Here’s everything you need to know about group box breaks and case breaks

Hop into any stream on any given night and you’ll witness dozens of personal breaks. A pack here and there. Sometimes a box. This is the bread and butter of Loupe. It’s the sort of livestream sales that the platform was built for.

There are opportunities to be more social while cutting down on costs, however. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve probably seen (or been a part of!) a group break. It’s exactly what it sounds like. A group splits the cost of a box and then splits the cards inside. As various channels experiment with more ways to sell on Loupe, we figured this might be a good time to drop an FAQ about how it all works.

How do group breaks work?

There are a bunch of different ways to run a group break. The seller usually picks their preferred method, but the buyers collectively will sometimes have some input.

So far, a randomized hit draft has been the most popular method on Loupe. This works best for a high-end product where there’s a low number of cards. Everyone buys a fraction of the box — if it’s a $600 box with 6 cards, each of the 6 spots would cost $100 — and then everyone’s name is put into a randomizer. Whoever’s name is at the top of the list after it’s randomized gets the first pick at which card they want after the box has been opened. Second spot gets the second pick, and so on.

What are some other methods?

Glad you asked! For bigger boxes with a lot of packs, a more general approach is needed (or else a draft would take forever). Sometimes you’ll be assigned a random division. Then you get all the cards from the teams in that division. If there are a lot of buyers, you might just be assigned a random team. It’s all flexible and dependent upon best fitting the product, price, and number of buyers.

That’s not to say your team is always left to chance. Another popular method is to sell specific teams at predetermined prices. Let’s take the NBA for example. The Charlotte Hornets would probably be the most expensive team in a break of 20-21 NBA cards because LaMelo Ball plays for the Hornets and was the Rookie of the Year favorite before his wrist injury. He’s a superstar in the making and has the most valuable cards of all the rookies, so it stands to reason that the Hornets would cost the most. Conversely, the teams with no exciting prospects would cost the least.

How about a case break?

Think big! A case break is literally just a box break at scale. Rather than buying a single box, the group buys an entire case. Obviously it’s more expensive, and obviously there are a lot more cards up for grabs. Again, a hit draft wouldn’t work so well here, so it’s usually done via Pick Your Team or randomized teams.

Because it’s a more ambitious endeavor, a case break usually needs to presell. This means that the seller will go live once or twice before the actual break to give people an opportunity to buy their spots ahead of time. Then, everyone comes back at a predetermined date and time. It’s just safer than hoping enough people buy into a case break right before it happens.

When can we see some of these breaks in action?

If you’ve been paying attention, you already have. FreshPullZ has already run a successful case break a couple weeks ago. Lucky for you, we have more on the calendar.

On Wednesday, March 31 at 8pm Eastern, Hit Seekers is celebrating the night before Opening Day with a box break of Topps Chrome Jumbo and/or Topps Update boxes of every year between 2017 and 2020. It’s eight boxes in total, and they’re running so that everyone gets a randomized team. Because there’s so many years, every team should have at least a few good prospects to chase.

Then, on Sunday, April 4 at 8pm Eastern, Hit Seekers is back with a half-case break of 2020-2021 Panini Prizm Basketball. This is easily one of the biggest products of the year. This one is a Pick Your Team break with pre-set prices on a first come, first served basis. Show up early if you want to make sure to get your team!