MINIATURES: Dangerous Delves Miniature Distribution

[Aluvial]

Boy, I got robbed on the distribution in the three cases that I bought of Dangerous Delves.

I like the fact that you are guaranteed one of the large uncommons in each booster (8 per case). So I have three of each of these.

But, I ended up with the EXACT same *random* miniatures in each case.

With the commons, that 2 per case, and with the other uncommons, that's 2 per case.

And with rares, I got the same 8, three times over!!! Now I'm missing 8 rares... the worst distribution I've ever had for those.

I see that there is an extra dash on the end of the ISBN numbers I've gotten, so I'm going to check to see if there is a "different case" being sent out. Can anyone else confirm this?

Aluvial

 

[jasonbostwick]

The same thing happened to me with Demonweb (identical cases, although I lucked out and got doubles of all the rares I wanted), so I've only ordered one case of Dangerous Delves, which should be here tomorrow.

I haven't noticed any discussion of a Case A/Case B distribution on Hordelings, which is the only DDM forum I check with any regularity. There was a huge hubbub over the Demonweb distribution, so it makes me think you might be an isolated case.

Sorry about the bad luck, though.

Out of curiosities sake, what were the 8 rares you got duplicates of?

 

[Balthaczar]

Our group got two cases, 16 packs, and ended up everything but 3.

 

[Aluvial]

The same thing happened to me with Demonweb (identical cases, although I lucked out and got doubles of all the rares I wanted), so I've only ordered one case of Dangerous Delves, which should be here tomorrow.

I haven't noticed any discussion of a Case A/Case B distribution on Hordelings, which is the only DDM forum I check with any regularity. There was a huge hubbub over the Demonweb distribution, so it makes me think you might be an isolated case.

Sorry about the bad luck, though.

Out of curiosities sake, what were the 8 rares you got duplicates of?

There has to be some odd Case A / Case B thing, there is NO WAY that I just happened to get the same 8 rares..

They were, the Clay Golem (so so), Githyanki Warrior (really nice), Harpy (nice), Medusa Archer (have some from Harbinger), Minotaur Battle Shaman (ho hum), Orc Eye of Gruumsh (good looking), Xendrik Drow Stingblade (excellent drow mini), Young Gold Dragon (very nice except for the wings, which will need to be repositioned).

To end up with 3 of each from 3 cases only tells me that I got the exact same cases! Each of the commons and uncommons were distributed exactly the same in each case too! All three cases were identical!!!

This is the first time this has ever happened to me buying these miniatures, and I have full sets of each release.

Aluvial

 

[Fifth Element]

There has to be some odd Case A / Case B thing, there is NO WAY that I just happened to get the same 8 rares..

Can you prove that mathematically? Or are you just hyperbolizing?

Sounds like you've just been really unlucky. Remember that things that are actually random will sometimes seem to have a pattern, because our brains are built for finding patterns, even if there really isn't one. Your sample appears to be 3 cases, which is not nearly enough to reach a conclusion about the randomness, or lack thereof, of the distribution.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Can you prove that mathematically? Or are you just hyperbolizing?

Sounds like you've just been really unlucky. Remember that things that are actually random will sometimes seem to have a pattern, because our brains are built for finding patterns, even if there really isn't one. Your sample appears to be 3 cases, which is not nearly enough to reach a conclusion about the randomness, or lack thereof, of the distribution.

Null hypothesis: the set of eight rares in a given case are chosen uniformly at random from one of the 16 choose 8 = 12870 possible size-8 subsets of a set of 16. The likelihood of having two cases with the same set of eight rares is 1/12870 = 0.0000777. The likelihood of having three identical cases is 0.00000000604. If I were the OP, I would feel extremely confident in rejecting the null hypothesis.

Although I suppose that out of every 165,636,900 people who order exactly three cases, we should expect one of those people to get the same rares in every case (if we believe the null hypothesis).

 

[Fifth Element]

Null hypothesis: the set of eight rares in a given case are chosen uniformly at random from one of the 16 choose 8 = 12870 possible size-8 subsets of a set of 16. The likelihood of having two cases with the same set of eight rares is 1/12870 = 0.0000777. The likelihood of having three identical cases is 0.00000000604. If I were the OP, I would feel extremely confident in rejecting the null hypothesis.

Although I suppose that out of every 165,636,900 people who order exactly three cases, we should expect one of those people to get the same rares in every case (if we believe the null hypothesis).

Indeed. That's a bit lower than I would have guessed without working out the math, but the point remains: an extremely unlikely event, if witnessed, is considered to have a much greater probability of occurring than it actually has. Ergo the OP is "really unlucky" as postulated in my response.

True this requires 165 million observations for us to expect this occurrence, but how many do we need to have a 20% chance of seeing it? Or 10%? Or even 1%. It's probably fair to include all the other series of minis here, only one of which has a reputed distribution problem.

Until we hear of more people having similar problems, I doubt we'll know if there's actually an issue.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

Indeed. That's a bit lower than I would have guessed without working out the math, but the point remains: an extremely unlikely event, if witnessed, is considered to have a much greater probability of occurring than it actually has. Ergo the OP is "really unlucky" as postulated in my response.

True this requires 165 million observations for us to expect this occurrence, but how many do we need to have a 20% chance of seeing it? Or 10%? Or even 1%. It's probably fair to include all the other series of minis here, only one of which has a reputed distribution problem.

Until we hear of more people having similar problems, I doubt we'll know if there's actually an issue.

I agree with you on this point: the OP is really unlucky (as opposed to the victim of negligence or fraud). Chances are there are n distinct cases, where n is significantly larger than 2 and much smaller than 12870. If there are 50 different cases, then one in every 2500 people who buy three cases will get the same three.

Although honestly, chances are part of the problem is that when you buy three cases, the three random draws are not independent. In the same way that the eight boosters in a given case are not independent, the n cases in a given order probably are not independent. There may be some systematic pattern that doesn't affect the vast majority of orders.

 

[MerricB]

You were definitely unlucky. The distribution of the rares is not purely random: Wizards tries to make sure you don't get duplicates of rares in a case (something that would be very common if they were completely random).

However, it does mean that you get duplicate cases of rares from time to time.

Note that the common and uncommon distribution is set up so you'll get complete sets of them in a case - and generally in the same numbers. The randomness of those figures is only within individual booster purchases, not case purchases.

Cheers!

 

[Aluvial]

Really unlucky? I recall asking the company I've bought from to update me on the status of the order and they told me that they were being direct shipped from their distributor. Could it be that the manufacturers in China make identical cases which then all end up in the same bundle when shipped.

Later in the process they switch processing and start making Case B?

Can you figure the odds of that out?

Aluvial