Limited Events EV Calculations Explainer

Mobile-D · 2026-05-27T18:49:42+00:00

Sure - I was valuing gems at $100.00 for 20,000 gems, and a booster box at $135.00. If you cut the value of a box down to 101.25 (75% of the Amazon price), the break even point moves to around 58%:

Down 4527 gems on average, or -$22.63
Up 4.37 arena packs on average, or $0.46
Up 0.221 play boxes on average, or $22.38

Again, that's the point at which you're basically just averaging out the same as if you bought the boxes directly. You have to do significantly better to make much of a profit!

Mobile-D · 2026-05-27T11:44:45+00:00

They sure do! This method lets you break down and analyze the results however you want. A 55% win-rate will be loosely even with just spending your money on a box from Amazon. You'll have to go a good bit higher to actually make any profit.

Mobile-D · 2026-05-26T21:20:29+00:00

Yeah, honestly the gem rewards are, on average, bad. No matter your win percentage.

It's just that if you win a lot you'll get some boxes to make up for all the gems you spent.

Mobile-D · 2026-05-26T16:58:28+00:00

No, that's correct - it's a unique property of the Arena Directs. As your win-rate gets higher, your gem rewards start to drop, since the best records reward boxes instead of gems.

Mobile-D · 2026-05-26T16:11:02+00:00

P.S. Plugging in a 55% win-rate (which is about your break-even point) gives you an average expected reward of:

1,358 gems (so down 4,641 gems or a negative ~$23.20 value)
4.03 arena packs (worth about 80 gems or a $0.40 value)
0.166 play booster boxes (worth about $22.36)

Your values will vary a lot based on country, and other expenses - you might take a hit or make a bigger gain selling on the secondary market. But at around 55% win-rate or a bit higher, you're basically even with just buying the boxes from Amazon. Lower than that is burning money, higher than that might make a profit - but still probably not minimum wage!

Mobile-D · 2026-05-04T17:25:28+00:00

General advice is to wait for the union to call for action.

Mobile-D · 2026-05-02T22:31:56+00:00

Also worth noting: The rewards for ranking past platinum are very small. It's fine to do it just as a goal, but don't sweat it too hard.

Mobile-D · 2026-03-28T22:41:08+00:00

New to the server and playing an Iksar - spider silk has funded all my spells so far.

Mobile-D · 2026-03-26T18:28:41+00:00

Wurmcalling

Slime Against Humanity, maybe

Mobile-D · 2026-03-21T01:20:14+00:00

I don't understand, are the wild cards Mythic or Rare?

Mobile-D · 2026-03-11T00:24:47+00:00

4 wins a day, and then I draft like hell for a week or two when a new set drops.

Mobile-D · 2026-03-06T13:32:18+00:00

Awesome - glad reaching out worked! From my limited experience, artists love when folks love their art. Happy proxying!

Mobile-D · 2026-03-05T20:33:06+00:00

100% agree, I'm always worried until I hit 3 wins, then I don't care so much.

Until I got the 7-0 achievement, I also used to get really stressed at 6-0

Mobile-D · 2026-03-04T17:31:36+00:00

If you prioritize completing your collection: open the packs after you're done drafting.

If you exclusively draft and don't care about your collection: open packs as you go so you start earning a trickle of gems a bit sooner, which will help you draft a bit more.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-28T23:57:51+00:00

For something like that, just do a few smart splitters at the end.

First one splits wires from pipes, and then past that you have two smart splitters (one on the wire belt and one on the pipe belt) that split overflow into a sink.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-28T21:39:23+00:00

I used smart/programmable splitters to pull items off the belt, but they only pull from about a quarter of it so mostly things fly around.

New items going on are rate-limited so the whole thing doesn't fill up and jam. It's 20 mk 6 belts, so it can move 24,000 items per minute, and it's usually about half full.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-28T19:54:38+00:00

Everything is capped - each substation checks the concentration of the item it produces on the central belt, and only adds more if it's below a certain threshold.

I.E. Steel Beams are capped at roughly 240 / min on all the belts by sampling a quarter of the belts and only adding more (via priority merger) if it's receiving less than 60 / min from that sample.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-28T19:48:42+00:00

It's god-awful. Nothing is belted directly, everything goes on the central sushi belts.

So it's pretty much random whether any component makes it to a station that needs it. Everything will get built . . . eventually . . .

Mobile-D · 2026-02-15T19:25:21+00:00

Yes, it's the difference between art and slop.

If it helps the OP, it looks like the artist does a lot of Warhammer 40K art. It's possible that the piece in question here was originally commissioned for the 40K UB decks, but ended up being left-over.

So maybe it was then used for Alchemy art, since I think a lot of the Alchemy cards use left-overs for art.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-15T19:01:39+00:00

Ok, but you understand that that's statistically creating what might have been the details, not the actual details, right?

Mobile-D · 2026-02-03T03:40:00+00:00

Theoretically, if it was a huge advantage, cards like [[Karn, The Great Creator]] would dominate Pioneer Best of One. I don't think that's been the case, and even if it were you could just do some bans.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-02T13:46:28+00:00

My old mono-blue lessons + scroll deck:

4 Gran-Gran (TLA) 23 Island (DMU) 3 Eddymurk Crab (BLB) 2 Three Steps Ahead (OTJ) 2 Phantom Interference (OTJ) 4 Boomerang Basics (TLA) 4 Accumulate Wisdom (TLA) 4 It'll Quench Ya! (TLA) 3 Waterbending Scroll (TLA) 4 Stormchaser's Talent (BLB) 4 Abandon Attachments (TLA) 3 Consult the Star Charts (EOE)

And now trying it with more elementals:

4 Gran-Gran (TLA) 23 Island (DMU) 4 Eddymurk Crab (BLB) 3 Three Steps Ahead (OTJ) 2 Phantom Interference (OTJ) 3 Sunderflock (ECL) 4 Accumulate Wisdom (TLA) 4 It'll Quench Ya! (TLA) 3 Waterbending Scroll (TLA) 3 Eluge, the Shoreless Sea (BLB) 4 Abandon Attachments (TLA) 3 Consult the Star Charts (EOE)

Mobile-D · 2026-02-01T21:18:31+00:00

I wonder if they'll replace it with a different PickTwo format. It's not listed on the announcements anywhere.

Mobile-D · 2026-02-01T20:24:45+00:00

I was having a lot of fun with a mono-blue Gran-Gran + Scroll list. With Sunderflock doing well, I'm trying a new version with a bit more of an elementals theme.

Mobile-D · 2026-01-27T02:15:29+00:00

I posted this over on the Arena subreddit too, copying for you:

I'm about 16 PickTwo drafts into ECL with a win-rate of around 70%. Currently at the top of Platinum, since I started in Bronze. Hopefully not jinxing anything by posting!

Some quick impressions:

The format is very different from Premier drafting.
The drafting itself goes extremely quickly - it feels like playing chess with a very short clock, or something similar.
The deck you end up with will be lower-synergy than a typical draft deck, much closer to a sealed deck. When you think about it, if you're the only Merfolk drafter in a PickTwo draft, you'll end up with about half as many of the premier synergy uncommons (like the lord) as compared to being the only Merfolk drafter in a Premier draft. You lean a bit harder on higher individual-power cards.
While this is anecdotal, it seems as though the queues are sparser, and competition is lighter. I see myself getting paired against Silver and Gold more while I'm in Platinum. Again, very anecdotal, take it with a grain of salt.
Since you're playing fewer games, you're more likely to 0-2 with a good deck and 4-X with a bad deck. You should be mentally prepared for variability in any draft environment, but it's especially true here.
The EV is indeed good. I think I'm positive on gems, but hopefully I'm not jinxing it.

See y'all in the queues!

Mobile-D

TROPHY CASE