Opening model. Each simulated pack is drawn in full first: commons, uncommons, the rare-or-better slot and reverse-holo positions (modern English Pokémon: 4 · 3 · 1 · 2; an Illustration Rare or better replaces the second reverse). Hit rarities land at their published per-pack pull rates; a card within a rarity is equally likely. The Sift is applied after the draw and never re-rolls a card. Results show the 5th percentile (low), median and 95th percentile (high) of 400 to 3,000 simulated products depending on size, plus the average. The Top 10 ranks on the exact average and uses 260 simulated boxes each for Chance to Beat Cost and Boxes to 50% Odds.

Your floor. Every pulled card priced at or above your Sift floor is counted as a single you sell, after the selling cost you pick, unless that leaves less cash than AVA's bulk rate, in which case it goes in the bulk. Every card under the floor is counted at what AVA pays for it as bulk, from our published rate tables at the payout tier you choose, less the cost of shipping it to us (about $10 per 4,250 Pokémon or Magic cards, a blend of the 3,500 to 5,000 a $10 box usually holds, and $10 per 3,500 One Piece, Riftbound or Lorcana cards).

Selling costs. We can't know where you'll sell, so the default is TCGplayer's seller fees (13.25% + $0.30 a card), like other EV sites; that leaves out your postage and supplies. For a take-home number pick All-In · 37%: what sellers report actually paying in fees, postage and supplies across thousands of sales (Game Vitamins, about 6,000 TCGplayer Direct sales, reports 36 to 37%; other sellers report 30 to 33%). Sell Singles At adds a markup over market for sellers who list above it (TCGplayer Direct sellers report about 20%); the sift still uses market. Platform fees are per card: price × fee % + fixed fee (TCGplayer commission capped at $75 a card). Rare rows not named on a rate table (e.g. Special Illustration Rare) use the closest published row and are marked.

Prices and odds. Card prices are TCGplayer market (or low, if you pick it) from AVA's daily snapshot. Magic uses Wizards of the Coast's published odds, or for newer boosters a slot-by-slot model built on Wizards' Collecting articles (mtg.wtf), with foil slots at TCGplayer's Foil price; for Pokémon and the other games, which don't publish official odds, we use the largest published community samples (linked under the result). Reverse holos are valued at the card's regular price, so the real figure can run a little higher. Unpriced cards count as $0. Sets without published odds are estimated from TCGplayer listings and marked Est. (see below); Magic sets without published odds still show every card and your bulk payout, but no EV.

Checked against a real opening. Game Vitamins opened and sold 24 Foundations Play Booster boxes and published the counts. Per box he pulled 6.3 mythics and 36.3 rares; our slot model expects 6.2 and 37.3. His cards sold for about what the Mox Alpha EV tool predicted (as shown in his video) from TCGplayer market prices of cards worth $0.25 or more ($192 a box predicted; his sales come to about $198 a box when converted to TCGplayer market prices). Then 37% went to selling costs. That is why this page values singles at TCGplayer market at or above your Sift floor, takes selling costs off (All-In · 37% for a take-home number), and does not count bulk commons at their market price. Using those rules on Oct 25 prices, no Magic box on the board comes out ahead at its box price.

Market EV vs Rip Value. Market EV here counts every card in the box. The Set page, Best Rips and Stack show Rip Value: the hits only (commons and uncommons left out), so the same pack reads lower there.

Top 10 Box Breaks. Every set we can model is simulated at today's box price (AVA's when we stock it, otherwise TCGplayer market) with the settings under Adjust the Math, and ranked by Market EV multiple: every card at TCG market ÷ box price, before fees (Market EV isn't profit; sort by Multiple for expected walk-away ÷ box price). Boxes to 50% Odds is the fewest boxes where more than half of simulated buys come out ahead of what you paid; a box whose average comes in under its price never gets there.

Sets with no published pull rates (marked Est.). We don't make up odds. Instead we read how often each rarity turns up from how many of its cards are listed for sale on TCGplayer: a rarity's share of opened cards follows its card count × (listings per card)^1.3, and a card within a rarity is equally likely. Pack contents: Pokémon, the 8 cards outside the reverse holos; Lorcana, 6 commons, 3 uncommons, 2 rare-or-better, 1 foil.One Piece and Riftbound show no EV until their pack layout is modeled. Special prints (parallels, alternate art, overnumbered, signature) count as their own group, and prize, promo and reprint cards that only share a rarity name are left out. Checked against the 14 Pokémon sets that have large published community pull-rate samples, this estimate landed at a median of about 1.05× the pack value those samples give, ranging from 0.73× to 1.56× by set. Treat Est. rows as a guide. Sets out under about two months aren't ranked on an estimate yet. Use it as a guide, not as odds.

Why Rip shows a different number. Rip's Return counts only the hits, at TCGplayer market, so every set is compared the same way. This page counts every card: hits after your seller fee, everything under your floor at AVA's bulk rate. Same odds and prices, different question.

An estimate for research and fun, not financial advice or a guaranteed sale price. AVA buys and sells these products.