My Prime Group Break Order

[Gallinator]

I was a little bit hesitant to post this since it attempts to bridge objective data onto a subjective valuation, but I've been cranking the numbers on Prime this year and wanted to share at least some of my findings. Since I will be buying into at least 4-5 group breaks on Prime (and bidding on eBay for box breaks, etc.), I wanted to get a feel on what teams give the most bang for the buck and a general idea of what I should expect to reasonably pay for each team. So, here's my list:

(EDITED - see below for revised draft order but don't worry if you used the original one...it was pretty close but not 100% accurate)

Note the range of value weighting goes from 5 for the teams with greatest market resale value/interest (modified by player checklist - e.g. Howe is in this product for Hartford (Carolina) but has so few cards that he alone cannot justify ranking Carolina above a "3" IMO) down to 1 for FLA and PHX. If you tweak the relative values, then the ranking will change, which is why I'm only posting these numbers and no further analysis, as my opinions may differ widely from yours.

Using the ratio of subjective weighted value per team versus total subjective weighted value, I determined how much I "should" be paying per team - which will vary according to how much you think a group break should cost. Using $2000 as a fair value, for example, I came up with $141 for Philly, all the way down to $7 for Florida. Note that this is only a value of the team relative to the value of the case, which probably will have little to do with actual market resale value.

Also note that I adjusted the "hit" number for each team to account for multi-team cards that will be randomed off - e.g., a card with both Crosby and Ovechkin /50 results in 25 hits to Penguins and 25 hits to Washington - and rounded the numbers if necessary. Since the Panini checklist only applies the card print run to one of the teams, this results in a significant difference for many teams.

Anyway, even if this is helpful to one person other than myself, then it's worth posting. Comments are welcome.

Paul

[aspencer528]

This is awesome. I find it very helpful and appreciate your posting! I do a lot of breaks and was unsure who to pick. So far in 2 breaks, I had Devils and Wild. Had a Kovie glove with Devils at 14 and yet to see my wild at 26th. Glade you posted this and will be using it for every group break that I'm actually online to pick my own team, as both these teams were picked for me as best avail. I have noticed a lot of Philly hits in the openings I have seen so far. Again thank you for posting this, it will surely be my guide to Prime Breaks. Ps. Had no idea Howes hits were for Hartford, could make for a steal with Carolina if picking way back and they fall into your lap.

[Gallinator]

Glad you find it useful!

Just to clarify, Howe has 75 non-base hits with Hartford - roughly 1/10th of 1% of total hits - and 122 non-base hits with Detroit (including all the 1/1 cards). It would be nice to hit a Hartford Howe, sure, but still doesn't get Carolina out of the bottom third for me.

[Breakawaysc]

The Flyers had the most hits from our case break we did last night. Dallas and Minnesota had some solid hits for a few of the lower end teams in terms of value. Colorado, Detroit and Toronto were also solid choices. Pittsburgh, Montreal and Boston hardly made an appearance. Just one case so we will see how the next one makes out Sunday night. Flyers definitely look like the one team that should go high, kind of like how Boston did in Anthology and the Kings did in SPGU. All around the case was pretty evenly distributed in our estimation. The product looks solid and should hold strong over the next little while. The added Dominion cards help and I like the way the ARP cards look. All 4 we pulled last night had sweet patches. Thank you for the analysis Paul above. This should help plenty of people figure out who to go after in the breaks. The bottom 4 teams in your list were virtually non-existent and I think that will hold true for every case. Only card I can think of from those 4 teams was a Prime Rookies of Colby Robak.

[Gallinator]

Thanks, guys! Agreed that we will probably have to look at several cases to see a full distribution, with only 42-44 hits per case (again, not counting the Prime RC /249, as those commons probably won't sell for more than $5-6). Anthology is pretty consistent case per case as there are 150+ hits per case. So, the upshot is that we will see greater variability across individual cases of Prime, increasing the risk of buying any one particular team. Not a product for the faint of heart!

[Gallinator]

UPDATED; OK, as I originally started out doing a bunch of different things with the numbers for Prime and only later tried to shape it into a proper draft order, I wasn't quite as rigorous as I normally would be when putting something out there for public consumption (thanks again to pinchmebnl for bringing items to my attention!). Plus, I have a fat cat who likes to drape himself on my keyboard.

Revised numbers and draft order - not drastically different from the initial draft order I came up with, but a few teams did shift a little. I also spread the weighting up to 10 (and down to 2 - same as 5 down to 1 but allowing for a little more discrete weighting without getting into quarter-points, etc.). Note that Detroit, Toronto and Philly are really neck-and-neck, with a slight jump down to Montreal, Boston and Pittsburgh.

(Team, total "hits" - does not include Prime or Dominion base or Prime RC/249, % of hits for that team vs. total hits, subjective value weighting)

Detroit Red Wings	2962	4.22	9.50
Toronto Maple Leafs	3744	5.33	7.50
Philadelphia Flyers	3499	4.98	8.00
Montreal Canadiens	2779	3.96	9.50
Boston Bruins	3056	4.35	8.50
Pittsburgh Penguins	2512	3.58	10.00
Colorado Avalanche	3178	4.52	7.50
New York Islanders	3751	5.34	6.00
New York Rangers	2588	3.68	8.00
Edmonton Oilers	2052	2.92	10.00
Chicago Blackhawks	2261	3.22	9.00
Los Angeles Kings	2614	3.72	7.00
Dallas Stars	4361	6.21	4.00
Ottawa Senators	2587	3.68	6.00
St. Louis Blues	2453	3.49	5.50
Buffalo Sabres	1776	2.53	6.00
Tampa Bay Lightning	1767	2.52	6.00
Minnesota Wild	2634	3.75	4.00
Calgary Flames	2609	3.71	4.00
Columbus Blue Jackets	3334	4.75	3.00
New Jersey Devils	1378	1.96	7.00
Anaheim Ducks	1668	2.37	5.00
Nashville Predators	1619	2.30	5.00
Washington Capitals	1342	1.91	6.00
Carolina Hurricanes	1430	2.04	5.50
San Jose Sharks	1614	2.30	4.50
Vancouver Canucks	948	1.35	5.50
Phoenix Coyotes	1901	2.71	2.00
Winnipeg Jets	991	1.41	3.50
Florida Panthers	841	1.20	2.00
	70249	100.00

[miscs75]

I've done 4 breaks. 3 with the Isles, 1 with Nashville. I got blanked on both case breaks (1 Isles/1 Nashville). The 2 half case Isles breaks (1 5 box, 1 4 box) both got hits. Just one but still something. With the Isles having all these hits, where are they? I've yet to see an Isles case.

[Gallinator]

I feel your pain - my Flyers choice in a case break yesterday yielded exactly one Duals card /200. The tough part of Prime is that there are ultimately relatively few hits per case, so even if a team has 5% of the hits (as Islanders does), that's only an expected value of a little over 2 hits per case - but remember that I'm not counting base and the RC /249 "hits" which really aren't going to get much $$ back. The variance case-to-case doesn't seem horrible, but there is some clustering of teams.

I took Islanders on a single box and got a hit (RC /50 parallel) but luck is a huge factor with Prime. Breakaway had one of their customers break on-air and he had a Cizikas hit in one of his two boxes - so they are out there!

One thing I haven't seen much of is Canadiens cards...out of the 6-7 cases I've seen break, only a Roy auto really jumps out at me for Habs...but I have seen a ton of Wings, Flyers and Penguins.

[Breakawaysc]

I feel your pain - my Flyers choice in a case break yesterday yielded exactly one Duals card /200. The tough part of Prime is that there are ultimately relatively few hits per case, so even if a team has 5% of the hits (as Islanders does), that's only an expected value of a little over 2 hits per case - but remember that I'm not counting base and the RC /249 "hits" which really aren't going to get much $$ back. The variance case-to-case doesn't seem horrible, but there is some clustering of teams.

I took Islanders on a single box and got a hit (RC /50 parallel) but luck is a huge factor with Prime. Breakaway had one of their customers break on-air and he had a Cizikas hit in one of his two boxes - so they are out there!

One thing I haven't seen much of is Canadiens cards...out of the 6-7 cases I've seen break, only a Roy auto really jumps out at me for Habs...but I have seen a ton of Wings, Flyers and Penguins.

Make sure you check out our Labour Day Prime event! Prizes and Giveaways awarded throughout the night!

[Gallinator]

Oh, I'll be on to watch unless my wife has me doing something! LOL

Looks like you guys have some great incentives/prizes lined up, Chuck!