For what it is worth the general goal for Starter Upgrades internally was to shoot for about 110% the power of other T3s. They ask players to lock themselves into potential build options very early on and we felt it was important for these to always feel like a + so that decision feels good. It's why we recently just announced buffs for basically all the Jungle Starters as they didn't meet that goal.
As for this post; a bit of math.
Let's use Ra's 1 as an example since its numbers are nice :
335 + 100% Magical Power. In the above build we have 725 before we add either Sacrificial or Obsidian Shard. We also have 10% Penetration from Rod Of Tahuti.
Let's assume 3 targets. 100 Magical Prots. 200 Magical Prots. 300 Magical Prots.
Sac 100 : (335 + 840) * (100 / (100 + (100 * .9))) * 1.15 = 711 damage.
Sac 200 : (335 + 840) * (100/ (100 + (200 * .9))) * 1.15 = 482 damage.
Sac 300 : (335 + 840) * (100/ (100 + (300 * .9))) * 1.15 = 365 damage.
Obs 100 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (100 * 0.6))) = 712 damage.
Obs 200 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (200 * 0.6))) = 518 damage.
Obs 300 + Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (300 * 0.6))) = 407 damage.
Obs 100 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (100 * 0.7))) = 670 damage.
Obs 200 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (200 * 0.7))) = 475 damage.
Obs 300 + No Passive : (335 + 805) * (100 / (100 + (300 * 0.7))) = 367 damage.
So Obsidian Shard pretty directly competes or outperforms on all targets compared to Sacrificial Shroud when its passive is consumed. However; when its passive is not active it does require a high amount of protections on the target to compete. In general this item is probably quite close to a point of balance if it can compete with an item that provides more Power and damage amplifies by a raw 15%; although the comparison is tricky. A small bump to its Magical Power for example make these comparisons much more favorable (and probably makes it a default go to). Their goals are a bit misaligned so one-to-one comparison is a bit strange.