Example: Pack probabilities for PD5
Parallel cards from the Base Set can be optained through an off-chain event where new cards are made available in form of packs. The drops as well as the opening experience are designed to resemble an internet-based analogy of buying physical trading card packs in a card shop.
Pack drops happen approximately once per quarter. They are typically set to take place on Saturdays, usually beginning at 5 P.M. EST/EDT. The exact date and time of a drop is communicated through Parallel social media accounts (https://twitter.com/ParallelNFT) several weeks in advance to give everyone time to prepare.
The Parallel base set is being released across six (6) pack drops. At the time of writing four (4) pack drops have been completed. Pack Drop 5, or PDV, is scheduled for September 10th 2022 and Pack Drop 6, or PDVI, will tentatively take place sometime in December, 2022.
How many Cards do you get from one pack?
Over time the format of card packs has evolved based on community feedback. For PDIV, a pack contained ten (10) Parallel trading cards and customers were limited to purchasing two (2) packs on a first-come, first-serve basis. These packs are known as “Collector Packs” and have increased probability of containing higher rarity cards than in previous packs. The exact number of cards in a pack and statistical probability of card rarity within the packs is communicated publicly prior to the pack drop.
How To Participate
The first thing to do to participate is create a player account on www.parallel.life as far in advance of the pack drop as possible. This is helpful for several reasons. If a user has any technical issues creating an account, they will have ample time to seek out support help. Historically, accounts created the same day as pack drops were not allowed to participate if created after a certain time snapshot. This is one of many anti-botting measures taken by Parallel.
Collector Packs are purchased with ETH, therefore a player will also need an Ethereum compatible crypto wallet (e.g. https://metamask.io). Once created, a player should log into their parallel.life account and associate their Ethereum wallet address with the account.
IMPORTANT: Parallel cards are NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. When a Collector Pack is purchased, the card packs are delivered to the same wallet address that paid for the packs. A player is solely responsible for the contents and safety of their Ethereum wallet. If a player’s Ethereum wallet is lost, compromised, or otherwise becomes inaccessible to the player, he will also lose access to the Parallel cards.
Manifest
The Manifest is a list of dedicated Parallel collectors who get a chance to buy a certain number of packs before they go into the public sale. It was first introduced in PDIV and can be seen as a whitelist of sorts. The criteria to get onto the manifest change with every pack drop and are not publicly known before the snapshot is taken. For PDV 4132 Wallets qualified for the manifest and were able to buy three reserved packs.
Cost
The cost of a pack is unique to each pack drop and can change based on market conditions, the number of available packs, and/or the card rarity makeup of the available packs.
The exact cost of packs is communicated by the Parallel team when a new pack drop’s date and time is announced.
For the upcoming PDV, the cost per pack .21 ETH per pack. PDVI and future expansion set pack drop costs are subject to change and may be lower or higher than historical prices.
Collector Pack Composition
Before deciding to participate in a pack drop, players should examine the possibilities of cards that might be received in packs.
Packs are randomly assembled at the time of delivery using a provably-fair 3rd party oracle to ensure card distribution is fair and distributed among packs as intended.
At the time of writing, each pack contains ten (10) “slots” which are positions in the pack where cards will be inserted. Each slot is assigned a “tier” of possible rarities that can be assigned the slot during random pack assembly.
In the chart below, you can see there were ten (10) slots and three (3) levels of tiers for packs in PDV. Slot 1 is assigned “tier 1” for rarity probability. Therefore, if you look at tier 1, you will see the statistical probability of any card rarity being assigned to slot 1.
Slot tier assignments is consistent and uniform across all packs within a pack drop.
Example: Pack probabilities for PD5
Pack Drop Day
On pack drop day, Parallel communicates through its social media accounts (Twitter) and in the official Discord, a website link where pack drop participation will take place. This is typically one hour before the official start time of the pack drop. During this time, participants will see a “waiting” page that will become active, or “go live,” at the designated time.
Once the pack drop is “live,” the webpage will automatically refresh, and participants will be guided through a series of steps to reserve their desired number of packs up to the pack limit.
Packs are first come, first serve and are available until all packs are reserved or a one (1) hour time limit is reached.
Payment Process
Once a participant has received a confirmation their desired number of packs are “reserved,” this means they are guaranteed to receive packs so long as the packs are paid for within the designated time limit.
Packs are paid for with Ethereum using the Parallel pack drop website, and it’s considered a “best practice” to have the necessary Ethereum in a wallet prior to the pack drop.
Typically, pack drop participants have twenty-four (24) hours to pay for packs. If a pack reservation is not paid for within the time limit, the pack reservation is forfeited.
Receiving Packs
Once a pack reservation is paid for, card packs typically delivered to a participant’s wallet over the next twenty-four (24) to forty-eight (48) hours. However, Parallel makes every attempt to deliver card packs as soon as possible, and it’s not unusual to receive card packs much sooner after paying.
The longer a participate waits to pay for a pack reservation, the later their card packs will be shipped, as the delivery window does not begin until payment is complete.
Parasets are collections of specific cards related to each pack drop that represent a goal for card collectors to achieve. Completing and holding a Paraset within a designated timeframe after a pack drop results in a free reward, called a key. Each key reward is unique to its related pack drop. One key is rewarded per completed Paraset and there is no limit on the number of Parasets a participant is allowed to complete.
Sometime after each pack drop is complete, the composition of the Parasets for that pack drop are announced. Players then have a window of time to gather the cards for a Paraset within the same Ethereum wallet. Parasets must be contained within the same wallet to be considered a set. Players can use cards from pack drop packs and cards acquired through secondary markets to complete a Paraset. Once the time limit is reached, an on-chain snapshot is taken of all wallets holding completed Parasets. Reward keys are “airdropped” (delivered for free) at a future date and time.
Parasets can be “cached” to receive Prime token emissions at echelon.io. Echelon Foundation and caching will be explained further in upcoming articles.
Current Parasets can be checked on https://parasets.parallel.life/
Example: All Parasets for PD2 (Graphic made by www.twitter.com/0xHung)