Your Micro-Economy is Bullshit

-Greg

I was going to write a long-winded, swear-laden tirade about the cost of buying Figure of Destiny from card shops or eBay sellers, but after doing Teh Math, I can't really be so mad about it:

The facts:
Eventide has 180 cards, 59 of which are "rare." You will find one randomly chosen rare in each booster pack, which makes your chances of pulling one specific rare 1.7%.
An internet-savvy deal seeker can buy a pack for $2.25.
The total cost of every rare from the cheapest price listed on magiccards.info is about $138, for an average of $2.35 a rare.
Figure of Destiny will cost you no less than $20.

Using these numbers, let's take the total cost of a playset of Figures, $80, and buy packs with the cash. At $2.25, we will get 35 packs in the mail, with a little left over for a soda. At the rarity of 1.7%, you have a 60% chance of getting ONE Figure this way. For the sake of argument, let's say we get lucky and pull one Figure, sell off all those other rares for their average price of $2.35, and reinvest in new boosters. If you can manage to get the prices card dealers charge you, you'll net 79.90, and get 35 more boosters and another coke. Fat chance, of course, so let's say, conservatively, that you can get 40% of their value (and you'd be lucky to do that). Now you can afford 14 new packs, which brings your total chance of wrapping your sticky fingers around another sweet, soothing Figure of Destiny to around 25%. These numbers are even more grim when you consider that your local store will have to charge you closer to 3.50 a pack to make enough money to give you a table to draft at.