The Mana Math of Aetherdrift

Welcome back to a new set, and a new group of calculations. Aetherdrift has a new type of booster for us to unpack, a single serialized card, and another batch of sweet, sweet, Fracture Foils. 

Let’s get into what you can open and what you might get when you crack one of these packs. 

Box Toppers are back! These are two-card packs, found in Play Booster boxes, Collector Booster boxes, and the Finish Line bundles. You’re going to get one of ten different lands (75% driver’s perspective, 25% full-art panorama, and one of 84 different rares or 43 mythics, a total of 127 options.

It’s possible that the panorama foils might become expensive down the line, but I’ve found that basics are no longer worth it, generally speaking. There’s just too many sweet options, and each new awesome one makes the others harder to go up in price. We get occasional exceptions, but even things like the Oil-Slick lands have taken forever to go up a buck or two. Just better to put your money someplace else.

The First-Place Foils have the distinction of looking like terrible Pokemon cards, thanks to the yellow outline on the posted photos, but the videos Wizards posted look pretty cool, so I’ll forgive them. The second slot of a Box Topper pack has a lot of options, which calls for a table: 

Right away, I want you to see that 7 of 10 packs have a regular rare card. We’re already off to a killer start with that, but the rates go up from there. The First-Place Foil version of the Special Guests is a mega-rare pull, being at 714 of these packs to get a single copy. You get ONE Box Topper pack per box (Play, Collector, or Finish Line) so please, if you open something good make sure you get a good price.

I’ll be curious to see if folks realize what difficult pulls these particular foils are, there may well be some underpricing going on early.

Let’s get to the nonfoils, of which there are two slots, so we have an extra column for the doubling up. 

Note: Wizards doesn’t want to just say how many of each treatment there are in an easy way, spreading out the information over the whole page, and if I find new ones revealed on Jan. 31 or later, I’ll update these numbers. 

The nonfoil special versions are about right, providing some solid numbers for those who don’t like the shiny, warping cards. Especially with two slots, there will be plenty of these to go around. 

Now, for the foil slot at the end of the pack.

Yup, you’re reading that right. Fracture Foils at 1500/3000 packs is in line with the last two sets. They’ve clearly got a ratio they like, and going by the prices of most Fracture Foils, the players agree. 

Please remember that you’re 1/1000 to get any Fracture Foil, but because two-thirds of those are English-language and one-third is Japanese-language, that’s where the 1500 and 3000 come from. 

What jumps out at me from these tables is the Special Guests. That’s been a rare enough thing in the Collector Boosters, but considering that it takes 714 Box Topper packs to get a particular First-Place SPG, but only 238 Collector Boosters, I’ll be keeping an eye on the relative prices of those cards. If those are close to the same price, it would be a data point about how many boxes (and Finish Line boxes) are sold compared to how many Collector Booster packs are opened. It’s a little scary that 238 x 3 is exactly 714, and that made me go back and check my assorted math. 

The rest of it is in line with previous sets, so any big spikes or dips will be due to demand, not a change in collation. Please notice that the Mana Foil is no longer there, which was a good midway between the Borderless art and the Japan Showcases.

Now, to talk about the serialized Aetherspark. Wizards is probably aware that they made a mistake when they gave us precise odds for serialized cards, as in Lord of the Rings, because that let us know what the total number in circulation was, a data point that they haven’t really replicated.

Here’s a table for your odds, varying the number of packs printed:

The $120 is an estimate of what the distributors pay for the average Collector Booster box, and that’s the sales that Wizards cares about. Again, these are estimates, and if I get better data I can give a more precise number, but we think that you’ve got to open something like 6,000 packs to get a serialized Aetherspark. 

Remember, statistics are an overall view. There will undoubtedly be people who open two serialized Aethersparks within 500 boosters, and others who open 10,000 Collector Boosters and get none. 

I hope this math is helpful for you, and helps in your buying and opening decisions. If you want to talk about my methods or errors, please reach out to me on Twitter, Bluesky, or in the ProTrader Discord.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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.

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