The Math of Dominaria United

September 2, 2022 Cliff Daigle

It’s become a tradition, and one that tests my limits for going back and redoing things, but here we are, with a new set and a whole new list of things to figure out.

As always, I want to figure out what the rarest of rare things are, and just how rare they are, especially as a historical comparison. Plus, I need to do some calculations about Legends boosters!

Let’s get into it.

The headliners, of course, are the ‘Lost Legends’ that have been added to these packs. One thing they did for us is they said, straight out, that 3% of Collector Booster packs will have one card from a Legends pack. Now that card can be any rarity, so calm yourself down. You have a 3% chance to open a Zephyr Falcon!

For those who want it, here’s the list of cards. We can break this down a little further, and in fact we need to.

	Number at this rarity in the original Legends set	How many are excluded, for one reason or another	Number possible for the Lost Legends
Rare	121	6	115
Uncommon	114	53	61
Common	75	5	70

We have the same distribution as always: 10 commons and 3 uncommons for every rare, so the pool for this slot is 1403. Therefore, your odds for getting a card at each rarity IF you hit a Lost Legend:

Common	Uncommon	Rare
1150/1403 = 82%	183/1403 = 13%	70/1403 = 5%

Remember that these are only in 3% of packs, so we have to multiply each by .03, and so there’s a Common in 2.46% of Collector Booster packs, Uncommon in 0.4% of packs, and a Legends Rare in 0.15% of those packs.

Want a specific card? Buckle up. You’ve got to multiply the above numbers by their number of options. So for example, if you want to hit a Willow Satyr, it’s (3/100) X (70/1403) X (1/70), and now we’re getting into negative exponents.

Rarity of the specific card	% of Collector Boosters that contain that card (approx.)	Packs needed to open one (approx.)
Rare	0.00002138	46,767
Uncommon	0.00006414	15,589
Common	0.0002138	4,677

We can estimate how many of each Legends card is about to enter circulation, too. If we’re using 100 boxes as an estimate for what got opened, that’s 54,000 cards. Divided by the pool, that’s a max of 38.4 copies of any particular rare, 115 of any uncommon, and 1150 of any common.

This number is almost certainly an overestimate, as some cards were just straight removed and new ones weren’t added back in, but it’s a good reference point to know that we’re not getting any appreciable supply of Legends cards added to the mix.

It’s almost as an afterthought that we have some sweet Dominaria United cards to look at and think about!

Frame/Treatment	# of uncommons	# of rares	# of mythics
Showcase (Stained Glass)	40	28	15
Phyrexian	–	–	2
Textured Foil	20	14	7
Borderless	–	6	5
Extended Art	–	41	5
Legends Retold		10	10

It’s a relief to work with some normal-ish numbers here. Let’s look at how these frames are distributed:

Let’s go over this, from the top down. (If you open the pack this way, it’ll be from the back to the front)

Slot #1: Textured Foil Stained Glass U/R/M

They added uncommons in this slot, and that makes for quite rarer cards. We know that the distribution is 10c:3u:1r:0.5m, or to make it easier, 20 commons:6 uncommons:2 rares:1 mythic. Therefore the pool of cards in this slot is 215.

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card
Uncommon	83.7%	2.8%	35.8
Rare	13%	0.93%	107.5
Mythic	3.3%	0.47%	215

Slot #2 and #3: Foil-Etched or Nonfoil Alternate Border R/M (Stained Glass, Phyrexian, Borderless, or Legends Retold)

This is crazy. Wizards has a history of changing what they collate into different slots in order to get to the percentages they desire, but I can’t remember a slot having such a wide variety of treatments, and in nonfoil, except for the set of Legends Retold which can be in etched foil but NOT traditional foil! They are trying to make me lose my mind.

	Stained Glass	Phyrexian	Borderless	Legends Retold
Rare Nonfoil	28	–	6	10
Rare Etched Foil	–	–	–	10
Mythic Nonfoil	15	2	5	10
Mythic Etched Foil	–	–	–	10

The pool here is 150, and so:

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card
Rare	72%	1.3%	75
Mythic	28%	0.67%	150

Remember that there’s two of that particular slot, so there’s going to be a lot of nonfoil rares from that grouping that get opened. The foil-etched mythics will be 1 per 75 packs, which is pretty common as these things go.

Slot #5: Traditional Foil Alternate-Border R/M

Too many options here, let’s organize it with a table:

	Stained Glass	Phyrexian	Borderless	Extended Art
Rare	28	–	6	41
Mythic	15	2*	5*	5

The asterisk here is for the Phyrexian cards: Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Ajani, Sleeper Agent. Sheoldred has a showcase and a Phyrexian frame, cutting your odds in half. Remember that more versions of a card does not mean that there’s more copies of a card out there. So if there’s 100 Borderless Liliana of the Veil (only one special version), there’s 50 each of Showcase Sheoldred and Phyrexian Sheoldred. There would also be 25 each of each of the Ajani variants.

Textured foil is different, because that’s a special subset put in Collector Boosters only.

Because there’s four extra versions, the pool is 173, and as a result:

Rarity	Percentage of packs that hold any card of that rarity	Chance for a particular card of that rarity	# of packs to hit a particular card (except special versions of Sheoldred or Ajani)
Rare	86.7%	1.2%	86.5
Mythic	13.3%	0.58%	173

With all of that calculated, let’s look at some example cards and see how they stack up against each other for a Collector Booster:

Card with Rarity and Treatment	Number of Collector Boosters needed to open to get one (approx.)
Textured Foil Stained Glass Jodah, the Unifier (M)	215
Foil-Etched Sivitri, Dragon Master (M)	75
Borderless Foil Liliana of the Veil (M)	173
Phyrexian Foil Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (M)	346
Foil Compleated Ajani, Sleeper Agent (M)	692

One foil special Ajani, Sleeper Agent every 692 packs is among the rarest of drops we’ve had in Collector Boosters, except for two very special entrants: Hidetsugu and the Lost Legends. Let’s compare these numbers with a list of other big tickets.

Card/Set	Collector Boosters to open one (approx.)	Card/Set	Collector Boosters to open one (approx.)
Phyrexian Foil Vorinclex (KHM)	256	Foil Etched Food Chain (2X2)	280
Japanese- Language Alternate Art Time Warp Foil (STX:MA)	309	Textured Borderless Foil Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (2X2)	160
Foil Extended Art The Meathook Massacre (MID)	151	Green Soft Glow Hidetsugu (NEO)	444
Foil Fang Frame Sorin, the Mirthless by Ayami Kojima (VOW)	171	Red Soft Glow Hidetsugu (NEO)	1,828
Extended Art Foil Jeweled Lotus (CMR)	400	Borderless Foil Liliana of the Veil (DMU)	173
Phyrexian Foil Urabrask, Heretic Praetor (SNC)	492	Phyrexian Foil Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (DMU)	346
Borderless Foil Ancient Brass Dragon (CLB)	352	Phyrexian Foil Ajani, Sleeper Agent (DMU)	692
Phyrexian foil (or foil-etched) Jin-Gitaxias (NEO)	544	The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (DMU:LL)	46,767

I hope that this breakdown helps you make decisions about what to buy. The biggest takeaway for me is that the special versions of Sheoldred, a clearly busted Commander card, will go for a pretty penny indeed. If Ajani takes off, those twice-as-hard-to-pull versions will hit the stratosphere. And whatever you do, don’t go cracking packs hoping to hit a lottery-ticket-level rare Legends card.

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.

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Uncategorized

Unlocked Pro Trader: I Forgot the Precons

August 30, 2022 Jason Alt

Readers!

I considered, as a bit, saying “I forgot the precons” a bunch of times in this article like they said “We bought a zoo!” in the movie “We Bought a Zoo.” I say “they” because I honestly don’t remember if it was Matt Damon or Brad Pitt. It was one of those two. Or Greg Kinnear. One of the three out of Matt Damon, Brad Pitt or Greg Kinnear. The point is, one of them, or Liev Schreiber maybe, I literally have no idea, but it’s one of those four, said “We bought a zoo!” every time something zooey happened. I think. I only saw the trailer. The point is, I forgot the precons.

I didn’t mean to, it’s just that last week we didn’t have data and this week we do, so I was all set to write the “We have data now!” article for the main set and I remembered I haven’t even TOUCHED the precon commanders. It’s cool, I remembered in time. While the precons are less ripe for giving us good specs, I think the top ones will have had enough cards removed and replaced that a consensus can start to form. Let’s see what we see, shall we? I forgot the precons.

This is the top 8 so far, but there are literally 30 Legendary creatures in this set of 5 decks and that’s… just so many. I like that Tor Wauki is currently winning, a lot, and I think it’s as good a place to start as any.

This is a pretty standard variation on the “Torbran turns a ping into a BANG” formula, and access to Black is very good. You wouldn’t know it from the High Synergy cards, but there are some high inclusions that deserve a look.

Perhaps then the foil?

This is a good card, a gorgeous if curly foil and a card that has flirted with $3 when it was getting played not at all. Obossh made people remember this card existed, Tor Wauki makes sure they never forget again.

Man, that was a sick sentence. I should write flavor text.

This is far from the best time to buy Sedgemoor Witch but it’s very far from the worse. I like this card a ton as I am beginning to like all Extended Art cards. This was basically the price of the regular frame for a while and a year on, this is how it looks. Just sayin.

If anything with Suspend on it ever gets cheap, buy a lot. Of all of the mechanics that seem to get broken and turn into free spells accidentally, Suspend seems to do it 5 times as often as anything else.

There will be a time when people stop caring that their copy of a Magic card is butt ugly because it’s a $16 copy of a $24 card. This isn’t there yet, but it’s rebounding already because this card is unfair. Both versions are under $5 right now and both are a buy.

Ditto. This version is more polarizing than ugly which should help the price of both, and both versions are too cheap, currently.

If someone is willing to sell you this powerful foil card for $1, you should take them up on it.

Here is Exhibit A, I could find an Exhibit B if you needed it, but I kind of feel like anyone who needed that would have acquitted OJ.

Fine, here is a card I told people to pick up at $1. Not bragging, just saying sometimes it’s so obvious even I catch it. This goes in the Hazezon deck but the nonfoil is trash, so consider foils when a new commander makes an old uncommon relevant.

Now THIS is a wild pile of cards, good gravy.

OK, kidding. I mean… kind of? Legends cards coming in Dominaria packs are going to be somewhat likely to spark some interest in the old set and with legendary status mattering to this absolute bat$*@# commander, some of the older stuff could move again. This card is old enough to have gray hair, there is something to be said for it not being actually unplayable since you can draw it with the middle ability on your Planeswalker commander that has a built in Insurrection you should probably be building to? I don’t know, what I do know is that the cards in this deck are all in the precon and people aren’t adding much and I wanted to finish with a whimper to give some other writers a crack at the title of “best article of the week” for a change.

I will go over more of the 70 Legendary creatures in this set next week because I am Magic’s Sisyphus. Thanks for reading, nerds. Until next time!

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Casual Fridays

The August 2022 Superdrop

August 26, 2022 Cliff Daigle

Yes, our eyes are full of Dominaria United cards, but the August Superdrop is here and this is a much more appealing target. I’m not buying any DMU for a while, but I’m very likely to go wild on these drops.

Secret Lairs are mostly decent value, and occasionally great value. They are really rewarding patience and those who got the short-lived drops, and it’s worth it to look at these drops to see what’s appealing.

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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.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Domoneyaria Monited

August 23, 2022 Jason Alt

Readers!

There’s a new set, we have spoiled commanders and it’s going to be a wild ride. Let’s take a real cursory glance at what I think matters and let you figure out the more mundane details. It’s more helpful for me to say “Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief makes me think of the cards that spiked from Orvar” and let you figure out what those are than to have you wait 5 weeks for me to get to Ivy in the rotation. Let’s do some real quick hits and cover a lot of ground quickly – I’ll give you a general idea of the landscape and we can get granular in the coming weeks sound good?

Soul of Windgrace seems like it will be fairly popular commander because it says “Draw a card” on it and it’s not Blue. People love landfall and getting lands out of the yard is a challenge that Soul of Windgrace BARELY ADDRESSES. I hate having to attack with my commander so there has to be a better way to not dump your entire mitt to this card. There is!

This got a reprint recently which really tanked the price. It has flirted with $7 before and while I don’t necessarily think we will see $7 on a card that can get reprinted a lot, let me suggest a card that is harder to make obsolete with a reprint.

The extended art version is a real good-looking image depicting some sort of tree planeswalker that I assume people who play landfall decks will be familiar with. This art is unlikely to come back up, is cheap right now and foils are garbage thanks to collector boosters. I think this will have the highest price slope out of all copies and I want these badly right now.

This gets better the longer you look at it. You aren’t obliged to copy anything bad but you have the option to copy anything anyone plays and make it target Ivy. I just saw this card spoiled a few hours ago and don’t have a real plan, but here are 2 cards I would yank out of bulk.

This is the foil in case you wanted to buy, but I bet you have these in bulk and should go check. A more recent one I KNOW you have in bulk is this one.

I know foils are bad, so maybe don’t buy, but look where these cards could go. Ivy isn’t as obvious or as ridiculous as Orvar, whose page is here, but people love value and Ivy as a value maven.

You can probably just read my Slimefoot article from 2018, but everything on Slimefoot’s page is likely in play, and this was a predictable outcome even back in 2018.

This might not be headed to $10 but I bet it gets to $5, and maybe even $7 again. Slimefoot was a big deal and Nemata is even better. Nemata’s first ability is actually insane in Commander, so expect Nemata to get built more than Slimefoot did. It’s a cheap deck, to boot, with a lot of the cards that care about Saprolings being common and uncommon and Corbin Hosler spilling Red Bull on an entire stack of copies of Parallel Lives, making them cheap pickups.

This is just another Depala, this set is kind of boring with respect to the 40 Legendary creatures I begged them not to put in the set. A lot of them are really uninspired, and what do you expect when you have to come up with more Legendary creatures than were printed between 1993 and 1998 every 2 months? Don’t bother looking that up, I’m being (barely) hyperbolic.

This is as good as Displacer Kitten in like half of the decks in the format. This costs half of Kitten and it probably still will in a year when Kitten is 20 and Ship is 10.

This is, of course, the money. A lot of cards are going up and I’m covering this commander in depth next week. Anything and everything that makes Proliferate happen is getting jammed in this deck, and really big, expensive Artifact Creatures are back on the menu for a Jhoira deck just like in 2009.

This is already in the midst of popping, but $10 for a rare with 2 printings, one in 2010 and 1 in 2015 is not entirely out of the question and might, in fact, seem quite reasonable. More about this commander next week, but keep an eye on big Proliferate cards – maybe think about those Contagion Engines before next week?

That does it for me, nerds. A lot of commanders are going to move a lot of cards so our time is fairly short, but there is no need to get into real detail until there is real detail to be gotten into. That does it for me – until next time!

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