MTG thread

We sold through all of our booster boxes by like 3:00 yesterday. That's almost 100 boxes and we asked a bunch of the case buying guys to wait on their stuff till next week's restock. This set is selling at insane levels and I can't even keep it in stock with all of our wholesalers and yes the fatpacks are sold out basically everywhere.

Xalara_sl said:

If WotC doesn't do a second (or even third?) printing of fat packs they are stupid since they'd be literally leaving money on the table.

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They've already told distributors there will not be a restock for Fat Packs.

Now just wait for Oath of the Gatewatch, where Wizards prints 18 million fatpacks

Kuro_sl said:

They've already told distributors there will not be a restock for Fat Packs.

Now just wait for Oath of the Gatewatch, where Wizards prints 18 million fatpacks

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The Dark/Fallen Empires!

Set is hot garbage to open if you don't pull an expedition. I cracked three boxes and got some minor value now, but prices are cratering as people chase fetches.

New dual lands are pretty fun in play though.

When Zendikar came out, the full art lands were a nice bonus, but nobody went apeshit over them. I remember buying 200 for $24.99 to have enough for 8 player drafts amongst friends. But I guess at the time nobody knew if Wizards would suddenly switch to full art lands full time. I think people are definitely over reacting here.

Also, I agree that gouging sucks, but you have to understand that we live in a capitalistic society and if one store decided to take the moral high ground and stick to MSRP, another local store nearby would just clean them out and they'd have none to sell to their customers. Yeah, they could do 1 per customer, but still. Coolstuffinc still had 55 fat packs 16 hours ago for 49.99, but all sold out now. I laugh at all the nerds driving around waiting for Walmart and Target to stock up so they can buy them all at MSRP. The land prices will go down with all the packs being cracked and Oath having full art as well. Oath will also likely have new designs which will be nice.

I am well aware we are in a capitalist society, that is the reason why I am arguing that fat pack price gouging is bad long term business for both LGS and WotC since it will lose them customers. For example I am already reconsidering whether I want to host future game events at Card Kingdom in Seattle, and instead move them to AFKTavern. These events generate hundreds from drink/food sales. Never mind the amount of money they make from the singles I buy/sell from them that I might just end up sending to another LGS in Seattle.

Lots of other retail stores deal with demand spikes like this by limiting orders to one per person, not jacking up prices, and the reason is jacking up prices loses you customers.

It's like this because LGS have spent the last decade pushing a narrative that they're poor down-trodden charities that you are morally obligated to support at all costs. Once they got their foot in the door with the actual-limited product (Early FTV), they proceeded to jam it directly up the now-guilty-about-even-considering-buying-elsewhere customer's asshole.

Walmart should just open a courtyard in their super-walmarts, make it a combination food-court/event-space, then start hosting tournaments. Get some refugee and force him to get level 2 judge, since that's how they seem to produce workers in the other sections of the store. Also, we'd get the combination of People of Walmart and Buttcrack Guy.

Kuro_sl said:

It's like this because LGS have spent the last decade pushing a narrative that they're poor down-trodden charities that you are morally obligated to support at all costs. Once they got their foot in the door with the actual-limited product (Early FTV), they proceeded to jam it directly up the now-guilty-about-even-considering-buying-elsewhere customer's asshole.

Walmart should just open a courtyard in their super-walmarts, make it a combination food-court/event-space, then start hosting tournaments. Get some refuge and force him to get level 2 judge, since that's how they seem to produce workers in the other sections of the store. Also, we'd get the combination of People of Walmart and Buttcrack Guy.

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Man are LGS out there getting that bad? Ours in MD weren't too bad (FTV at retail during release with a few held for high sale or prizes a few months later - but always retail during launch for all but the 2 they'd hold onto for sure) and never gouging anything else.

And local place down here in FL sticks to retail for everything barring a few odd cases, and those cases they actually ASK THE CUSTOMERS what they're OK with the store charging in light of it being a high demand product. They don't do a fake song and dance about being downtrodden and needy, just let people know they've got less of X than demand and asking people what they feel is fair for them. (Basically ends up being an auction more or less - but the players get the choice at the end of the day)

Guess I've just been lucky, I hear so many horror stories on the net like y'all are implying though.

Card shops SHOULD sell at what the market can bear. MSRP is a crap system to determine price points. If people out there are willing to pay $100 per fat pack, then fat packs should cost $100. The fact is that the market for cards is so wide open with the internet that gouging is impossible. If the ONLY place you could get cards was your LGS, and they were charging $200 for a fat pack, while everywhere else the going rate was $30...THAT would be gouging.

In the face of limited supply, demand is the price driver. As for WotC not increasing supply...well, it makes long-term sense to keep a healthy secondary market and allow their partners to take some profit in order to keep a strong local community experience. They may be leaving money on the table by allowing demand to drive the price over MSRP, but that may be an acceptable sacrifice to keep the LGSs happy.

Also, its just Fat Packs that are really spiking right now, pack prices are stable, so this is not really affecting the newcoming/returning collectors and players.

Composter, your argument makes sense except for the part where almost no other retail sector will spike prices on high demand retail product. This is for good reason, spiking the price on high demand retail product* loses customers over the long term. Most of the smart LGS have kept prices close to retail and just limited purchases to one per person.

* I am not going to include things like Modern Masters and FTV in this generalization, since they are considered premium products.

Xalara_sl said:

Composter, your argument makes sense except for the part where almost no other retail sector will spike prices on high demand retail product. This is for good reason, spiking the price on high demand retail product* loses customers over the long term. Most of the smart LGS have kept prices close to retail and just limited purchases to one per person.

* I am not going to include things like Modern Masters and FTV in this generalization, since they are considered premium products.

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Most other retail product is not collectible in nature, and when it IS collectible, then prices DO spike (see Beanie Babies, etc.). When the product is collectible and a sizable portion of the demand is from speculators, then the market will be more volatile.

However, you do bring a good point about smart LGS limiting their response to the volatility in the market...that builds customer loyalty at the cost of some potential profit. It is a good strategy for a retailer that thrives off of regulars and building a community...kind of like a loss-leader in a more traditional retail model.

Well let's look at retail product from something recent that is collectible: Amiibos. From Gamestop, to Walmart, to Amazon you can find them all for retail prices on release day. You might have to line up over night, or in the case of Amazon, get lucky with that web page request, but they will all still be $13. I would bet all of these companies know how much extra they could charge for Amiibos, but all of these companies know that charging more than MSRP will lose them more than they could gain.

The fat pack allocations are kind of stupid. This has not happened in the past even with the first Zendikar. Even as a retailer I can't get them wholesale from any of the 10-12 distributors I have accounts with so I likely won't be restocking anytime soon and I only got 12 total.

Origins Jace has gone bonkers.

Yeah I just came here to wtf about Jace and see what others were saying? It's going up like $4 an hour lol
.

Almost sad I sold my Korean foil last week!

Well, Jace's seeing limited play in Legacy, moderate play in Modern Grixis (3 Blue Jund decks landing in the GP top 32, plus Open/5k Appearances), and was like half of the field at the first open of the new standard format. And he's from a set that's really shitty Expected Value per box, making cracking boxes to try to find him feel about as bad as the Worldwake Lottery (Stoneforge $15-20 at Rare VS Nissa/Lili at 15-20 mythic, and Hangarback Walker still adjusting to the Event Deck release, as your non-lotto-ticket cards).

I bought a second playset after a week of testing the new format following full spoiler. It was really hard to justify *not* playing him in all the 4+ color silliness decks. $40 felt like a completely reasonable price tag for a card that's a standard staple, eternal performer (? 2-3 months is a short time frame to say that for certain in, for eternal formats. The only legacy deck rocking Jace was also rocking Dig Through Time shenanigans, and the loss of one may kill the other. The modern half of the equation seems solid, though), higher rarity, and that Wizards has already said will not be in a supplementary product (Duel Deck) because of the PITA double-faced cards cause in printing.