Favourite Time To Open Packs

[DotDash]

Is it okay to vent some pack-related paranoia (PRP) in this thread?

I would very much like to understand what mechanism determines, on a card by card basis, whether a live or non-live card drops. Pack opening in general, but especially live/non-live splits seems so streaky that I have a hard time believing that everything is decided by simple dice rolls.

To illustrate:
- Yesterday, I opened 10 gold packs and received 12 live golds. For this to occur using a D10 with 7 sides of 'live' and 3 of 'non-live' (assuming the 70/30 split is still being maintained) has a likelihood of 0.7 to the 12th power, which is 1.384%.
- Today, I opened 100 regular packs and received 16(!) gold and diamond cards, and again all of them were live. So 0.7 to the 16th power, which has a 0.33% chance of occurring.
- I am currently on a streak of 22 consecutive live gold and diamond cards, which has an 0.039% likelihood of occurring.

Is anyone else observing this kind of 'almost too unlikely to be random' behavior, or are these really just freak occurrences? My tinfoil hat remains firmly in place for the time being...

[Tinkerman]

Originally Posted by DotDash

Is anyone else observing this kind of 'almost too unlikely to be random' behavior?

Yes. For me, the last few weeks it's been lots of live golds and diamonds, but also seemed like lots of historical irons and bronzes in contrast. I guess it stands to reason because of trying to preserve the economic balance. With all those inflated prices of historicals, something's got to give. But between the low number of good pulls and the 50 card limit, I think the tedium is becoming too much for me. I'm holding out for the next batch of FotF to see if that inspires me.

[Orcin]

Originally Posted by Tinkerman

it's been lots of live golds and diamonds, but also seemed like lots of historical irons and bronzes in contrast.

Come to think of it, this has also been my experience in the past week or so.

[DotDash]

Your experiences line up with my thinking/hunch, that there are 'balancing' mechanisms in place which adjust pack drops based on developments in the auction house.
A related pet theory I have is that opening special packs, Historical ones especially, impacts the contents of your subsequent regular packs. I do realize a single user's experience and data don't prove anything, so I really enjoy reading about other players' observations and ideas, whether they match with mine or not

[dkgo]

Ignoring how much added work it would be to do that, the fact that every long-term pack opening data set shows results in line with the posted odds, and that you are literally accusing the developers of straight-up lying to us, why would they reduce historical drops when the market is starving for historicals?

[MaroonAlberich]

Originally Posted by DotDash

Is it okay to vent some pack-related paranoia (PRP) in this thread?

I would very much like to understand what mechanism determines, on a card by card basis, whether a live or non-live card drops. Pack opening in general, but especially live/non-live splits seems so streaky that I have a hard time believing that everything is decided by simple dice rolls.

To illustrate:
- Yesterday, I opened 10 gold packs and received 12 live golds. For this to occur using a D10 with 7 sides of 'live' and 3 of 'non-live' (assuming the 70/30 split is still being maintained) has a likelihood of 0.7 to the 12th power, which is 1.384%.
- Today, I opened 100 regular packs and received 16(!) gold and diamond cards, and again all of them were live. So 0.7 to the 16th power, which has a 0.33% chance of occurring.
- I am currently on a streak of 22 consecutive live gold and diamond cards, which has an 0.039% likelihood of occurring.

Is anyone else observing this kind of 'almost too unlikely to be random' behavior, or are these really just freak occurrences? My tinfoil hat remains firmly in place for the time being...

Definitely noticed something similar, but I haven't kept a tally. One strange thing I have noticed is that I opened two historical packs lately. The first was a gold only, the second gave a gold and diamond. The weird thing? I had bought all three of those off the AH within the past 24h. Bad timing on my part!