frustratedpilot | Entries tagged with full frontal nerdity

Well, in addition to the one source for Race Day packs I'd found, I noticed that another source had packs of the other edition--cheaper than original price, but not as great a bargain as the earlier place. Still, it was worth it for me to get another couple packs of the "alternative" set.

There are sixty total Race Day cars, but only twenty-five specific drivers, because a number of drivers have duplicates in set. One (Dale Earnhardt Senior) is only available in an expensive promo pack, so I won't bother trying to find him. So far, I've gotten seven packs and acquired eleven drivers, with thirteen still to go. Two of the drivers I don't have are Commons in a set, so if I get three or more packs of that set it's nigh certain that I'll get them. Most of the rest are Uncommons, with only one driver who is a Rare-only.

Of course, I have no illusions that if I bought a lot more packs I wouldn't wind up with a bunch of duplicates. That's a given, seeing that at least half the packs will have Commons, and I've already got half of the existing Commons.

I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe that's the point. I'm just playing to play.

--And possibly random shopping.

I found a tourist trap shop that has an abundant supply of now-passe NASCAR Race Day packs. Race Day is a game that Wizkids put out in 2005~'06 with stock car models printed onto plastic card pieces that the user assembles. The track is a poster-sized sheet of paper that is also included in the game pack. (Suddenly I want to call it "NASCARcheezi".) I got five packs, opened them, and got a little educated on the game itself and the topic of "rarity" as it applies to such things.

There are three levels of rarity at play here: COMMON, UNCOMMON and RARE. Every pack in my sample had an Uncommon, and since there are twelve Uncommons in the set if the selection premise holds, then there is a 1 in 12 chance of getting any specific Uncommon in any pack. The remaining pieces in my sample were split between Commons and Rares 3 to 2, so if that held, then logically the likelihood of getting a specific Rare is 40% less than that of getting a specific Uncommon, since there are an equal number of Uncommons and Rares in the total series set.

Again presuming my selection premise is true, there is a 60% chance of getting a Common in any pack, and so because there are only 4 Commons in the set, a 15% chance of getting a specific Common. And a mathematic certainty of getting a specific Common from buying only seven packs at a random.

I'm glad that I didn't have a fandom reason to get into this earlier, but at the same time, I wish I could have done a better job learning probability math in college.