We have all the cards from Duskmourn: House of Horror, and it’s time we look at the numbers and the chances. Every set, we’re given some percentages, but Wizards doesn’t want to make it super clear how hard it is to open the most chase versions of cards.
Lucky for you, I’ve gotten good at decoding what they are saying and turning it into useful information.
So let’s get into the statistics, and a couple of ways to buy cards that might be worth your time.
The Nightmare Bundle is one of the best add-ons we’ve seen in a while, and that’s all because of the cards that are added in. When you buy one of these for around $80 (currently, we’ll see if that price goes down), you get all of this, plus a deck box:
- 6 Duskmourn: House of Horror Play Boosters
- 2 Duskmourn: House of Horror Collector Boosters
- 20 Traditional foil full-art lands
- 4 Full-art manor lands of each basic land type
- 1 of 3 Borderless promo cards
- 1 of 3 Movie poster–themed cards
- 3 Double-sided movie posters
- 1 Glow-in-the-dark spindown die
I’m going to get into the Collector Boosters in a moment, but the real appeal is in the two ‘1 of 3’ cards. You’ll get one of the promos (Exhume, Damn, Crypt Ghast) and one of the movie poster-style cards (Goryo’s Vengeance, Living Death, Archon of Cruelty) always in foil. Those are all solid choices with good use rates, and while I’m not going to run out and buy bundles/cards immediately, I’m almost certainly going to snag a couple of personal copies early and spec buying six months from now.
In the Collector Boosters, there’s three slots with cards we’ll care about, the last three. Two of them are reserved for the Booster Fun nonfoils, and here’s your statistics for pulling one of these from either slot.
| Card Frame/Treatment (# of options) | Percent chance for any card of that category in one slot | Percent chance for a specific card of that category in one slot | # of packs to open one specific card from that category in one slot |
| Borderless Mythic Rare (6) | 4.00% | 0.67% | 150.00 |
| Borderless Rare (10) | 14.40% | 1.44% | 69.44 |
| Extended-Art Rare (13) | 18.80% | 1.45% | 69.15 |
| Extended-Art Mythic Rare (5) | 3.60% | 0.72% | 138.89 |
| Paranormal Rare (20) | 29.00% | 1.45% | 68.97 |
| Paranormal Mythic Rare (2) | 1.50% | 0.75% | 133.33 |
| Double Exposure Rare (12) | 17.40% | 1.45% | 68.97 |
| Double Exposure Mythic Rare (5) | 3.30% | 0.66% | 151.52 |
| Mirror Monsters Rare (4) | 5.80% | 1.45% | 68.97 |
| Mirror Monster Mythic Rare (3) | 2.20% | 0.73% | 136.36 |
And remember, you have two of these slots, so you’ll have double the chances to open the card you want (or half the packs, depending on which set of data you like to work with) and this is the formulation they used in Bloomburrow.
Then in the last slot, you can open anything that’s in the previous slots, just at a 85.9% rate. The other 14.1%, you get a chance at the truly rare drops, the Japan Showcase versions, the Double Exposure and the Special Guests. Don’t worry, I’ve got that table for you too.
| Card Frame/Treatment (# of options) | Percent chance for any card of that category | Percent chance for a specific card of that category | # of packs to open one specific card from that category |
| Traditional Foil Borderless Mythic Rare (6) | 3.44% | 0.57% | 174.62 |
| Traditional Foil Borderless Rare (10) | 12.37% | 1.24% | 80.84 |
| Traditional Foil Extended-Art Rare (13) | 16.15% | 1.24% | 80.50 |
| Traditional Foil Extended-Art Mythic Rare (5) | 3.09% | 0.62% | 161.69 |
| Traditional Foil Paranormal Rare (20) | 24.91% | 1.25% | 80.29 |
| Traditional Foil Paranormal Mythic Rare (2) | 1.29% | 0.64% | 155.22 |
| Traditional Foil Double Exposure Rare (12) | 14.95% | 1.25% | 80.29 |
| Traditional Foil Double Exposure Mythic Rare (5) | 2.83% | 0.57% | 176.39 |
| Traditional Foil Mirror Monsters Rare (4) | 4.98% | 1.25% | 80.29 |
| Traditional Foil Mirror Monster Mythic Rare (3) | 1.89% | 0.63% | 158.75 |
| Traditional Foil Traditional Foil Japan Showcase in English (10) | 6.00% | 0.60% | 166.67 |
| Traditional Foil Japan Showcase in Japanese(10) | 3.00% | 0.30% | 333.33 |
| Fracture Foil Japan Showcase in English (10) | 0.70% | 0.07% | 1428.57 |
| Fracture Foil Japan Showcase in Japanese (10) | 0.30% | 0.03% | 3333.33 |
| Textured Foil Double Exposure Mythic Rare (5) | 1.00% | 0.20% | 500.00 |
| Traditional Foil Special Guest (10) | 3.10% | 0.31% | 322.58 |
Before you start freaking out about a non-serialized card being found in 1 out of every 3,333 packs (a drop rate close to that of the serialized Human Sol Ring from LOTR) we need to keep in mind that the Japanese-language versions of cards show up in roughly a third of English (and other language) Collector Boosters, but that’s the only language for the Japanese-language Collector Boosters.
To put it another way, instead of a 0.3% chance of a Japanese-language Fracture Foil, you have a 1% chance instead if you’re opening a Japanese-language Collector Booster. And with there being ten options, you’ve got a 1/1000 chance, no longer a 1/3333 chance.
So if these Japanese-language cards blow up to ridiculous values, you’re looking at the Japanese-language Collector Booster boxes being even better investments.
It’s worth noting that the rest of the distribution here is in line with expectations from OTJ and BLB. The rarest pulls from the OTP subset, the Textured Foils, were 1 in 1500 packs. The Raised Foil Anime cards from BLB were just under 1 in 600, but those cards are cute furry animals and Magic players tend to spend pretty hard on those, whereas the OTP, even if in a lot of decks, those can be had relatively cheaply.
I’m also cognizant that we are entering a long period where Duskmourn might be the only set people care about. Bloomburrow was only given about two months where it’s being opened and getting all the attention. The next big set will be Foundations in November, but that will have a lot of reprints. We don’t have a date for Innistrad Remastered aside from it being in January, so we might get a glut of Duskmourn. It’s not for sure, though, and it might turn out that we love opening Foundations packs, so we’ll have to wait and see.
If you want to discuss my numbers, please feel free to reach out in the comments, on Twitter, or in the ProTrader Discord!
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.