Since I'v been playing some STEEM Monsters lately I thought of doing some research into what is going under the hood. First I have to say that I'm not that involved with the project and just doing some initial research. If you know more about the behind the scenes magic, please feel free o let me know in the comments.

In case you haven't tried the game, simply use your posting key on https://steemmonsters.com and take a look.

How It All Started

STEEM blockchain isn't even using 1% of its total capacity. The network is practically idle all the time. After CryptoKitties became a hit and ruined the Ethereum network for everyone, @steemmonsters was announced. The biggest advantages were massive scalability and 100% free transactions as long as you stake a few STEEM in form of VESTS. A project has to be funded somehow and @steemmonsters started by selling 300,000 booster packs. You first had to buy a starter pack and then buy Booster packs for $2.

I don't know if starter packs were sold as sort of a set of booster packs bundled together. These initial distribution is know as Alpha cards and they come in 6 splinters and 4 rarities. You are promised at least 1 rare card in every single booster pack you purchase Since all of Alpha cards have been distributed, I decided to do some basic analytics on them.

Common Cards

• There are 20 cards - 4 From Each Splinter/Element Except for Dragon
• No Summoners
• Roughly 20,000 similar cards in existence per card
• Roughly 400,000 common cards in existence for Alpha Edition.

Rare Cards

• There are 20 cards - 4 From Each Splinter/Element Except for Dragon
• 5 Summoners - 1 From Each Splinter/Element Except for Dragon
• Roughly 8,000 - 10,000 similar cards in existence per card
• Roughly 180,000 rare cards in existence for Alpha Edition.

Epic Cards

• There are 10 cards - 2 From Each Splinter/Element Except for Dragon
• No Summoners in Alpha Edition
• Roughly 4,500 similar cards in existence per card
• Roughly 45,000 epic cards in existence for Alpha Edition.

Legendary Cards

• There are 9 cards - 1 From Each Splinter/Element Except for Dragon + 4 Dragons
• 1 Summoner - Dragon
• Roughly 1,100 similar cards in existence per card
• Roughly 9,900 legendary cards in existence for Alpha Edition.

Time For Rough Math

For the sake of maintaining fairness and trust I think @steemmonsters will keep these rarities somewhat consistent throughout. To make a good trade, you need good information. So here are few info:

Legendary : Epic : Rare : Common = 1 : 4 : 16 : 32

This is something important to remember. 16 out of roughly every 53 cards have to be a rare one. That's about 30% There are 5 cards per pack. So getting at least 1 Rare cards per pack will have distributed 2/3 of all Rare cards. I've opened at least two dozen Booster packs and I have managed to come across 4 Epic cards (2 Alpha Edition) and no Legendary cards.

• Probability of getting an Epic card is about 7.5%
• Probability of getting an Legendary card is about 1.88%

I should have had more Epic and Legendary cards than what I own at the moment. What this really mean is that there are some people who had more than 7.5% of their cards as Epic and more than 1.88% of their cards as Legendary.

Maybe It's Time For You To Go Philosophical On The Concept of "Probability"

I invite you for a little bit of reading ad watching video clips on my post Randomness Doesn't Exist in The Universe; Only Choices that came with its own interpretation on the ending of The Matrix Trilogy.