For a Max Deck

With Conclave looming in a couple of days, there is a constant buzz in every Splinterlands players mind, how many packs it will take to make a Max deck. Regular and perhaps Gold Foil and now the nearly impossibility of a Black Foil deck. There have been articles written on the subject; most notable one is @markus.journey, a relatively unknown community member, I must say

https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@markus.journey/the-real-probabilities-for-conclave-arcana-packs-the-cheapest-way-to-get-a-maxed-deck

Also there have been AI driven approach many are choosing, including @mondroid mentioned recently on discord.

I would talk to an AI like chatgpt, give it all the variables of the packs, how many CC each card takes to max, etc and then ask it to give you the most efficient way to max a regular foil deck. I did this for my situation and it surprised me with the optimal play and how much cheaper it was than Rebellion.
I'm guessing for a RF deck you would buy 20% legendary packs, 20% starter packs, 60% standard packs... something like that but an AI would know for sure what to do.

In fact; since there is higher number of variable and possibilities, this is an ideal case for LLM chat bots to solve this problem with some degree of certainty. I tried Grok for the image above and to solve this problem. Please remember, there is no unique solution to this problem and there are multiple assumptions and possibility. The main unknown is the uncertainty of the price of the cards for Conclave Arcana. You need this because all type of pack opening will generate extra cards which people typically sell to get the cost down. That is a big unknown. That said let us discuss some solutions suggested by Grok.

Max Deck solution by Grok

I copy-pasted the whole post by splinterlands and asked Grok to find the potential best and simplest outcome first.

Here is the post: https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@splinterlands/introducing-conclave-arcana

What is a Regular Foil Max Deck?

To build a Regular Foil max deck for the Conclave Arcana set in Splinterlands, you need to collect enough cards to max out all 82 cards: 24 Common, 29 Rare, 14 Epic, and 15 Legendary. A maxed card requires combining multiple copies, with the following requirements:

Common: 400 cards each (24 cards × 400 = 9,600 total)
Rare: 115 cards each (29 cards × 115 = 3,335 total)
Epic: 46 cards each (14 cards × 46 = 644 total)
Legendary: 11 cards each (15 cards × 11 = 165 total)
Total Regular Foil cards needed: 9,600 + 3,335 + 644 + 165 = 13,744 cards

There are very little variables there. So, we all can agree on this bit.

Recommended Simplest Strategy

Purchase 3,258 Standard Packs at a total cost of $13,032 (3,258 × $4).

Expected cards:
Commons: 9,601 (meets 9,600)
Rares: 5,094 (meets 3,335)
Epics: 1,146 (meets 644)
Legendaries: 179 (meets 165)
Excess: Trade or sell excess cards (1,759 Rare, 502 Epic, 14 Legendary) on the Splinterlands market to recoup costs.
Why Standard Packs?
Balanced rarity distribution covers all card types.
Cost per card ($0.80) is reasonable compared to Alchemy ($3.07) and Legendary ($4.91).
Simplest approach (one pack type, no reliance on Starter Pack availability).

The actually cost will be much less than $13K, because you will likely sell the extra cards, but for how much, we do not know at this point.

How many Gold Foil or Black Foil?

When purchasing 3,258 Standard Packs with both Legendary Potions and Alchemy Potions, you can expect approximately:

Gold Foil Cards:

• Common: 372
• Rare: 186
• Epic: 78
• Legendary: 16

Total: 652 Gold Foil cards

Black Foil Cards:

• Common: 2
• Rare: 1
• Epic: 0–1 (0.49, likely 0 or 1)
• Legendary: 0–1 (0.10, likely 0)

Total: 4–5 Black Foil cards

Mind you, there is major rounding error, especially in the Black Foil cards case, so please take that number with a grain of salt! It highly depends on how you choose to count.

Cheapest way to get Max Deck

The post by @markus.journey suggested the following solution:

1,584 Standard Packs + 36 Legendary Packs + 1,345 Starter Packs

So I ask Grok if that is a potential solution. My prompt was

1,584 Standard Packs + 36 Legendary Packs + 1,345 Starter Packs : Can it give me a max regular foil deck? How much will it cost?

Conclusion: This combination of packs does not provide enough Regular Foil cards to complete a max Regular Foil deck, falling short in Commons (522), Epics (139), and Legendaries (29), despite an excess of Rares (1,607).

Final Answer

The combination of 1,584 Standard Packs, 36 Legendary Packs, and 1,345 Starter Packs does not provide enough Regular Foil cards for a max Regular Foil deck, falling short by 522 Commons, 139 Epics, and 29 Legendaries. To complete the deck, you need an additional 461 Standard Packs.

Total cost to achieve a max Regular Foil deck:

• Original packs: $8,545
• Additional packs: $1,844
• Total: $10,389

Cheapest Potential Option

2,045 Standard Packs, 36 Legendary Packs, and 1,345 Starter Packs = $10,389.

In this case, you will still have the following cards that you may want to sell and get the cost down from $10,389.

Gold Foil cards: Approximately 208

• Common: ~156
• Rare: ~42
• Epic: ~8
• Legendary: ~2

Black Foil cards: Approximately 3

• Common: ~2
• Rare: ~1
• Epic: ~0
• Legendary: ~0

Extra Cards Beyond Max Deck
Compare to the max deck requirements:

• Common: 10,564 vs. 9,600 → Excess of 964
• Rare: 5,736 vs. 3,335 → Excess of 2,401
• Epic: 663 vs. 644 → Excess of 19
• Legendary: 169 vs. 165 → Excess of 4

Mind you: these are approximate numbers. Also rounding errors are big when it comes to legendary and GF and BF cards. Plus GF and extra cards are not mutually exclusive, so there is a potential complication there.

I say; we are potentially looking at $8 to 10K for a regular max deck, if we consider selling extra cards and GF/BF cards in the secondary market.