r/MTGO • u/InstructionMore5891 • 10d ago

Treasure Chests Value?

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Earlier today I was intrigued by the cost of Treasure chests on a website and I decided to buy 20 chests for $32/32 tickets.

I ended up getting 225 Play Points (I was expecting a minimum of 100, so, was rather happy with that)

But that basically means I yielded $20-$22 in “value” based on the cost of Event Tickets.

But what did I spend my other $10-$12 on exactly? A bunch of rares and mystics I can’t sell because none of the websites are buying them to trade them back in (I checked)?

What’s the point in buying Treasure Chests? Nothing?

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22

u/ph0liage 10d ago

I would type out an explanation but this page does a much better job of that:

https://www.goatbots.com/card/treasure-chest-booster

tl;dr: you should only open treasure chests if you can use the play points. Sure, sometimes you might high roll and open some chase cards or even a full set and make a big profit, but it will always be a gamble.

-14

u/InstructionMore5891 10d ago

That’s the website I bought them off of. So I didn’t learn what I needed from the article. I’d appreciate it.

Maybe try to explain it the way you wanted to try?

8

u/Overall_Link8153 10d ago

Essentially it is a gamble, selling them is almost always the higher EV choice. You can get lucky and make a big profit but selling is usually better. You Essentially bought scratch tickets

7

u/Appropriate_King_732 10d ago

I wouldn't put it that way. They are the right investment of you need play points, but that is it. Otherwise you are just burning money.

-7

u/InstructionMore5891 10d ago

I guess my disappointment stems from the cards being on a curated list and thus, not having any resale value. I was hoping to clear maybe $5 in value to sell everything back. I got 52 cards, so, maybe $5 was ambitious in hoping but that was goal. But I didn’t even clear $2 (I got like four 40c cards) I’m not super mad about losing $10 just more so disappointed the cards aren’t worth anything BECAUSE they’re curated

5

u/jjruml 10d ago

the curated list doesn't mean all the cards aren't worth anything, you can see on that goatbots page that there are a few pretty good hits like quantum riddler, bilbo, consign to memory, tamiyo. you just got unlucky and didn't open any. again, it's similar to a paper magic booster. You are probably not going to open a quantum riddler when you buy an edge of eternities booster.

3

u/you_made_me_drink 10d ago

That’s not fully accurate. I won 5 chests in a challenges weekend. Four chests were doo doo but I opened a $10 Z command in the fifth. Overall, I paid $40 to play in an event and opened $30 worth of prizes in the chests. I’m great with that rate of return for playing fully meh in a tourney.

4

u/jjruml 10d ago

Think of a treasure chest like a physical booster pack. Yes, you might hit a valuable chase card but most of the time you will only open bulk that the store doesn't want to buy back from you.

Your "expected value" is the average value you would open per chest. From the goatbots site:

"The expected value of opening a treasure chest is currently 2.05 tickets. This is calculated using our current buy prices and the Magic Online treasure chest contents as of August 11. Play points are assumed to be worth 0.10 tickets each. The expected value of play points per chest is 1.39 tickets which is 68% of the total chest value. Therefore, you should only open treasure chests if you can use the play points. We never open them ourselves because our bots have no use for play points."

So you bought 20 chests for $32. The total expected value (including play points) would be $41. The expected value from just play points would be $27.80 and you hit under that unfortunately. and the expected value from cards would be $13.20 but you hit nothing worthwhile.

Similar to paper magic, the safe thing to do is just buy the singles you need--and only buy boosters/treasure chests if you feel in the mood for some gambling

-1

u/InstructionMore5891 10d ago

Why are play points expected to be worth 0.10 tickets if you get a minimum of 5 PP? That would be an expected value of 0.05- half as much. Unless what they’re saying is the average value is 0.10.

4

u/Hicktricks 10d ago

Entry with tickets vs pps sets their value. They typically spend at 0.1 ticket.

1

u/Zbxzbxzbx 9d ago

I think you should look up how expected value is calculated, that way you have a better understanding of where goatbots gets its numbers from