Facts
As pointed out in the FAQ on the community cards and based on the research of the fellow steam users, the only factor that will increase your chances of getting a booster card drop is steam profile level.
The bigger the number, the bigger the chances. An extract from the FAQ:
Once eligible, your Steam Level increases your rate of receiving a booster pack drop:
- Level 10: +20% increase in your drop rate
- Level 20: +40% increase in your drop rate
- Level 30: +60% increase in your drop rate
- Level 40: +80% increase in your drop rate
- Level 50: +100% increase in your drop rate (i.e. the rate has doubled)
- Etc.
Some Research
Here is a similar question asked on steam community.
I will give an extract from that discussion that serves our purpose (post):
Based on Valve comments on booster packs:
Having more eligible games = higher chance of getting a booster pack.
Not getting a booster pack in a while = higher chance of getting a booster.
Original answer:
Yes, over time you will end up with more boosters packs if you have more eligible games. It's all set up so that you are better off to have all your games on one account, instead of spreading them between accounts.
Opinions
So this is generating some kind of confusion around this subject, since valve is not giving us something clear that we can rely on, and since nobody can run a test/experiment to prove something simply because the system cannot be reproduced or isolated in such way that it can lead to facts.
I think that the three system versions you came up with are purely theoretical and we cannot guess how the selection is being made. Consider the fact that it still gives booster to super low level users that are eligible also to super high level users that have greater chances.
The system
If it really matters the number of games you are eligible for than it could be very likely that the system is picking games randomly and then selects the users based on their chances due to steam level profile to give away the booster.
If it would pick the users first and the games after, the idea of having a bonus if you are eligible for more games becomes useless since it wouldn't rely on the game at all.
I myself have reported a lot of people, mainly for Communication abuse, but never were those people muted for me. I had to do it manually (in the scoreboard with the speaker icon). Otherwise, even though they were reported, I could still read their chat message or hear them speak through the in-game voice chat. When did you experience...
"I (happily) never see any messages from them for the rest of the
game"
...after reporting someone ? How many time did that happen ?
This feature could come from a very recent patch but I doubt it. I see two possible option :
- They were juste tired of spamming chat and just surrendered (Unlikely but it can happen)
- Your report (which certainly was not their frist report) caused them to being muted but not only for you. They were muted by the Valve's communication abuse ban system which prevent abusive user to write in the chat, draw on the minimap, talk in the chatroom etc. for a given amount of time (starting from 24h ban to a very long time)
The second option seems more likley to happen. However, if you have experienced this several times, there might be another mechanic at work that I'm not aware of.
Best Answer
Muting someone will block their chat wheel messages but won't block their pings. Which mean theorically they could spam ping and you couldn't do much about it, though, for now at least, most people still use the ping to draw attention more than being a nuisance.