be in packs, it is a total of 143 legendary airdrop cards guaranteed.

In order for me to get the same under the hypothetical scenario of buying all packs after all airdrops are available, I would need to buy 137.5 packs for every legendary available, so that is 17 normal legendaries + 13 airdrops for a total of 30, which equals 4125 packs.

That is not that much more than the 3900 I have already bought, but again, there is a difference, because there is no guarantee of which legendary a person gets, which means you might get 30 of one legendary and zero of another. This means that if you want a particular maxed legendary and your luck isn't there, you will have to buy it on the open market.

But on top of this, it also assumes that all of the packs are bought after the release of all of the airdrops. Buying earlier increases the chances of getting a particular copy the already released one, but will increase the requirements to buy to get the later ones, as it is in "competition" with all of the ones released before it.

Yet, there are other factors to consider too. For example, there is a market for cards so it is possible to buy what is needed to max there, but this requires market liquidity. However, as more people are buying and opening, these cards are being spread more broadly throughout the players, meaning that one individual looking to max a particular legendary card, might need to buy from 11 other individuals, willing to sell. Since a lot of people are looking to combine (especially the strong cards), finding these 11 willing to sell will get increasingly difficult the more players there are.

There are two ways to look at scarcity of cards, the number of a particular card and, the demand on that particular card. If there are a hundred cards and 10 people want them, only 9 maxed versions can be made, and one person will be left with a single. However, if there are 1000 cards and 100 people want them, only 90 maxed versions can be made and 10 people can't even get one each. If there are 200 people, it halves. There are 500,000 active accounts on Hive and all of them want these cards (and others) at some level. But, all of these people could be competing to max their cards, even if statistically, 10 will miss out, what is more likely is that all of them will have some cards combined to some potential level, meanaing there might not be many maxed versions available.

For instance, while there were 20,601 Blights printed, there are only 12,621 regular cards and 633 gold cards that are available to play. This means the vast majority of playing accounts don't have a blight At any level at their disposal. But, I have 1 Maxed and 8 singles, plus a gold.

If I were to sell them at current market price, the max would fetch 1089, the singles 99 each and the gold 1090, for a total of 2,971 dollars - that is for 9 playable cards in total.

On top of this, these CHAOS LEGION cards will have a league created especially for them, with the ability to play in both the open and the CL league simultaneously, which should attract those "more players" as the cards can do double duty. Doubling the potential usage of a CL card incentivizes building a strong deck to compete, so while there might be more cards printed, there are also likely to be more people looking to combine these cards to play in both leagues.

This all sets up an interesting dynamic that gives reason to collect and buy to combine, but also distributes the cards to more accounts, forcing purchasing in an increasingly high-demand marketplace, especially on the "drawcard" cards. This means that some of these cards are going to potentially rocket in value as they will become key to success, but it is unknown which they are going to be.

Then there is the LAND factor and I am so in the dark on LAND and what it might mean for the game (and for me) in the future, but those "in the know" are very excited about it, so I have to be also. Bandwagon investing at its best. At the very least, if it all crashes and burns in a heap, I am not going to "lose alone" within a group of strangers - I will be in good company with friends - "shared experience" is important - even shared loss.

Now, this post is me trying to understand and visualize some of the market forces and potential for the game, as well as justify why I have spent so much investing into these cards. When it comes to the drop cards though, at least for now I am able to sit back and relax and not worry about chasing after the cards on the market, as I will get them dropped automatically. I hear there are some summoners to come, but I have no idea about them or the drop rates.

What I do like though is that pretty much, the game is at least rewarding those who have put significant early investment into CHAOS LEGION packs and for the new people to join now, once these packs run out and the cards start to become very scarce on the markets, they will be glad they got those drop cards along the way.

If player demand suddenly increased by 100K accounts, and they all wanted a maxed CL deck, they would need about 4200 packs each. that is, 420 million packs.

There are 8.35 million packs left or to put it another way, only enough packs left for 1988 more max CHAOS LEGION decks, or about 4000 gold level decks.

With a league all for itself, is that a lot or a little?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]