Given a Hearthstone card collection how to determine the optimal card pack to purchase?
Hearthstone allows players to buy card packs with real money or in game currency. Each Hearthstone card pack has five cards with at least one card being rare or better. There have been several player card pack sampling studies done to determine the typical rarity makeup of a Hearthstone card pack:
Common Rare Epic Legendary
Percentage of total 71.65% 22.84% 4.42% 1.10%
Count per 27,868 packs 99,836 31,821 6,152 1,531
Probability of at least 1 per pack 99.81% 72.64% 20.21% 5.37%
Players can disenchant cards to create Arcane Dust which can then be used to create cards. The crafting and disenchanting costs for a card are determined by its rarity and foil (regular/golden):
Rarity Crafting Cost Disenchanting Value
Common 40 5
Rare 100 20
Epic 400 100
Legendary 1600 400
Golden Common 400 50
Golden Rare 800 100
Golden Epic 1600 400
Golden Legendary 3200 1600
Given the above crafting and disenchanting costs and card pack composition statistics the expected dust value of a card pack is 97.8.
For the scope of this question having a complete playable set means ignoring the card's foil having one copy of every Legendary card and two copies of any of the following rarities: Common, Rare, and Epic for each card. A playable set assumes duplicative higher dust value cards will be disenchanted over low value equivalent cards.
It's easy to determine the dust needed to complete a collection, it's more difficult to determine which pack a player should buy. Given the probabilities of opening a pack with differing rarities and the expected dust value of a pack I want to determine which pack a player should buy.
Specifically, what I am looking for is a formula that can be used to determine the best card pack for a player to buy given their existing collection and desire to have a complete playable collection. Obviously as packs are opened the makeup of the player's collection changes and the next optimal pack to purchase may not be the same as the last.
I have been playing Hearthstone since it was in beta and have amassed a solid collection, but am still missing cards from all three of the current sets:
- Classic: 705/723 (302 collectible cards)
- Common 336/336
- Rare 162/162
- Epic 66/74
- Legendary 23/33
- GvG: 178/226 (123 collectible cards)
- Common 80/80
- Rare 70/74
- Epic 22/52
- Legendary 6/20
- TGT: 200/244 (132 collectible cards)
- Common 97/98
- Rare 69/72
- Epic 28/54
- Legendary 6/20
Using my collection as an example what would a formula look like to determine the optimal pack to purchase to create a complete playable collection?
Best Answer
I think this would work. The OP has already accounted for needing two of all cards except legendary and one of each legendary in the collection counts.
For each rarity, the spreadsheet multiplies the chance of that card type by 5 (the size of a pack) then by the chance of that card being a new one for the user (not-owned / total). And then at the end of the line is just a sum of the chance for each rarity. To make it easier for people with a similar question in the future make a copy of this Google Sheet and then edit it with your own numbers.
It looks like in the OP's case it's very close to a toss-up for GvG vs. TGT packs, with each type of pack having slightly better than a 1-in-5 chance of giving the OP an unowned card. The chance of getting an unowned card from a Classic pack is only 4%, or 1-in-25.
Edited to add: As documented in the answers to this question the probability of opening a specific rarity is the the same across all pack types. (Thanks to @KarouiHaythem for pointing out this related question in the comments.)
Also, I did not address dust cost because, as long as dusting a card yields less dust than it costs to craft, the optimal solution is to open a card rather than craft it. (As noted by @Dacio in the comments.) Therefore the solution focuses on the optimal type of pack to maximize chances of opening an unowned card.
Pictures about "Given a Hearthstone card collection how to determine the optimal card pack to purchase?"
How many packs do you need for full collection Hearthstone?
Here's a post on Reddit that goes into the math a little more deeply, but the number is probably somewhere around 450 packs (again, assuming you are only getting the Legendaries from packs and not as rewards or from buying bundles). Go to Youtube and look for Hearthstone Mathematics.Are Hearthstone packs predetermined?
Cards are decided during the opening of packs, not during the moment of purchase. A case has been made for "predetermined rarities" when opening packs "again".What is the best Hearthstone card pack?
Hearthstone Best Packs To Buy 2020- The Witchwood. The Witchwood was released on April 12, 2018. ...
- Rastakhan's Rumble. Rastakhan's Rumble came out on December 4, 2018 and was Hearthstone's 10th expansion. ...
- The Boomsday Project. ...
- Rise of Shadows. ...
- Classic. ...
- Saviors of Uldum. ...
- Descent of Dragons.
Should I buy packs with gold Hearthstone?
With gold make sure you buy 10 packs in each expansion or 1 at a time until you get a legendary. The rule is automatic legendary in the 1st 10 packs 100% guarantee of each expansion. It could be in the 1st pack you open or the 10th or anywhere between. Do the current standard expansions first then the wild expansions.Hearthstone Pack Buying and Opening Strategy: My Strategy of Buying Sets. F2P Guide.
More answers regarding given a Hearthstone card collection how to determine the optimal card pack to purchase?
Answer 2
The expected value per pack is going to be the probability of you getting a card you need*its price in dust. So for each pack we can calculate its expected value in cards you need as:
commonCost(commonsRemaining/possibleCommons)commonProbability + rareCost(raresRemaining/possibleRares)rareProbability + epicCost(epicsRemaining/possibleEpics)epicProbability + legendaryCost(legendariesRemaining/possibleLegendaries)legendaryProbability
Technically, it is 5 times that, since you get 5 cards, but we will only use this as a comparison tool.
So for your example: Classic is 0 + 0 + 400(8/74).0442 + 1600(10/33).0110 = 7.24
GvG is 0 + 100(4/74).2284 + 400(30/52).0442 + 1600(14/20).0110 = 23.75
TGT is 40(1/90).7165 + 100(3/72).2284 + 400(26/54).0442 + 1600(14/20).0110 = 22.10
So you should buy GvG packs and craft classic cards (since they're the most expensive for you to get through packs).
I think you could get a slightly better calculation if you factored in that needing 2 of one rare makes your odds worse than needing 1 of 2 each of 2 different rares.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Caleb Oquendo, Caleb Oquendo, Caleb Oquendo, Alexander Kozlov