Are Potions Worth It? - An Experiment

     
     
     The much anticipated general sale has begun over at Splinterlands. Chaos Legion packs are literally flying off the imaginary shelves. Amidst all of the excitement, I thought it would be a good time to share a fun little experiment I did a little while back (during the presale).

     At the time, I had 100 card packs to open but only enough legendary and gold potions to cover 46 of them. So, I opened those 46 in two batches of 23. I did that just to prolong the fun of opening card packs. Here are the 230 cards I received from those 46 packs...

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     
     Of the 230 cards, I pulled 11 gold-foil cards which is approximately 5%. I also received four legendary cards which were about 2% of the overall haul. If you noticed, I did land a coveted gold-foil legendary card as well. That made it all worth it.

     Afterwards, I began to think...did the potions make that much of a difference? In the #Splinterlands shop, it says the gold potions double your chances of getting a gold card and the legendary potions double your chances of getting a legendary card.

     Of course, when you're dealing with probability, nothing is guaranteed. When you flip a coin 100 times you should, theoretically, get 50 heads and 50 tails. But, do you?

     Perhaps that's a bad analogy. A coin is subject to more variables than a computer algorithm. Did you flip the coin the exact same way all 100 times? Whereas, a computer program should act as, well, programmed.

     But then I thought about those pesky RNG's. You love them, and, you hate them. At this point there was only one way to satisfy my curiosity. That's right. I opened 46 more packs without having potions. 😬

     Here's what I received...

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     
     Of these 230 cards, I only landed four gold-foil and one legendary. That's about 2% gold and less than 1% legendary. With the help of this online table and chart maker, I made some graphics to help visualize the differences between potion and non-potion.

     
     

     
     These pie charts show the percentages of each type of regular card I received. The actual number breakdowns along with the accompanying collection power can be seen in the chart below.

     

     
     The total collection power is pretty close. The two extra legendary cards making the difference. Following are the same charts for the gold-foil cards.

     
     

     

     
     The difference between the gold-foils is huge. The total collection power received from the potions: 19,025. The total collection power received from not using potions: 4,150. That's a difference of 14,875.

     
     

     
     Without the 12,500 power from the legendary gold-foil card, the difference in collection power would have been 2,375.

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     Interpret this little experiment however you like. Personally, I'm sold on using potions. I wouldn't open any more packs without them. Thanks for reading.

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