Guilds of Ravnica cards value

[nethys]

Hello,

I was wondering if it was worthing buying a Guilds of Ravnica booster box.
I like the concept of guilds. And their colors. But I always have trouble to figure out if a set is interesting to buy.
and if the cards it contain will ever take value.

So, do you think the set is good and will take some value later ?

By the way, how do you find out what cards are good and what are useless ? I've read an other thread which was about https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Assassin%27s%20Trophy. That card was said to worth about $20. It's a pretty good instant for 2 mana, but it allow the opponent to get a free land, so... it seems to be a serious drawback.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[WWolfe]

Path to Exile is one of the better removal spells in Commander as well as other formats and it gives a land to your opponent. It's one mana and exiles while Assassin's Trophy is two mana and destroys which makes the target easier to get back but hits any permanent whereas Path only hits creatures. It definitely will see play across multiple formats which will keep the price up.

Chromatic Lantern will always have value and it's being reprinted as are the Shocklands which won't likely hit the price of the orignal Ravnica block Shocks, but will always have some value.

The value of the other cards will depend on which see play in Modern & Standard. That's hard to predict, especially for Standard. Overall I think it's definitely worth a buying a box.

[nethys]

Well thanks, I understand a little better.

Chromatic lantern was indeed one (if not the only XD) card that I was pretty sure to seek. I find it really very interesting.

I've never play in Standard bofore and would like to start with this set. That was one of the purpose of buying a box.

Any suggestion about guild or theme to favor in this set ?

[Morganator 2.0]

You know what my favorite thing about Deckstats is? The Stats

First off, Assassin's Trophy is an excellent card. Your opponent getting a basic land is minor (this is the same for cards like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares).

Next: the stats. To asses the value of a set, I actually made a way to calculate this back when Modern Masters 2017 was released. I won't bore you with the details, but by imputing the price of each card in the set, coupled with the odds of actually getting that card (based on it's rarity, and the number of cards in the set), we can get the expected value of a boster box. NOTE: the calculation does not take foil rares into account, and also does not work on sets that can be mapped (like Masters 25). This calculation is also constantly changing, based on market demands and standard rotations.

But as of today (September 27th, 2018), the expected value for a Guilds of Ravnica box is $90.86 USD.

[WWolfe]

Any suggestion about guild or theme to favor in this set ?

Surveil & Undergrowth both seem like pretty neat mechanics to build around but I love messing with my graveyard.

What Guild to favor all depends on what your playstyle is.

[nethys]

What Guild to favor all depends on what your playstyle is.

Pretty true XD. The fact is some mechanics seems to be less interesting. Mentor for exemple doesn't appeal to me. It isn't bad, but not as deep as those you quoted. But I understand that later sets will complete this one.
Anyway, I'll take a closer look to the spoilers and to the cards before making a choice.

@Morganator 2.0
Very interesting ! Did you assume that all cards with the same rarity had the same probability to appear ? From the boxes I've opened it seems that it isn't the case, but I think a box is far to be representative.

I've never build a deck based on instant and sorceries. Did Izzet provides a decent base in the set ? (It's like a pretty vague question but I really have trouble for judging cards).

[Morganator 2.0]

I did assume that cards with the same rarity have the same chance of appearing in a given booster pack. This also means that my calculation still takes the chance of opening the same rare more than once.

If you opened a booster pack and got 3 copies of the same rare, don't freak out. It can happen. However, if you open multiple boxes and see the same cards appearing across those boxes, it means the set can be mapped.

[WWolfe]

Also keep in mind, some boxes end up way better than others. M14 for instance, I opened one box that had 3 Archangel of Thunes & 2 Kalonian Hydras in it. I opened another box where the best card in it was Darksteel Forge and the rest of the rares were bulk rares.

[burn your face]

If you get to get into standard, I would recommend putting together a decklist ( or netdecking it), and just buying the singles you need to build the deck. It would likely be cheaper, and you would probably end up with a better deck.

[hotrodscott]

It's very rare for the EV of a box to exceed the purchase price of the box (plus shipping, etc.)  and then to capitalize on that, you actually have to go to the trouble of selling them and trying to get book value on the less desirable cards, etc.  If you factor in your time on top of that, you're still probably making less than minimum wage, even if your box EV is way over the purchase price!

I buy boxes because I like to get home from work, grab a tasty beverage, pop my feet up on a chair and crack a few packs and read every single card and stew on brews for a while.   It's entertainment value for me.  As burn your face mentioned, you're much better off buying the specific cards you need for a deck as more then likely, if you want to build a competitive deck, you'll only get a handful of the cards you need (since you'll need multiples of rares and uncommons) out of cracking a box.      That being said, I only had to buy about 6 cards to put together the new "12 bolt" modern deck as I already had most of the cards from opening boxes over the past couple of years and it uses a bunch of high volume cards. (i.e. I had about a dozen fiery tempers, several bomat couriers and soul-scar mages, etc.)    :p 

If you're looking for cards to play, I'd buy those individually. If you're trying to be cashflow-positive on it, you probably should look at other sets. (several sites publish EVs for boxes, so if you can get them cheaper than that, there you go.)  I've had really good luck with Oath of the Gatewatch fat packs because they have a set of the full art lands that go for more than half of the purchase price of the box by themselves (and I like to put them in my decks... fire-suit on!)  and you have a chance at "lottery cards" in the expedition lands and there are lots of creatures that are worth a fair bit  (thought-knot seer, kalitas, tons of big Eldrazi) etc.   Plus you get reckless bushwhacker and wandering fumarole!

[nethys]

If you get to get into standard, I would recommend putting together a decklist ( or netdecking it), and just buying the singles you need to build the deck. It would likely be cheaper, and you would probably end up with a better deck.

Well, I end up doing that for my commander decks, since some cards aren't avaiable in booster, or very rare to find. The fact is, since I don't really know what deck style to play, box seemed to be a good way to have several options to explore.

I play magic since a while (I started with Urza set). But back then, I was a teenager and I only afford some boosters from time to time. So I made deck with what I could found fo casual plays with friends and family. As there was very few player, I still have pretty low experience on deck and collection building.

I don't necessarily want to highly optimize value, but aside of the cards I would use, I was thinking about get some to trade. But for that, some of the cards of the set should be valuable enough to interest other players.