Token Budget Planning: Expected Opens by Rarity

Why expected value is only a baseline

The expected opens for a target with probability p is approximately 1/p. This is useful for planning but not a guarantee.

Token conversion

Expected token budget ≈ expected opens × pack cost. Add a variance buffer if your goal is reliability rather than average-case outcomes.

Practical planning tiers

• Light plan: expected budget only.
• Standard plan: expected budget + 30% buffer.
• High-confidence plan: expected budget + 60% buffer.

When this model breaks

Do not use this for event-gated, conditional, default, or unreleased targets that are not standard independent percent drops.