Dear Alex Rockwell,

Although I admire your choice for a card of the week in In The Stands, I have to discuss the

remainder of the article, where you talk about the other new cards and your choice for a

deck.  First of all, Professor McGonnall, although a good character, is not astounding in her

ability.  There are cards such as apparate and logic puzzle which allow you to discard

adventures.  The only additional effect she has is on adventures that block the use of spells,

such as Privet Drive and Gaze into the Mirror.  There is no incentive to use her instead of a

Logic Puzzle or Aparate on In the Stands. 

I also wish to bring up your matter of a deck selection.  Although I admire your card selection, I

believe that that amount of adventures is dangerous and almost counter productive.  With the

large spells and good creatures, it would be more effective in an actual game to discard some

and insert some more lessons or a Hagrid or three into the deck.  Even with your disclaimer

that this deck is not tested (and non-existent!), the sheer money and time involved in getting

the cards is prohibative.  Given standard probabilities, in order to get four In the Stands, you

would need to buy 73 booster packs.  In case you are wondering how I came up with that,

here's the math:

3 special Quidddich cards / 10 packs  = 3/110

X  2 uncommon cards in a pack of 11           = 3/110 X 2/11 = 3/605

reduce to a 1/? probability               = 1/202

times by four for four cards             = 4 cards / 808

divide by 11 to get number of packs   = 73

I'm assuming that you'll get all the other cards you need in those packs.  I'm also assuming that

all packs contain three uncommon cards, and that the rare and holo foil cards you need you'll

luck out on.  In order to guarantee that set, you would probably be safe with 200+ expansion

packs.  In Canada, at $6 a piece, that's $1,200.  Well, if you want Harry Potter cards insted of a

car, go ahead....

Adam