Steem Monsters - Is the Mystery Potion Worth It?

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(Edited)

This is a follow-up to my recent article on the Mystery Potion:

https://steempeak.com/steemmonsters/@byzantinist/steem-monsters-unraveling-the-mystery-potion

In this article I will:

  • Provide some additional screenshots of what it looks like to receive a Mystery Prize
  • Evaluate the relative value of the different items you can receive for the Mystery Prize
  • Based on a recent discussion I had with @jarvie, I will be sharing empirical data for the last 10 Mystery Potions I have used

What it looks like to receive a Mystery Prize

Once you have bought a Mystery Potion, at some point in the day you will get a green notification that looks like this:

Mystery Reward.jpg

Clicking on the notification will take you to this screen:

Mystery Gift.jpg

You could get an Essence Orb, Booster pack (not at the moment), Potion charges, or a card. If you got a Reward card or Archmage Arius, this is what you will see:

Mystery Reward Card.jpg

If the card shakes/vibrates when your cursor is over it, that indicates it is a Legendary card. It could be Archmage Arius but it could also just be a standard Legendary Reward card. Let’s see what we have here:

Mystery Reward Card 2.jpg

Awwww, just a Rusty Android! Maybe one of my guildmates will appreciate it... ;-)

Relative value of Mystery Prize outcomes

The base price of a Brilliant Mystery Potion is 6000 DEC for 5 charges, which comes to 1200 DEC per charge. (There are also Basic and Enhanced Mystery Potions but their prices are proportionally based on their % chance of getting a Mystery Prize so the end result is still the same).

Mystery Potions do benefit from your Guild discount so it’s possible to get up to 10% off, in which case it would be 5400 DEC and 1080 DEC/charge.

  • It is hard to evaluate how much Archmage Arius is worth. There will only be 90 of them and the current ones on the market seem to be in the $300 - $400 range, but I don’t think many have actually sold at that price.
  • The list price for an Essence Orb is 2500 DEC. With the 10% Guild discount it gets to 2250 DEC. If you also factor in the bulk purchase promotion it can get as low as 2046 DEC.
  • When Beta Boosters were available, players were selling them on Discord for 1600 – 1800 DEC. Right now, @tcpolymath’s ottermaker bot has a final supply of Beta Boosters at 2500 DEC each.
  • For Random Reward Cards, we’ll look at the floor value of the DEC burn rate even though some cards are worth more than their burn value:
    0.98 * (0.752 * 15 + 0.2 * 60 + 0.04 * 300 + 0.008 * 1500) +
    0.02 * (0.752 * 750 + 0.2 * 3000 + 0.04 * 15000 + 0.008 * 75000)
    = 46.33 + 47.28
    = 93.61 average DEC value for a Random Reward Card
  • For Potion charges:
    1 charge of Brilliant Mystery Potion = 6000 / 5 = 1200 DEC, or 1080 DEC with a 10% Guild discount. Although this gives you another Mystery Prize, if you timed your Mystery Potion to give you 3 chances at Archmage Arius, then getting one more Mystery Potion charge does not give you an additional shot at the Archmage.
    1 charge of Brilliant Quest Potion = 3750 / 5 = 750 DEC, or 675 DEC with a 10% Guild discount. But since the average DEC value of a Random Reward Card is 93.61 DEC, this will likely yield 5 x 93.61 = 468 DEC in card value.
    10 charges of Brilliant Legendary Potion = 20,000 / 500 * 10 = 400 DEC, or 360 with a 10% Guild discount
    10 charges of Brilliant Alchemy Potion = 25,000 / 500 * 10 = 500 DEC, or 450 with a 10% Guild discount

So what we see is that you are profiting if you get Archmage Arius, an Essence Orb, or a Beta Booster. But you are losing DEC value if you get a Random Reward Card or Potion charges instead.

If you get 2 Orbs/Boosters out of your 5 Mystery Potion charges, you will probably be at a slight loss but if you get 3 Orbs/Boosters you will be at a slight gain in value.

This also means that the phasing out of Beta Boosters and the introduction of Potion charges leads to a decrease in expected value for the Mystery Prize (unless the chance for an Essence Orb increased to compensate for the loss of Beta Boosters).

Empirical data on 10 Mystery Potions

Since I started buying Mystery Potions, I have been keeping detailed notes on what I have been getting as my Mystery Prizes. This is still a small sample size but it should give you an idea of what might be typical for a Mystery Potion.

In each case, I timed the Mystery Potion to give me 3 chances at Archmage Arius (though I have failed each time). There was one time when the Archmage schedule got out of sync – when that fork took down Steem and Steem Monsters for several days. The Mystery Potion I bought after the fork only gave me 2 chances due to the misalignment.

Mystery Potion #1
Essence Orb
Common Reward Card (Highland Archer)
Essence Orb
Rare Reward Card (Flame Imp)
Essence Orb

Mystery Potion #2
Common Reward Card (Rusty Android)
Rare Reward Card (Naga Fire Wizard)
Beta Booster
Common Reward Card (Highland Archer)
Beta Booster

Mystery Potion #3
Beta Booster
Rare Reward Card (Crystal Werewolf)
Essence Orb
Common Reward Card (Exploding Dwarf)
Beta Booster

Mystery Potion #4
Essence Orb
Rare Reward Card (Prismatic Energy)
Common Reward Card (Goblin Mech)
Common Reward Card (Creeping Ooze)
Essence Orb

Mystery Potion #5
Common Reward Card (Rusty Android)
Essence Orb
Common Reward Card (Rusty Android)
Rare Reward Card (Hobgoblin)
Rare Reward Card (Javelin Thrower)

Mystery Potion #6
Beta Booster
Beta Booster
Common Reward Card (Sea Genie)
Beta Booster
Rare Reward Card (Skeletal Warrior)

Mystery Potion #7
Common Reward Card (Exploding Dwarf)
Beta Booster
Essence Orb
Rare Reward Card (Skeletal Warrior)
Essence Orb

Mystery Potion #8
Beta Booster
Common Reward Card (Goblin Mech)
Essence Orb
Essence Orb
Essence Orb

Mystery Potion #9
Beta Booster
Beta Booster
Common Reward Card (Rusty Android)
Potion (1 charge of brilliant quest)
Potion (10 charges of brilliant alchemy)

Mystery Potion #10
Common Reward Card (Creeping Ooze)
Common Reward Card (Sea Monster)
Potion (1 charge of brilliant mystery)
Essence Orb
Common Reward Card (Rusty Android)

If we look at the distribution of these 50 Mystery Prizes we have:

13 Essence Orbs (26%)
11 Beta Boosters (22%)
23 Random Reward Cards (46%)
Of which 15 were Common (30%) and 8 were Rare (16%)
3 Potion charges (6%)
Although the Potion charges were introduced for only the last 1.5 Mystery Potions

If we look at the overall yield for the 10 Mystery Potions:

2 Potions resulted in 1 Orb/Booster
3 Potions resulted in 2 Orbs/Boosters
4 Potions resulted in 3 Orbs/Boosters
1 Potion resulted in 4 Orbs/Boosters

I’m usually okay with ending up with 2 Orbs/Boosters (which is a slight loss in DEC value) and am happy if I can get 3 Orbs/Boosters (which is a slight gain in DEC value).

Hopefully the information in this article will help you make an educated decision on whether or not a Mystery Potion is worth it for you!



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To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.

Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.

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That's all a lot of interesting and useful data about the most mysterious of all the potions. Thank you for sharing!

A few tips:

  • Try centering your images, when they don't span over the entire width of the post. Use < center > image-url < /center > (without the gaps).
  • Use headlines with markdown hashes at the beginning of the line (##, ###, ####), for better structure
  • Check out this Splinterlands graphics collection, to spice up your #spt posts

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Thanks for the feedback and the tips! I centered the images and added some headlines.

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so much calculations ....

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Math is your friend, just like I am!

I did decide to bold the key DEC values, to make it a little easier to skim through.

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It'll be interesting to see what sort of incentive we'll have to continue with mystery potions when Arius hits his cap.

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