Yesterday, I finished 500 charges of the Brilliant Alchemy Potions. And the results are in. Yes, the potions do work. At least the Brilliant Alchemy Potions worked, for me... kind of.
Introduction
When potions were introduced in the game, the big question on everyone's mind was whether they were worth the expense. After all, they are pricey. The Brilliant Alchemy Potions cost 25,000 DECs or about 58.25 STEEM (with 1 DEC = STEEMP 0.00233), while the Brilliant Legendary Potions cost 20,000 DECs or about 46.60 STEEM. And with so many other cool items to spend your DECs on like orbs, Beta Packs (via Steem-Engine.com), and even high-value 
So, in an effort to give other players a picture of what 500 Charges of these potions could look like, here's my case results for using the 100% Brilliant Alchemy Potions.
Brilliant Alchemy Potions or Brilliant Legendary Potions?
Since I didn't have enough DECs to purchase both the Brilliant Legendary and Brilliant Alchemy Potions I had to choose one. In this case, I settled on getting the Alchemy Potion to give myself a 100% increase in my chances of getting a gold card. This is because based on the current drop rates and the prices of Gold Foil vs. Regular Foil cards, the Alchemy Potion can potentially yield better returns.
Better Drop Rates. The drop rates for a Legendary card is 0.8%. Doubled with a Brilliant Legendary Potion, that will just give me, at most, a 1.6% chance of a Legendary Drop. On the other hand, every card opened has a 2% chance of turning into a Gold Foil. This means that with a Brilliant Alchemy Potion, my chances of getting a Gold Foil goes up to 4%. Though small, this means the Alchemy Potions have a bigger impact on drop rates than the Legendary Potions.
Higher Card Values. Based purely on their DEC Values, Gold Foil Cards, with the exception of the Common Gold Foils are always worth more than the Regular Foil Legendary Cards. So, based on their DEC values, assuming both potions can yield the same amount of drops, the Gold Foil Cards will be worth more, on average, than Regular Foil Legendary Cards, even if we don't consider the value of the Gold Legendaries.
With that said, and because I can only afford one potion, I decided to go with the Alchemy Potion over the Legendary Potion.
500 Cards Opened
Now for the results. The 500 Charges of the Brilliant Alchemy Potion lasted me about an entire season. Here, I managed to open a total of 500. Of the 500 cards, 74.8% were Rewards Cards, 22.2% were Promo Cards from Prbs, and 3% were Beta Cards.
Here's a more specific breakdown:
- 4 Rewards Cards from 4 Days of Mystery Prizes
- 15 Beta Cards from 3 Beta Packs
- 170 Rewards Cards from 13 Daily Quests
- 111 Promo Cards from 22.2 Orbs
- 200 Rewards Cards from 2 Battle Seasons
Surprisingly, the potions were applied to the daily Mystery Prize reveal whenever the Daily Mystery Prize is a Reward Card. Also, it is worth mentioning that the last charge from the potion was used on part of an Orb opening, which is why there were 111 Promo Cards opened from 22.2 Orbs.
25 Gold Foil Drops
Out of the 500 Charges / 500 Cards opened, I got a total of 25 Gold Foil Cards in all four rarities. That means 5.0% of all cards opened resulted in a Gold Foil. This is within the ballpark of my expectations since the Brilliant Alchemy Potion was supposed to double the drop rate of Gold Foils from 2% to 4%.
Here are the notable cards from the Gold Foil Drops:
From the 25 Gold Foils, I got 16 Common Cards, 6, Rare Cards, 1 Epic Card, and 2 Legendary Cards. Calculating their DEC Values, the 25 Gold Foils were worth 207,000 DECs.
That's 182,000 DECs worth of profit from the 25,000 DEC Tokens spent!
Here's the breakdown of the 25 gold foil cards and their DEC values:
'Profits' qualified
Calculating my profits based solely on the DEC values of the Gold Foil drops may not be painting a complete picture. In fact, after an exchange with 
One of the things that he pointed out was that I cannot really give credit to the potion for all my Gold Foil drops. After all, it just doubled my chances of getting those cards. Some of those cards would have dropped even without the potion. He wrote,
If the potions double your chances, you would arguable have got half of that anyway. So 207k / 2 = 103.5 - 25k = 78.5k profit!
So, I'm qualifying my calculations above: Using the Brilliant Alchemy Potions gave me 78,500 DECs of profit. Still an amazing result, right?
Coincidence or boosted results?
I can't deny the fact that the last 500 cards I opened while using the potions have yielded the best results I've had opening cards since I started playing. After all, I've only opened 3 Gold Legendaries, so far. And that first one was months ago.
However, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the drops. So, it makes you wonder how much of an effect the potions really do have.
It's also interesting because I got a few Regular Foil Legendaries in the same card reveal that contained the Gold Foil Legendaries, even though I didn't have a Legendary Potion. So, was my luck really just off the roof that day?
Some musings
- Should the potions have an on/off switch. Some card groups are more valuable than others. Orbs, for example, are worth double the DECs and have a higher market value. So, it would be nice to have some control over that, especially if you're trying to save on potions.
- Could opening more cards at a time yield better results? This seems to be the case for me, so far. The Legendary and Epic Gold Drops all happened while I was opening about 100 cards at a time.
- I don't want to open cards without potions now. Even though I'm not sure if my results were just coincidence or the potion doing its work, I'll be saving up on potions from now on.
Conclusion
With the Brilliant Alchemy Potion costing me 25,000 DECs, the resulting 78,500 DECs in profits made them, at least to me and in this instance, well worth the cost.
However, since this is just a single case of 500 Charges, I'm gonna need a few more rounds of potions to be able to make a definitive case, either way. Nonetheless, until I can prove otherwise, I'll be relying on these potions moving forward. In fact, I just doubled down buying both Brilliant Alchemy and Brilliant Legendary potions.
Will more potions lead to better results? We'll see by the end of the current battle season. For now, here's to more Gold Legendaries for potions users!
Bounty
Now for the bounty. I want to know what your experience has been using the potions. Do you think they're worth the cost? And if you haven't used them, why not? Will you consider buying them in the future?
Update: The post was edited to add the 'Profits' qualified and Bounty sections.
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