The worst I ever dealt with was a store where you couldn't buy anything if the owner was in, since the owner normally didn't have help when he was on duty, and would never stop playing maple story long enough to run the register.
he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
Everything else sounds annoying, but I never understood why people god mad at this. You think you should be able to pull one over on the store because prices spiked overnight and they haven't had time to change all of their stickers? Why do you want to basically take money from your LGS? What's wrong with them charging market price for cards?
I don't mind if the price changes at the register, as long as they tell me what it changed to and let me decide if I still want it. I've never had it happen at a card store, but I bought old video games once, where the price on several of the games I was buying had apparently spiked to 10x the sticker price since the stickers were printed. Then, the cashier didn't want to let me put any back when I decided I didn't want to pay $50 for what I thought was $10 of games.
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I dislike shop owners that scream during events. Nobody wants to hear them, especially at pre-release. People just go there to play the game and should have optimum conditions.
I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean they scream when trying to get everyone's attention, or when someone does something wrong?
There's a place near me that does magic as a side, and while I used to go to it fairly frequently, they always treat everyone who walks in the door like they're thieves looking for a chance.
When you want to look at their bulk selection they take you to a separate, tiny cramped area with multiple cameras on you, and one of the employees stands literally a foot away from you watching your every move. It's pretty uncomfortable. Plus, when something does actually get stolen at one of their events, they don't care at all. So I stopped going there a long time ago.
I know exactly what you mean, and it's pathetic because the one good store that I go to has everything organized so perfectly, valuable merchandise set in plain site that it's near impossible to steal, and that's how it should be done. Also, the only bulk storage bins they let you look through is bulk commons, because any bulk rares, bulk foils, etc. they do this awesome thing where they randomly put them into 15 card lumps, sleeve them, and call it "blind repacks". They're like $2 each, you can get some really good cards, plus some will contain a piece of paper that says something like "free drink" or "free cookies". It's actually more fun than cracking actual packs. If stores were more ingenious like this, there would be no need for that awkward defense system you speak of.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the best thing about this place is that they reward good players. I've been told before that they like when I'm there because I am usually very helpful in games, and I will usually allow my opponent a chance to win as opposed to me win because of a bad starting hand or a genuine mistake about a card on their end. When I am at the shop playing EDH, I'll often go to the counter and buy more cards for one of the decks I am working on, and sometimes they will throw in cards for free. I got Teysa, Orzhov Scion for free (my commander), and I got multiple cheap-o lands for free (sure, they are only like 30 cents a pop, but over time that can pile up to $5+.) and so on. You never feel like stealing from a shop that rewards you for being a genuinely nice person.
I have lots of shops in my general area. The best of these is dedicated entirely to magic.
The worst of these stores is located in a filthy mall. The store is too small, when he runs events, they always take at least 2 hours too long, and we have to play on mall tables. His single selection involves looking at binders. You are not allowed to look at the binders, unless 2 people are in the store(one person is usually out). The worst part, however, is that he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
This is common practice where I live to look at card prices at the register. You have to understand that they do this in case prices go up OR down. They don't want to rip YOU off either.
The worst I ever dealt with was a store where you couldn't buy anything if the owner was in, since the owner normally didn't have help when he was on duty, and would never stop playing maple story long enough to run the register.
he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
Everything else sounds annoying, but I never understood why people god mad at this. You think you should be able to pull one over on the store because prices spiked overnight and they haven't had time to change all of their stickers? Why do you want to basically take money from your LGS? What's wrong with them charging market price for cards?
I don't mind if the price changes at the register, as long as they tell me what it changed to and let me decide if I still want it. I've never had it happen at a card store, but I bought old video games once, where the price on several of the games I was buying had apparently spiked to 10x the sticker price since the stickers were printed. Then, the cashier didn't want to let me put any back when I decided I didn't want to pay $50 for what I thought was $10 of games.
That's different. A good shop will let you call ahead/message on FB to ask for what cards you want, pull them aside for you, and then let you decide if you want to keep them all or not after they check the prices. If they don't let you put some back after, just tell them you don't wish to buy them at all then.
I dislike shop owners that scream during events. Nobody wants to hear them, especially at pre-release. People just go there to play the game and should have optimum conditions.
I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean they scream when trying to get everyone's attention, or when someone does something wrong?
There's a place near me that does magic as a side, and while I used to go to it fairly frequently, they always treat everyone who walks in the door like they're thieves looking for a chance.
When you want to look at their bulk selection they take you to a separate, tiny cramped area with multiple cameras on you, and one of the employees stands literally a foot away from you watching your every move. It's pretty uncomfortable. Plus, when something does actually get stolen at one of their events, they don't care at all. So I stopped going there a long time ago.
I know exactly what you mean, and it's pathetic because the one good store that I go to has everything organized so perfectly, valuable merchandise set in plain site that it's near impossible to steal, and that's how it should be done. Also, the only bulk storage bins they let you look through is bulk commons, because any bulk rares, bulk foils, etc. they do this awesome thing where they randomly put them into 15 card lumps, sleeve them, and call it "blind repacks". They're like $2 each, you can get some really good cards, plus some will contain a piece of paper that says something like "free drink" or "free cookies". It's actually more fun than cracking actual packs. If stores were more ingenious like this, there would be no need for that awkward defense system you speak of.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the best thing about this place is that they reward good players. I've been told before that they like when I'm there because I am usually very helpful in games, and I will usually allow my opponent a chance to win as opposed to me win because of a bad starting hand or a genuine mistake about a card on their end. When I am at the shop playing EDH, I'll often go to the counter and buy more cards for one of the decks I am working on, and sometimes they will throw in cards for free. I got Teysa, Orzhov Scion for free (my commander), and I got multiple cheap-o lands for free (sure, they are only like 30 cents a pop, but over time that can pile up to $5+.) and so on. You never feel like stealing from a shop that rewards you for being a genuinely nice person.
I have lots of shops in my general area. The best of these is dedicated entirely to magic.
The worst of these stores is located in a filthy mall. The store is too small, when he runs events, they always take at least 2 hours too long, and we have to play on mall tables. His single selection involves looking at binders. You are not allowed to look at the binders, unless 2 people are in the store(one person is usually out). The worst part, however, is that he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
This is common practice where I live to look at card prices at the register. You have to understand that they do this in case prices go up OR down. They don't want to rip YOU off either.
I feel like this is why it's important to build up a report with a specific LGS. I've been going to the same store for close to 10 years and I can typically get decent deals if I ask and it isn't egregious. They also value the bulk cards I trade a bit more than is typical. If you show loyalty to a store then, most of the time, you'll be rewarded for it in small, but meaningful ways. Most of the time. Stores in this thread likely excluded.
My area is a hodge-podge of decent, bad, worse, and worst.
The decent store has a good play area and an 18+ area for drinking beer if people want to use it. Downsides of not many singles, and prices are a tad iffy.
The bad store has excellent selection for singles and a huge play area, but the staff are rude and unfriendly and prices are Channel Fireball levels of jacked up. I can understand 1 or 2 dollars more, but I often see 4 or 5 dollar cards for 12 or 13.
The worse store has a small play area, but mostly because they are in a massive warehouse housing every game known to mankind. But the prices are awful, the staff is too small to handle more than 10 people at a time, and Magic is easily the last thing on the store's mind.
The worst store ironically has the best prices (at or below TCGMid on everything), but the staff is legit crazy and the store is extremely small. One guy came in to sell a chunk of his collection to help his mom pay bills. The owner wasn't in yet and requested she be there when he sells. Three hours later (and 2 hours past when she said she would be in) she's still not in, so he sells to a different shop. She banned him over that. When one of the store's Pokemon gym leaders wanted to judge at a different store on days when she wasn't at that one, the owner called her TOs to say she's been stealing and is unreliable (neither of which were true). I was the store's Magic judge, and I finally just walked in and told her to **** off.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
Everything else sounds annoying, but I never understood why people god mad at this. You think you should be able to pull one over on the store because prices spiked overnight and they haven't had time to change all of their stickers? Why do you want to basically take money from your LGS? What's wrong with them charging market price for cards?
It comes very close to bait and switch.
This might be the most absurd thing I've ever read on this site! Prices change every day. Every. Single. Day. Do you expect them to look up prices and put new stickers on every piece of inventory on a daily basis? If Fall of the Titans spiked to $40 tomorrow, do you feel like the store should sell it to you for $1 just because they didn't change their stickers?!
This is fairly common practice, I don't see what is wrong with this. If you owned a store, would you want to look up the current price? what if it went down?
There are 4 stores within 30 min of me in the coastal Carolinas. They all have quirks that irritate me, and I don't understand some business owners...
Store A) super nice store and not dependent on only magic, which is nice. They jack the prices on singles and supplemental prices through the friggin roof and the owner isn't very socialble until you break through that outer shell. I was happy to buy packs there, but I generally avoided singles like the plague. $400 for ftv:20? Yeh no thanks...
Store B) currently play here and my biggest pet peeve is the inventory system online is just wrong for anything earlier than like theros. It's annoying but the owner is actually a cool guy and in general the guys that work there are fun. They at slowly updating th inventory system too. The crowd is nice, but very competitive. It's not uncommon for 10-20 people from this store to hit an open or GP with 8 hours.
Store C) they dabble in magic and have a small set of singles for sale, like 30ish? They rarely have what I'm looking for and always try and cross sell me to other hobbies. I like driving my purchase, not being guilt tripped into inventory you shouldn't have purchased and is rotting on your shelves.
Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
There are 4 stores within 30 min of me in the coastal Carolinas. They all have quirks that irritate me, and I don't understand some business owners...
Store A) super nice store and not dependent on only magic, which is nice. They jack the prices on singles and supplemental prices through the friggin roof and the owner isn't very socialble until you break through that outer shell. I was happy to buy packs there, but I generally avoided singles like the plague. $400 for ftv:20? Yeh no thanks...
Store B) currently play here and my biggest pet peeve is the inventory system online is just wrong for anything earlier than like theros. It's annoying but the owner is actually a cool guy and in general the guys that work there are fun. They at slowly updating th inventory system too. The crowd is nice, but very competitive. It's not uncommon for 10-20 people from this store to hit an open or GP with 8 hours.
Store C) they dabble in magic and have a small set of singles for sale, like 30ish? They rarely have what I'm looking for and always try and cross sell me to other hobbies. I like driving my purchase, not being guilt tripped into inventory you shouldn't have purchased and is rotting on your shelves.
Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
*edited because I can't spell
I can forgive those except store D. That would piss me off.
If you show loyalty to a store then, most of the time, you'll be rewarded for it in small, but meaningful ways.
I highly agree with you. From the vault, modern masters, every product is sold im my lgs for MSRP. True, he only sold 10 packs of modern masters per customer, and only to frequent customers, but hey, if thats not a fair deal, what is? But sure, i usually only buy singles over the internet, because my lgs doesn´t deal in singles.
Referring to the part of the post that I put in bold.. that is quite true in my experience. There is small store at a nearby mall, only 3 employees and their boss, but they have binders full of cards each time a new set is released. When I buy in bulk, the owner would sometimes hand me a few cheap but useful cards.. and say "you can have those".
There used to be a store in my area that had a great owner, and a decent collection for such a small store. The issue was the shops player base. It was a fairly tight knit group of around 10, who seemed to be drunk, or in the act of getting drunk at all times. Waltz in the store on Tuesday at 1 pm? Be ready for three-four drunks hanging around.
After a while everyone not in that group just stopped showing up to the store, and it eventually shut down.
he will look and up adjust prices on singles AT THE REGISTER.
Everything else sounds annoying, but I never understood why people god mad at this. You think you should be able to pull one over on the store because prices spiked overnight and they haven't had time to change all of their stickers? Why do you want to basically take money from your LGS? What's wrong with them charging market price for cards?
It comes very close to bait and switch.
This might be the most absurd thing I've ever read on this site! Prices change every day. Every. Single. Day. Do you expect them to look up prices and put new stickers on every piece of inventory on a daily basis? If Fall of the Titans spiked to $40 tomorrow, do you feel like the store should sell it to you for $1 just because they didn't change their stickers?!
This is fairly common practice, I don't see what is wrong with this. If you owned a store, would you want to look up the current price? what if it went down?
I don't mind Them looking up prices, I just don't expect them to try to sell them for what star city does. They can largely get away with it because they put a ridiculous amount of effort into their inventory system and completely changed hands from a little comic shop I used to play in to this magic juggernaut. I would expect a store to sell it at SOME amount lower than star city or at least close to what I can get it for on tcg. I don't mind paying a little premium to help a local shop out, but I won't pay 20% or 30% more than what I could get it for somewhere else.
There is one bad store here. The owner bragged to me about stealing someone's binder. 'Guy set his binder on the counter while he was looking at the singles and turned when his buddy asked him a question. I grabbed his binder and put it under the counter. When he turned back around, told him I didn't see what happened.' He also completely demeans any female customers. He talks down to them (obviously, they can't understand any of these manly game things). It gets really bad when he's treating a lady like an idiot whilst trying to hit on her. Typically he doesn't get up from his games to help anyone though.
The store will not go back and get your completed and paid (and supposedly ready) Magic online order unless the Magic judge is there - which is not very often. Only the judge makes price changes on the cards but if they do get off their tail to sell a card, they will look it up and change at the register, without telling you the change, so unless you're paying attention you don't know.
They have a ton of space though. Bad lighting. Bad assistance. But lots and lots of space.
Many of you seem to live in areas with many shops, here's my anecdote about how we only have 1.
And it closed down to move to a city 30 minutes away that already has two other shops. Despite their promise to host FNM there, the old shop sits empty. Thankfully.
The guy that runs it is scummy. He went to my high school and he acts very cliquish with his employees and a few regulars. He has a really keen business sense, but without morals. I recall at one point he was buying up all of a crap planeswalker and driving up their price (Tybalt I think?). Additionally he realized that some sites had bots that would match the lowest prices they could find, so he'd list a moderately expensive card for nothing on his own site and gobble up his competitor's stock.
The prices were terrible too, but especially if you tried to sell to him. I remember selling some cards + bulk once and getting an absolutely ***** price for it, but I didn't know any better and felt pressured after they spent all that time "evaluating" my cards. My buddy worked there at the time and he told me they were laughing their asses off after I left because they ripped me off so hard. That felt great. I never went back there again.
I hate using high school stereotypes but it really just feels like a jock and his buddies taking advantage of all the nervous, socially anxious nerds that play mtg. I don't think the owner even plays magic the gathering and he's often not around. Thankfully his clique actually play magic even if he doesn't, so its not like they're 100% schemelords.
Worst MTG shop I've ever been is no longer open. You walk in and it's a mess everywhere and no employees willing to help you if you have a question. And my god the smell....it's a perfect stereotype
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Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
Would your opinion of this shop have changed in any way if, instead of, "nope," he replied, "Look, all I've got right now is this box of on dozen starving, crazed weasels"?
OT: I've heard stories about poor service at some of the local stores, but have never personally had any issues. Maybe I have lower standards, or maybe I'm just a more tolerable guy, but I have no complaints.
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Everything else sounds annoying, but I never understood why people god mad at this. You think you should be able to pull one over on the store because prices spiked overnight and they haven't had time to change all of their stickers? Why do you want to basically take money from your LGS? What's wrong with them charging market price for cards?
It comes very close to bait and switch.
This might be the most absurd thing I've ever read on this site! Prices change every day. Every. Single. Day. Do you expect them to look up prices and put new stickers on every piece of inventory on a daily basis? If Fall of the Titans spiked to $40 tomorrow, do you feel like the store should sell it to you for $1 just because they didn't change their stickers?!
This is fairly common practice, I don't see what is wrong with this. If you owned a store, would you want to look up the current price? what if it went down?
I don't mind Them looking up prices, I just don't expect them to try to sell them for what star city does. They can largely get away with it because they put a ridiculous amount of effort into their inventory system and completely changed hands from a little comic shop I used to play in to this magic juggernaut. I would expect a store to sell it at SOME amount lower than star city or at least close to what I can get it for on tcg. I don't mind paying a little premium to help a local shop out, but I won't pay 20% or 30% more than what I could get it for somewhere else.
Hmm fair enough. I wouldn't enjoy paying 20% more if i could get somewhere else.
If you show loyalty to a store then, most of the time, you'll be rewarded for it in small, but meaningful ways.
I highly agree with you. From the vault, modern masters, every product is sold im my lgs for MSRP. True, he only sold 10 packs of modern masters per customer, and only to frequent customers, but hey, if thats not a fair deal, what is? But sure, i usually only buy singles over the internet, because my lgs doesn´t deal in singles.
the LGS I mostly play at didn't deal with singles for the longest time and only recently started dealing with them again. I didn't understand why they didn't and for a while it was annoying because I had to order online a lot. Ever since the owner's son mostly started running the store they've started dealing more in singles, which is great but stores not having singles can be frustrating as a player
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I don't mind if the price changes at the register, as long as they tell me what it changed to and let me decide if I still want it. I've never had it happen at a card store, but I bought old video games once, where the price on several of the games I was buying had apparently spiked to 10x the sticker price since the stickers were printed. Then, the cashier didn't want to let me put any back when I decided I didn't want to pay $50 for what I thought was $10 of games.
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I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean they scream when trying to get everyone's attention, or when someone does something wrong?
I know exactly what you mean, and it's pathetic because the one good store that I go to has everything organized so perfectly, valuable merchandise set in plain site that it's near impossible to steal, and that's how it should be done. Also, the only bulk storage bins they let you look through is bulk commons, because any bulk rares, bulk foils, etc. they do this awesome thing where they randomly put them into 15 card lumps, sleeve them, and call it "blind repacks". They're like $2 each, you can get some really good cards, plus some will contain a piece of paper that says something like "free drink" or "free cookies". It's actually more fun than cracking actual packs. If stores were more ingenious like this, there would be no need for that awkward defense system you speak of.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the best thing about this place is that they reward good players. I've been told before that they like when I'm there because I am usually very helpful in games, and I will usually allow my opponent a chance to win as opposed to me win because of a bad starting hand or a genuine mistake about a card on their end. When I am at the shop playing EDH, I'll often go to the counter and buy more cards for one of the decks I am working on, and sometimes they will throw in cards for free. I got Teysa, Orzhov Scion for free (my commander), and I got multiple cheap-o lands for free (sure, they are only like 30 cents a pop, but over time that can pile up to $5+.) and so on. You never feel like stealing from a shop that rewards you for being a genuinely nice person.
This is common practice where I live to look at card prices at the register. You have to understand that they do this in case prices go up OR down. They don't want to rip YOU off either.
That's different. A good shop will let you call ahead/message on FB to ask for what cards you want, pull them aside for you, and then let you decide if you want to keep them all or not after they check the prices. If they don't let you put some back after, just tell them you don't wish to buy them at all then.
I feel like this is why it's important to build up a report with a specific LGS. I've been going to the same store for close to 10 years and I can typically get decent deals if I ask and it isn't egregious. They also value the bulk cards I trade a bit more than is typical. If you show loyalty to a store then, most of the time, you'll be rewarded for it in small, but meaningful ways. Most of the time. Stores in this thread likely excluded.
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The decent store has a good play area and an 18+ area for drinking beer if people want to use it. Downsides of not many singles, and prices are a tad iffy.
The bad store has excellent selection for singles and a huge play area, but the staff are rude and unfriendly and prices are Channel Fireball levels of jacked up. I can understand 1 or 2 dollars more, but I often see 4 or 5 dollar cards for 12 or 13.
The worse store has a small play area, but mostly because they are in a massive warehouse housing every game known to mankind. But the prices are awful, the staff is too small to handle more than 10 people at a time, and Magic is easily the last thing on the store's mind.
The worst store ironically has the best prices (at or below TCGMid on everything), but the staff is legit crazy and the store is extremely small. One guy came in to sell a chunk of his collection to help his mom pay bills. The owner wasn't in yet and requested she be there when he sells. Three hours later (and 2 hours past when she said she would be in) she's still not in, so he sells to a different shop. She banned him over that. When one of the store's Pokemon gym leaders wanted to judge at a different store on days when she wasn't at that one, the owner called her TOs to say she's been stealing and is unreliable (neither of which were true). I was the store's Magic judge, and I finally just walked in and told her to **** off.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
This is fairly common practice, I don't see what is wrong with this. If you owned a store, would you want to look up the current price? what if it went down?
Store A) super nice store and not dependent on only magic, which is nice. They jack the prices on singles and supplemental prices through the friggin roof and the owner isn't very socialble until you break through that outer shell. I was happy to buy packs there, but I generally avoided singles like the plague. $400 for ftv:20? Yeh no thanks...
Store B) currently play here and my biggest pet peeve is the inventory system online is just wrong for anything earlier than like theros. It's annoying but the owner is actually a cool guy and in general the guys that work there are fun. They at slowly updating th inventory system too. The crowd is nice, but very competitive. It's not uncommon for 10-20 people from this store to hit an open or GP with 8 hours.
Store C) they dabble in magic and have a small set of singles for sale, like 30ish? They rarely have what I'm looking for and always try and cross sell me to other hobbies. I like driving my purchase, not being guilt tripped into inventory you shouldn't have purchased and is rotting on your shelves.
Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
*edited because I can't spell
I can forgive those except store D. That would piss me off.
Referring to the part of the post that I put in bold.. that is quite true in my experience. There is small store at a nearby mall, only 3 employees and their boss, but they have binders full of cards each time a new set is released. When I buy in bulk, the owner would sometimes hand me a few cheap but useful cards.. and say "you can have those".
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After a while everyone not in that group just stopped showing up to the store, and it eventually shut down.
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I don't mind Them looking up prices, I just don't expect them to try to sell them for what star city does. They can largely get away with it because they put a ridiculous amount of effort into their inventory system and completely changed hands from a little comic shop I used to play in to this magic juggernaut. I would expect a store to sell it at SOME amount lower than star city or at least close to what I can get it for on tcg. I don't mind paying a little premium to help a local shop out, but I won't pay 20% or 30% more than what I could get it for somewhere else.
The store will not go back and get your completed and paid (and supposedly ready) Magic online order unless the Magic judge is there - which is not very often. Only the judge makes price changes on the cards but if they do get off their tail to sell a card, they will look it up and change at the register, without telling you the change, so unless you're paying attention you don't know.
They have a ton of space though. Bad lighting. Bad assistance. But lots and lots of space.
And it closed down to move to a city 30 minutes away that already has two other shops. Despite their promise to host FNM there, the old shop sits empty. Thankfully.
The guy that runs it is scummy. He went to my high school and he acts very cliquish with his employees and a few regulars. He has a really keen business sense, but without morals. I recall at one point he was buying up all of a crap planeswalker and driving up their price (Tybalt I think?). Additionally he realized that some sites had bots that would match the lowest prices they could find, so he'd list a moderately expensive card for nothing on his own site and gobble up his competitor's stock.
The prices were terrible too, but especially if you tried to sell to him. I remember selling some cards + bulk once and getting an absolutely ***** price for it, but I didn't know any better and felt pressured after they spent all that time "evaluating" my cards. My buddy worked there at the time and he told me they were laughing their asses off after I left because they ripped me off so hard. That felt great. I never went back there again.
I hate using high school stereotypes but it really just feels like a jock and his buddies taking advantage of all the nervous, socially anxious nerds that play mtg. I don't think the owner even plays magic the gathering and he's often not around. Thankfully his clique actually play magic even if he doesn't, so its not like they're 100% schemelords.
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Would your opinion of this shop have changed in any way if, instead of, "nope," he replied, "Look, all I've got right now is this box of on dozen starving, crazed weasels"?
OT: I've heard stories about poor service at some of the local stores, but have never personally had any issues. Maybe I have lower standards, or maybe I'm just a more tolerable guy, but I have no complaints.
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Hmm fair enough. I wouldn't enjoy paying 20% more if i could get somewhere else.
the LGS I mostly play at didn't deal with singles for the longest time and only recently started dealing with them again. I didn't understand why they didn't and for a while it was annoying because I had to order online a lot. Ever since the owner's son mostly started running the store they've started dealing more in singles, which is great but stores not having singles can be frustrating as a player