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  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 25, 2020
    Onering posted a message on MTG Needs New Leadership and Why Mark Rosewater (MaRo) Should Step Down
    Mark is at his best when he is editing other people's ideas, and at his worst when he is pressing for his own ideas. He's been responsible for a lot of design mistakes that came from him pushing things that her personally likes or chasing a challenge, but he's also been responsible for a lot of really well designed sets and was instrumental in defining the color pie and contributing a lot to the foundation that design is built on. His record has been a mixed bag, but I think he does the "Lead" part of his lead designer job well, and should step back more from the designer part, or let others have more veto power over his pet ideas. At least his mistakes come partially from genuine passion for the game, and aren't entirely just pushing power to sell packs short term.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 25, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Quote from Card Slinger J »
    Unfortunately as long as people are stupid, policies need to be put in place assuming people are stupid. It's got nothing to do with shady business practices when it's got more to do with protecting the lowest common denominator. Each state is handling COVID-19 differently however each state isn't handling it intelligently, so Wizards of the Coast stepped in because they decided they didn't want their products associated with an outbreak. I do think that Double Masters, Mystery Booster, and Jumpstart completely devaluing the majority of Non-Reserve List cards that Local Game Stores need to make a profit from flipping card singles combined with low cash flow affecting their business during this pandemic sounds like a recipe for disaster because what good is keeping Paper Magic affordable If nobody has a place to play anymore? Organized Play for Paper Magic be damned.

    Sure Local Game Stores are no longer able to run Organized Play events but that doesn't mean that they need to shutdown In-Store Play entirely for Casual players who just want to hangout with their friends and play EDH / Commander. What would give Wizards of the Coast the idea that the majority of Paper Magic players actually play at home over their LGS? I can understand If the LGS environment is toxic but that's just a false negative stereotype that EVERY LGS is like this when it isn't. Not every LGS has a loyal community (not online btw) that financially supports them especially when it's already difficult enough as it is to compete against online companies when they don't even have operational websites, no eBay accounts, or Social Media presence. Even If they do it increases online competition to the point where it's hard for these Local Game Stores to get noticed like on TCGPlayer.


    This makes more sense.

    I don't have a problem devaluing cards by printing them. The health of the game depends on accessibility, and for older formats and commander being too expensive is a bigger issue than LGS availability. Yes, LGS (and online stores like SCG) rely on the secondary market, buying cards at below market value and selling at a profit. The risk of that strategy is that it's speculation. Usually they make money from it, but there is always a risk that cards will drop in value, either due to rotation, the hot deck that needs it going out of fashion, or reprints. The LGS business model needs to adapt to where the secondary market is a supplement to their business model rather than an integral part of it. Not for any moral reason, but because doing so will make their businesses more stable and resilient to market shocks.

    Why WotC thinks at home play is the majority: surveys. They do a fair amount of market research to determine how people play the game and what players like and want so they can target products to them. The reason you see premium products and stuff like that is because their market research told them a significant enough portion of the player base wants those products. You see the major commitment to EDH because they found it was the most popular format after 60 card casual, and they built brawl in the hopes of building on that. They know that at home play is still the most common way people engage with magic, with casual and EDH leading that. At home players tend to spend less on cards than FNM warriors, but there are more of them and they tend to buy packs. I think Wizards isnt about to abandon the LGS because they make money from them, tournament engagement increases the amount people spend on magic, and limited moves packs. Getting people who play at home into their local LGS makes wizards money by getting them to spend more. They want both market share and dollars per player, so both groups are important.

    As for long term LGS viability, it was a struggle before COVID. Stores in big cities with a younger population do well, as do stores in college towns, because they have a large customer base to draw on. Stores in more rural areas, or smaller suburbs, struggle because there just aren't enough customers. You need a certain concentration of nerd culture involved people to serve for a nerd culture exclusive business to thrive, even when your pretty diversified within that culture and selling comics and games in addition to running DND campaigns Warhammer tourneys and Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon events. I think a plausible business model for these areas where LGS struggle is to run it as a combination business with some other sort of thing, like a bowling alley or skating rink. Most such places have sizeable party rooms that can host events, and areas that usually have pool tables and arcade games that could be retrofitted as the sales floor for product. Or a diner, I have a couple in my area that have large banquet areas that they use to host gaming clubs during the day and are usually empty at night. And by gaming clubs, I mean just old people playing bridge and stuff. One even has an area thats basically a couple chairs and some decorations that's as large as the sales floor in most LGS and off to the side. Imagine running FNM and having players order their food from you instead of bringing McDonald's. There's potential here, it just requires innovation, something that has been really lacking in the LGS sector. It's still operating under the model that worked in the 90s,
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 24, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Dear Christ, wtf do you mean WotC is basing their decisions on this on their political views? This is absolutely an issue in rural areas, but social distancing is more effective in rural areas because it's easier to adhere to social distancing and minimize your number of interactions. Yea, different states are handling this differently, and the ones that tried to open up early and who were less cautious are the ones currently getting hit hard and entering a second wave, while NJ, one of the most densely populated states and one that got hit hard early when the US was caught with it's pants down, has been cautious and is currently one of the states in the best shape. Large indoor gatherings in small spaces, like most LGS play, is how this virus best spreads. This isn't a political opinion, it's peer reviewed medical opinion supported by multiple high quality studies. This isn't some liberal plot to screw over small business, it's a once a century worldwide pandemic of moderate lethality and high infectivity.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 24, 2020
    Onering posted a message on MTG Needs New Leadership and Why Mark Rosewater (MaRo) Should Step Down
    Quote from SpeedGrapher »
    Everyone loves Mark Rose Water. Your title and post don't match up. It really seems like this is drama stirring thread. Maro is friendly, listens to the player base and answers questions constantly on blogatog. He gave you zendidar 3. Ravnica 3. Theros 2. He's giving you everything you want.
    It's still a business. You don't have to buy the product. For most people $4 for a pack of paper cards is crazy when you can buy a normal deck of playing cards for about $5 and use them for forever. He gave you Jumpstart and M2021 which had a huge amount of high end re-prints. He's doing an amazing job.
    #Maro is awesome.

    He even brought back Dominaria! That's 2 years of being an amazing game designer!
    There is a power creep problem in the creatures but they can power that stuff down by doing heavy creature type effect cards which they are already doing.
    Rin and Seri, Inseparable Never thought there would be dog and cat lords. But there will be a lot more creature type lords you have never heard of. Turtles Aegis Turtle, badgers Charging Badger etc.


    Oh, hi Mark
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 21, 2020
    Onering posted a message on MTG Needs New Leadership and Why Mark Rosewater (MaRo) Should Step Down
    Quote from Xcric »


    i think they've also sold us on the idea that the heart is healthy but the mind isn't. that is to say that they're at the whims of their hasbro overlords but wotc aims are in the right place... and honestly i'm not entirely sold on that idea. hasbro just wants to see profit, doesn't matter how you get there. i have major doubts someone from hasbro is coming down and being like print this not that, take this approach to boosters not that one, oko is okay he just makes elks! yet, the overwhelming majority of us seem to believe its all hasbro's fault. we forget that wotc has leadership too, as does magic: the gathering.


    I don't think Hasbro is actually meddling in what they print, but I do think they are putting pressure on WotC to keep costs down and revenues up to an aggressive degree. A lot of Hasbro's other divisions aren't doing well, and Magic is selling more than ever. Sometimes when that happens, a company will lean harder on the successful division to make up for poor performance elsewhere, the simple logic being that you are most likely to make more money quickly by focusing on what you do well rather than what you are struggling with. Unfortunately, is sales targets are too aggressive and cost cutting too deep, you end up with something that resembles what we are seeing in Magic right now: too few employees being paid too little to do too much, and trying to hit unrealistic sales targets. The tried and true method of selling packs is to push cards, but its always risky and with a system undermined by cost cutting its more likely to result in broken cards that need bannings. But not only that, mistakes get through that aren't a result of cards being too pushed on their own, but from the environment not being balance. Cards like Felidar Guardian and Reflector Mage would have never been banned in the past, but also would not have been as much of an issue in the past because it is unlikely the environments that made them problematic would have been allowed to exist in the first place. Guardian for instance would have never seen print alongside Saheeli, and if they even appeared in the same Standard one would have been printed in the spring or summer set before the other rotated out, so it would be a short period of a combo deck doing something. Its cheaper to simply ban cards more aggressively after they become problems than to prevent them from becoming problems with tweaks in design or changing the environment around them.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 11, 2020
    Onering posted a message on So what is going on with the "racist" removal...
    I don't think Crusade and Jihad got axed for being racist,but rather because they reference real world genocidal wars and terrorism (both Islamic terror with Jihad and anti-Islamic terror with crusade, as far right groups have adopted the language and imagery of the crusades and have refered to anti Islamic terror attacks as crusades). I disagree with those to getting banned, because holy wars shouldn't be off bounds for the game, even if referencing the real world is a bit tacky. Cleanse was unfortunate but wasn't intended to be and was clearly depicting actual demons so I think that was fine as well. The others involved things that were much more overt, including outright slurs, and should have been excised long ago. As time goes on, it appears less and less likely that any more cards will be banned. I could see them potentially axing consulate dreadnaught for the 7/11 joke, but I think if they do it will be in conjunction with the release of a functional reprint in a set that isn't Indian themed.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 11, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Card slinger, stop jumping from doom to doom. It seems like your thinking of bad things that could happen if everything goes wrong, assume they will happen without thinking critically about it, and then come here and claim it's an inevitability. You seem to only be seeking evidence that confirms doomsday suspicions. This isn't healthy. And I'm not saying that to rag on you, but because it's a pattern of thinking that will really undermine your well being over time. You've mentioned having anxiety, and this is the sort of thing that contributes to it. Changes how you process this sort of information, and thinking critically about doomsday scenarios so you can use evidence against them to correctly evaluate their likelihood, helps a lot. And that's applicable to all aspects of life.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 8, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Bubonic Plague is endemic to Mongolia. There are cases every year, usually from someone ******* around with prairie dogs or other animals that are natural reservoirs for the disease. Plague manifests quickly and is a well known pathogen, so its easy to catch early and stop the spread. We already have known, effective treatments for plague. It is, luckily, caused by a bacteria that isn't commonly exposed to antibiotics, so it responds well to antibiotic treatments. Its also present in Africa, and the USA. You can catch plague on a camping trip in the Great Plains or the Southwest. Typically a couple people do every year. We actually had a full on plague pandemic pretty recently, it lasted about 100 years and ended in the 50s. Turns out even then it was fairly easy for countries to control the spread and it thus mainly effected India and China. It killed about 12 million people, but that was spread out over about a century, and most of the deaths came before widespread availability of antibiotics, the advent of which greatly reduced the death rate and contributed to the rather swift end of the pandemic.

    Hopefully this puts you a bit at ease. Sometimes its hard to have a good perspective on events. Human beings are predisposed to binary thinking, which unfortunately leads to difficulty reacting appropriately to medium threats. Plague is a very dangerous disease but also very treatable and reasonably containable based on how quickly it presents and how it spreads. If you get it, and you don't treat it, you will die, but its very unlikely that you will get it, and if you do its very likely that you will go to the hospital early enough to get treatment that will not only save you, but make it not horrible to get through. Most deaths come from poor rural areas in poor countries because people don't have access to health care and thus don't seek treatment until its too late. COVID-19 is a moderately dangerous disease. If you catch it, you are actually pretty unlikely to die from it without treatment unless you have certain risk factors, but its still dangerous enough that it is cause for concern. A death rate of 1% is a strange thing. It means that if you catch it, the odds are greatly in your favor to live (and if your one of the lucky 30 percent you may never even know you had it), but if EVERYONE catches it the world is looking at about 70 million deaths, and the US would be looking at about 4.5 million dead, which are unacceptable numbers when the means exists to reduce them, and they are large enough to wreck economies. Thus, its in our interest to take extreme measures to prevent and control it, but yet we should not be individually afraid because of the low individual death rate and the effectiveness of these measures at preventing us from catching it in the first place. Unfortunately, calm but cautious is not what we are set up for, so you have the extremes of "we're all gonna die" and "its a hoax" get far more play than they should, and the less extremes of fear on one end and recklessness on the other be widespread.

    As for LGS, many do not have the ability to do outdoor events its true, but some do. Most LGS that I have frequented use those plastic folding tables and chairs or something similar, so simply moving them outside accomplishes the task. The big issue is whether the LGS has an outside to move to. That really depends on the location. In a city, the answer is no, yet city based LGS also tend to have a bigger audience they serve and are more likely to be able to be in decent shape, especially if they are near a college. Getting creative by reserving space at a park for events is a great option. That's usually free, but it depends on availability. Some more rural LGS, which are usually the ones that struggle the most due to a smaller player base, have access to yards or their parking lots are large enough to section off an area for the event. FNM conveniently takes place when many businesses are closed, so even LGS that share parking lots may be able to use the entire thing because their neighbor isn't open at the time. Its not a solution for everyone, but its worthwhile for any LGS that can do so to try it out.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 8, 2020
    Onering posted a message on Standard is terrible right now.
    Its poor design, plain and simple. Threats are over pushed, answers are too nerfed. The game is better when counter magic and spot removal are actually good. 4 mana wraths are good for the game. Planeswalkers are, and always have been, bad for the game, and if they aren't niche role players they hurt formats.
    Posted in: Standard (Type 2)
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 7, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Fortunately, many of the precautions that have been standard are good at combating airborne diseases, wearing masks especially. Airborne and droplet borne have a lot in common. The divergence is that droplet borne doesn't remain in the air as long, and is spread at about the same rate indoors as outdoors, while airborne stays in the air longer and spreads much better indoors, in crowded and poorly ventilated areas. LGS that have the option can host events outdoors with masks required and actually be safe. Many stores don't have that option.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 6, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Quote from Card Slinger J »
    Quote from Narvuntien »
    There are enough things to worry about before getting to biological warfare (or what God thinks of you). You might just have anxiety, something that this virus is making worse, maybe seek some professional help. Seriously, you don't need to pull on those bootstraps yourself, Maybe, you just need some help because your brain doesn't produce the right amount of serotonin.

    I was talking to you as if you were sane but you are a Peterson Fan *facepalm*
    I don't really follow Jordan Peterson all that much when I mainly found his discussion on the "Peter Pan Syndrome" to be really insightful to what the current generation of young adults are going through right now. Believe it or not it's actually based on an actual book published in 1983 titled, "The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up".


    Except Peterson isn't insightful. He's blaming young adults for not moving out of their parents homes as early as their parents did, and ignoring the major financial challenges facing young people their parents didn't face. 20 somethings don't live with their parents because they want to, or because of Peter Pan syndrome, they do so because they start adult life in a financial hole due to college tuition, and use the money they save living at home to start working on the principle and saving for a house, which costs a lot more in today's dollars than it did when Peterson was in his 20s. Its simply good finances to live at home during their 20s instead of throwing money away into rent. Most of the people who do this have college debt because their parents didn't pay their tuition. Peterson types look down on these people but not on people whose parents paid their tuition, allowing them to graduate debt free and put their post college earnings directly into rent while also being able to save for home ownership.

    I get the appeal of Peterson. Its mostly the same as any other hack life coach. When people are in a rough place and unsure of themselves, he's a voice giving simple answers. He packages this in an archaic worldview and a get tough message. Sometimes sucking it up and making sacrifices is the only way to get by when life hands you a crap sandwich, but Peterson plays that as a virtue and the right way to live generally instead of a necessary evil to survive in the face of adversity. He supports the very systems that cause the problems he claims to solve for people (and makes worse long term, like encouraging 20 somethings to make sacrifices to move out and pay rent as soon as possible which delays actually being able to own a home versus living at home and saving up buy a house). He fetishizes austerity and a mythical spartan masculinity that is as immature as overindulgent hedonism. Peter Pan syndrome is an old hot take that was simply a repackaging of the same complaint old curmudgeons have had about the next generation since Plato (literally, Plato made the same complaints). Its not real, its just old people railing against the young because they have an idealized view of their own life narrative and think the next gen aren't living up to it. Its why boomers rail against Millenials being lazy or profligate when they actually work more hours, are more productive, and more austere in their lifestyles than boomers were at the same age. You know The Peter Pan Syndrome book you reference was written in the early 80s, about Peterson's generation (Boomers), and now Peterson (and Boomers more generally) are crying about the same wolf with Millenials and Z. Its garbage pop psychology that serves to make the old feel superior to the young and any young that listen to it feel ashamed for being human.

    Do not feel bad about liking magic, nor liking playing at an LGS. Don't think that liking games or anything considered "childish", and don't be ashamed about asking for help and support. Growing up isn't about posturing or signaling, its about being responsible. That's it. If people can rely on you, and you can basically take care of yourself, that's it. And taking care of yourself can mean understanding when you need help or support and having the humility to accept it. It also means self care, and that's different for everyone. For a lot of us here, playing some magic is self care. For others, its meditation, or watching the game, or going to church, or sitting around watching cartoons all weekend every once in awhile. And there's nothing wrong with that.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 5, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Quote from Card Slinger J »
    Quote from Onering »
    Card slinger, its impractical to base a business plan on a once a century event. Practicality dictates that if there is a rare event that can possibly destroy your business, but it's rare enough that you are very likely to die before it happens again, you don't let that hold you back from running your business.
    Given recent advancements in 21st century technology I don't think outbreaks that require the kind of response that we've made with COVID-19 are as rare as you think especially If the smartest people on Earth are able to replicate it easily enough to cause biological warfare as a means of depopulating the planet without having to launch military strikes on other nations. In that kind of scenario you have a situation where vaccines are being used as political bargaining chips in order to further advance agendas of certain nations and terrorist groups instead of nuclear warheads like it was done in the past. Why? Because it costs them less damage while strengthening their own military forces all in one foul swoop even If it costs peoples' lives in the process regardless of where they're from. It's more about forced population control than divide and conquer.


    And It's not so much that COVID-19 style viruses aren't the new normal when the potential of them being used for geopolitical warfare is extremely dangerous compared to the traditional means of how we normally view geopolitical warfare through the use of military action and physical weapons. In order to diminish the possibility of another COVID-19 style outbreak we really need more safeguards in place to help prevent this sort of crisis from occurring again though currently we don't have that at the moment right now. Given how technology continues to advance it will be a lot easier to genetically modify a COVID-19 style virus to where it ends up becoming more advanced than the last that makes it more difficult to fight against. The question is whether If those who fulfill these kind of evil deeds are willing to risk the collapse of the global economy in their march for conquest.



    You're verging into conspiracy theory thinking here. So you're saying its not that COVID is the new normal, its that somehow people will make the jump in logic that they should be afraid of bio terrorism. First, that wasn't what you were saying before, nor does it support your previous arguments, so nice try. Second, to jump from COVID to fears of bio terrorism would require a paranoid, ill informed, extremely risk averse mindset that would lead to failed businesses regardless of how rosy the economic outlook is, so again, the only people who would be kept from opening an LGS due to bio terror fears are people who aren't fit to run a successful business anyway, so at least they won't be throwing their money away.

    Third, and this is where I'll go slightly off topic, but no terrorist, government, mad scientist, or super villain would ever try to weaponize COVID-19, because COVID-19 sucks balls as a bio weapon. Bio weapons are most useful in causing terror in a target population or as an area of denial weapon. COVID-19 lacks the qualities that make it effective for these roles, or any bio warfare role. First, it simply isn't deadly enough. A 1% fatality rate is high enough to necessitate the sort of government reaction it has, as if we tried to get herd immunity just by infecting people the US would see about 35 million deaths, but its far too low to be effective as a bio weapon. You are going to do more damage, more reliably, with conventional weapons. Second, Its slow as hell. It takes 2 weeks for symptoms to show, and bio weapons need to act quickly for the desired effect. Third, it spreads too easily. Effective bio weapons kill your enemies but don't come back on you. For all the reasons COVID-19 has proven uniquely difficult to contain it would also prove a poor choice for bio weapon, as any state or group that carries out a successful attack is going to be sure it will hit them as well, possibly even worse than the target. Fourth, it is most dangerous to the elderly, while bio weapons are most effective, both in war and as terrorism, when they hit the young, specifically fighting age adults, at least as hard. The death rate among the younger generations is significantly less than among older populations, and the people most likely to be soldiers (young and in good health) are also most likely to not only survive COVID, but to have mild or no symptoms. Lastly, there a plenty of diseases that have been around for years that would make far superior bio weapons both for terrorism and warfare, including COVID's relatives SARS and MERS. Biological weapons are expensive and unwieldy, which is why they have rarely been used, and most of the time where used before the existence of Germ Theory. There are just too many easier, cheaper, more controllable, and more reliable ways to kill people, and even among bio weapons COVID-19 wouldn't make the cut.

    Rather than letting your mind run wild with worst case scenarios that aren't based on fact, take a breath and educate yourself. And Jordan Peterson repackaging decades old self help pablum doesn't count.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 3, 2020
    Onering posted a message on Wizards removes content creator Eden
    Didn't Steve Argyle get fired years ago for posting some rather tame Lili x Chandra art (I'm pretty sure it's the one on the playmat where they kiss).

    This isn't anything new. Excising racist cards and cutting ties with controversial artists might be new, but draw the characters getting it on and your gone has been a long standing thing. That's not about morality or anything, it's about controlling the IP.

    That said, after seeing the pictures she claims prompted this, I'm having a hard time finding the issue. While they are beyond what wizards allows for their product, only one of the pictures actually features anything directly related to magic. And even then it's using a couple of cards as pasties. Assuming that this is the extent of it, she should have got nothing more than a warning not to use cards in semi nude photos.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 3, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Card slinger, its impractical to base a business plan on a once a century event. Practicality dictates that if there is a rare event that can possibly destroy your business, but it's rare enough that you are very likely to die before it happens again, you don't let that hold you back from running your business.

    Yes, lots of LGS will go under, as will lots of bars and restaurants and other service sector business that rely on people going out in crowds. LGS aren't the only businesses with these issues. Like LGS, bars and restaurants run pretty small margins and can get wrecked by something like COVID-19. Lots of them won't be able to weather this storm. But nobody is predicting that the restaurant or bar industries are going to die out, and people will open new bars and restaurants once the pandemic is over to replace the ones that close down. The same will happen with LGS. So long as there is demand enough to support a business, there will be businesses to meet that demand.

    I hope most LGS can find a way to weather the storm. I hope their regulars stop in just to purchase product, and I hope they have landlords who willing to take a write-off on missed rent to retain a good tenant (more likely if they don't have people interested in the space). I hope the same for my favorite local restaurants. And just like with local restaurants, people who can afford to continue to support them during this time should. But retail is a fickle business in good times, especially retail that relies on people hanging out in the establishment like a bar, LGS, or restaurant, so some will invariably close.

    I'm rambling a bit, but anyone who would avoid going into business because or the risk of an event that happens once every hundred years or less shouldn't be going into business at all, because they are too risk averse to run a successful business. Running a business requires a stomach for risk taking, because everything you do entails risk, and growing a business requires more risk than simply maintaining one. Certain businesses, like LGS, bars, restaurants, are often a few bad months away from closing even when they are successful. Most restaurant owners fail the first few times they open a restaurant. When you ask "who would open an LGS if a global pandemic could ruin the business" the answer is the exact same sort of people who would open an LGS if they weren't thinking about the risk of a global pandemic.
    Posted in: Magic General
  • Onering's avatar
    Jul 2, 2020
    Onering posted a message on The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Future of the Local Game Store (LGS)
    Quote from Card Slinger J »
    Seems as though my area is starting to mandate masks out in public with the second wave of coronavirus coming in from recent outbreaks in California, Florida, and Texas. I can see this making it more difficult for people to play Paper Magic at Local Game Stores (LGSs) since they won't be able to breathe as well by messing up their concentration though it's a small price to pay to help save humanity from this public health crisis. Sadly I think we're back to square one again with the phase 1 protocols we dealt with in March this year as a lot of state governments are starting to roll back their re-opening plans which means more herd immunity through social distancing.

    So it looks like we'll be seeing round two of government lockdown with more stimulus checks being sent to everyone which means more inflation to make everything three times as expensive as it was before. There were already delays with recent Paper Magic products like Commander 2020, Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, and Jumpstart with Double Masters possibly getting delayed due to this second wave coming in. There's definitely going to be a whiplash within the Secondary Market because of these delays and recent inflation woes creating artificial demand for these products with very limited supply. We're already heading into a bear market If not already.


    Dude, the inflation rate is DOWN this year. This is understandable if you know anything about how inflation actually works, because when the economy loses money inflation goes down. The stimulus checks were a drop in the bucket and did little to counteract the severe downward pressures on inflation. That doesn't mean that the prices of certain products that are experiencing bottlenecks haven't gone up, but they haven't gone up do to inflation (the relative devaluation of currency over time as the amount of currency grows) but due to scarcity and the resultant price gouging. Many things that add to costs have gone down, such as the price of fuel which reduces the price of shipping, raw materials as producers of those materials are forced to sell for less money as demand plummets, etc. There's no evidence that magic, or the sort of products lgs' sell, are being impacted by scarcity pricing. Neither are rents going to go up as much as they usually do, because landlords face the problem of finding tenants to fill the space at a time when tenants are having trouble paying. Landlords have an incentive to wave rent and write it off as a loss rather than leave the store empty and still not get rent, because they at least keep a tenant that has proved reliable until the pandemic.

    This is going to be a hard year and many stores will go under, but it won't be THE END. Also keep in mind that COVID is a perfect storm virus that can be spread easily, is hard to contain, and is dangerous enough to matter. Something like SARS1 or MERS doesn't spread as easily, is quickly noticed and easy to track, and can thus be contained without these kind of measures despite both being far more deadly. These kinds of diseases aren't the new normal, COVID-19 is best though of as a century disease, the sort of thing that will show up about once every hundred years. Medical advances mean any given disease is less likely to be a century disease (flu used to be a great candidate but our knowledge of it and ability to quickly develop targeted vaccines means that even a flu like the Spanish flu is unlikely to rise to the level of COVID-19), but increased exposure to animal sources means our exposure to new diseases has increased and spread is easier due to globalization, so things sort of even out.
    Posted in: Magic General
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