EDIT: Don't bother reading this, my mistake (missing the questline artifacts) was pointed out and the numbers are all wrong! My fault for doing math before coffee.
So I'm looking at the likelihood of getting 9 relics from the event, and this is what I'm seeing:
Quest Currency: 3784 (assumes Ashen Phoenix, and assumes 1 extra currency from each quest where the reward is <51 and 2 extra currency where the reward is >=51 -- not sure if that assumption is correct)
Email Bonus: 100
Starting Bonus: 50 (I started with 50 currency this event, I assume everyone did).
Daily Reward: 990 (45 per day * 22 days)
Questline Bonus: 400
Pickup Currency: 440 (assumes an average 20/day, may be higher or lower depending on playstyle).
Total Currency for Event: 5,764
Goal: 9 relics --> 17 Grand Prizes --> 340 total flags.
5,764 / 340 flags = 16.95 currency per flag.
The *best* chest for Grand Prizes this event (the 21 chest) has an adjusted cost/flag of 17.4. This means that, on average, even if you had the very *best* chest as an option EVERY TIME, you still will not get your 9 relics.
Do my numbers look right? This seems like a dramatic nerf from prior events. The only way to get 9 relics from GPs seems to be if you get very, very lucky. I know that a lot of folks didn't get their full set last time, but the numbers there seemed such that "if you get unlucky, you won't get it. If you're average/moderately lucky, you will." This is very, very different from that. Even if you get lucky and are able to keep your per-flag cost to 20, you'll still need to buy an extra 1,036 currency to get your 9th relic.
And while it would be easy to say "spend diamonds to get your 9th relic from Silver," that doesn't really make sense either, because if you spend those diamonds, you're likely to get your 9th relic from GPs -- so getting into Silver only gave you an extra relic you don't need.
What am I missing? Is this really as dumb as it looks?