Sealed Product Expected Value Is Finally Here
When I shared MythicHub on Reddit almost two years ago, someone commented that what it still needed was EV for sealed products. Well, it took me a while, but it is finally here!
I have been looking into EV since then. Even though the formula looks straightforward, there are many decisions and assumptions behind it. I wanted MythicHub's EV to represent the perspective of someone managing a collection, who occasionally buys and cracks sealed products and wants to estimate how much card value they would add to that collection across many openings.
It currently supports Play, Collector, Draft, and Set Boosters, along with Booster Boxes and Bundles whose card contents can be reliably determined.
Compare sealed products
There is now a dedicated Expected Value page where you can compare packs, boxes, and bundles. You can search, filter, group, and sort the results by EV, sealed product price, value compared with price, or price coverage.
The decisions behind the number
Serialized and headliner cards are excluded. This is not because they are rare. Their market prices are often too unreliable to include in a useful EV comparison.
There is no $1 or €1 cutoff. Every card with an available price contributes to EV, including inexpensive cards. I made this choice because I want to measure how much value a sealed product adds to your collection on average, not estimate which cards are worth listing for sale.
Prices stay specific to the marketplace and finish. EV is calculated independently for TCGPlayer, Mana Pool, and Cardmarket. If a price is missing, MythicHub will not substitute a different finish or another marketplace. You can switch marketplaces using the dropdown in the top navigation.
Every EV has a price coverage label. High coverage means prices were available for at least 95% of expected card pulls. Partial coverage means at least 85%, but less than 95%. Low coverage means less than 85%.
The missing-price behavior was one of the harder decisions for me. I know that MythicHub sometimes lacks prices for individual cards, so I needed a way to communicate that clearly. If today's price is unavailable, MythicHub may use a recent price from the same marketplace for the exact same finish. If it still cannot find a recent price, that card contributes 0 to EV and lowers the coverage. The coverage label shows how complete the pricing behind each EV calculation is.
EV on individual product pages
Individual product pages show the same collection-focused EV next to the sealed product's current market price. They also show how much of the EV comes from cards priced below $1 or €1.
The price history chart can display EV alongside the sealed product price, so you can see how both values have changed over time.
You can also switch the chart to the Value vs price view. This shows the percentage difference between EV and the sealed product's market price for dates where both values are available.
What this EV does not mean
This is collection value-focused EV. The calculations do not subtract marketplace fees, shipping, taxes, seller discounts, card condition adjustments, or the time and effort required to sell the cards. They also do not account for how quickly every card could actually be sold.
EV is an average across many possible openings, not a prediction of what one pack, box, or bundle will contain. A small number of expensive cards can raise the average even though most individual openings will not contain those cards. A positive value compared with price does not guarantee profit, and a negative value does not predict the result of one opening.
When EV appears and updates
For new releases, EV becomes available one week after release to give prices some time to settle. Prices and EV are then refreshed daily.
I also wrote a more detailed help page explaining the calculation and its limitations.
You can reach me at matt(at)mythichub.com or through the feedback form.
Happy collecting!