After the slog of the Hunt, I wanted to look at whether the marathon of season 1 is worth pursuing for the individual rewards. How hard should I push for top 5/25/50 even if there are events I don’t like?
So I tried a slightly scientific approach based on drop rates and the HP price for buying an individual cover. Simplified and puts no value on the alliance Fury reward or any ISO on the basis you can farm this separately. And puts no value on the excitement and anticipation of clicking 10 times in the hope of the cover you really want (or the depression when you get 4 bagman, 3 caps and 3 hawkeyes)!
Posting in case it helps others decide how hard to push - no great surprise that the rewards are worth much more to those with less developed rosters, but who are less likely to win them 
Detail below, but in short I need less than 20 covers now (all 3/4*) and reckon the top 25 reward (2 x 10-pack) is worth at most 3000HP to me, or a Logan’s Loonies. If the events are fun or have rewards I want in their own right, great, but if it turned into a Hunt slog I’d prefer to drop the money instead - or more likely just play a bit longer to get the covers I need.
The maths:
This has probably been done before, but based on the heroic 10-pack drop rates, for any specific cover (of the desired colour) the probability of getting what you want in a 10-pack are:
- 5% chance for each 4* cover
- 4% for each 3* cover
- 19% for each 2* cover and about a 2% chance of 2 of that cover, so let’s call it 21% all up
And there are 6 4* covers (2 chars), 48 3* (17 chars) and 34 2* (12 chars), ignoring Falcon who isn’t in the packs yet. And the covers after the first one can be bought for 2500, 1250 and 500 HP respectively.
A simplified way of valuing a 10-pack is to take the number of unique covers you need at each level multiplied by the drop rate and HP cost/value, e.g. for me:
- 6 of 4* covers needed x 5% drop rate x 2500 HP value = 750HP; plus
- 13 of 3* covers needed x 4% drop x 1250HP = 650HP; plus
- none of 2* covers needed x 21% drop x 500 HP = 0
So in my case the HP value is 1400 compared to the 3000 pack price. But if I needed lots more covers, then it would look much better value, particularly if I’m short of 2*. Once you need north of 30 to 35 covers you get close to the 3000 value, particularly if some are much-needed first covers.
Now in practice I know the 4* covers all come up regularly as prizes, and the current crop are not worth the 2500HP per cover so this is overstating their value. And a second pack is worth less than the first as you hopefully fill in some of the gaps in the first pack and from tourneys / tokens during the season.
Actually I’ve talked myself into the rewards being fairly irrelevant, but instead I’ll be ruled by my competitive streak 