Why you should never open packs of Beta

[B.C.]

Here is a semi-funny video of opening a Beta starter deck.

http://thestarkingtonpost.com/articles/-/Beta_Starter_Opened

Unless you get a Lotus/Mox there is almost no way you will even break even on value. In a way I'm glad it was opened, since that is really the purpose of a pack of Magic cards, but if I stumbled upon an unopened pack at a garage sale or something, I would never open it.

I did open a pack of Italian Legends that I won at Gencon. I got a Karakas, which is a card that I actually knew and is worth something, but I still could have gotten more for the unopened pack. Keep those packs sealed.

[(nameless one)]

I find it hilarious when his voice started to sound from excited to disappointed...

Hey, at least he got a Fork!

[Occam]

Now's probably as good a time to open sealed alpha/beta as any other, as dual prices are ridiculously high so much so that a nice profit on an individual pack can be realised by netting a pack fresh, gradable dual (the higher end ones). Power are exponentially more expensive as well when psa9+ of bgs 9.5+, so the risk could be worth taking at times, especially for graded collectors, as long as the product is obtained from a source that can be trusted to not have searched the pack. Sealed alpha can also be very rewarding as graded prices are even higher, even if you crack something a potential psa 10 birds, for instance. I use sealed alpha/beta packs to trade at times, so they have other uses, and the only pack I would shudder to open would be summer.

A good friend of mine has decided that he wants to draft beta before his wedding (within a couple years prolly), so we're looking into purchasing a sealed box as I'm not sure if my contacts can scrounge up so many 100% unsearched ones and it saves hassle. We'll youtube it and all that, of course, and split the losses. I'll find out what the cost of friendship is that day. Between 3-5 grand. Getting my facial expressions when I crack the fourth lace or rare Island of the day immortalised on video will probably be priceless as well. :rolleyes:

[Nightmare]

I did open a pack of Italian Legends that I won at Gencon. I got a Karakas, which is a card that I actually knew and is worth something, but I still could have gotten more for the unopened pack. Keep those packs sealed.

T-ORGANIZER had a box of Italian Legends for sale at one point. He sold the first pack for 15, the second for 14, etc, until you got to $5 per pack. I watched GetSickAndDie open like 6 packs and get garbage. I bought 1 pack, and opened a Moat.

[(nameless one)]

T-ORGANIZER had a box of Italian Legends for sale at one point. He sold the first pack for 15, the second for 14, etc, until you got to $5 per pack. I watched GetSickAndDie open like 6 packs and get garbage. I bought 1 pack, and opened a Moat.

How much would a box of Legends would cost?

[atropos]

That was really fun to watch but also pretty painful. I get what he means by "this is what happens when you open Beta." Wasn't there an Island on the rare sheet too? Does anyone know how much that pack cost?

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

They used to have a bunch of Legends packs at the Lucky Frog, and I traded some pizzas when I worked at Papa John's. I got a Chains of Mephistaphalese, an Abyss, an underworld Dreams(before the reprint) and a Nether Void.

Plus, it's a lot of fun to open them and see all these cards you never knew existed.

I don't think I'd do it on a pack of Alpha though.

[Getsickanddie]

T-ORGANIZER had a box of Italian Legends for sale at one point. He sold the first pack for 15, the second for 14, etc, until you got to $5 per pack. I watched GetSickAndDie open like 6 packs and get garbage. I bought 1 pack, and opened a Moat.

That shit was the worst.

[dahcmai]

I'd never open a pack of beta nowadays. It's soooo not worth it. I opened plenty of Alpha and Beta and it's really hard to get anything worthwhile now. And Yes, Island was on the rare sheet. The idea was to make blue the rare color. The last pack I opened was Unlimited and got an Anhk of Mishra. Bah. Least I won it.

Better to keep them sealed, especially a sealed starter, those obviously haven't been searched. Now if you're making a set of PSA10 Beta, that's a different tune.

I miss being able to buy packs of those for decent prices. Legends was a laugh to draft, it's soooo bad for it. You have to make up for it by using a really good set to go with it. Moat is really hard to pull, you were lucky as hell Nightmare.

[kicks_422]

Does everyone have a knife like that?

[nitewolf9]

Does everyone have a knife like that?

Is this sarcasm? Of course everyone has a knife like that. It's standard issue when you get your driver's license.

[Wargoos]

Is this sarcasm? Of course everyone has a knife like that. It's standard issue when you get your driver's license.

Like getting a gun when opening a new bank account! :D
America is just awesome - can't wait to get my greencard.

[andrew77]

Like getting a gun when opening a new bank account! :D
America is just awesome - can't wait to get my greencard.

Thats only for natural born citizens though.

[Wargoos]

Thats only for natural born citizens though.

Aww c'mon, america was founded on the back of some englishmen with bad teeth.
Don't be a hater and stop discriminating those who still have dreams!
:)

[Phoenix Ignition]

Don't be a hater and stop discriminating those who still have dreams!

Wow, and you want to be American? These people are pretty much exclusively who we discriminate...

[Wargoos]

Wow, and you want to be American? These people are pretty much exclusively who we discriminate...

Yeah, I wanna join the haters club.
Also I miss taco bells.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Also I miss taco bells.

Haha I ate there until their "meat hose" got "clogged" on TWO separate occasions.

[Parcher]

Haha I ate there until their "meat hose" got "clogged" on TWO separate occasions.

This may be the most homo-erotic sentence ever written on The Source.

Team Unicorn will be in contact. Eating and unclogging meat hoses is our speciaity.

[MMogg]

Not to go off topic by going back on topic but Holy Epic Friggin Fail. Wow. I can't believe he got shafted. But, considering how many other jank rares he could have got instead of that Fork, he should count himself lucky. Anyway, poor bastard. Not one playable common.

Edit: if you check out some of his other videos you kind of lose sympathy. There's one of him opening Revised starters to get dual lands. WTF? Why open a $60 starter (approx. Troll and Toad value) to get a $30 dual land. Especially since – in spite of his mapping techniques – he has to open multiple crap starters just to get to them. Even if you value the starters at $40 and you have to crack 2 to get 1 Tundra, it just doesn't seem worth it. Mint or not, they're still Revised.

[caiomarcos]

But maybe you should open arabian nights:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXgt_iZK62o&feature=player_embedded

[Aleksandr]

I bought an italian Legends' booster from a sealed pack (and from a reliable seller)

Mana Drain + Nether Void

:yawn:





Well, not really. Nova Pentacle + Pro:Red Soldier. Imba.

Never open anything old. Until mirage, these sets are full of garbage. (Not that since Mirage there is anything to open, unless of course one gets his hand on cheap display of korean Urza...)

[MMogg]

Never open anything... sets are full of garbage.

Fixed.

I'm a big believer in not cracking, unless you really really like collecting or you want 30 jank rares to go with the 6 decent ones you pull from a box.

I recently picked up and cracked a box of Chinese Nemesis for about $40. I didn't expect to "make money" from it and mostly wanted Chinese Dazes and other relatively playable commons/uncommons. It was fun. I hadn't opened a box in yeeeeeeeeeears before that. I think that's the mindset you have to have going in. If it's not just fun or you're trying to make good like an investment, it's really hard to come out satisfied from cracking.

I watched a bunch of the videos of the guy cracking Revised starters. He paid about $30 each and at one time he cracked ten to get 2 dual lands. Ouch. Buying singles is almost always better if you're a player.

[MattH]

The only way to go is to get some buddies together and draft your box. Get some use out of the crap commons before shuttling them away to the closet.

[IsThisACatInAHat?]

Fixed.

I'm a big believer in not cracking, unless you really really like collecting or you want 30 jank rares to go with the 6 decent ones you pull from a box.

I recently picked up and cracked a box of Chinese Nemesis for about $40. I didn't expect to "make money" from it and mostly wanted Chinese Dazes and other relatively playable commons/uncommons. It was fun. I hadn't opened a box in yeeeeeeeeeears before that. I think that's the mindset you have to have going in. If it's not just fun or you're trying to make good like an investment, it's really hard to come out satisfied from cracking.

I watched a bunch of the videos of the guy cracking Revised starters. He paid about $30 each and at one time he cracked ten to get 2 dual lands. Ouch. Buying singles is almost always better if you're a player.
This, I think. I did the same thing with an English Nemesis box I got dirt cheap on an ebay auction. I got my Dazes and even 3 Submerges, but that's all I got. Even the draft was pretty boring, since most sets that aren't $300+ per box are pretty boring by themselves. Cracking packs/ boxes is FTL unless you get insanely lucky. I was ecstatic when I ripped a full playset of FoWs from an Alliances box about a month ago, until I realized that even if I got full value for all 4 at their current SCG price tag, I was still down $40. It was the best box I'd ever opened and I still cracked 95% jank.

[dahcmai]

I made quite a bit off cracking a box of Russian Shards. I bought it off Ebay for $60 since it was a good deal and walked away from that way ahead by over $200 just by selling the commons. Blightnings alone went for a lot and I managed to pack some good foils like Nacatyl, Sarkhan, and a Rafiq. Sometimes you can do well on packs, but in English, I don't think anything is worth it except for M10 and even then you have to get lucky.

[pw709]

I made quite a bit off cracking a box of Russian Shards. I bought it off Ebay for $60 since it was a good deal and walked away from that way ahead by over $200 just by selling the commons. Blightnings alone went for a lot and I managed to pack some good foils like Nacatyl, Sarkhan, and a Rafiq. Sometimes you can do well on packs, but in English, I don't think anything is worth it except for M10 and even then you have to get lucky.

What?! How in the hell do you get $260 from a box worth of Russian Shards commons? Were you getting $40 per Blightning?

Even assuming that was a mistype and you mean $260 in total...I have a hard time imagining that.

[Purgatory]

I love the whole Shrödinger's cat-philosophy of not opening packs; until they are opened they can be viewed as both containing moxen and garbage. However, the only way of finding out is...

In any case, here's a fellow Swede of mine opening an Alpha pack:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0p4mRfLmCk

[Atwa]

Wow, that's cool.

I still have a revised booster laying around which I've been wanting to open for some time. Same for half a Chinese Oddysey box and an English 5th dawn box.

Still not sure what to do with it.

[Aleksandr]

I also got some hidden stuff - 4th Ed. and Homelands booster. What should I do with it?

* "Shove it up your ass!" is not considered as a plausible answer. *

[xTrainx]

That Mox Ruby was was pretty sick.

It was all shit shit shit, land land land, ZOMG.

[Jak]

If I had the money, like I am assuming these people do if they are buying unopened booster packs, I would open it. It would be an awesome experience, still be of some monetary value, and I would have good looking cards. They obviously have the money to spend, so why not?

[Atwa]

I also got some hidden stuff - 4th Ed. and Homelands booster. What should I do with it?

* "Shove it up your ass!" is not considered as a plausible answer. *

Depends, both sealed and opened it isn't worth much. Esspecially the Homelands booster. When opening it you might pull a Baron Sengir or Merchant Scroll. Although I hated opening boosters (and I did that a lot when I was younger), the set is really flavourfull, so you might want to consider opening them just for some of the most flavourfull cards ever to have excisted (other than arabian nights).

4th is a bit harder, there are some good cards in it, but I have no idea what the going rate is for sealed boosters. Great cards to pull are Shivan Dragon, Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Birds to Paradise, Hypnotic Specter, Serra Angel, Mishra's Factory and stuff like black and white knight, crusade and bad moon, strip mine. It was a decent set, only a bit sad when looking back one set (revised). Most of it considers of staples most magic players have lots of though.

[Arsenal]

If I had an unopened pack of Beta, I'd open it. The experience would be worth the price of admission, anything of value you may get in the pack would just be a bonus.

[MMogg]

If I had an unopened pack of Beta, I'd open it. The experience would be worth the price of admission, anything of value you may get in the pack would just be a bonus.

You do realize that Troll and Toad is selling packs at $500, don't you? How much of a fail would it be to open 4 basic lands and a lace? Worthwhile experiences for $500 usually involve tubs of lube, handcuffs and riding crops.

[Arsenal]

If you have $500 to spend on something as obscure, even in the M:tG community, as an unopened pack of Beta, I don't think it'd matter too much to you.

[B.C.]

As funny as the first video was, the vids of the Arabian Nights and Alpha boosters were even more awesome. Nothing like watching a Mint Alpha Mox Ruby enter the world. It's like a newborn baby.

[caiomarcos]

What about unlimited?

You can get the power from A/B for a much lower price and I think the distribution is not as skewed so your chances of getting Plains in the rare slot are lower too.

[oRen]

i took this quite interesting report of the draft out of the magic librarities.
posted by ritnecrowin here (http://www.magiclibrarities.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6950&start=15).
as the long text looks very bad in quote tags i removed those.

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Here is Dave Williams Beta Draft report from the GP:
Ok So I bust out of the GP with the worst piece of shit sealed deck ever and one of the local KC dealers ask me if I want to play in a Beta draft on Sunday. He says its $1200 and we keep what we draft and 5 packs will be given as prizes (3 for first, 2 for second). All of the packs are coming from a "unsearched box". I was unsure if I wanted to do it, but felt that I would be insanely jealous if I passed up on this what could be once in a lifetime experience, while watching some random guys do it. I also got dreams of cracking all sorts of black bordered goodness for my decks.

So Sunday rolls around and I jump in the "Guaranteed Mox" tourney that is supposed to start at 11am. At Noon there are only 7 players signed up and I don't think it's going to go. I sleveed up the mono blue tez deck with Ophidians to test it out. Seemed like a good deck to play in a Swiss +1 (what a shitty format) tournament. I wanted to play 5 wastelands and felt like it had good game against Dredge, which was sure to be a force.

Sure enough I get paired against one of the two Dredge decks round 1 and while I am smashing him Demars walks up. Since it's unsanctioned they let him in against the guy who was told he has a bye (talk about a bad beat). I win the first round and get informed the Beta draft is starting at 2pm with or without me. I would have to drop from this seemingly easy Mox.

Chris Benafel also got in the draft and Scott Lipp. There were no other players that I had seen before. One was the TO from the GP and another was a door prize for someone that didn't make day 2.

They passed out the freshest, crispest looking packs I've ever seen and everyone was surrounding the table. We agreed to sleeve the pack when we opened it and pass sleeved cards, they provided the sleeves. The guy on my left cracks a Mox Jet and everyone goes crazy. The guy on my right, a Bayou. I on the other hand open...Kormus Bell. I decided that if I didn't open a sick valued card or something I would play in Vintage (Sol Ring, D Tutor, Mana Vault) that I would just try and draft a sick deck to win. I took a Channel. The pack was terrible, I might play a Beta Channel in some deck in the future and I might crack a Fireball or Disintegrate FTW!

I got passed a few red or green creatures, Grizzly Bears, Craw Wurms but nothing really exciting for value or draft wins. I don't remember what I open pack two but that should say enough. I took another Craw Wurm and noone got excited about opening anything else sick. This pack was a disaster for me as it seemed like everyone had opened so many lands, in just right combination that everyone got a playable except when it got to me there was nothing left. In fact, the guy 6 to my left opened a pack with 10 lands in it, so that when I picked it up for my 6th pick, there was 10 lands staring at me. I was hurting on playables. Pack 3 I opened an Illusionary Mask. I know this is sometimes played and worth about $100+ but there was also a Fire Elemental. 5/4 for 3RR. I felt this guy would be super hard to deal with and really wanted to win 3 packs so I shipped the Mask. I got more of nothing and was very disapointed with my draft. I had some big meaty monsters and felt that with good draws I could win.

During deck building I saw Scott Lipps deck and OMG! Shivan Dragon, Fireball, Disintegrate, Lightning Bolt, 3 Drain Life, 2 Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter! And he was on my side of the bracket playing Chris Benafel. I knew that they were both my friends so if I could win my first round I could probably get a split out of either one to guarantee me one pack. I just had to make sure to not show anyone how miserable my deck was or complain about it so that they would split.

My round one opponent beat me two quick games where I just drew nothing and he drew two Tim's and Powersinked or Spellblasted everything I played that was relevant, following it up with a game winning Fireball. I was down 0-2 in a best of 5 and was whining like a bitch. I was so sick I paid $1200 for this miserable experience and no good cards. The guy that cracked the Mox Jet walked over and had won in 10 min, 3-0. How lucky, a Mox Jet, a Badlands, and a first round win! I also saw that the TO had a sick black red deck with a Disk, the Mask, Demonic Tutor, Nightmare and some other sick cards, and wasn't sleeving cause "he was old-school!". Everywhere I looked, everyone had sick decks, with sick cards and lots of cool stuff... I had Craw Wurms, what a joke. Back to the slaughter at hand.

Chris and Scott were in an epic battle and I knew I had to win 3 straight games and not whine loud enough to where they could hear how bad my deck was to get a pack of Beta. I got my act together and drew lots of Elves and Wild Growths to power out some quick Craw Wurm action. Everyone had quit watching my match after I was down 0-2 but 10 min later it was all even. Going to the last game my opponent choose to play and mulliganed to 6. He was stuck on 3 Mountains in his UGr deck. I was fortunate to have turn 3 Llanowar and turn 5 Craw Wurm. He had a tell and I figured out he had a Fireball in hand but only 4 lands, so next turn I put Holy Strength on it to raise the toughness. (Yes I had a RG deck splashing 2 Holy Strengths and two COPs, I had drafted a Veduran Enchantress and was short on playables. I also had 2 Wild Growths and Regeneration in my deck so she wasn't that bad). The next turn I put another Holy Strength on it and my 8/8 Wurm went the distance.

Chris beat Scott in the sickest game ever and we did a split. Then I actually got up on him 2-1, but my deck's true colors came through and he came back and beat me 3-2. It's fine because I was actually going to conceed to him if I was winning for a bigger portion of the split since he had a better deck by far. In the end he beat the guy that opened the Mox Jet in the finals.

So we had 3 packs to work with, but his actually went to Noah Boeken from Amsterdam, who is staying at my house right now and flew to the GP with me. Everyone wanted us to open our packs and since we felt it would be hard to sell them because noone would believe we didn't search them we agreed to pack war. We also felt that a box is 36 packs, and there are approx 100 different rares and 9 pieces of power. Assuming an even distribution (yeah I know, shit was fucked up back then, bad assumption), there should be about 3 pieces per box. Since the draft consumed 24 packs and there were 12 left and only one Mox opened we liked our chances. We pack warred while people went crazy watching us open Beta packs and got more shit rares. So we each bought another pack at $400 and did it again. I won the war, but there was nothing again. Well the excitement of the crowd got to us and I had stopped thinking logically and we bought a second pack each! Again, I won the war and the only thing exciting I got was a Fork (if you can even call it that). Not even any good uncommons or anything. Well everyone was going nuts, and we just couldn't help ourselves (it didn't hurt that Noah had just beaten Sam Stein for $3600 in a money draft) and we got two of the last three packs. Well, again I won the pack war but the best thing was an Icy Manipulator. So we each spent $1200 for 3 more packs each after our $1200 to draft and all we had to show for it was a Fork, an Icy Manipulator and some other random junk. Noah still had one pack left and he went ahead and bought the last pack from the dealer for one last chance at glory but all we got was a Web and a Nightmare for rares, but at least there was a Berserk. I sold everything that I won off Noah in the pack wars and my draft cards for 200 bucks and the Demonic Tutor the TO opened and shuffled sleeveless (surprisingly it was in great shape) .

All in all, between the draft and our random cracking, we opened 34 packs (the 2nd place guy took off with his two) and someone else got a Mox, 3 people got Dual Lands (no blue ones) and we got Web. Together me and Noah spent (or shall I say wasted) $5200. All I can say was that it was NOT worth it. Beta packs just suck and there are waaaaay too many lands to make it even fun to draft. A pack having 10 land is a joke. 3 packs had Island as rare. For $5200 I could have bought Beta Power, granted it wouldn't have been pack mint, it would have been better than Fork.

I hope you enjoyed my report. What I want you to take from this is if you ever have this opportunity, pass! It's really just not worth it at $400 a pack even if you have a sudden windfall of extra cash. I left feeling very letdown and disappointed. I think the only way I wouldn't have been would have been to open a Lotus and even though I'm sure that would have been exhilarating, financially, even that's not worth it.

[Kangaxx]

I love the whole Shrödinger's cat-philosophy of not opening packs; until they are opened they can be viewed as both containing moxen and garbage. However, the only way of finding out is...

In any case, here's a fellow Swede of mine opening an Alpha pack:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0p4mRfLmCk

If he wanted that card to be graded as a perfect gem mint, he would of wore gloves and used padded tweazers. Alot of collectors bust open packs like that just to grade stuff but they use equipment.