I had intended to post their grading table, but the preview deemed it as "Spam" so I removed it.
This is my opinion and experiences with Channel Fireball.
I've come close to posting my experiences with this company and a few others, but each time I get busy with other stuff, let it slide, and chalk it up as it's not a huge deal in the whole scheme of things. I do want to say that I've been dealing with CFB for many years and until early 2015, I've never had anything but exceptional service and spot on grading! They are still giving great customer service and doing a great job grading cards. But I have been noticing some minor changes. It's not that they are doing a bad job, it's that up to 2 years ago they were so far above the other companies "imho" and exceptional in all areas. As this company continues to implement minor changes to their online store structure, "imho" they are no longer leaps and bounds above the competition, but are still considered to be in the top 5 places that I buy cards from.
Here is a list of changes that I've noticed. You can be the judge on which are an improvement or not. Some other people might also be noticing this company slightly changing over the past 2 years. Some of the changes are very recent. Some are very slight differences.
1. Slightly increased prices
2. Slightly decreased variety
3. Product lines discontinued
4. They still offer "free" shipping on orders over $25 that contain singles Only, but removed the free shipping on orders over $500 that contain sealed products.
5. Lower "buylist" prices offered
6. 2015-2016 shipping charges seemed to continue to go up and are on track to be in the same area as Troll & Toad, but in the recent weeks some alterations seem to be in the works.
7. Very friendly phone support.
8. quick product reimbursement
9. They used to have a month long "Spring Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
10. They used to have a month long "Summer Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
11. They used to have a month long "Fall Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
12. They used to have a month long "Winter/Holiday Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
13. They have added a "holiday gift ideas" sale that has 23 different items on sale.
14. They have added a few different sales that last a few days here and there throughout the year.
15. Special crate deals have been added along with a few box price discounts, which are good.
16. I like to buy booster boxes, but can no longer do it with this company as the shipping is just too much. I understand that shipping is expensive, but when you pull up shipping rates from USPS and see what it should cost to be shipped to you, and then compare that to what they are charging, it's very disingenuous to say the least. Kind of the way someone used to sell something at a great price, only to gouge you on the shipping charges. This is not on everything you put in your cart, but if you switch a few items in and out, you will see what I mean.
17. Some staff changes in upper positions.
Anyway this is my current review of CFB and I would still give them an A-/B+ as a combined grade! I will continue to purchase singles from them, but pick up my sealed products from other stores.
I will also do a review for Troll & Toad, Card Kingdom, ABU, Star City Games, Coolstuff, and Strikezone in January of 2017.
I've sold cards to CardHaus Games many times in the past, and each time was a smooth transaction. The last time I sold cards through their Buylist was in 2014, and it went as expected.
More recently, about 7-8 months ago I submitted another Buylist, but this time I received a new type of response in the form of this: We recently started putting more time into the website, to bring it back to a current and efficient online store once again. Right now we are working on updating all of the out-dated Buylist prices and Sell prices. So the Buylist you submitted had to be altered to reflect current market prices. We apologize for this, but after we get the site running smoothly once again, there will be no need to alter the prices that are posted, as our inventory will be accurate, current, and correctly reflect the amount we can pay for each card on the Buylist.
The drastic alterations to (quantity wanted/prices offered) to the Buylist 7-8 months ago, prevented any cards to be sold to them.
Now many months later, I am ready to sell some more cards. I tried calling them but got their answering machine saying "we do not answer the phone or listen to the messages, so please send an email if you have any questions"
Now right off that would be a huge red flag, but they had the same answering machine message years ago when I sold them cards, and each one of those transactions went great. I am just not sure if they are still Great to deal with or ???.
So I would like to know of other people's recent(2016) Buying/Selling experiences with CardHaus Games.
The only thing I like about Magic Origins so far is the way they are doing the spoilers. For example: When they spoiled Modern Masters 2015, they spoiled all the good cards and got everyone so excited day after day and then they drop the other 2/3 of the set which was utter crap for a $10 pack! They should of spoiled it with a mix of "Good & Bad" C,U,R, and Mythics along the way like they are doing here in Magic Origins; with the exception that they are holding back all the good cards and only spoiling the trash. Hmm... I guess they did the exact opposite... Well, Maybe on the next set they will have it figured out to mix it up more.
I anticipated that Magic Origins would be more of a kick off to the new way sets will rotate in and out and start it off with a dynamite set since the set name means "beginning, first stage of existence", like a new era of magic. I see now that they are using it to represent the beginning of some of the planes-walkers. Cool idea, but the only one that looks any good atm is Gideon. For the most part you have to spend too much effort to get a planes-walker out of them, and very easy for your opponent to prevent that from happening. If you play a regular planes-walker you at least get to use one of the abilities right away before your opponent can cast Hero's downfall or one of a few other cards as an instant to destroy it. You get something for the 1 for 1 change in that example, but these new apprentice planes-walkers for the most part will be killed off quickly and you got nothing extra. Some of them you might even be playing a few other cards in the deck to basically help flip them. playing a 3 cost nissa that is a 2/2 creature that won't flip until you have 7 lands in play seem pretty bad in standard. Then if you do flip her, the top ability is to get more mana. You already have at least 7 mana!!! Chandra is a 2/2 for 1RR, why does red want to spend their turn 3 on putting out a 2/2??? I am done complaining
I am not writing the set off, but so far of what has been spoiled I am not impressed and would not be opening any packs... I am sure it will get better though. It can't get much worse lol /grin
It sounds like the bot put you on the suspended list. If this is the one of the bots that I am thinking of that can be rented or purchased, then owner of those kind of bots can also ban, or suspend the mtgo account by the name and/or IP Address. This is just a possible conclusion. If it is the one I am thinking about, make sure you don't argue with or say you will contact wotc for help. That will only get you put on the suspended/banned list of every bot of that type. Not just that certain bot line, but every bot that was built and sold to/used by/or rented by all of the different companies/people. The option is written in the code that can flag you on every one of the bots of that style.
I didn't mention any names since I heard that if you are logged in and say a certain bot is trying to keep your credit, that it is considered harassment. Even if you post a message that says send me a message for a list of possible shady/scammer bots. That is considered harassment also, so basically if you tell anyone that a specific bot has ripped you off, that is harassment. Which I don't understand at all, because if a player rips you off you can report them and wotc will pull up the trades between you and most likely help you, but if a bot does it, it's almost like a no man's land and bots are not subject to follow the rules of stealing, but if you say anything about a certain bot, you will be punished for harassment. ??? That makes no sense.
I read the rules and I don't think I have said anything here that would not be permitted, since I used no names.
If these packs are not sealed air tight like a sealed foil wrapper pack, what are some of the other problems with buying packs a few years down the road? Like the possibility of the foils being all scratched up from dust settling inside the packs?
For the person that says foil packs are not air tight either, because they have small holes poked into them to release the air from the inside of the pack before they are boxed up. Those holes are very small.
My main irritation is the way wotc gave us spoilers. They put them out in a manner to deceive the public into thinking this set was going to be much more than what it actually is. They spoiled high priced and great modern cards to lure people into pre-ordering this set so they wouldn't miss out like they did on MM1. And that would be fine if the whole set or a large part of the set is going to be that way, but it isn't. The spoilers should of been given out with a much more honest intent, rather than a bait and switch! Go look at how many good rares were spoiled out the last 19 rares. I think it was 1 out of 19. They made the public think that the set was going to be something that it wasn't. I am not mad at what is in the set, but I am irritated in the way they deceived people into getting excited and pre-ordering. They should of mixed the spoilers between good and bad cards, so we could see what we were truly going to get, instead they show us only the best cards to get us excited and then blindside us when we were dazzled.
Play wise the set is missing a lot of supporting commons and uncommons and a ton of rares that you could play in a modern deck if you want to play with bad cards and lose a lot! Money wise you will either be Yeah! Nice pull! when you open a pack or Furious that you paid $10 to open another bulk rare. There is very little middle ground with this set. Basically this is like a lottery scratch-it ticket. They did do a much better job on the mythics. The rare table it is almost like they had a money value that all the rares needed to add up to and that amount was eaten up quickly with a few high priced rares and to keep that in balance they had to fill the rest of the slots with Bulk and lower priced cards.
I think red suffered the most as it has 1 rare that is worth more than nothing, and the mythic is kiki-jiki again! I would rather of seen blood moon at a mythic spot. And no goblin guide.. hmm... Why are the Urza's tower, Mine, and power plant not a common land in this set when you print 5 eldrazi? And with those in they would of needed to put in tectonic edge. I am surprised they didn't also put in a white board wipe or at least Black Sun's Zenith.
Overall the set will be out there for people to purchase at MSRP or less, and that would not of happened if it was chalk full of expensive rares. So if you look at it in that light that is a win for people. But they still suckered people into pre-ordering with all the hype and false expectations of how good this set was going to be. Kind of like a car salesman would do. lol...
This is my opinion and experiences with Channel Fireball.
I've come close to posting my experiences with this company and a few others, but each time I get busy with other stuff, let it slide, and chalk it up as it's not a huge deal in the whole scheme of things. I do want to say that I've been dealing with CFB for many years and until early 2015, I've never had anything but exceptional service and spot on grading! They are still giving great customer service and doing a great job grading cards. But I have been noticing some minor changes. It's not that they are doing a bad job, it's that up to 2 years ago they were so far above the other companies "imho" and exceptional in all areas. As this company continues to implement minor changes to their online store structure, "imho" they are no longer leaps and bounds above the competition, but are still considered to be in the top 5 places that I buy cards from.
Here is a list of changes that I've noticed. You can be the judge on which are an improvement or not. Some other people might also be noticing this company slightly changing over the past 2 years. Some of the changes are very recent. Some are very slight differences.
1. Slightly increased prices
2. Slightly decreased variety
3. Product lines discontinued
4. They still offer "free" shipping on orders over $25 that contain singles Only, but removed the free shipping on orders over $500 that contain sealed products.
5. Lower "buylist" prices offered
6. 2015-2016 shipping charges seemed to continue to go up and are on track to be in the same area as Troll & Toad, but in the recent weeks some alterations seem to be in the works.
7. Very friendly phone support.
8. quick product reimbursement
9. They used to have a month long "Spring Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
10. They used to have a month long "Summer Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
11. They used to have a month long "Fall Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
12. They used to have a month long "Winter/Holiday Sale" with new items added to the sale each day (1000+ different items on sale).
13. They have added a "holiday gift ideas" sale that has 23 different items on sale.
14. They have added a few different sales that last a few days here and there throughout the year.
15. Special crate deals have been added along with a few box price discounts, which are good.
16. I like to buy booster boxes, but can no longer do it with this company as the shipping is just too much. I understand that shipping is expensive, but when you pull up shipping rates from USPS and see what it should cost to be shipped to you, and then compare that to what they are charging, it's very disingenuous to say the least. Kind of the way someone used to sell something at a great price, only to gouge you on the shipping charges. This is not on everything you put in your cart, but if you switch a few items in and out, you will see what I mean.
17. Some staff changes in upper positions.
Anyway this is my current review of CFB and I would still give them an A-/B+ as a combined grade! I will continue to purchase singles from them, but pick up my sealed products from other stores.
I will also do a review for Troll & Toad, Card Kingdom, ABU, Star City Games, Coolstuff, and Strikezone in January of 2017.
More recently, about 7-8 months ago I submitted another Buylist, but this time I received a new type of response in the form of this: We recently started putting more time into the website, to bring it back to a current and efficient online store once again. Right now we are working on updating all of the out-dated Buylist prices and Sell prices. So the Buylist you submitted had to be altered to reflect current market prices. We apologize for this, but after we get the site running smoothly once again, there will be no need to alter the prices that are posted, as our inventory will be accurate, current, and correctly reflect the amount we can pay for each card on the Buylist.
The drastic alterations to (quantity wanted/prices offered) to the Buylist 7-8 months ago, prevented any cards to be sold to them.
Now many months later, I am ready to sell some more cards. I tried calling them but got their answering machine saying "we do not answer the phone or listen to the messages, so please send an email if you have any questions"
Now right off that would be a huge red flag, but they had the same answering machine message years ago when I sold them cards, and each one of those transactions went great. I am just not sure if they are still Great to deal with or ???.
So I would like to know of other people's recent(2016) Buying/Selling experiences with CardHaus Games.
I anticipated that Magic Origins would be more of a kick off to the new way sets will rotate in and out and start it off with a dynamite set since the set name means "beginning, first stage of existence", like a new era of magic. I see now that they are using it to represent the beginning of some of the planes-walkers. Cool idea, but the only one that looks any good atm is Gideon. For the most part you have to spend too much effort to get a planes-walker out of them, and very easy for your opponent to prevent that from happening. If you play a regular planes-walker you at least get to use one of the abilities right away before your opponent can cast Hero's downfall or one of a few other cards as an instant to destroy it. You get something for the 1 for 1 change in that example, but these new apprentice planes-walkers for the most part will be killed off quickly and you got nothing extra. Some of them you might even be playing a few other cards in the deck to basically help flip them. playing a 3 cost nissa that is a 2/2 creature that won't flip until you have 7 lands in play seem pretty bad in standard. Then if you do flip her, the top ability is to get more mana. You already have at least 7 mana!!! Chandra is a 2/2 for 1RR, why does red want to spend their turn 3 on putting out a 2/2??? I am done complaining
I am not writing the set off, but so far of what has been spoiled I am not impressed and would not be opening any packs... I am sure it will get better though. It can't get much worse lol /grin
I didn't mention any names since I heard that if you are logged in and say a certain bot is trying to keep your credit, that it is considered harassment. Even if you post a message that says send me a message for a list of possible shady/scammer bots. That is considered harassment also, so basically if you tell anyone that a specific bot has ripped you off, that is harassment. Which I don't understand at all, because if a player rips you off you can report them and wotc will pull up the trades between you and most likely help you, but if a bot does it, it's almost like a no man's land and bots are not subject to follow the rules of stealing, but if you say anything about a certain bot, you will be punished for harassment. ??? That makes no sense.
I read the rules and I don't think I have said anything here that would not be permitted, since I used no names.
For the person that says foil packs are not air tight either, because they have small holes poked into them to release the air from the inside of the pack before they are boxed up. Those holes are very small.
Play wise the set is missing a lot of supporting commons and uncommons and a ton of rares that you could play in a modern deck if you want to play with bad cards and lose a lot! Money wise you will either be Yeah! Nice pull! when you open a pack or Furious that you paid $10 to open another bulk rare. There is very little middle ground with this set. Basically this is like a lottery scratch-it ticket. They did do a much better job on the mythics. The rare table it is almost like they had a money value that all the rares needed to add up to and that amount was eaten up quickly with a few high priced rares and to keep that in balance they had to fill the rest of the slots with Bulk and lower priced cards.
I think red suffered the most as it has 1 rare that is worth more than nothing, and the mythic is kiki-jiki again! I would rather of seen blood moon at a mythic spot. And no goblin guide.. hmm... Why are the Urza's tower, Mine, and power plant not a common land in this set when you print 5 eldrazi? And with those in they would of needed to put in tectonic edge. I am surprised they didn't also put in a white board wipe or at least Black Sun's Zenith.
Overall the set will be out there for people to purchase at MSRP or less, and that would not of happened if it was chalk full of expensive rares. So if you look at it in that light that is a win for people. But they still suckered people into pre-ordering with all the hype and false expectations of how good this set was going to be. Kind of like a car salesman would do. lol...
D.T.
[b]236 - Blinkmoth Nexus[/b]
237 - City of Brass
238 - Dryad Arbor
239 - ???
[b]240 - Eldrazi Temple[/b]
241 - Evolving Wilds
[b]242 - Eye of Ugin[/b]
243 - Gemstone Mine
244 - Rupture Spire
245 - Tectonic Edge
246 - Urza's Mine
247 - Urza's Power Plant
248 - Urza's Tower
249 - Vesuva
Here is my quick guess.