The recent “And Then There Were Four” rare drop was the first in our next generation of iterative improvements on the pack drop system. We dropped 6,000 total packs through a series of three queues providing collectors with the highest Collector Scores up to three chances to land a coveted, rare pack. Below is a breakdown of how these queues played out.
A quick note on the below graphs: the queue number in the graphs, and the total unique collectors in a queue, is slightly different as some people formally left the queue and returned later and were automatically placed at the end. To be clear, no collector bought multiple packs at any point.
Priority Queue 1
In Priority Queue 1 (PQ1), we had 9,821 collectors join the queue for 2,000 available packs meaning that each collector had a 20.4% chance of landing a pack in this queue. Additionally, the 7,821 collectors who missed out on this pack had the opportunity to join Priority Queue 2 (PQ2) and the General Queue (GQ) for another chance at the “And Then There Were Four” rare pack.
Of the 9,821 collectors in PQ1, 822 (8.4%) joined NBA Top Shot in 2020. These collectors got 138 total packs, a hit rate of 16.8%, below the expected hit rate of 20.4%.
As you can see above, the vast majority of collectors with queue numbers below 2,000 bought packs while roughly 60 of the top 2,000 did not for one reason or another, meaning that packs were available in this queue for people with an initial queue number of roughly 2,060 or better.
Distinct in the chart is a smattering or green above that threshold. These represent the queue spots of collectors who bought a pack through either PQ2 or the GQ.
The data clearly illustrates that there’s no meaningful correlation between Collector Score and queue number, nor is there a correlation between queue number in PQ1 and the subsequent queues, confirming that the distribution of purchasers in later queues is correctly randomly distributed throughout.
Priority Queue 2
In Priority Queue 2 (PQ2), a total of 16,354 collectors joined the queue, meaning each collector in line had a 12.2% chance of scoring a pack. Of those, 7,092 (43.4%) were collectors from PQ1, and 9,262 (56.6%) were new. This also means that 729 collectors from PQ1 didn’t try again in PQ2.
Of the 16,354 collectors in PQ2, 811 (5.0%) joined Top Shot in 2020. These collectors got 97 total packs, a hit rate of 12.0%, mostly in line with the 12.2% chance of everyone in the queue.
A total of 2,000 packs were again made available. Collectors from PQ1 purchased 929 (46.5%) of these packs, while the remaining collectors purchased 1,071 (53.6%). Collectors from PQ1 had a hit rate of 13.1% and collectors who were in PQ2 as their first queue of the drop had a hit rate of 11.6%, compared to the baseline of 12.2%.
In PQ2, the vast majority of collectors with queue numbers below 2,000 bought packs once again. However, in this queue, there was significantly more attrition. Of the top 2,000 queue numbers, roughly 240 did not purchase a pack, meaning that packs were available in this queue for people with an initial queue number of roughly 2,240 or better.
Again, there was also no meaningful correlation between collector score and queue number. As was the case with PQ1, there is a random distribution of collectors who missed out on PQ2 and later bought a pack in the GQ, but there is no meaningful correlation.
General Queue
The General Queue (GQ) was much more accessible, clocking in at 85,976 collectors in the queue. Again, there were 2,000 packs available, meaning each collector in line had only a 2.3% chance of a pack.
Of the 9,821 collectors to join PQ1 earlier in the day, 5,975 of them made their way to the GQ to try their luck one last time. A total of 161 (2.7%) of these collectors walked away with the prized pack.
Of the 85,976 collectors in the GQ, 1,233 (1.4%) of them joined Top Shot in 2020. These collectors got 27 total packs, a hit rate of 2.2%, in line with the expected 2.3% hit rate for the queue as a whole.
Similarly, of the 14,354 collectors who left PQ2 without a pack, 12,493 of them joined the GQ and 328 of them left with a pack. This number is inclusive of people who joined both PQ1 and PQ2. This means that 2.6% of the collectors who were in PQ2 received a pack in the GQ.
The fortunate few who got a pack in this queue had queue numbers of roughly 2,260 or better, and as this was the final queue, there is no green in the above graph beyond this threshold.
Only one of the many collectors with a Collector Score over 100,000 bought a pack in this queue, but that is in line with the expectation given only 2.3% of people who lined up ultimately got a pack.
Sales of “And Then There Were Four” Rare Moments
The above represents the first sales of rare Moments from the And Then There Were Four set in the Marketplace (as of roughly 10:30 am PDT on July 20th). If a Moment was bought in the Marketplace and subsequently sold again only the first sale from the person who got the Moment in the pack is captured in the graph above.
This is a rather large data set as 3,314 unique Moments sold at least once from the 6,000 packs that were dropped in the timeframe captured above.
A key takeaway is that the initial cluster of sales does a pretty good job of predicting the value in the coming days, but is not necessarily a local low or local high. For instance, the Trae Young Moment dipped after the first flurry of sales and then stabilized in the coming hours while the Chris Paul Moment took a pretty quick upward turn before stabilizing. This shows that astute buyers and sellers can make moves in the flurry of activity following the Marketplace reopening, but there is significant volume meaning that any individual purchase attempt near the lowest ask does risk the chance of failing as someone else may beat you to the punch.
Conclusion
In the interest of transparency and sharing we invite the community to give us feedback on this post as well as suggestions for future deep dives or looks into our data.
You can find me on Twitter at @TopShotEcon.
