Theros: Beyond Death launches on MTG Arena this Thursday, January 16. The pre-order deals are going away once the set goes live so if you still want in, time is running out!
There are two pre-orders available this time around, and buying both gets you a cosmetic pet.
- Bundle 1 - The Elspeth Play Bundle
- Bundle 2 - The Ashiok Pack Bundle
- Buy both to receive a three-headed hellhound pet.
We're going to go over their values below. Are they worth buying?
The Elspeth Play Bundle
This bundle is where you can get a lead on your Mastery Pass. It contains:
- Theros: Beyond Death Mastery Pass
- 10x Levels for your Mastery Pass
- 2x Theros: Beyond Death Sealed Draft Tokens
- 1x Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis Card
- Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis Card Style
- 1x Elspeth Basic Sleeve
Is this worth it?
- Mastery Passes normally cost 3400 Gems. This costs $20.
- Buying a level of Mastery is 250 Gems, so its 2500 Gems for 10 levels.
- A Sealed Draft Token is worth 2000 Gems. So 4000 Gems for 2.
- Card Styles for Mythic cards are usually 1200 Gems.
- Sleeves are usually 1200 Gems.
- We're looking at a Gem value of 12300. You'd need to buy the $50 and $20 Gem packs (9200 + 3400 = 12600) to buy it all separately.
Keep in mind that the sleeve is likely exclusive though, so if you really care about that, it has a higher value than sleeves available in the shop. The bundle is definitely worth buying from a Gems point of view, though only if you're going to make use of it all. The Mastery Levels are pretty easy to get though which personally makes them not worth including in the price. If you share that point of view, it brings the overall worth of the package down to 9800 Gems - nothing to get excited about.
If you do end up buying both bundles, more on the Ashiok bundle in a moment, you do get the pet worth 3000 Gems as an added bonus which is some nice value, but again, only if that cosmetic matters to you.
The Ashiok Pack Bundle
The usual pre-order available - card packs!
- 50x Theros: Beyond Death Booster Packs
- 1x Ashiok, Nightmare Muse Card
- Ashiok, Nightmare Muse Card Style
- Ashiok Basic Sleeve
Is this worth your $50? You're definitely getting a small deal!
- The closest bundle of packs available to 50 is 45. It costs 9000 Gems.
- 9200 Gems costs $50, the same price as the pre-order.
- The 200 leftover Gems ends up being worth $1.08 (0.00543 * 200), so we're paying $49 for 5 fewer packs, ignoring the other bonuses.
Personally, I've purchased the pack bundle since that is to me, a no-brainer. I don't care much for the pet bonus though and I'm not sure if I'll play those two sealed draft games anytime soon, so the mastery pass bundle is not worth it for me. Don't overspend!
Pre-order Physical Theros: Beyond Death Product
If you love playing Magic in the real world, there are a few products you may want to look into! Everything below is from Amazon and uses our Amazon affiliate link. Shop the MTG Store on Amazon.
Comments
It's a shame the preorders are such bad value. I love the cosmetics but not dropping that kind of money for them.
The preorders are great value! You get way more for your dollar than if you were to just buy packs/cosmetics on a normal day.
They aren't all that great tbh. If you look at other games, we get way more value for our pre-orders.
I ultimately think the problem is Wizards is afraid to mess up their brand and physical product. They want magic to feel so premium so they can keep getting the price they do and if Arena becomes too cheap, it could hurt their physical sales.
Part of me thinks that is a bit silly since Arena has more profit potential since you don't need to produce a physical product, but on the other side, physical product is great for certain types of releases (Secret Lair comes to mind) since the markup is insanely high and people are willing to pay that price for it.
I'm definitely no expert though, so other than the fact that other games do more with their pre-orders, take my thoughts on it with a grain of salt.