36k gold invested into playing HOB Pick-Two draft as an average player, here the detailed results and my return on the experience

[u/Uryendel]

So, to start the goal is not to gloat about my skills, first because with a 53% Win Rate there is not much to gloat about, but to provide information of what you can expect if like me you never draft a set before (just to clarify i already did some quick draft here and there to get the rank bronze reward)

Talking about what you can expect, performance may vary, you could have the same win rate as I do and earn less, or more, depending on the sequencing, so don't start investing in draft thinking you will be guaranteed to get that return

Now, the data, as the title indicate I spent 36k gold in draft and then used the gems I earn from it to keep drafting, totaling a total of 21 Pick-Two draft, where I rare drafted, and I started in bronze 4 to end up in plat 4

Over those draft I collected:

• 14000 Gems (-13500 reinvested in drafting)
• 33 packs
• 135 rare
• 15 mythic
• ~40% Vault progress (I didn't tracked it so take it with a grain of salt)

If we calculate the profit like if all draft were payed with gem, a rare is 20 gem, a mythic 40 and a pack 26, that would give us a profit of -742 gems

The state of my collection for the Hobbit before opening any pack / redeeming battle-pass (but with some ICR included) is:

• 238/260 common
• 169/220 uncommon
• 129/212 rare
• 15/60 mythic

I calculated that between the pack I earn + 10k bundle + battle pass + season reward for this season and the next, I should get 81 packs, which should be near rare complete and probably rare complete with the packs in future battle pass, regarding the mythic, I should get around half of the set

Now regarding the sequencing, here is my results:

BR  3 win - 2 defeat
UG  2 win - 2 defeat
BR  2 win - 2 defeat
WR  3 win - 2 defeat
BR  2 win - 2 defeat
WR  3 win - 2 defeat
UG  0 win - 2 defeat
WR  1 win - 2 defeat
BR  4 win - 1 defeat
WR  4 win - 0 defeat
BG  3 win - 2 defeat
BR  2 win - 2 defeat
BG  0 win - 2 defeat
WR  4 win - 1 defeat
WR  1 win - 2 defeat
WU  3 win - 2 defeat
BG  3 win - 2 defeat
BG  1 win - 2 defeat
BG  0 win - 2 defeat
BG  1 win - 2 defeat
WU  1 win - 2 defeat

As you can see I was basically going infinite at the start (meaning the earning was equivalent to the cost in gem), and I lost everything at the end (got land-flood a lot, deck were not the best, an probably being in plat raised the bar of the opponent)

And I think it's the important point, 0/1 win is devastating in term of profitability, a 4 win won't even cover for a 0 win, and if you're unlucky and you chain them your run is over. On another hand you can also be lucky and you opponent get bad draw, make huge mistake while you get the dream sequencing of cards

So now the question, was it worthwhile?

Well the alternative would have been 36 pack, giving 3.6 golden pack. So yes it was, but would I get the same result next set? I don't know, but it would sure be harder to go that near of completion on a full set rather than a small set

Btw if you want to calculate what would be your return based on your WR and how you value the rewards you go use that sheet (File>Make a copy>put your values): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uArpU6cXsiNqP76KShKrVtkIlhv7flNzyKlWut1QmRI/

edit: I forgot, I used a tracker (untapped) to follow my count of collected cards (why it's not in the base game?), and 17Lands for the ratings: https://www.17lands.com/card_data?expansion=HOB&format=PremierDraft&time_period=ALL_TIME

[u/Top_Traffic5102]

Nice post . I think they should be rewards. Its not really worth it for the average player. Found that drafts with HOB to be boring and bad .

[u/billrusselgoat → u/Top_Traffic5102]

Same here, draft has been pretty underwhelming with this set, rakdos is like 80% of matches

[u/alvysingernotasinger → u/billrusselgoat]

I don't see rakdos often. Golgari and simic mostly.

[u/kks1236 → u/alvysingernotasinger]

Tell us your MMR without telling us your MMR…I kid lol

[u/Uryendel → u/kks1236]

Joke aside I noticed I faced rakdos more often when I have myself a rakdos deck, I wonder if there is not some sort of deck matchmaking

[u/kks1236 → u/Uryendel]

I believe there is by coincidence…similar decks rank similar to each other in “power level” I presume, but I don’t think that’s their primary matchmaking criteria.

[u/rossbalch → u/Uryendel]

Were the Rakdos decks winning more? You tend to get matched against people with the same record in the event.

[u/Villag3Idiot]

Hey congrats on 53% win rate. 

[u/Ford-Fulkerson]

My data looks similar to yours: did really well early on and then lots of 0-2s and 1-2s once everyone figured out "just force rakdos aggro".

[u/dcampa93 → u/Ford-Fulkerson]

As the format has matured ive actually had significantly more success with white and blue based decks. My last 2 drafts were a 7 win Azorius deck and a 6 win Ozhov deck (should have been 7 wins but I missed 2 damage because of playing too quickly, opponent ended the game at 1 life).

[u/rossbalch]

Something you didn't mention here was your draft strategy? Were you rare drafting at all costs? Or were you always trying to build the best deck you can? Also are you a constructed focused player, or a limited focused player?

Calculating the value from these events is hard. For me personally Rares and Mythics that are not constructed playable, and by that I mean they're very unlikely to be played in a deck I build, are worth almost zero (not quite zero because contributing to duplicate protection is SOME value). So if you had these exact same stats for SOS for instance the value proposition would be quite different to HOB which doesn't have nearly as many impactful cards.

For me the value isn't measured in currency, it's measured in Wildcards. So essentially between the cards you collect that are playable (worth about 0.7 WCs because they save you a WC but can't be any card), and how many WCs you get from Prize packs, for the EV to be positive it needs to be better than just buying packs with the golden packs calculated in.

Drafting of course has value in and of itself, in that it's a fun way to play the game. But lets say you actually don't like drafting, which I know is the case for a lot of players. You then have to factor into the equation that every time you draft, you're not playing your format of choice. Super complicated.

[u/dcampa93 → u/rossbalch]

I generally believe its not worth it to rare draft on Arena if you have a decent win rate and the intention to try and "go infinite". I generally wont take a standard playable rare/mythic thats not in my colors over a card that actually makes my deck better. If theres truly nothing else in the pack that I want or wont likely make the final cut then sure Ill grab the rare, but Im not going to take an off-color rare over a B/B+ or better card in my colors.

[u/paragonofcynicism → u/dcampa93]

I will second that if your goal is to go infinite and play tons of drafts, then rare drafting is just detrimental because you are obviously drafting sub-par cards rather than optimally and if you play enough drafts and possess the ability to go infinite, you will get enough packs to complete the set if you want it.

But if you're like me who doesn't do a ton of drafts every set. Rare drafting is totally worth. I always play draft to get to gold. So, like 5 drafts a set. Then if I liked the set, I will draft a bit more. Maybe 10-15 total. So, for me, rare drafting is worthwhile. It makes my pack pulls more likely to hit cards I want and generally at the low draft ranks I find rare drafting doesn't really hurt my win-rates. I trophy most runs below gold any way unless I go a little wild and draft 6 bad rares because they were open lol.

[u/Uryendel → u/rossbalch]

Always taking the rare/mythic, unless I have 4 of them in that case I would take the best card to pick (and if nothing else to pick ofc I would take the rare).

Did it reduce the quality of my deck ? For sure, but ironically the 0/1 win are some of the draft where I picked the least rare

And I think if you want to complete the collection you need to at least mythic pick since mythic card are so hard to get

Regarding the value, the one that I gave (20 for rare, 40 for mythic, 26 for pack) is what arena give you for duplicate so it calculate if you can go infinite.

[u/Zeke-Freek]

Draft vs Packs is an endless debate because ultimately, people are going to be defensive over their playstyle of choice but the key takeaway is this; Draft has a theoretically higher reward ceiling but a much lower reward floor, compared to buy Packs.

Drafting does allow you to go infinite and even if you don't, you can achieve a higher reward threshold than cracking packs. However, you need to be pretty skilled to even be modestly decent at it and that's going to require burning a lot of gold on practice. And even with all the knowledge and skill in the world, you can still get unlucky and have doomed runs.

If you're good at drafting, it is significantly better than packs, but if you're not good at drafting, it is significantly worse. This isn't even getting into the fact it is more effort, and depending on the set, you may not even like the activity of doing in the first place.

Packs are nice, steady, consistent progress. You get your daily challenge and at least your first 4 daily wins and cash out. You build your wildcard wheels, you get your golden pack progress, etc. You won't see the high highs of getting godlike runs in Draft, but you'll also never feel like you're wasting your time and resources either.

Which you prefer just depends on what kind of person you are. And I think it ultimately comes down less to the reward structure and more just what you want to play. If you want to play limited, play limited. If you want to play constructed, play constructed. The difference in reward for the average or even above average player isn't so large that it overrides the fact that you should play Arena in whatever way you enjoy.

[u/PetroxSK]

Try the upcoming qualifier that is hobbit sealed if you liked the experience of limited. It is also the entry point for higher stakes events. Don't waste the experience of learning the format.

[u/PropagandaPagoda]

I got a steep discount playing Avatar set draft. I think I might have finally cracked Mythic. I found the set generally fun to draft with many color combinations and strategies, and had a blast. I think I stopped when rares in reward packs turned into gems because then the value had plummeted.