First pack of Worldwake years before, Jace and foil jace in the same pack
Then I was cursed for all eternity, never pulling anything like that until last year M14, where I got a Foil Garruk + Non foil Garruk in the same pack.
I know they are rounded I have a few hundred alpha cards. I mean the corners look as though it was shuffled, unsleeved at least a few times.
The back however could be smudges on the case. It just doesn't look like the fair few GM cards I own. I have a spell blast that is crisp. Corners dont look frayed.
It's ok, it's not your card that sold. So don't feel jealous and bitter that someone else sold a lotus for $27000
The card is fine mate, don't need to go all sour mouth over it.
Nothing amazing, but my Silver queen and Mox Diamond, those were the first 2 booster packs I ever bought when I played MTG for 1 year already. I had to save up to buy those boosters, they are still in my folder now.
4 force of will in the $1 bin
Foil Legacy Goblin Welder in the $5 folder
Foil Alt Art Ertai the Corrupted for $5 (The store owner didn't believed me when I told him that this was the rare version, he said the name is Ertai the Corrupted, and it's foil, so its $5.) So I shrugged, bought it and sold it for $60+
Definitely sounds like an issue with the distributor/sales rep selling to the stores.
Could be that the 1 store is highly favored over the others, something not legal-kosher could be happening, or it could be that the 1 store has an agreement with the others that gives him purchasing power rights with the other stores (the store has an opportunity to buy 50 boxes of MM, but maybe couldn't afford 50, so the distributor said they could only get 5, and then the other store now has the option to buy the other 45.)
Yeah the thing was that, all the shops that I've talked to so far (more than 5) were frustrated that the Wizards Rep will not allow them to purchase anymore MM, they could afford it with no problem, but the wizards rep just tells the "Sorry I don't have much to allocate". That's what we all believed at first, till we saw this shop get this huge bulk of allocation. Most of the shops here WANTED to purchase 8+ boxes if Wizards allowed them, but no, they couldn't.
just email [email]Sinclair.yuen@wizards.com[/email] as he is the head in Asia , I believe he is based in Singapore.
Thank you all for your feedback, I will prepare what I have and will present it to Wizards.
The thing is that, again I stress again, there are no distributors for MTG in Taiwan, its the Wizards sales rep themselves. I worked in Asia for quite a few years now, and I do understand quite a bit of undertable transactions. However I feel this is unacceptable that the wizards rep is doing it for himself.
Like I said, if there was a distributor, then I would've never made this post... but since it isn't, it disgusts me.
First of all I'm curious as to how you came about to know that Taiwan got 300 boxes because that's the critical piece of information that leads you to your conclusion
If you are 100% positive that this happened then I'd email WotC
I don't think WotC wants one store to get most of the boxes even if nobody did anything "wrong"
Remember people, WotC is experimenting with MM so the more feedback they get the better
I've got no evidence of it, all my sources are from the 'daily' customers that goes to that shop (the shop keeper brags to them on how he managed to get in 300+ boxes of MM, and he kept it in his basement.), and the student players that he hires to help open boosters to fill preorders and sell on ebay.
The "more than 300+" boxes, were heard from most store owners that I've spoken to all around Taiwan, they were told that Taiwan would've at least been allocated around 500+ boxes, so that was why most stores are frustrated that they didn't get as much... But to be honest, this is the culture of Taiwan, even if they get screwed over, they do not try to argue with the sales rep, as he is the only person that can give them MTG future stock.
I tried to find his Ebay account, because I do know that he sells on Ebay often, and pretty much every new set that comes out he does massive preorders. But I realized that maybe he has changed his ebay name... I'm really not sure what name it is now. If I can find it, I want to see if his selling history contained any MM boxes.
I guess the main point of this is that - I do not find it fair, and actually quite strange how a sales rep can have this much 'influence and decision making' to allocate pretty much all the stocks onto one shop, unless he was earning some profit as well?
I fail to see how this is Wizards or Hasbro's fault.
This is just a LGS owner hoarding and taking advantage of customers. Not sure if Taiwan has laws protecting against that but it might be worth your time to look it up.
Some points:
1. Stores are allocated product by distributors - not Wizards or Hasbro directly (this is my understanding). It might be different in your country.
2. Whole sale price for MM in the states is more like $80 USD, not $120.
3. I'd actually buy an MM/GTC twin box at $300 USD.
Like I said, this isn't about the LGS buying up all the stock, its about why the Sales rep will allow a store, which only has enough room to hold less than 30 people, to have been allocated most of the MM boxes.
1) Taiwan is too small for distribution (MTG-wise), if you read my post, I have stated that the sales rep is the only person that deals with the MTG business in Taiwan within Hasbro. The market is too small for a distributor to take care of it, therefore they deal with it themselves
2) That's in the states. I fail to see what's the point of the pricing between both countries?
3) Yeah, I'd too if I was still living in the states, but I'm talking for the players in Taiwan, $300USD is actually pretty steep for anyone in Taiwan where the minimum wage per month after graduating from University is $700USD (I do not want to discuss any further about wages)
All I want to know is, is there actually a rule about how distribution is handled? Because no matter how I look at the current situation, it feels as the Sales rep had a shady deal with the store owner - Giving him most of the stock so he can earn a bit of profit himself too.
Actually, it sounds like the rep is receiving kickbacks from that guy. If that is indeed the case, then there is a good chance he would be fired and the store would have its sanctioning privileges taken away.
You could contact Hasbro, they might investigate.
Exactly what I wanted the community to discuss about. I know that its logic for stores to maximise profit, but I just find it weird why would the sales rep allow the mass allocation to only 1 store
I feel that he was receiving kickback too, the thing is how can I report them, would Hasbro care anyway?
As much as players may gripe about it, customers are not entitled to any product at any price. This guy runs a store for a living and feeds his family by making a profit. Nothing wrong with him maximizing that profit.
Im not talking about prices, im talking about how alot of core stores got allocated only less than what they deserved, where another core store got everything
Wow, that sucks for you guys, my LGS only got like 9 boxes.
I think the main point of my post is not that most shops didn't get enough. I know there are allocations for MM, but what I was stressing in this post was that, I feel that it is disgusting that they allowed the Wizards Sales Rep to allocate 90% of all the MM boxes to 1 single shop.
Edit: I just want to talk about the distribution rules for MM.
Long story short
- Most card stores in Taiwan only received 1~4 boxes, with only 1 well known card store receiving around 56~60 boxes of MM
- One single card store in Taiwan received more than 200+ (From quite a few sources who are close to that store owner, some said 200, some said 500+, except he has sold half of his boxes on Ebay)
Reason why I believe that the store has a large amount of boxes: All other stores in Taiwan sold out of MM within a day (of course, what can you do with 4 boxes or less?), where 1 week later as of today, you can still go down to 'that' store and pick up a MM, and they have been doing sealed and drafts all over the week.
My question: Does Wizards of Taiwan have this much power over the allocations? Can they choose who to give all the stock to? Or is the rep simply getting some undertable returns?
I don't want to discuss about how the store needs to keep making money, that is not my concern.
--------------------
Alright, just to let everyone know that, this is going to be a looooong rant, it is something that I still feel very bitter about today.
Background - I'm currently living in Taiwan, and to be honest the MTG population here is not as vast as everyone else, in Taipei city we perhaps have around 5~6 LGS that deals mainly with MTG.
Now that's out of the way, before MM was about to be on order, I was told by a a lot of the shops here that, each store will be allocated with a set amount of MM depending on the level of your store. I personally accepted it, because from looking at the post online, and knowing some friends who open shops, that is indeed true, that you may be allocated 8 boxes etc depending on your store status.
Basically, I already know that there is NO chance for me to pick up any boxes for MSRP, so I was aiming that I could just buy some boosters on the day release. So what happened was, on Friday, I went to one of the most well known card shops in Taipei who have been in MTG business for over 10 years, and I respect their business practices very well.
I went there just when they have received stock, all the cases were actually piled up against the wall when I walked into the store, as the store owner was signing off the document. I could count that he indeed got around 56 boxes in. I thought that was normal, since he has indeed been in the business for this long, and during that time, I thought Taiwan didn't get allocated a lot. He apologized to me that he couldn't sell boxes because he needed them to do drafts for the weekends, I gladly accepted it and just opened some boosters, had some fun and then left the store.
I still really wanted to get a box though, after I got back to work, my fingers were itching to open some boosters. So I started calling around Taipei to see if I could get anyone to hold off any MM boosters for me, and I will go and pick it up after work. Of course, Out of the 5 shops, all of them said "I'm sorry, we were only allocated 4 boxes etc", heck, even 1 of the shops only got allocated 1.....
Then I thought of another shop, that I really despise. (They were a toy shop in Taipei, the owner does not play mtg, when he found out that mtg was kinda like a stock market, he transformed his shop into a card shop. But all he cares about is if you buy boosters there or not. We will get on that later)
So I thought, might as well give them a call to see if they had any MM in stock. I called them, and asked about it. All he said was a rude response: "Just come and you can buy a box of MM + GTC for $300USD".
"So... you do have it in stock? I do not want to go there and find out its sold out?"
"Just come damnit, I'm busy, if you want it just come."
So... I said thanks and went back to work. I thought it was really strange. In the end I resisted my urge (I think it was because I really did not want to give them the money) and I didn't go pick up the box.
Later on, it was the weekend release, the original shop that I went to, were completely dried out of the MM. But guess what, the other shop still had a lot of stock... that was really strange.
Then I remembered something, because of this MM deal, I've actually talked to alot of store owners in Taiwan.. and some of the allocations were really strange.
1) One of the stores only received 2 booster boxes
2) One of the stores, had a chain of over 5 store, only had 8 booster boxes to split between them
3) One of the stores only received 1 booster box, because he doesn't sell singles
Funny thing though, all those shops that were allocated such little amount of boxes were actually selling them for MSRP, which were all ordered by the time I got there (DOH) They were actually quite honest I have to admit. (I only found out that most DID sell at MSRP after this whole ordeal)
Pretty much all the shops I asked were frustrated that they did NOT get allocated as much boxes as they should've had, they said that the Wizards Sales Rep in Taiwan, makes all the decisions. I have asked them that, why don't they complain it to his superior? This would help you alot wouldn't it?
And all of them gave me the same answer: "He is the only staff in Hasbro Taiwan who works on MTG, the main business of Hasbro are toys, so as long as he shows his superiors the sales figures, he can make the call."
Now... this starts to get interesting, from some sources, I have discovered that most of the shops got MM boxes in at wholesale price of around $120USD, that is ok of course.
I then started to dig around, and have discovered that, Taiwan actually got over 300+ boxes of MM in, but whatever happened to all the boxes?
That's right, the shop that I was mentioning, had over 200 box of MM.
Over 200.
From a few players who are quite close to the boss, some said that the boss told them he had 200 boxes, another one said he had close to 400 boxes, but sold half on Ebay to make a mass profit, I'm not sure of the total numbers, but I do know that he has sooooo many boxes of MM, he is perhaps the only store in Taiwan that still has it, simply because he managed to get allocated 90% of the MM in Taiwan.
And of course, he was selling it at a Reaping Profit, I've done the calculation based on the price that he quoted me, it was simply a $100USD profit for each box that he sold. Then we times it by, lets say 300 boxes (that's on average) - Thats a scary $30,000USD Profit in a week.
And that's not all, if you do not know the boss well enough, to buy a MM box, you NEED to buy a GTC box as well.
This disgust me, not the way that the store does business, its the way that the Wizards Sales allowed all the allocation to be given to the shop ALONE. Alot of people were saying that, perhaps the Wizards Sales got a share of the profit (since its retail sales, it doesn't go into the account of Hasbro), and I tend to believe that as well.
If today the sales played by the rules and allowed all the shops in Taiwan to get a great share of MM boxes, then I'm pretty sure everyone would've enjoyed MM a bit more in my country.
I'm not sure, but I do wish that somehow the Mothership will be able to read this post, and perhaps do some investigation about it - Because I really think what the sales of Wizards did was really shady, and it left me totally disgusted with how dirty money can be earn this way.
------------------------
Little extra post, while this has nothing to do with MM, this is something that I feel that it is unethical, and would like to hear the comments from the community.
Everyone would know by now that, the shopkeeper is purely there to make money. And one of the games that he created was his version of "Booster War".
Nono, not the one that we are all familiar with, the one with 15 lands + 1 booster pack to play the game, this is totally different.
He will always ask if anyone in the shop wants to play the game, with the participants there, he will then sell everyone 1 booster. Everyone then rips their booster together. The person with the highest casting cost for their rare, will take all the booster packs from the remaining players (ie, winner takes all). If you pull a foil rare, you instant win)
He encourages this to all the new players. To me this is not good for a game, this is purely just disgusting practice.
Then I was cursed for all eternity, never pulling anything like that until last year M14, where I got a Foil Garruk + Non foil Garruk in the same pack.
Guess my luck won't be back until 2019.
It's ok, it's not your card that sold. So don't feel jealous and bitter that someone else sold a lotus for $27000
The card is fine mate, don't need to go all sour mouth over it.
he probably took the initial stock and sold all the singles, waiting for the prices to cool down then to actually give you guys what you ordered.
However, each collector's values are different, I'm pretty sure someone out there would treat this as a "Wow"
So hopefully you can fetch a good price for it.
This is the image of the white "Honor" Prerelease box. It seems as the box is made the same just like RTR was.
4 force of will in the $1 bin
Foil Legacy Goblin Welder in the $5 folder
Foil Alt Art Ertai the Corrupted for $5 (The store owner didn't believed me when I told him that this was the rare version, he said the name is Ertai the Corrupted, and it's foil, so its $5.) So I shrugged, bought it and sold it for $60+
Yeah the thing was that, all the shops that I've talked to so far (more than 5) were frustrated that the Wizards Rep will not allow them to purchase anymore MM, they could afford it with no problem, but the wizards rep just tells the "Sorry I don't have much to allocate". That's what we all believed at first, till we saw this shop get this huge bulk of allocation. Most of the shops here WANTED to purchase 8+ boxes if Wizards allowed them, but no, they couldn't.
Thank you all for your feedback, I will prepare what I have and will present it to Wizards.
The thing is that, again I stress again, there are no distributors for MTG in Taiwan, its the Wizards sales rep themselves. I worked in Asia for quite a few years now, and I do understand quite a bit of undertable transactions. However I feel this is unacceptable that the wizards rep is doing it for himself.
Like I said, if there was a distributor, then I would've never made this post... but since it isn't, it disgusts me.
Thanks again to all for your feedback
I've got no evidence of it, all my sources are from the 'daily' customers that goes to that shop (the shop keeper brags to them on how he managed to get in 300+ boxes of MM, and he kept it in his basement.), and the student players that he hires to help open boosters to fill preorders and sell on ebay.
The "more than 300+" boxes, were heard from most store owners that I've spoken to all around Taiwan, they were told that Taiwan would've at least been allocated around 500+ boxes, so that was why most stores are frustrated that they didn't get as much... But to be honest, this is the culture of Taiwan, even if they get screwed over, they do not try to argue with the sales rep, as he is the only person that can give them MTG future stock.
I tried to find his Ebay account, because I do know that he sells on Ebay often, and pretty much every new set that comes out he does massive preorders. But I realized that maybe he has changed his ebay name... I'm really not sure what name it is now. If I can find it, I want to see if his selling history contained any MM boxes.
I guess the main point of this is that - I do not find it fair, and actually quite strange how a sales rep can have this much 'influence and decision making' to allocate pretty much all the stocks onto one shop, unless he was earning some profit as well?
Like I said, this isn't about the LGS buying up all the stock, its about why the Sales rep will allow a store, which only has enough room to hold less than 30 people, to have been allocated most of the MM boxes.
1) Taiwan is too small for distribution (MTG-wise), if you read my post, I have stated that the sales rep is the only person that deals with the MTG business in Taiwan within Hasbro. The market is too small for a distributor to take care of it, therefore they deal with it themselves
2) That's in the states. I fail to see what's the point of the pricing between both countries?
3) Yeah, I'd too if I was still living in the states, but I'm talking for the players in Taiwan, $300USD is actually pretty steep for anyone in Taiwan where the minimum wage per month after graduating from University is $700USD (I do not want to discuss any further about wages)
All I want to know is, is there actually a rule about how distribution is handled? Because no matter how I look at the current situation, it feels as the Sales rep had a shady deal with the store owner - Giving him most of the stock so he can earn a bit of profit himself too.
Exactly what I wanted the community to discuss about. I know that its logic for stores to maximise profit, but I just find it weird why would the sales rep allow the mass allocation to only 1 store
I feel that he was receiving kickback too, the thing is how can I report them, would Hasbro care anyway?
Im not talking about prices, im talking about how alot of core stores got allocated only less than what they deserved, where another core store got everything
But I just said 200, because im just pointing the huge gap difference, should have mentioned that earlier
I think the main point of my post is not that most shops didn't get enough. I know there are allocations for MM, but what I was stressing in this post was that, I feel that it is disgusting that they allowed the Wizards Sales Rep to allocate 90% of all the MM boxes to 1 single shop.
Long story short
- Most card stores in Taiwan only received 1~4 boxes, with only 1 well known card store receiving around 56~60 boxes of MM
- One single card store in Taiwan received more than 200+ (From quite a few sources who are close to that store owner, some said 200, some said 500+, except he has sold half of his boxes on Ebay)
Reason why I believe that the store has a large amount of boxes: All other stores in Taiwan sold out of MM within a day (of course, what can you do with 4 boxes or less?), where 1 week later as of today, you can still go down to 'that' store and pick up a MM, and they have been doing sealed and drafts all over the week.
My question: Does Wizards of Taiwan have this much power over the allocations? Can they choose who to give all the stock to? Or is the rep simply getting some undertable returns?
I don't want to discuss about how the store needs to keep making money, that is not my concern.
--------------------
Alright, just to let everyone know that, this is going to be a looooong rant, it is something that I still feel very bitter about today.
Background - I'm currently living in Taiwan, and to be honest the MTG population here is not as vast as everyone else, in Taipei city we perhaps have around 5~6 LGS that deals mainly with MTG.
Now that's out of the way, before MM was about to be on order, I was told by a a lot of the shops here that, each store will be allocated with a set amount of MM depending on the level of your store. I personally accepted it, because from looking at the post online, and knowing some friends who open shops, that is indeed true, that you may be allocated 8 boxes etc depending on your store status.
Basically, I already know that there is NO chance for me to pick up any boxes for MSRP, so I was aiming that I could just buy some boosters on the day release. So what happened was, on Friday, I went to one of the most well known card shops in Taipei who have been in MTG business for over 10 years, and I respect their business practices very well.
I went there just when they have received stock, all the cases were actually piled up against the wall when I walked into the store, as the store owner was signing off the document. I could count that he indeed got around 56 boxes in. I thought that was normal, since he has indeed been in the business for this long, and during that time, I thought Taiwan didn't get allocated a lot. He apologized to me that he couldn't sell boxes because he needed them to do drafts for the weekends, I gladly accepted it and just opened some boosters, had some fun and then left the store.
I still really wanted to get a box though, after I got back to work, my fingers were itching to open some boosters. So I started calling around Taipei to see if I could get anyone to hold off any MM boosters for me, and I will go and pick it up after work. Of course, Out of the 5 shops, all of them said "I'm sorry, we were only allocated 4 boxes etc", heck, even 1 of the shops only got allocated 1.....
Then I thought of another shop, that I really despise. (They were a toy shop in Taipei, the owner does not play mtg, when he found out that mtg was kinda like a stock market, he transformed his shop into a card shop. But all he cares about is if you buy boosters there or not. We will get on that later)
So I thought, might as well give them a call to see if they had any MM in stock. I called them, and asked about it. All he said was a rude response: "Just come and you can buy a box of MM + GTC for $300USD".
"So... you do have it in stock? I do not want to go there and find out its sold out?"
"Just come damnit, I'm busy, if you want it just come."
So... I said thanks and went back to work. I thought it was really strange. In the end I resisted my urge (I think it was because I really did not want to give them the money) and I didn't go pick up the box.
Later on, it was the weekend release, the original shop that I went to, were completely dried out of the MM. But guess what, the other shop still had a lot of stock... that was really strange.
Then I remembered something, because of this MM deal, I've actually talked to alot of store owners in Taiwan.. and some of the allocations were really strange.
1) One of the stores only received 2 booster boxes
2) One of the stores, had a chain of over 5 store, only had 8 booster boxes to split between them
3) One of the stores only received 1 booster box, because he doesn't sell singles
Funny thing though, all those shops that were allocated such little amount of boxes were actually selling them for MSRP, which were all ordered by the time I got there (DOH) They were actually quite honest I have to admit. (I only found out that most DID sell at MSRP after this whole ordeal)
Pretty much all the shops I asked were frustrated that they did NOT get allocated as much boxes as they should've had, they said that the Wizards Sales Rep in Taiwan, makes all the decisions. I have asked them that, why don't they complain it to his superior? This would help you alot wouldn't it?
And all of them gave me the same answer: "He is the only staff in Hasbro Taiwan who works on MTG, the main business of Hasbro are toys, so as long as he shows his superiors the sales figures, he can make the call."
Now... this starts to get interesting, from some sources, I have discovered that most of the shops got MM boxes in at wholesale price of around $120USD, that is ok of course.
I then started to dig around, and have discovered that, Taiwan actually got over 300+ boxes of MM in, but whatever happened to all the boxes?
That's right, the shop that I was mentioning, had over 200 box of MM.
Over 200.
From a few players who are quite close to the boss, some said that the boss told them he had 200 boxes, another one said he had close to 400 boxes, but sold half on Ebay to make a mass profit, I'm not sure of the total numbers, but I do know that he has sooooo many boxes of MM, he is perhaps the only store in Taiwan that still has it, simply because he managed to get allocated 90% of the MM in Taiwan.
And of course, he was selling it at a Reaping Profit, I've done the calculation based on the price that he quoted me, it was simply a $100USD profit for each box that he sold. Then we times it by, lets say 300 boxes (that's on average) - Thats a scary $30,000USD Profit in a week.
And that's not all, if you do not know the boss well enough, to buy a MM box, you NEED to buy a GTC box as well.
This disgust me, not the way that the store does business, its the way that the Wizards Sales allowed all the allocation to be given to the shop ALONE. Alot of people were saying that, perhaps the Wizards Sales got a share of the profit (since its retail sales, it doesn't go into the account of Hasbro), and I tend to believe that as well.
If today the sales played by the rules and allowed all the shops in Taiwan to get a great share of MM boxes, then I'm pretty sure everyone would've enjoyed MM a bit more in my country.
I'm not sure, but I do wish that somehow the Mothership will be able to read this post, and perhaps do some investigation about it - Because I really think what the sales of Wizards did was really shady, and it left me totally disgusted with how dirty money can be earn this way.
------------------------
Little extra post, while this has nothing to do with MM, this is something that I feel that it is unethical, and would like to hear the comments from the community.
Everyone would know by now that, the shopkeeper is purely there to make money. And one of the games that he created was his version of "Booster War".
Nono, not the one that we are all familiar with, the one with 15 lands + 1 booster pack to play the game, this is totally different.
He will always ask if anyone in the shop wants to play the game, with the participants there, he will then sell everyone 1 booster. Everyone then rips their booster together. The person with the highest casting cost for their rare, will take all the booster packs from the remaining players (ie, winner takes all). If you pull a foil rare, you instant win)
He encourages this to all the new players. To me this is not good for a game, this is purely just disgusting practice.