Conjured Currency, Modern Masters

Dealing with 150,000 Bulk Commons

May 27, 2015 Douglas Johnson 9 Comments

I’m not going to talk about Modern Masters 2015.

“But DJ, it’s the hottest ne—”

Don’t care.

“There are a bunch of complaints about the packaging an—”

Nope.

“This set is going to make Tarmogoyf into a $50 ca-”

No, it’s not. And I said I don’t care.

Maybe that’s a bit of an aggressive opening to this week’s article, but it’s honestly how I feel. I’m not diving in headfirst and buying mass copies of cards that have been reprinted, and I’m not squirreling away boxes of the set so as to gamble on their long-term desirability.

My methodology stays that same throughout this turbulent time in pricing, and that’s, “Buy stuff at or below buylist prices, and then sell it for TCGplayer-low through local individuals, Facebook groups, and on TCGplayer itself.” It’s really that simple, for the most part. If Timmy/Tammy cracks a Mox Opal but was hoping for an Emrakul, I’ll be happy to ship her $20 for it so that shecan grab two more lottery tickets.

…I just talked about Modern Masters, didn’t I? Crap.

That Is Over Now, Though

Actually, this article is supposed to be one that will continue to be useful months and years after MM2015 stops causing a financial hurricane. About a month ago, I purchased a pretty large lot of bulk commons and uncommons: approximately 150,000.

Thanks to being able to negotiate with a past employer who owns a videogame store, I’m able to have access to a display case and physical retail location where I can buy and sell singles, collections, and bulk lots. My most popular item is definitely a lot of 1,000 randomized commons and uncommons sold in a BCW storage box for $7.

Quick aside: While I used to highly recommend ordering these boxes en masse from BCW itself, its shipping costs have changed since I last ordered from the site.

supershittyshipping — “Super Saver Shipping”? Not exactly.

If anyone reading this knows of an alternative method to acquire 1,000 count boxes for a cheaper price, please feel free to let me know so I can spread the word. I’d like to know for myself as well.

One of the “Magic Rules of Magic Finance” that I tend to repeat a lot is that I will always pay $4 per thousand on unseen bulk commons and uncommons and never more. If I am already stocked up on tens of thousands of cards and am in no rush to acquire more, I’ll lower my buy price down to $3 per thousand. If the person I’m working with wants to trade for cards out of my binder, I’ll give $5 per thousand. Because a large majority of the cards in this lot were common and sorted by set and color, I ended up giving $500.

Sorting 150,000 Commons

It’s actually a lot more annoying for me to buy collections of commons and uncommons that are sorted methodically by color and/or set, because casual players don’t really want 14 copies of Pensive Minotaur all lined up next to each other. They want one or two of each minotaur from the set, and some supporting cards from other sets so they can build their own 78-card unsleeved minotaur deck akin to how Tony Stark built his first Iron Man suit. The more randomized, the better, and I let people know that before they sell to me.

The most frustrating part of this buy was effectively randomizing the 100,000 cards from the recent blocks of Return to Ravnica and Theros and mixing them into the older stuff that was among the collection. Ideally, you want a wide mix of cards in every box so that Timmy/Tammy doesn’t feel like he should have just dropped his money at Wal-Mart on two packs of Return to Ravnica and gotten some rares with a chance at a planeswalker.

(Side note: announcing that you threw a planeswalker into one of these boxes may have the side effect of new players ravenously buying out every single box in hopes of being the winner of the Golden Ticket).

Thankfully I’m a college student and have other friends who had nothing to do but pick through my intimidating wall of Magic cards. That plus the promise of food and Netflix helps.

A Barren Landscape

No, we didn’t find a Wasteland or anything else close to that amount of money in a single card. The person that I purchased the lot from had thoroughly picked it of almost everything that I would have set aside, and I was actually more impressed than anything. It was definitely the cleanest-picked collection I have ever seen, so it freed me up to skim through a lot of the sorted cards without worrying about missing anything. However, there were a couple of things that I did end up finding…

Shadowborn Apostle has gone the way of Relentless Rats, to the surprise of zero people. While buylists only pay around $.15, they’re easily able to be unloaded locally in sets of 20 for $15 to all of those casual demon players or anyone wanting to make a fun EDH deck with Athreos, God of Passage. Out of dozens of forgotten M14 commons, these guys helped make up for the fact that all of the relevant uncommons were already spoken for.

As for the tokens, I’ve previously written about how tokens are often forgotten about and can be free money. While not all of them will be worth $.50 to $1 on a buylist, they’re easy ways to add a little bit of value to a trade here and there. At the absolute worst, I like to use them as throw-ins when I sell their associated card on TCGplayer, to practically guarantee a positive feedback review. As a general rule, a token will become more expensive as its associated card increases in price. If SCG will pay $.25 a piece for Young Pyromancer tokens, you can get at least $.50 to $1 from the actual players who want to use them.

Eventually, I ran out of uncommons to ration appropriately throughout the 1K boxes. What I had left were 50,000 or so commons without additional uncommons, so I decided to label and price them differently without waiting to get my hands on more uncommons. As you can see in the picture, the “1,000 commons and uncommons” boxes are labeled “1K”, and the ones that have zero uncommons are labeled “1KC”. You can’t see in this picture, but I have the labeling explained on the top of the boxes as well. I’ll be selling the ones with just commons for only $5 per thousand, and it’ll be a nice experiment to determine whether the casual players who shop at the store are more attracted to having uncommons in their boxes or the lower price tag associated with removing them.

Moving 150,000 Commons

Thankfully, I have more than one out for these. In addition to having a passive source of income at the store, I’ll be making a Craigslist ad for these once I get back from Vegas now that I’m home for the summer.

I’ve even seen a bit of interest on Facebook for buying lots of 5,000 cards for above my usual sell prices, which helps take shipping into account. The sentence, “I just want to have a bunch more cards to add to my collection, kind of like opening a much less expensive booster box,” is music to my ears, so I’ll be looking into Facebook in the future to not only sell singles, but bulk lots that have been customized to have rares and mythics included.

Overall Evaluation of my Experience

I’ve seen multiple other articles where at the end of the exercise, the author will break down and calculate exactly how much money he made through buylisting the picked singles, selling the bulk, and determine an hourly rate that he basically worked for. I’m not going to do that. I already know that I probably made less than minimum wage during the time that I was randomizing these cards, boxing them up, moving them into the store, making advertisements to sell them, etc. However, I’m also a college student who didn’t have a whole lot else to do other than work on school papers, play League of Legends, and watch Netflix.

I don’t need to be told whether or not it was worth my time, because I understand that not every collection earns you $300 an hour because you happened to find a playset of Forces in the small box labeled “old blue commons.”

End Step

I forgot to mention this last week, but thankfully I haven’t really seen anyone mention it since. While everyone else was complaining about the higher-end cards that weren’t in Modern Masters 2015, I saw that Spell Pierce had also been omitted. I don’t think that it has too high of a power level for Standard, so I wouldn’t be completely shocked to see it in something like Magic Origins or in the next Zendikar block. I think selling these off is the call for now.

I had a local casual player ask me if I had any Archenemy schemes, and I was surprised to see that some of the random ones I had that were collecting dust were actually worth a decent amount of money. If you have schemes or Planechase planes from the multiplayer sets, I recommend doing an inventory and seeing if any are worth buylisting or throwing up on eBay/TCGplayer. Hint: the Time Walk one is worth something.

Anyone have personal stories of buying massive amounts of commons and uncommons? Find anything cool, or was it cleaned out like mine? Let me hear your stories! I’ll be in Las Vegas for the Grand Prix as of this past Tuesday, so hit me up on Twitter if you want to find time to hang out!

ProTrader, Sigmund Ausfresser, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Make Money By Going Nostalgic

May 25, 2015 Sigmund Ausfresser 14 Comments

I remember 1993 as if it was yesterday. The World Series was won by a Canadian team, the Toronto Blue Jays. Canada also took down a Stanley Cup, something they haven’t done in a while, via the Montreal Canadiens. It was the year of “Got Milk?” and Mrs. Doubtfire was outclassed only by Jurassic Park in the movie world.

According to http://www.pop-culture.us/Annual/1993.html, “The Habit” of 1993 was a little collectible card game called Magic: the Gathering.

Anyone who played Magic in the early-to-mid 90’s remembers wishing this card was in every pack they opened…ok this isn’t precisely the case, but I sure remember wishing I owned a copy of this top-end creature. Even now, 20 years later, I feel incredibly nostalgic when looking at my favorite classic cards. That nostalgia is my primary motivation for maintaining a separate “not-for-trade” binder. The binder isn’t about value, though there are certainly some valuable cards inside. It’s more about cards I’ve enjoyed as a kid or cards with artwork I love so much that I want to keep a copy of the card forever.

In the “New Age” of Magic — Modern Masters 2015 reprints, flashy sets filled with Dragons and computer-generated artwork — my nostalgia for classic cards and art grows continuously.

And it seems I’m not the only one who feels this way…

Welcome to Old School (93/94)

From http://oldschoolmtg.com/, here’s a brief overview of the format:

“93/94, Old School Mtg, started 2007 in the casual Magic scene in Gothenburg, Sweden, and have since grown with players across Europe and North America. A total of seven sets are allowed in the format: Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark…” [SIC]

Essentially, this is a fledgling format all about enjoying the Magic of yester-year. While technically I didn’t start playing Magic until 1997, I can still appreciate the concept of a format based around the earlier days of the game, where cards like this were highly relevant:

“Seriously? During the release of the most financially impactful set of all time, you’re going to write about Alpha Shivan Dragons and Beta Icy Manipulators?”

Yes, for two reasons.

First, I am 100% confident you will be inundated with Modern Masters 2015 articles throughout the week. From strategy and how to build a sealed pool to what cards to sell immediately to what cards to acquire, it’ll all be covered by my esteemed colleagues here. While I could be content to share my thoughts, I suspect they’ll overlap tremendously with the rest. Frankly, I’d prefer to write something unique that will bring new perspective to MTG finance.

Second, I suspect there is some very relevant financial information associated with this nostalgic phenomenon. More and more players are talking about older cards and I’m noticing my Twitter feed is filled with this buzz. But there’s no explosion of interest yet – I would go out on a limb and suggest this isn’t even as big as Tiny Leaders, which is arguably more hype than actual format. That being said, getting into this format on the ground floor is absolutely critical.

Don’t care about a nostalgic format? Too young to remember casting Juzam Djinn and Hypnotic Specter? This may not be important. I’m not here to sell you on a (yet another) format; I’m writing this column to drive awareness of a small trend with potential for profound financial impact. This is about getting in front of the curve.

Some Observations

Doctor Superstition (@DSuperstition) is an active member of the Old School Mtg community, and he’s been tweeting some curious observations of late.

These comparisons fascinate me. They may not be incredibly successful in converting players to Old School MTG, but they present some intriguing, hypothetical trades — even highly relevant trades, considering all the MM2015 booster packs that are about to be opened. Imagine opening a Mox Opal at GP Vegas, only to be offered a Beta Hypnotic Specter in trade for your sweet pull. Would you do it?

As Doctor Superstition pointed out, the two cards have roughly the same value. But looking at the charts above, which one would you rather sit on for the long term?

Ok, so it doesn’t take much to convince folks that old-school cards are safe to hold for the long haul. Everyone can look at charts like those above, comparing MM2015 reprints and playable Beta cards, and make this same conclusion. That’s not the most breakthrough observation, I’ll admit. But it does plant a seed in the back of my mind for when I’m in Vegas…

The “ah-ha” observation comes from looking at other charts for Old School Mtg cards alongside the current stock of major retailers such as Star City Games.

Consider Tawnos’s Coffin, for example, which is seemingly sold out across most the internet.

This is the buyout that no one is talking about. The Antiquities artifact is sold out mostly everywhere, and you can see how both the value and buy list price jumped simultaneously, a sign of very positive upward momentum. This isn’t some forced buy-out here – this is a move backed by retailers. And you can bet the farm that when SCG restocks this card, it’ll have a much higher price tag than its current $24.99 one.

Of course, the trend on Tawnos’s Coffin could be a fluke. It’s a powerful Commander card, so maybe people are finally discovering it? It’s plausible, but I don’t believe Tawnos’s Coffin is the only old-school card suddenly gaining interest.

This is one I’ve been highlighting on Twitter lately. Old Man of the Sea’s price seems stagnant when looking at the green curve. But when you assess the blue curve, indicating top buy list price, you can see a noteworthy incline. Retailers are having a tougher time keeping this creature in stock, and it won’t take much to see a sudden spike here as we did with Tawnos’s Coffin. Though it’s worth noting Star City Games has nine total copies in stock with NM listed at $59.99 (this is $10 higher than the price was a month ago).

One of the neatest Old School Mtg card is Chaos Orb, which has also seen significant buy list increases over the past couple years, including one earlier this year.

I hear it’s not easy to keep nice copies of this rare artifact in stock. Star City Games is completely sold out of the most affordable Unlimited version, with a NM price of $99.99. This card seriously deserves more attention than it is currently getting.

The three examples above highlight an important trend – these nostalgically popular cards are destined to increase in price. This should come as no surprise to people. What’s critical to consider, however, is the potential impact an Old School MTG format could have on some of these prices. Let’s face it – there aren’t many Chaos Orbs and Tawnos’s Coffins out there. Any spike in demand, no matter how small, could have a profound impact on card prices.

I’m not here to incite a buyout. If people were to suddenly start speculating on these cards like they did on Tiny Leaders, it could prove detrimental to the health of Old School MTG. Availability is a major consideration here.

But I am trying to inspire you to consider adding a few of these cards into your MTG portfolio. They provide tremendous stability with significant upside. In fact, I’d probably rather have a few Chaos Orbs than, say, a couple booster boxes of Modern Masters 2015. I believe there is much greater upside and lower risk to the former. MM2015 boxes may be good investments eventually, but with so many unknowns right now in this unprecedented time, I can’t help but encourage caution.

Wrapping It Up

Thus summarizes my strategy heading to GP Vegas. Some players will be anxiously dumping the pulls from their MM2015 booster packs. Others will be keenly aware of dropping prices, attempting to pick up their Tarmogoyfs and Vendilion Cliques at a favorable price. While I have a short Modern shopping list myself, I’ll be most interested in picking up some of these older cards.

The reason for this move has nothing to do with my desire to play Old School MTG (although it does sound like a fun format). Rather, I’m noticing a gradual trend towards these nostalgic cards and I recognize that any spurt in demand could lead to drastic price fluctuations. A small surge in Tawnos’s Coffin interest has caused one retailer to double their buy price overnight. ABU Games and Star City Games are two vendors that do not like being out of stock of these older cards – if that trend occurs too frequently, they WILL up their buy prices.

By keeping an eye out for deals now, and trading strategically into some of these nostalgic cards over time, you set yourself up for strong portfolio growth going forward. And if this 93/94 format ever does grow legs, you could be looking at some surprising double-ups. Even if that doesn’t happen, collecting stuff like Guardian Beast and Island of Wak-Wak is just plain fun. With most of these cards also being on the Reserved List, you can be confident your investments will, at a minimum, hold their value. Cards like these remind me of what initially got me into Magic. Collecting these cards and then making bank on them would just be icing on the cake.

…

Sig’s Quick Hits

Here are a few other Old School Mtg cards I have my eye on for GP Vegas:

I mentioned Guardian Beast towards the end of this column. The Arabian Nights creature has increased in value by about $10 over the past year. But what really interests me is the top buy list price, which has been steadily increasing throughout 2015. SCG has three total copies in stock, with zero being NM ($79.99 price tag). If you want a copy, why not trade into one soon?
Dark Ritual has been printed a billion times. You can find hundreds of copies for $0.50 throughout the internet. But how many Alpha copies of the black instant can you find? None at Star City Games, where they are sold out with a $39.99 price tag. Yet again I see the top buy list price steadily rising over the past 6-12 months despite choppy action in estimated value. I have to imagine this card is a power-house in Old School MTG, and definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Speaking of cards that have been reprinted a ton, City of Brass is also worth closer inspection. The original printing of this Nonbasic land has been on a steady incline over the past couple years as well. Did you know this card retails for $79.99 now?! Star City Games has a handful of copies in stock, but finding NM copies can be quite difficult!
BONUS TIP: Want to go real deep? Reviewing some of the top decks of the 93/94 format, it looks like Su-chi is a popular card. The artifact creature is an uncommon from Antiquities, so it’s not as difficult to find as some of the other cards I’ve mentioned earlier. But the top buy list price has jumped from $2 to $3 earlier this year. SCG has 17 total copies in stock, with only 1 being NM at $5.99. It probably wouldn’t take much to manipulate this card’s price, but I’d much rather be in the camp of obtaining my set now and sitting on them for a couple years.

Jared Yost, The Gilded Goblin

Modern Masters 2015 – Release Weekend Update

May 25, 2015 Jared Yost 18 Comments

First, the good news. Modern Masters 2015 can be reordered, so you can all rejoice about how easy it is to get packs.

Now, the negatives. If you want those MM 2015 packs right away please keep in mind that there are several issues going on with the first print run of the set. This first run might not be that desirable due to printing and packaging errors. And let me be clear, there are many errors with this product. James did a good job in pointing out the issues.

Non-Tamper Proof Packaging

Since Wizards decided to be Earth-friendly for the release of Modern Masters 2015, they are putting these packs in cardboard packaging and using glue to keep the packages closed together. This youtube video shows why that maybe wasn’t such a great idea. Modern Masters is going to have value, but please make sure to get your packs from reputable dealers or people that you trust.

In-Pack Card Damage

Next on the list is in-pack card damage. This Twitter picture pretty much tells it all.

I find it quite sad that every single foil common in the box was nicked in this manner. What do you do if you open a money common foil and it had this type of issue? What if every card in your pack had these kind of nicks? Not a very good feeling to see that pack fresh cards aren’t coming out NM and knowing that you have a good chance with this first run to get stuck with cards that are damaged due to the loose-packing style of the cardboard boosters.

Collation Issues

This reddit post does a great job explaining how cards in packs seem to be having collation issues. Washed out colors, misprints, badly centered cards – these are all basic things that shouldn’t be happening in sets like Dragons of Tarkir, let alone Modern Masters 2015. I’m wondering if the cardboard packaging did this to the cards or if the quality control was just that bad. Maybe it’s a one-of case that just happens to be anecdotal? Not sure, but based on what others are saying I find it hard to believe that this is an isolated case.

Pack Rarity Distribution Errors

This reddit post gives an account of packs containing no rares coming out of a sealed box. In the comments, a user gives an account of a friend opening packs containing multiple rares per pack. With this issue, I believe that Wizards will replace the defective product (that is, packs containing no rares) however it is still just another example of the low quality control seen so far.

Another issue with this is that you can even get these crazy DISCARD cards in your slot, or worse your mythic rare slot:

These DISCARD cards are a bit more common, as they have happened over the years in plenty of recent packs of sets, but to get one in a $10 pack is still pretty disheartening.

Wizards’ Response So Far

Unfortunately, I don’t think there is going to be a lot that you can do about many of these issues. Wizards was listening to feedback starting on Friday and through Saturday about the reported print run issues and released this Twitter statement along with an official statement from the mothership.

This statement doesn’t address anything with the concerns that people have been bringing up. It’s kind of a slap in the face to players, especially those who have bought boxes at WPN locations and discovered the issues with cards were nicked upon opening. Some of the louder voices on Twitter are continuously asking what we can do if we get packs with these types of print run issues. Hopefully there will be recourse in the future for the issues but for now we’ll just have to wait and see.

Continuous Discussion About Value and Condition

I’ve talked about potential issues with value for Modern Masters 2015 in my last article, but this video by Tolarian Community College does an amazing job explaining exactly why or why not to buy into Modern Masters 2015. He does get a bit preachy, especially when calling Wizards greedy for pricing packs with Goyfs in them at $10, but after seeing everything that has been going on with Modern Masters 2015 at this point I am inclined to agree with him. He also provides more documented footage of card conditions of cards that are coming out of pack fresh boosters. Great, straight-to-the-point coverage by The MTG Professor.

I realize that the vocal minority always complains the loudest. However, in my many years of playing Magic I have never experienced the amount of card quality complaints that I am seeing with this set over the past weekend. One factor could be because of the higher cost of entry – since players are paying more, they expect a higher quality product, and who can blame them. I have certain expectations when purchasing a Cadillac versus purchasing a Ford, however with Magic cards it should be even easier to guarantee that the product is up to snuff. Another reason might be the bandwagon effect – since it is popular to complain about Modern Masters 2015 during opening weekend, why not chime in with your own personal anecdote even if most other players haven’t experienced it. I mean, we’re all just kind of shooting from the hip here since we don’t know how exactly how much of the product is defective. However, recently players have said the Commander 2014 decks were also having issues, and I don’t remember the feedback for those decks being as negative as for Modern Masters 2015. This is only the first weekend, so maybe over time we’ll see that this is just overblown. However, I felt it was important to write this article because if you experienced these types of issues with your premium Modern Masters 2015 packs then please know that you are not alone and that several other community members both on Twitter and Reddit have been documenting and adding issues they are finding with the set.

I’ll leave you with this – even after seeing all of the issues with Modern Masters 2015, I still think Wizards has a chance to get it right with the next print run. They seem to have recognized that there is a problem, due to them Tweeting about it and releasing a statement on Saturday, however now we need action from Wizards to follow up with their mistakes. I expect great things from Modern Masters 2015 and hopefully future waves will correct the mistakes we are seeing on release weekend.

Ginger Ale

Coolest Ginger You Know (Part 2)

May 22, 2015 Houston Whitehead 1 Comment

By: Houston Whitehead

Before reading, read Coolest Ginger You Know (Part 1).

…as a podcaster

Out of all the content creation choices in the Magic Community, why Podcasting? I have no idea. I’ve never been the best story teller. I’ve never desired a position of leadership or had a desire to build a brand. I wasn’t lazy but some of us just don’t enjoy leading the pack. I think its human nature to make a difference in the world, in some form or fashion, but I never thought podcasting would result in have such opportunities. On Tap N Sac Ep #100 “Remember Your Roots” we bring back an original cohost of the show to tell the origin story of how the show started but I’ve never really talked about why I decided to keep making episodes when my original cohosts moved on to other interests. We all thought starting a podcast would just be a fun phase in our lives and eventually become a joke to tell the kids one day. For some reason, I just enjoyed the freedom of speech aspect podcasting had. I had a radio show in college (Rock and a Hard Place w/ DJ Ginger Ale) that I enjoyed until the procedures, guidelines, and drama exiled the happiness sharing music brought to me.

I interned for a Nashville Rock Radio station for a semester and found a similar set of amplified problems restricting creativity and unconventional expression. During both of these experiences I was still making Tap N Sac episodes with a new set of cohosts. I started looking forward to casting every week and eventually realized my love of being behind a mic didn’t have to result in a career. It can simply be the same experience athletes feel when they hit the gym to relieve stress or artist feel when they paint to forget about the world. What gives the podcast experience depth is the community that supports it. I love talking to players at the local stores but Podcasting lets me interact with anyone who dares to download an episode. People listen because they enjoy the content, can interact with the casters behind the mics, and be a part of a like-minded community. What’s better than that?!

…as a writer

Similar to podcasting, if you told me when I graduated high school I would enjoy writing essays (aka articles) outside of the classroom I would laugh you out of the room. English was my least favorite subject and the concepts of grammar, spelling, and punctuation never really hit home. I type how I talk and constantly have to simplify my wordy sentences. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who’s edited my articles.

So why the hell did I start writing? It was probably when listeners ask me why I didn’t write articles. Also, I had to do a project in college where we made a blog and wrote stuff on it throughout the semester. When the project concluded (I got an A), I just kept writing. I wrote about digital media and philosophy because they intrigued me and, in turn, eventually became my major and minor for my bachelor’s degree. College busyness, jobs, and podcasting restricted the amount of writing I did but I always wrote down most of the content ideas (still a Google Doc currently four pages long). Writing was just another way to interact and give back to a community I was proud to be a part of. Now I am honored to write amongst the financial juggernauts here at MTG Price.com and continue to attempt a weekly production of read-worthy articles.

…as a community member

Somehow no matter what happened at last Fridays FNM I’m always excited to cap off the last weekday with a Magic tournament. I’ve always wondered how many hours I’ve actually spent at a LGS (Local Game Store). Even when I worked at one I’m probably clocked in more hours off the clock than on. The gaming culture is nothing short of one-of-a-kind. From your favorite types of personalities to those who have somehow made all you pet peeves into everyday habits. You can find just about anything but a date at your local gamers paradise. I look at the singles case even when I’m not going to buy anything. I’ll buy booster packs of a game I don’t even play just because it’s more fun than scratching off a lottery ticket. LGS’s are the gateway to competition and the where the kitchen table casual players can play when mom sprawled out her “organized” session of coupon clipping. It’s where every player has a chance to make a difference. If you work at one you can also come up with some fun and creative ways to run tournaments or pull players to your store. Nothing is more satisfying than making the store profit while also keeping the players fed and happy. Everything above is a moment, experience, or story I was a part of or observed at a LGS. I didn’t have to say a card name or tell and exaggerated “how I made him salty” story to convince you this community is diverse and one-of-a-kind.

When I guest stared on Erin Cambell’s podcast The Deck Tease (Episode #45) she ask me why I put links to my social accounts in the shownotes? A good question with a simple answer. I never expected the show to be downloaded in the first place. Having another outlet to interact with MTG players outside my local area was an exciting opportunity, not a safety issue. With that answer, I realized as a trader, collector, player, podcaster, writer, and community member, the interactions that happen around the game are just as enjoyable as playing it.

As always thanks for reading

@TNSGingerAle

MTGPrice Blog