What is the rule of thumb or thinking of when to buy singles of a set or to buy boxes of a set?
Someone mentioned that there are some instances where it's better to buy boxes vs individual cards, but I don't know when that is and what the logic behind it is.
Is it better to buy boxes when there are some seriously awesome (and expensive) cards? i.e. Jace 2.0?
Thanks!!
As this is a thread we get ALL THE TIME, I'm going to go ahead and add this to the Official Thread list. -extremeicon
Original Post:
it's better to buy boxes rather than cards when the expected value of the box is higher than the cost of the box.
This is very rare.
edit: I'm editing this in since this will be an official thread now:
In order to get the cards you want, it is always least expensive to buy just those cards. Here is how you do that:
A 4x Common/Uncommon run can be found on ebay for $30 + $10 shipping very consistently, from a number of dealers. Buy from one with good feedback to guarantee. Pre-sales on these are frequently slightly cheaper, because nobody has run up the uncommons to $5 yet (like disfigure/mental misstep).
ebay, cardshark.com, and magiccards.info will give you access to wide markets that have the cheapest cards.
Now then, on to some basic number crunching to see if there is ever a time when it's right to buy a box "for value:
A regular-sized 'large set' has 53 rares and 15 mythics (like Scars of Mirrodin). Smaller sets (like Mirrodin Besieged) maintain a similar ratio, as do sets with weird inserts like Innistrad.
Mythics are inserted at a rate of 1 in 8, which means that 1 in every 8 packs (statistically, not physically) will have 1 of 15 mythics.
Statistically, this means a box has ~4 Mythics and ~32 regular rares. This means that each box will statistically contain 60% of the rares of a set, and 26% of the mythics.
Note: These statistics are completely academic and irrelelvant to a particular box due to the random distribution of packs. These numbers do not stabilize until you're cracking more than a case (6 boxes) of product.
If, we take the average value of the rare slot, and the average value of the mythic rare slot, and multiply these across the number of expected rare/mythic slots, we get the bulk of the value.
If we do this for the common/uncommon slots, we will increase the value slightly.
This is the Expected Value of the Box. If that number is higher than price of the box, then we have good odds of getting "more dollars" out of the box. If we buy enough boxes to stabilize some of the random factors we will, on paper, make money.
Timing considerations: Statistically, the highest prices for the entirety of a set is during pre-order phases. After this point, prices for some cards may rise, but most will fall, as supply will be greater and demand reduced. Conversely, as boxes go out of print, the supply of boxes will decrease, while the card pool remains relatively stagnant. At either of these points, getting a cheap box may put you into a position where opening the box is additional value. Obviously, opening a box and then sitting on the cards while prices shrink is not going to help you extract value.
Finally, there is value in a sealed pack, namely for drafting and other limited formats. This is the chief reason old boxes slowly creep up in value, as the actual cards contained within are not necessarily gaining value significantly, but cracking fresh packs is a harder to find experience.
I would never recommend buying boxes and cracking them just to have the cards. To honestly break-even on a box during most times, you need to get value out of the packs themselves, which means playing limited. At the very least, do sealed deck building practice with them, by opening 6 packs at a time and then attempting to build a deck.
This is a pretty shallow analysis but it should help guide the basics of understanding the value of buying boxes.
Finally, SCG will sell 4x playsets of a whole set for anywhere from $550-$800 or so. A case will run about $550 and does not physically contain enough rare slots to provide a 4x playset of all rares. Do not assume that a case will give you a 4x playset of rares, it will give you approximately 22-26 mythics and 192 regular rares. A 4x playset of mythics is 60 mythics, and a 4x playset of rares is 212 rares.
Yeah honestly I used to buy 2 boxes of every set, but outside of just fleshing out a collection and making sure you have a nice sellection of commons and uncommons... there is ZERO promise you'll pull the kinds of rares that will "make your money back." Besides, they people that do are usually buying bottom barrel prices in presale and are turning the cards around with presale hype prices. Most card prices will drop in major ways within the first two weeks of release because everyone trades/buys singles for what they need within that time and the demand drops like a rock.
For example... I bought a box and cracked it the day of release many years ago and it was filled with all sorts of goodies. $300 worth of rares! Then I go on a week vacation before I could get out and trade/sell them and my box dropped to be about worth $130 worth of rares. Still good, but man...
all depends on what you like reallu, if you enjoy cracking packs and getting to excitement of not knowing what it holds then buy a booster box. Other than that just buy singles for the cards you want. I do both myself.
Its is almost 99% wrong to buy boxes if your sole reason for opening them is the value of the cards inside. Much like a lottery ticket there is always a chance that you will make money but you are losing value in the long run. It will be much cheaper for you to just buy singles of the cards that you want.
There are however other reasons to buy boxes that are not purely monetary. Playing limited with friends is a great reason to buy a box for example. Also some people just enjoy the rush of opening packs. It is up to you to decide if those benefits outweigh the additional costs, just don't kid yourself into thinking you are "making money" by opening packs because you almost certainly are not.
Someone mentioned that there are some instances where it's better to buy boxes vs individual cards, but I don't know when that is and what the logic behind it is.
there is no logic behind it. It's always the most expensive way to aquire cards. You only buy boxes if you like cracking packs, but yuo are practically garaunteed to lose $$. I mean, think about it, if there was any reasonable expectation to get more than what you paid out of a box, EVERYONE would be buying them.
The most cost effeicent way to get cards is to buy the 4X common and uncommon sets off ebay for $30-$35, and spend the rest buying the singles you need.
There you go... perfect point. You certainly get your GREAT boxes, but again even there the value drops within the first 2 weeks of release. A bad box though is just heartbreaking, esp if you had to scrape to get the money for it.
Singles are always a better buy. You may not have that stack of commons afterwards, but heck you're not always promised a playset of those in a box either (with a big set anyway).
there is no logic behind it. It's always the most expensive way to aquire cards. You only buy boxes if you like cracking packs, but yuo are practically garaunteed to lose $$. I mean, think about it, if there was any reasonable expectation to get more than what you paid out of a box, EVERYONE would be buying them.
The most cost effeicent way to get cards is to buy the 4X common and uncommon sets off ebay for $30-$35, and spend the rest buying the singles you need.
This is a key point in getting value out of a box. If you are one of those people who won't buy the playsets of commons/uncommons from Ebay a box becomes a lot more worthwhile. Also the price you end up paying for the box.
Here in Japan MTG is very expensive. I buy one box of each set as the stores charge so much for the good commons/uncommons I can probably pay off half the box or more over two years making various decks.
I usually just buy singles for whatever deck I'm building. If I were to drop $150 on singles for a deck and have everything I need I would rather do that than spend $100 on a box and not get everything I need. If you buy a box you should get some friends together and draft to test limited.
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there is no logic behind it. It's always the most expensive way to aquire cards. You only buy boxes if you like cracking packs, but yuo are practically garaunteed to lose $$. I mean, think about it, if there was any reasonable expectation to get more than what you paid out of a box, EVERYONE would be buying them.
The most cost effeicent way to get cards is to buy the 4X common and uncommon sets off ebay for $30-$35, and spend the rest buying the singles you need.
Me and 2 friends ended up with a case yesterday just with the spare cards we had, that in our area no one was looking for, and out of that case we ended up getting enough credit to get 2 more boxes and kept all the stuff we wanted, playset of every card the 3 of us needed.
I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it's fun and if you have a local store like SCG then it's better to trade in for boxes, rather than spend cash
I buy boxes because I want commons and uncommons as well as the rares, if I'm looking for a specific rare or mythic and dont pull it i can always use my boxes as trade fodder to pick them up with (which is exactly what I did with my foil snapcaster)
I usually buy 2-3 boxes when a set comes out to draft with. But, as said by all those people above, that's the only thing boxes are any good for. It used to be hard to cut even from buying boxes before they introduced mythic rarity, but since there's mythic rares you're pretty much guaranteed to get only half the box's price back if you don't open multiple chase mythics.
If you just want cards go buy 4 common sets and get the rest individually.
I edited a ton of info into the second post of the thread, but wanted to add to the discussion that I usually buy 2 boxes or so to fill a trade binder out to start trading into speculations, etc. I will buy singles for the cards I want to play with, however.
I bought a box even though I only need a few cards (Snapcaster Mage, Forbidden Alchemy, Think Twice, Delver of Secrets and Ghost Quarter) because I wanted to play in the release party the next day (today). The people at my LGS are really easy trade with and so far I got two Gideon Juras and two Snapcaster Mages. I'm really hoping either I or my friend pull SCM in our sealed pool (he's playing for me so I saved 12 packs), because I didn't get one in my 24 packs.
For some reason I didn't get any Dissipates. I also pulled a foil Skirsdag High Priest, so close to pulling a foil SCM :<
i feel that it really depends on why you are buying the cards......if you are buying a box for 1-2 decks you wish to make then you are going to lose out nearly 100% of the time (you could pull two JTMS in a worldwake box but aside from that you need multiple money mythics to break even)
if you are buying to have a large collection where you can make a diffrent tournament worthy deck every week then perhaps buying a case or two might be more efficent for you (plus you will have much more trade stock to help you complete anything you don't pull)
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Standard BEtched Champion/InfectB WSoilders/knightsW WUVenser SplicerWU RRDWR GFeed the Pack comboG WUPool of ExhaustionWU
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if you are buying to have a large collection where you can make a diffrent tournament worthy deck every week then perhaps buying a case or two might be more efficent for you (plus you will have much more trade stock to help you complete anything you don't pull)
Nah, buying 4 rare and mythic sets (or 4 rare sets and the individual mythics you want) would still be cheaper.
If boxes could make you money the box prices would go up. Basic economy.
Nah, buying 4 rare and mythic sets (or 4 rare sets and the individual mythics you want) would still be cheaper.
If boxes could make you money the box prices would go up. Basic economy.
Wouldn't you get four of each card if you bought a case though? Seems cheaper than buying four complete sets (those are $200 each CFB).
Wouldn't you get four of each card if you bought a case though? Seems cheaper than buying four complete sets (those are $200 each CFB).
Read the second post of the thread. It's physically impossible to do so, and statistically unlikely since you have too small of a sample to actually get a statistically accurate spread.
Read the second post of the thread. It's physically impossible to do so, and statistically unlikely since you have too small of a sample to actually get a statistically accurate spread.
Ah okay. Well then, would it be reasonable to say that I would have enough trade stock to get four of each rare and mythic in the set if I bought a case? Assuming I would get more than 4x of each rare/mythic but only 1-2 of others.
Ah okay. Well then, would it be reasonable to say that I would have enough trade stock to get four of each rare and mythic in the set if I bought a case? Assuming I would get more than 4x of each rare/mythic but only 1-2 of others.
It will take an average of 484 packs to get 60 mythics (64 in Innistrad, Garruk is essentially a free mythic compared to previous sets), so you are looking at 13.5 boxes to get enough mythics to trade mythic for mythic to get a playset of all of them.
Trying to figure out the statistics on Innistrad boxes. Since you can get a foil rare and a rare, a flip rare and a rare, as well as all three( I opened 10 packs, and got 15 rares), is there a much higher chance of pulling the money cards? Is Innistrad really worth spending the money on?
It helps if you have the gift of the golden goddess of getting exactly what you need from packs. (GGG)
(Don't you just hate those people? :))
I only buy a pre-sale box if I think I'll like the set. I enjoy opening packs and I usually get roughly my money back in rares. After that, I buy the singles i need, but I'm a freak and have to have exactly the cards in the deck, so I try to buy in bulk.
What is the rule of thumb or thinking of when to buy singles of a set or to buy boxes of a set?
Someone mentioned that there are some instances where it's better to buy boxes vs individual cards, but I don't know when that is and what the logic behind it is.
Is it better to buy boxes when there are some seriously awesome (and expensive) cards? i.e. Jace 2.0?
Thanks!!
As this is a thread we get ALL THE TIME, I'm going to go ahead and add this to the Official Thread list. -extremeicon
it's better to buy boxes rather than cards when the expected value of the box is higher than the cost of the box.
This is very rare.
edit: I'm editing this in since this will be an official thread now:
In order to get the cards you want, it is always least expensive to buy just those cards. Here is how you do that:
A 4x Common/Uncommon run can be found on ebay for $30 + $10 shipping very consistently, from a number of dealers. Buy from one with good feedback to guarantee. Pre-sales on these are frequently slightly cheaper, because nobody has run up the uncommons to $5 yet (like disfigure/mental misstep).
ebay, cardshark.com, and magiccards.info will give you access to wide markets that have the cheapest cards.
Now then, on to some basic number crunching to see if there is ever a time when it's right to buy a box "for value:
A regular-sized 'large set' has 53 rares and 15 mythics (like Scars of Mirrodin). Smaller sets (like Mirrodin Besieged) maintain a similar ratio, as do sets with weird inserts like Innistrad.
Mythics are inserted at a rate of 1 in 8, which means that 1 in every 8 packs (statistically, not physically) will have 1 of 15 mythics.
Statistically, this means a box has ~4 Mythics and ~32 regular rares. This means that each box will statistically contain 60% of the rares of a set, and 26% of the mythics.
Note: These statistics are completely academic and irrelelvant to a particular box due to the random distribution of packs. These numbers do not stabilize until you're cracking more than a case (6 boxes) of product.
If, we take the average value of the rare slot, and the average value of the mythic rare slot, and multiply these across the number of expected rare/mythic slots, we get the bulk of the value.
If we do this for the common/uncommon slots, we will increase the value slightly.
This is the Expected Value of the Box. If that number is higher than price of the box, then we have good odds of getting "more dollars" out of the box. If we buy enough boxes to stabilize some of the random factors we will, on paper, make money.
Timing considerations: Statistically, the highest prices for the entirety of a set is during pre-order phases. After this point, prices for some cards may rise, but most will fall, as supply will be greater and demand reduced. Conversely, as boxes go out of print, the supply of boxes will decrease, while the card pool remains relatively stagnant. At either of these points, getting a cheap box may put you into a position where opening the box is additional value. Obviously, opening a box and then sitting on the cards while prices shrink is not going to help you extract value.
Finally, there is value in a sealed pack, namely for drafting and other limited formats. This is the chief reason old boxes slowly creep up in value, as the actual cards contained within are not necessarily gaining value significantly, but cracking fresh packs is a harder to find experience.
I would never recommend buying boxes and cracking them just to have the cards. To honestly break-even on a box during most times, you need to get value out of the packs themselves, which means playing limited. At the very least, do sealed deck building practice with them, by opening 6 packs at a time and then attempting to build a deck.
This is a pretty shallow analysis but it should help guide the basics of understanding the value of buying boxes.
Finally, SCG will sell 4x playsets of a whole set for anywhere from $550-$800 or so. A case will run about $550 and does not physically contain enough rare slots to provide a 4x playset of all rares. Do not assume that a case will give you a 4x playset of rares, it will give you approximately 22-26 mythics and 192 regular rares. A 4x playset of mythics is 60 mythics, and a 4x playset of rares is 212 rares.
For example... I bought a box and cracked it the day of release many years ago and it was filled with all sorts of goodies. $300 worth of rares! Then I go on a week vacation before I could get out and trade/sell them and my box dropped to be about worth $130 worth of rares. Still good, but man...
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the awesome banner that is better than yours
There are however other reasons to buy boxes that are not purely monetary. Playing limited with friends is a great reason to buy a box for example. Also some people just enjoy the rush of opening packs. It is up to you to decide if those benefits outweigh the additional costs, just don't kid yourself into thinking you are "making money" by opening packs because you almost certainly are not.
there is no logic behind it. It's always the most expensive way to aquire cards. You only buy boxes if you like cracking packs, but yuo are practically garaunteed to lose $$. I mean, think about it, if there was any reasonable expectation to get more than what you paid out of a box, EVERYONE would be buying them.
The most cost effeicent way to get cards is to buy the 4X common and uncommon sets off ebay for $30-$35, and spend the rest buying the singles you need.
I also got a playset of Snapcasters
Singles are always a better buy. You may not have that stack of commons afterwards, but heck you're not always promised a playset of those in a box either (with a big set anyway).
This is a key point in getting value out of a box. If you are one of those people who won't buy the playsets of commons/uncommons from Ebay a box becomes a lot more worthwhile. Also the price you end up paying for the box.
Here in Japan MTG is very expensive. I buy one box of each set as the stores charge so much for the good commons/uncommons I can probably pay off half the box or more over two years making various decks.
Legacy: BUAffinityUB
EDH/Commander:WBGDoran, the Siege TowerGBW
Me and 2 friends ended up with a case yesterday just with the spare cards we had, that in our area no one was looking for, and out of that case we ended up getting enough credit to get 2 more boxes and kept all the stuff we wanted, playset of every card the 3 of us needed.
I'm not saying it's the best idea, but it's fun and if you have a local store like SCG then it's better to trade in for boxes, rather than spend cash
If you just want cards go buy 4 common sets and get the rest individually.
For some reason I didn't get any Dissipates. I also pulled a foil Skirsdag High Priest, so close to pulling a foil SCM :<
if you are buying to have a large collection where you can make a diffrent tournament worthy deck every week then perhaps buying a case or two might be more efficent for you (plus you will have much more trade stock to help you complete anything you don't pull)
BEtched Champion/InfectB
WSoilders/knightsW
WUVenser SplicerWU
RRDWR
GFeed the Pack comboG
WUPool of ExhaustionWU
EDH
GEzuri, Elf OverrunG
BGeth, GraverobberB
UThada Adel, ThiefU
RUrabrask, Big RedR
WElesh Norn, CrusadeW
WUGAngus Makenzie, Bant ControlWUG
Extended
WGElvesWG
Legacy
RGoblinsR
UBGFariesUBG
UBGRaffinityUBG
Nah, buying 4 rare and mythic sets (or 4 rare sets and the individual mythics you want) would still be cheaper.
If boxes could make you money the box prices would go up. Basic economy.
Wouldn't you get four of each card if you bought a case though? Seems cheaper than buying four complete sets (those are $200 each CFB).
Read the second post of the thread. It's physically impossible to do so, and statistically unlikely since you have too small of a sample to actually get a statistically accurate spread.
Ah okay. Well then, would it be reasonable to say that I would have enough trade stock to get four of each rare and mythic in the set if I bought a case? Assuming I would get more than 4x of each rare/mythic but only 1-2 of others.
It will take an average of 484 packs to get 60 mythics (64 in Innistrad, Garruk is essentially a free mythic compared to previous sets), so you are looking at 13.5 boxes to get enough mythics to trade mythic for mythic to get a playset of all of them.
(Don't you just hate those people? :))
I only buy a pre-sale box if I think I'll like the set. I enjoy opening packs and I usually get roughly my money back in rares. After that, I buy the singles i need, but I'm a freak and have to have exactly the cards in the deck, so I try to buy in bulk.
(This is directed at Sigma-X, naturally)
If your looking for one or two decks buy singles, the big picture rewards boxes.