What is worth more: 3 cards or a booster pack?

[Finn The Human]

Hey all. I've just got a TF2 booster pack and I'm just curious as to whether i should open it and trade those cards, or trade the booster pack. Cheers :)

[vantiss]

That depends what you mean by "worth more", and if you'd rather go with reliability or take a chance.

Market-wise (and trading-wise), Booster Packs are historically worth more, since there's the chance of getting a foil. Once it's unpacked and becomes just cards, you know exactly what you're getting, but that means there's no foil. The same goes for you, personally.

You basically have to make a decision based on the possibility of a foil (which is always going to, by itself, be worth more than the booster pack itself), knowing that if you do unbox it, the 3 cards that come out will not be worth as much as the booster pack otherwise.

Does that help? I am a bit tired so I may have phrased that a bit poorly, but hopefully the point got across.

edit: Also, I can't not use this emoticon given your handle/avatar: :3

[The_Driver]

Assumption: Foil chance is still 1% and occurs in foils just like on normal drops (independent from other drops). Foils and normals of that set have a fixed market value (all from the same set have the same price, only dependent of foil vs. nonfoil).

In that case a booster has a chance for
0 foils of 97,03%
1 foil of 2.94%
2 foils of 0.03%
3 foils of 0.0001%

The question now is, how much is a foil worth on the market or to you? If you just go by selling it's rather simple to calculate an expected value, but if you'd like to keep them or stuff the "value" is rather hard to define (as it's so difficult to complete a foil set without the market anyways, and so on).

Most booster packs have a market-cost of over (0.9703 * (3 * price of normal card) + 0.0297 * (2 * price of normal card + 1 * price of foil card) * [...] * 0.000001 * (3 * price of foil card)) so in many cases it's more beneficient to sell the booster vs selling 3 cards. If you plan to complete the set through the market keep in mind you'll have a 10% and a 5% fee on the market. When trading you'd probably want to apply some sort of "virtual worth" of the card to reflect a foil being worth... 5 or whatever normal cards.

unedit: reverted fixed typo: 2.94 should be 2.97

[vantiss]

Yeah. What he said.

@The_Driver: I've gotta ask, did you do the math for this post specifically, or did you already have that figured out before writing the post up? If the former, how long did it take you? I'm curoius. I mean, not that it's the most advanced math or anything, but that's a rather detailed post :P

[Finn The Human]

thank you both this is extremely helpful <3

[Finn The Human]

you guys think it'd be worth posting [H] Tf2 booster [W] 4 bioshock infinite?

[vantiss]

In this particular case, it so happens that TF2 (at least, according to some looking around I just d id) has one of the cheaper booster packs right now, and Bioshock's cards are in the medium-high range of expense. If you are intent on those cards, I think you could definitely get 2, and *maybe* 3, but definitely not 4 unless either (a) TF2 boosters become more rare, or (b) Bioshock cards become more common.

edit: A tip, for if you do make a thread for it--make sure you post it in the trading subforum, or your t hread'll get nuked :v

[Finn The Human]

so would [H] TF2 booster [W] 2 hotline miami make more sense?

[The_Driver]

引用自 >:3 Atreus YAC：

@The_Driver: I've gotta ask, did you do the math for this post specifically, or did you already have that figured out before writing the post up? If the former, how long did it take you? I'm curoius. I mean, not that it's the most advanced math or anything, but that's a rather detailed post :P

I've been here since the beta, more than a month ago the 1% were confirmed by some valve-employee ( http://steamcommunity.com/groups/tradingcards/discussions/1/864969482042344380/#c864969482044786566 ), I then made a little excel-file for the chances after x drops. You know, to see if people complaining about no foil in 10 drops had exceeded the expected drop point for 50% of the people and so on. (Hint: It's obviously way too early to complain.) So I had those numbers ready. The other formular is just logical expending of that.

[vantiss]

Ah, gotcha. That's about what I figured and hoped. Also, thanks for the link--I had heard the 1% stat multiple times, but never with a source link.

引用自 Finn The Human：

so would [H] TF2 booster [W] 2 hotline miami make more sense?

With the current going price on Hotline Miami cards, I'd say you could reliably ask for 3, and possibly ask for 4.

[Finn The Human]

Awesome cheers guys :)

[Chara the Explorer]

@The_Driver I've been wondering for quite a while why the HELL booster packs are worth well over double what the actual cards would be worth. Personally I find it strange how the 'lottery' appeal makes them worth so much, but I guess that's how the market worth. It's the same for the TF2 market anyway (i.e keys are worth much more than most of the contents of crates, with the exception of stupidly rare and valuable unusuals), so I suppose I should have caught on sooner XD

[e.MiDNiGHT]

引用自 The_Driver：

引用自 >:3 Atreus YAC：

@The_Driver: I've gotta ask, did you do the math for this post specifically, or did you already have that figured out before writing the post up? If the former, how long did it take you? I'm curoius. I mean, not that it's the most advanced math or anything, but that's a rather detailed post :P

I've been here since the beta, more than a month ago the 1% were confirmed by some valve-employee ( http://steamcommunity.com/groups/tradingcards/discussions/1/864969482042344380/#c864969482044786566 ), I then made a little excel-file for the chances after x drops. You know, to see if people complaining about no foil in 10 drops had exceeded the expected drop point for 50% of the people and so on. (Hint: It's obviously way too early to complain.) So I had those numbers ready. The other formular is just logical expending of that.

... But each time you open a foil pack it's independent of other openings, so the chance shuold be 1% every time even if you're on a streak of 10 no-foil packs in a row... the chance is still 1% for the next opening.

[The_Driver]

引用自 e.MiDNiGHT：

... But each time you open a foil pack it's independent of other openings, so the chance shuold be 1% every time even if you're on a streak of 10 no-foil packs in a row... the chance is still 1% for the next opening.

So?

[n0cDk3y]

引用自 The_Driver：

Assumption: Foil chance is still 1% and occurs in foils just like on normal drops (independent from other drops). Foils and normals of that set have a fixed market value (all from the same set have the same price, only dependent of foil vs. nonfoil).

In that case a booster has a chance for
0 foils of 97,03%
1 foil of 2.97%
2 foils of 0.03%
3 foils of 0.0001%

The question now is, how much is a foil worth on the market or to you? If you just go by selling it's rather simple to calculate an expected value, but if you'd like to keep them or stuff the "value" is rather hard to define (as it's so difficult to complete a foil set without the market anyways, and so on).

Most booster packs have a market-cost of over (0.9703 * (3 * price of normal card) + 0.0297 * (2 * price of normal card + 1 * price of foil card) * [...] * 0.000001 * (3 * price of foil card)) so in many cases it's more beneficient to sell the booster vs selling 3 cards. If you plan to complete the set through the market keep in mind you'll have a 10% and a 5% fee on the market. When trading you'd probably want to apply some sort of "virtual worth" of the card to reflect a foil being worth... 5 or whatever normal cards.

edit: fixed typo: 2.94 should be 2.97

Not sure why you edited your post. You were right the first time with 2.94! :)

[The_Driver]

引用自 n0cDk3y：

Not sure why you edited your post. You were right the first time with 2.94! :)

It's been quite a while... dunno why I thought it was wrong. Thanks for checking it :)