Theros or Born of the Gods Booster Box?

[WickedBoy6]

I'm trading in some of my cards at Star City Games, and I'm getting about $75 - Vexing Devil, Temple Garden, Elspeth Sun's Champion, and a foil Thoughtseize, plus 25% credit. Thing is, my original plan was to go booster box of Theros, take the good chase cards to flip those for a box of BotG. Thing is, I was told to go the opposite route, and get a box of Born, and trade chase from that into Theros. Which do you think would be the best option?

Postscript: Bought a Fat Pack of Born on Game Night, and hit three Gods - Ephara, Katametra, and Mogis - also pulled Arbiter of the Ideal, Courser of Kruphix, Fated Intervention, Hero of Ioras, Temple of Plenty, and Whims of the Fates. Only a foil Hold at Bay, though. Boo.

 

[Oversoul]

Given the choice between those two, I'd go with Theros. I could go over all my pros and cons, but ultimately the point is that I consider Theros to be slightly denser in power as a set, and when you're buying that many packs, the little bits add up. I wouldn't plan on buying a booster box and then flipping some of its contents for a second box. Sure, could happen, but don't count on it. Then again, you've been around for a while and I get the impression that you know what you're talking about, so perhaps you don't mean you're expecting a guaranteed return of being able to buy a second box strictly off the profits from chase rares from your first box, but that you'd use your acquisitions from your first box to cover part of the purchase of your second box. And in that case, one of the sets must have a higher rate of return on investment, even if the difference is only very slight. And that's dependent on a lot of factors, some ephemeral, but I think that's a question better reserved for the people over at Brainstorm Brewery. Not that anyone here minds seeing it asked, but I don't think any of us have that sort of expertise.

Not trying to provide an unnecessarily cautious response. It's just that sealed product has a price associated with it, and with good reason: if people really could reliable open boosters and flip their contents for a profit, everyone would do it and there'd be a magical money vacuum. But there are some people out there who speculate heavily on the secondary market, visiting large numbers of events and spending ridiculous amounts of time trading, stubbornly insisting on always "trading up" so that they get at least a little more value with every transaction. They then say, "Look at me, I'm making Magic pay for Magic" when in reality they're spending quite a bit of money and a whole lot of time on a sort of alternative hobby that runs parallel to actual Magic: the Gathering. Basically, they're this guy. And not everyone realizes that.

 

[WickedBoy6]

perhaps you don't mean you're expecting a guaranteed return of being able to buy a second box strictly off the profits from chase rares from your first box, but that you'd use your acquisitions from your first box to cover part of the purchase of your second box

Correct. Expecting over $100 in chase in one shot is a HUGE chance. I'd pretty much have to pull every Mythic in Foil form to do that, and I just got lucky with my foil Thoughtseize. Essentially, I just wanna pump my collection - especoally because I wanna really give Standard a try this time - and booster boxes are a reasonable way to do so. Although I have had major luck with Fat Packs and Deckbuilder's Toolkits.

This also does not remove my desire to build up my Bosh Commander. After a box of Theros and a box of Born - I'll only be doing a box an expansion, and maybe some loose cards here and there from now on - I'll concentrate bigtime on getting that deck going.

 

[Terentius]

Man, you got good cards... I bought a Theros booster box from StarCity during the holiday sale for $90, and the only halfway decent money cards I got were a Thassa and a Stormbreath Dragon. But then, I opened an Elspeth and a Thoughtseize, and was passed another Thoughtseize during a 3 player draft out of a fat pack.

 

[WickedBoy6]

I just have some weird luck. I bought a W/B Theros precon, and pulled an Erebos out of a pack. Granted, not the best God, but hey, Mythic's Mythic.

 

[Spiderman]

I have absolutely no idea which set you should get. Hence, I went with Taco Bell

 

[WickedBoy6]

No problems with that. You know how long I can live off of $70 worth of Bell?

I actually had a thought the other day: Why not use the credit you get to get more artifacts for your Bosh Commander? That money could get me a lot of stuff, like a Jitte, Wurmcoil Engine, Divining Top...and that'd probably be it.