Glossary & Definitions
New to card breaking? Here's a guide to the terms you'll see on BreakersDNA and across the hobby — including how our live percentages and value estimates are computed.
About the numbers on this page
Every percentage, ratio, value, and prediction on BreakersDNA — including HLI, dHLI, RCP, TWP, Floor/Ceiling, Top Chase EV, and per-spot odds — is an estimate built from the best data available to us at the moment it's shown. They reflect manufacturer-published odds, market comps, manifest contents, and live break activity, combined with statistical modeling. They can be inaccurate, will change as new data lands, and should never be treated as a guarantee of any specific outcome or pull.
BreakersDNA makes no warranties or guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of any figure displayed, and is not responsible for purchase decisions made in reliance on them. Card values fluctuate continuously and actual pull results can and will differ from estimates. For the full legal terms governing your use of the service, see our Terms of Service.
Breaking Basics
- Break
- A live event where sealed card products are opened on stream. Buyers purchase spots (teams, players, or numbers) and receive the cards that match their spot.
- Breaker
- The person running the break, opening packs on camera.
- Spot
- A position in a break (e.g., a team, player, or number). Buying a spot means you'll receive all cards that match it.
- Hit
- A high-value card pull, typically worth more than the break's hit threshold.
- Chase Card
- A specific rare or high-value card that buyers are hoping to pull.
- Rip / Ripping
- Opening sealed packs of cards. When a break is "ripping," packs are actively being opened live.
Product Types
- Wax
- Factory-sealed boxes or packs from the card manufacturer.
- Repack
- Packs assembled by a third-party repacker with curated contents and a manifest listing every card inside.
- Manifest
- A detailed list of every card in a repack product, including estimated values and comparable sale data.
- Aftermarket Set
- BreakersDNA's name for a repack's card list (its manifest) once it's linked into a break. A repacker attaches an aftermarket set to a break by lot number so every card's estimated value loads automatically. See Repack and Manifest.
- Lot Number
- A code on a repack product that ties the physical packs to their manifest (aftermarket set) on BreakersDNA, so the correct card values load for the break.
- Manifest Certification
- An independent BreakersDNA review of a repack manifest. Issuing a certificate snapshots the manifest's contents under a cryptographic fingerprint; anyone can confirm the certificate number on its public verify page, which recomputes the fingerprint live — so any edit after certification is flagged automatically. Certification covers the submitted manifest data; BreakersDNA does not seal or take custody of the certified product as part of this review.
- Scan-Verified
- The higher manifest-certification tier. The repacker photographs each card while building the manifest; BreakersDNA independently identifies and prices every scan and matches it to the claimed list, flagging mismatches for staff review. The certificate then shows per-slot photo-verification stats. A scan proves the repacker possessed the card at scan time — not which pack it went into.
- Case
- A sealed box containing multiple packs.
Break Formats
- Team Break
- Spots are teams. You get every card pulled for your team.
- Player Break
- Spots are individual players. You get every card for your player.
- Division Break
- Spots are divisions (groups of teams). You get every card from teams in your division.
- Conference Break
- Spots are conferences. Fewer spots, more teams per spot.
- Pick Your Team (PYT)
- Buyers choose their team before ripping begins, rather than being randomly assigned.
- Random Break
- Numbered spots with completely random card assignment.
- Rip Til You Hit (RTH)
- A format where the breaker keeps opening a buyer's packs until a qualifying hit is pulled, then moves to the next buyer. Every paid spot is guaranteed at least one hit.
Values & Analytics
- EV (Estimated Value)
- An estimated market value based on recent comparable sales from sources like Card Ladder, Card Hedge, and eBay. Used to compare a spot or card against what you paid so you can see if it is priced fairly. Always an estimate — never a guaranteed sale price.
- Floor
- The conservative (low) end of the estimated value range for a break's inventory.
- Ceiling
- The optimistic (high) end of the estimated value range for a break's inventory.
- Comp
- A comparable recent sale used to estimate a card's current market value.
- Hit Threshold
- The minimum card value to qualify as a "hit" in a break. Set by the breaker for each break.
- Manifest Completeness
- How much of a repack's contents BreakersDNA knows. Full = every card is listed (this is what lets a break show a real Floor). Chase-only = only the headline chase cards are listed. Partial = some cards listed. Completeness controls whether a guaranteed Floor can be shown.
BreakersDNA Features
- HLI™ (Hit Likelihood Index)
- A static "1 in X packs" figure derived from the product manifest — the expected frequency that a manufacturer-listed high-value pull (autograph, patch card, or numbered parallel) appears once across the full break.
- dHLI™ (Dynamic HLI)
- The live version of HLI. A "hit" is any manufacturer-listed high-value pull — typically autographs, patch cards, or numbered parallels. dHLI tracks the real-time "1 in X" frequency that a hit is still in the remaining unopened packs, and updates live as each pack is opened.
- RCP™ (Remaining Chase Probability)
- The live chance that at least one of the still-unpulled chase cards on this break gets pulled before the break ends. Recomputes after every pack so the percentage reflects exactly what's left.
- TWP™ — Top Remaining Value, by Team (full-manifest repacks)
- For repack breaks where we know the full manifest (every card in every pack), TWP answers: "which still-unsold team has the most card value left to pull?" For each team, we add up the market price of every card in the manifest that hasn't been pulled yet, then express that as a share of the total remaining value across all teams. A team showing 18% means roughly 18 cents of every dollar of value still left in the inventory belongs to that team's cards. The overlay shows the top 3 teams that are still available to buy and updates live as spots sell and packs open — sold teams drop out of the leaderboard because viewers can't act on them. This is a value-share read, not a probability: it doesn't guarantee a team will hit a chase card.
- TWP™ — Chance of a Chase Card, by Team (wax & chase-list breaks)
- For wax pack breaks and chase-list repacks (where we only know the published chase list and odds, not the full pack contents), TWP shifts to estimated probability. For each team, we take the chase cards we know about, look at each one's manufacturer odds (e.g. "1 in 24 packs"), and combine them across the remaining packs to estimate the chance the team gets AT LEAST ONE chase card by the end of the break. A chase that has already been pulled for a team locks that team at 100%. Chases without published odds are excluded — we don't fabricate numbers. The overlay shows the top 3 unsold teams and updates live as packs open. These are estimates based on independence between packs and the data we have: they are NOT guarantees, and actual outcomes can and will differ.
- Parallel Hit Probability
- Per-parallel chance that at least one card of a given tier (e.g. Prizm Gold /10, Refractor Red /5) lands across the remaining packs. Computed from manufacturer-published "1 in N packs" odds combined with how many packs are left to open.
- Overlay
- A visual display shown on the breaker's live stream with real-time EV, hits, and analytics.
- Compliance Mark
- The one overlay required on every break run through BreakersDNA: the BreakersDNA mark, an "Independently Tracked" attestation, and a QR code viewers scan to open the breaker's BreakersDNA channel and its live break record. Its connection is logged while it's on stream, so the break's record shows whether it was displayed. Every other overlay is optional.
- Break Seal
- A tamper-evident sha256 fingerprint generated for every completed break. It covers the pull record — which cards were pulled, their serial/grade, who won each spot, the settled prices, and timestamps — but deliberately excludes Estimated Value (EV), so normal market-price updates never read as tampering. Anyone can confirm a break at /verify/break/[id]: the page recomputes the fingerprint live and flags any change to the record made after sealing.
- Card Birth Certificate (CBC)
- A permanent, public provenance record for a specific raw trading card, created at the moment it is pulled from a pack on a live break. It links the on-stream identification image, a high-resolution flatbed scan (front and back), the card's facts (year, manufacturer, set, player, number, variant, sport), and a tamper-evident forensic Fingerprint ID into one shareable page with a unique BC-XXXX-XXXX certificate number. The buyer is listed playfully as the "parents." Anyone can verify that a physical card matches a certificate later using the Verify tool — the Fingerprint ID is checked against the stored scan, not shared with the public. Available on breaks where the breaker's company has the CBC add-on enabled; raw wax and repack cards only.
- Fingerprint ID
- The public identifier for a Card Birth Certificate's forensic analysis — a SHA-256 hash derived from a multi-layer scan of the physical card. The fingerprint internals (the Forensic Genome) are kept private; only the Fingerprint ID is shown on the certificate. It lets a buyer confirm their physical card matches the one on record without exposing the underlying analysis.
Card Terms
- Parallel / Tier
- A variant edition of a card (e.g., chrome, refractor, numbered). Parallels are typically rarer and more valuable than the base version.
- Graded
- A card that has been professionally authenticated and scored by a grading company like PSA or BGS. Higher grades mean better condition and higher value.
- Ungraded
- A card that hasn't been professionally graded. Also called "raw."
- Slab
- Collector slang for a graded card sealed in its protective plastic holder. See Graded.
- Auto
- An autographed card—signed by the player.
- SP / SSP
- Short Print / Super Short Print—cards with limited production runs, making them rarer and more valuable.
- Serial Number
- A number printed on limited-edition cards showing how many exist (e.g., /25 means only 25 copies were made).
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