MTG, the Corona-Virus Pandemic, and future events.

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motleyslayer
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
Larger events might not happen until probably next year at the earliest, but they're not going to be dead. They are probably still an important part of the game

FNM and casual paper Magic certainly aren't dead. There is still a non zero amount of people that prefer to play in paper rather than play online. This could be either they do not want/are not able to invest in an online collection or they prefer the social interaction of playing in paper. So paper Magic will allow people like that to fulfill those needs.
I think a lot of people are HOPING this is true, but I just dont see it lasting. Consider the following 2 points:

1) Large tourneys: Even if covid disappeared completely tomorrow CFB is gone and it will take a long time for someone to fill this role, we are talking years not months. And that cant even begin until post covid whatever that means.

2) Small FNM events: Prior to covid these places were struggling. Can you realistically see these (or any other edge case small business) coming back with covid 2 on the horizon?
again, as I've said in my previously, I think that we should avoid assuming the death of paper magic until everything is over

(1)While it may take time for someone to takeover Magic Fests where CFB Events left the void, there are other large event series out there, I.E the SCG tour, the F2F Open Series. I don't know if they'll contract Magic Fests out to one specific store in the future as this happened but I can see them returning to the old model where there would be multiple stores that would run GPs, depending on location

(2) While there will be some people who may not attend FNM due to fears of the "second wave of Covid", which I assure is a reasonable fear and probably could happen. However, I don't think it will keep events from firing even in smaller markets. There will be people who will not to see their stores struggle and have been waiting to get out of isolation so they can play with their friends. I'd imagine some stores may provide incentives to play at their store again as well, since this is their income that could be affected by loss of numbers

Again, let's try and avoid discussion on this as the "death of paper Magic"

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
WOTC wont be running any large scale events. We need an interested 3rd party like CFB to do all the leg work. Good luck with that.
I was under the assumption that Wizards of the Coast did used to run large scale events long before ChannelFireball and Star City Games became a thing. There was even a time when they used to operate their own Local Game Store (LGS) but that was years before I started playing back in the early 2000's.
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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
Larger events might not happen until probably next year at the earliest, but they're not going to be dead. They are probably still an important part of the game

FNM and casual paper Magic certainly aren't dead. There is still a non zero amount of people that prefer to play in paper rather than play online. This could be either they do not want/are not able to invest in an online collection or they prefer the social interaction of playing in paper. So paper Magic will allow people like that to fulfill those needs.
I think a lot of people are HOPING this is true, but I just dont see it lasting. Consider the following 2 points:

1) Large tourneys: Even if covid disappeared completely tomorrow CFB is gone and it will take a long time for someone to fill this role, we are talking years not months. And that cant even begin until post covid whatever that means.

2) Small FNM events: Prior to covid these places were struggling. Can you realistically see these (or any other edge case small business) coming back with covid 2 on the horizon?
again, as I've said in my previously, I think that we should avoid assuming the death of paper magic until everything is over

(1)While it may take time for someone to takeover Magic Fests where CFB Events left the void, there are other large event series out there, I.E the SCG tour, the F2F Open Series. I don't know if they'll contract Magic Fests out to one specific store in the future as this happened but I can see them returning to the old model where there would be multiple stores that would run GPs, depending on location

(2) While there will be some people who may not attend FNM due to fears of the "second wave of Covid", which I assure is a reasonable fear and probably could happen. However, I don't think it will keep events from firing even in smaller markets. There will be people who will not to see their stores struggle and have been waiting to get out of isolation so they can play with their friends. I'd imagine some stores may provide incentives to play at their store again as well, since this is their income that could be affected by loss of numbers


Again, let's try and avoid discussion on this as the "death of paper Magic"
You misunderstood what I meant by covid 2. I'm not talking about whatever second wave stuff you are referring to. I am talking about the next virus AFTER we have cured covid. Even with a vaccine, social distancing protocols will linger long after. And then even when covid is completely beat, how can any small business owner be expected to rebuild into the same industry that can be wiped out overnight by a govt shut down? In a couple years we will have ANOTHER virus and we will be shutting down all over again because this is the new normal.

If a small business owner has the strength to rebuild, he will be rebuilding into a covid proof business.
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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

Card Slinger J wrote:
3 years ago
robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
WOTC wont be running any large scale events. We need an interested 3rd party like CFB to do all the leg work. Good luck with that.
I was under the assumption that Wizards of the Coast did used to run large scale events long before ChannelFireball and Star City Games became a thing. There was even a time when they used to operate their own Local Game Store (LGS) but that was years before I started playing back in the early 2000's.
It's just my opinion, but based on everything they have telegraphed over the past few years I feel like they are heading full speed into the digital market. Tournaments, small and large will be held digitally where no social distancing or geographic distancing restrictions exist.

On the one hand, I am happy to see more digital tourneys and support. If covid had never happened MAYBE we could have kept paper magic going on the large scale for some years longer. But with covid in the world there is just no traction for something like a MagicFest, at least there wont be for many years. By then it will be too late, if there are going to keep the game going in the meantime they will HAVE to push digital events.

The digital events will be the only events coming from WOTC, in my opinion.
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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

Now that you brought digital tournaments to my attention, does anyone know If Local Game Stores (LGSs) actually get paid for hosting these online events where they set up Discord servers for communication cause I feel like it'd be a HUGE missed opportunity for them to make a profit from this seeing as how they need the money to stay in business. But then you have the argument of not needing the overhead which would provide In-Store Play for those who want to get back to playing Paper Magic with their friends when social distancing protocols are much more relaxed for when we do have COVID-19 under control with a vaccine or proven treatment method.

My biggest concern is that Local Game Stores (LGSs) might try to take advantage of this situation by running demonetized online events to further push themselves more into a digital space instead of charging for paid entry fees in the happenstance that they're able to fully open back up again or at least minimize player attendance to a level that makes it more difficult to spread the virus. As crazy as it sounds why would Local Game Stores (LGSs) want to bankrupt themselves on purpose unless their local community is toxic and are seeking retirement which is obviously the end goal for ANY LGS owner, though of course trouble with keeping up with their finances may be a deciding factor in this as well.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I'm assuming if there is an entry fee associated with an event, most of it will go to the store. I know MTG Melee has the option to pay entry fees right through their site + a processing fee or something like that. I'm assuming the process fee is the fee MTG Melee charges for providing the platform to host events on but the rest of the entry fee should go to stores.

I think that running online events through Arena/MTGO is a great idea. It allows people to support their store still, even when it isn't an option to play in store. If people win credit they can save it for when they need something when the store opens up again

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

So I recently read a Hipsters of the Coast article by Travis Norman titled, "It's Okay to Take a Break from Magic" when I noticed what's really missing from it. Under normal circumstances it's easy to take a break from playing MTG because you always had your LGS to go back to when you came back however due to recent events with the pandemic there's no guarantee your LGS will still be there once you get back from hiatus. What If there's another Government Shutdown where non-essential businesses like the LGS are no longer able to receive funds like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in order to stay in business? We take so much for granted that we don't take the time to realize just how good we had it.

You can support other LGSs through TCGPlayer all you want but If you aren't supporting your own LGSs within your vicinity which is hard to do since their inventory is severely limited then they'll continue to struggle until they're forced to shut down for good. So your only two options are to either quit MTG instead of going on hiatus or you do whatever you can to support your LGSs in the hopes that you'll be able to play MTG again. The LGS cannot afford to lose $1,000 per month before they're able to fully re-open to the public, they just can't. Where are you going to be able to play MTG outside the LGS without any playgroups who know how to play? It's impossible.
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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

You can support other LGSs through TCGPlayer all you want but If you aren't supporting your own LGSs within your vicinity which is hard to do since their inventory is severely limited then they'll continue to struggle until they're forced to shut down for good. So your only two options are to either quit MTG
that's not a reason for me quit. Even if the two lgs in my area close down, their end is not the end of my interest for playing.

because I have people to play with, even yesterday we are chatting what to playtest next. And I have SCG as a reliable source of cards.
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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

The only real solutions for this seems to be finding family and friends to play at home. If your community has eased COVID-19 restrictions, take that group and go play somewhere and you may find individuals that want to play in your group in the future from around the community. Otherwise you could just use social media for its intended purpose of finding an existing playgroup or forming one. Use common sense and play at locations where restrictions are eased.

Another option is by contacting your LGS owner If anyone like yourself would like to play outside the store. Let the owner know that by no means are you trying to take away their business when you're really trying to keep certain playgroups alive or expand it for when COVID-19 restrictions ease. Maybe they'll put up one of those old school photocopied fliers with the tabs at the bottom with peoples' phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I dunno.
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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

Card Slinger J wrote:
3 years ago
The only real solutions for this seems to be finding family and friends to play at home. If your community has eased COVID-19 restrictions, take that group and go play somewhere and you may find individuals that want to play in your group in the future from around the community. Otherwise you could just use social media for its intended purpose of finding an existing playgroup or forming one. Use common sense and play at locations where restrictions are eased.

Another option is by contacting your LGS owner If anyone like yourself would like to play outside the store. Let the owner know that by no means are you trying to take away their business when you're really trying to keep certain playgroups alive or expand it for when COVID-19 restrictions ease. Maybe they'll put up one of those old school photocopied fliers with the tabs at the bottom with peoples' phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I dunno.
The "real solution" is to move to digital, if you want to actually play MTG that is. Prior to covid, playing paper magic for your average player was an infrequent at best occurrence. With covid, and zero large scale paper tourneys coming up for a couple years, what value can anyone even get out of paper cards for the foreseeable future? Whole standards sets are going to come and go before anyone can even use them in paper.

Digital magic, as imperfect as it is, is the ONLY magic we have right now.
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
robertleva wrote:
3 years ago

I think a lot of people are HOPING this is true, but I just dont see it lasting. Consider the following 2 points:

1) Large tourneys: Even if covid disappeared completely tomorrow CFB is gone and it will take a long time for someone to fill this role, we are talking years not months. And that cant even begin until post covid whatever that means.

2) Small FNM events: Prior to covid these places were struggling. Can you realistically see these (or any other edge case small business) coming back with covid 2 on the horizon?
again, as I've said in my previously, I think that we should avoid assuming the death of paper magic until everything is over

(1)While it may take time for someone to takeover Magic Fests where CFB Events left the void, there are other large event series out there, I.E the SCG tour, the F2F Open Series. I don't know if they'll contract Magic Fests out to one specific store in the future as this happened but I can see them returning to the old model where there would be multiple stores that would run GPs, depending on location

(2) While there will be some people who may not attend FNM due to fears of the "second wave of Covid", which I assure is a reasonable fear and probably could happen. However, I don't think it will keep events from firing even in smaller markets. There will be people who will not to see their stores struggle and have been waiting to get out of isolation so they can play with their friends. I'd imagine some stores may provide incentives to play at their store again as well, since this is their income that could be affected by loss of numbers


Again, let's try and avoid discussion on this as the "death of paper Magic"
You misunderstood what I meant by covid 2. I'm not talking about whatever second wave stuff you are referring to. I am talking about the next virus AFTER we have cured covid. Even with a vaccine, social distancing protocols will linger long after. And then even when covid is completely beat, how can any small business owner be expected to rebuild into the same industry that can be wiped out overnight by a govt shut down? In a couple years we will have ANOTHER virus and we will be shutting down all over again because this is the new normal.

If a small business owner has the strength to rebuild, he will be rebuilding into a covid proof business.

This is baseless speculation. COVID-19 style viruses aren't the new normal. There are so many factors that make COVID-19 a unique problem. It's a novel virus, so we as a species have no immunity to it and had to start researching it and developing countermeasures entirely from scratch, without any knowledge of how it would play out. It's a virus with a long incubation period and with a fairly high rate of symptom free infections, making it particularly difficult to track infections and stop the spread using small scale responses. It's deadly enough that it needs to be taken seriously, but not deadly enough to burn itself out. It's highly infectious, requiring only a small amount of the virus to take root. It isn't seasonal, so there is no respite from it's threat. And it's droplet borne and persists for an unusually long time outside of the body. It is the perfect storm for infectiousness. It's very rare for a virus to check off all those boxes like that, and there is no reason to believe that the next virus will be similar.

Virus outbreaks will continue to be common, because they've always been. But outbreaks that require this sort of response are going to continue to be rare. Things like Ebola are harder to spread and kill quick enough that they burn themselves out. Things like the flu, even extremely bad flus, are easier for us to develop vaccines for and treat. SARS and MERS show up quickly enough with severe enough symptoms in most people who catch them, making it relatively easy to track the spread and stop it with small scale measures. Expecting another virus in the near to mid future to be like COVID-19 is unrealistic. It will likely not happen within our lifetimes. Nobody is going to shut down like this for a bad flu.

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
This is baseless speculation. COVID-19 style viruses aren't the new normal. There are so many factors that make COVID-19 a unique problem. It's a novel virus, so we as a species have no immunity to it and had to start researching it and developing countermeasures entirely from scratch, without any knowledge of how it would play out. It's a virus with a long incubation period and with a fairly high rate of symptom free infections, making it particularly difficult to track infections and stop the spread using small scale responses. It's deadly enough that it needs to be taken seriously, but not deadly enough to burn itself out. It's highly infectious, requiring only a small amount of the virus to take root. It isn't seasonal, so there is no respite from it's threat. And it's droplet borne and persists for an unusually long time outside of the body. It is the perfect storm for infectiousness. It's very rare for a virus to check off all those boxes like that, and there is no reason to believe that the next virus will be similar.

Virus outbreaks will continue to be common, because they've always been. But outbreaks that require this sort of response are going to continue to be rare. Things like Ebola are harder to spread and kill quick enough that they burn themselves out. Things like the flu, even extremely bad flus, are easier for us to develop vaccines for and treat. SARS and MERS show up quickly enough with severe enough symptoms in most people who catch them, making it relatively easy to track the spread and stop it with small scale measures. Expecting another virus in the near to mid future to be like COVID-19 is unrealistic. It will likely not happen within our lifetimes. Nobody is going to shut down like this for a bad flu.
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.

So yeah this isn't just baseless speculation, far from it in fact.
Last edited by Card Slinger J 3 years ago, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
robertleva wrote:
3 years ago
motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago


again, as I've said in my previously, I think that we should avoid assuming the death of paper magic until everything is over

(1)While it may take time for someone to takeover Magic Fests where CFB Events left the void, there are other large event series out there, I.E the SCG tour, the F2F Open Series. I don't know if they'll contract Magic Fests out to one specific store in the future as this happened but I can see them returning to the old model where there would be multiple stores that would run GPs, depending on location

(2) While there will be some people who may not attend FNM due to fears of the "second wave of Covid", which I assure is a reasonable fear and probably could happen. However, I don't think it will keep events from firing even in smaller markets. There will be people who will not to see their stores struggle and have been waiting to get out of isolation so they can play with their friends. I'd imagine some stores may provide incentives to play at their store again as well, since this is their income that could be affected by loss of numbers


Again, let's try and avoid discussion on this as the "death of paper Magic"
You misunderstood what I meant by covid 2. I'm not talking about whatever second wave stuff you are referring to. I am talking about the next virus AFTER we have cured covid. Even with a vaccine, social distancing protocols will linger long after. And then even when covid is completely beat, how can any small business owner be expected to rebuild into the same industry that can be wiped out overnight by a govt shut down? In a couple years we will have ANOTHER virus and we will be shutting down all over again because this is the new normal.

If a small business owner has the strength to rebuild, he will be rebuilding into a covid proof business.

This is baseless speculation. COVID-19 style viruses aren't the new normal. There are so many factors that make COVID-19 a unique problem. It's a novel virus, so we as a species have no immunity to it and had to start researching it and developing countermeasures entirely from scratch, without any knowledge of how it would play out. It's a virus with a long incubation period and with a fairly high rate of symptom free infections, making it particularly difficult to track infections and stop the spread using small scale responses. It's deadly enough that it needs to be taken seriously, but not deadly enough to burn itself out. It's highly infectious, requiring only a small amount of the virus to take root. It isn't seasonal, so there is no respite from it's threat. And it's droplet borne and persists for an unusually long time outside of the body. It is the perfect storm for infectiousness. It's very rare for a virus to check off all those boxes like that, and there is no reason to believe that the next virus will be similar.

Virus outbreaks will continue to be common, because they've always been. But outbreaks that require this sort of response are going to continue to be rare. Things like Ebola are harder to spread and kill quick enough that they burn themselves out. Things like the flu, even extremely bad flus, are easier for us to develop vaccines for and treat. SARS and MERS show up quickly enough with severe enough symptoms in most people who catch them, making it relatively easy to track the spread and stop it with small scale measures. Expecting another virus in the near to mid future to be like COVID-19 is unrealistic. It will likely not happen within our lifetimes. Nobody is going to shut down like this for a bad flu.
AS a small business owner how can I possibly take the risk you are wrong?? I now know FOR SURE that:

1) If another one comes the govt has the power to shut us down and in all likelihood will
2) We get another strain on average every 10-15 years up until this point. IN the past we didn't give a crap, but now that the world has seen how weak this current culture of ours is to them I have a strong feeling the frequency of these "accidental" virus out breaks will be increasing.

You have to expect people to be practical. No way in hell would I rebuild into an industry that can be wiped out overnight without any safe guards or protections. Those days are over. Those quaint little small businesses are gone forever, because even f the desire to rebuild is there, the owner can have no faith or security or peace of mind...ever. It can all end at any minute due to viruses from the the other side of the world. Who the hell is going to take that risk? Not me. Not many.
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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

One of my LGSs recently started doing two types of Prerelease events for Paper Magic, one being the normal version with In-Store Play though I expect the turnout to be less than 10 players If not 5 bare minimum with the other type of event being a Take Home Prerelease meaning that If players still don't feel comfortable with In-Store Play they can pick up their Prerelease kits with two bonus booster packs. Not sure how much it will offset the loss of customers they normally would have gotten under normal circumstances however with Paper Magic getting more and more expensive with less people showing up for In-Store Play due to the pandemic I expect less foot traffic within these stores.

It doesn't matter if they try to expand their business portfolio, If people are too afraid to enter your store to do business with you especially If you don't have a strong online presence with e-commerce, marketing / advertising, and the like then they're forced to go out of business because they can't sell other products not associated with Paper Magic. That could include stuff like board games, anime figures, comic books, basically collectible / tangible items that customers want to be able to hold onto instead of something that's digital where companies have more reign over what their customers can and can't have without their consent. It's one of the reasons why media censorship has become more rampant as a means of creating more demand for physical media.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

This thread is going off topic again. As a reminder, please stay on topic as to how this relates to Magic and not Covid-19 as a whole-Motleyslayer

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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/46032/brick-mortar-retail-sales-expected-decline-14-2020

ICv2 wrote: Overall retail sales in the U.S. are expected to decline 10.5% in 2020 due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic , according to a report by eMarketer as reported by Chain Store Age. A sharp divergence between brick and mortar sales and ecommerce is emerging, with online sales expected to rise 18% and offline sales expected to decline 14%, according to the report. Offline sales may take up to five years to return to pre-pandemic levels, the report predicts, and despite increases in e-commerce sales, total retail sales will also take years to recover.

Big increases in sales of groceries and health, personal care and beauty are expected to drive the increases in ecommerce sales. New behaviors like "click-and-collect" (used by many comic and game stores during shutdowns and partial re-openings) have grown dramatically, according to the report.
Keep in mind that this does actually pertain to MTG still and not COVID-19 as a whole since this does impact offline sales for Paper Magic when it comes to the Local Game Store (LGS) as this will more than likely push these businesses to have the kind of online presence that they probably didn't have before the pandemic. Either way you look at it this does seem to have a negative effect on In-Store Play since there will be less people to attend small Organized Play events due to social distancing. In last weekends Core 2021 Pre-Release Event there was only a turnout of 6 players at one LGS.

So in order to try to offset the damage these LGSs will need to charge players with higher entry fees to make up for low player attendance since they're not allowed to have more than 10-15 people at these small events. If these LGSs are charging less than $15-20 to play at a Pre-Release Event or for FNM Standard then that's going to negatively impact their business unless those profits alongside e-commerce sales via card singles and other products are enough to get them to pay rent in order to stay in business. The question is will it be enough to reach that $1,000 a month threshold in order to break even.

EDIT: Turns out that I was wrong about my $1,000 per month assessment. Local Game Stores (LGSs) need to be making more than $1,000 a month since it's way more than rent:

Rent (unless they outright own)
Mortgage (If they're purchasing)
Property Tax
Insurance
Business License Fees
Electric Bill
Water Bill
Wages (paying any employees)
Maintenance
Other Overhead
Merchandise
Interest on Merchandise (when they borrow to buy stuff)
Public Advertising (Local and/or Online)

And I'm sure I'm missing other costs as well. If I were to own a Local Game Store (LGS) I wouldn't want less than $10,000 a month gross income (between brick and mortar AND online sales) and even then you probably would never even cut yourself a check for your own salary. So yeah, LGSs are going to have to up their entry fees in response, they aren't a charity. Problem is that they're forced to increase the cost in order to save their own business as they end up driving away the small amount of players they may have. It's a Catch-22, damned If you do, damned If you don't scenario. I'm not going to get into the politics of reopening.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I think a few things that could impact how much people spend at LGSs right now are (1) the fear of being in "large" groups still, I.E more than 10. In Ontario, gatherings are still limited to 10 people at a time. Which is a really small amount of people entering into events. Even if people were allowed to gather in groups of more than that, is WotC still not sanctioning events or have they changed that?
(2) another thing that I don't see discussed as much is that hobbies like MtG are still hobbies, so people might not be willing to spend as much on their hobbies during uncertain times. Which will impact stores bottom lines during this

Hopefully things are starting to look better but there still is that second wave we need to worry about. I've been fortunate enough to see that none of the stores I play at, even outside my local area have shut down yet

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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

I was hoping things could go back to normal here in my country. So that we can play paper mtg again, USPS packages would not be blocked anymore, and I could order again at SCG. Unfortunately, things are opposite... our government is trying to slowly reopen things. However, only one month after the quarantine was relaxed.. we have 8,000+ new cases. In one of our provinces, the dead are piling up in hospitals -- although in contrast, some parts of the country are almost recovered. Also my mom told me this morning, another one of our relatives was taken to the hospital, not sure if it's severe or mild case.. but only one thing is clear.. this pandemic is far from over.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
I was hoping things could go back to normal here in my country. So that we can play paper mtg again, USPS packages would not be blocked anymore, and I could order again at SCG. Unfortunately, things are opposite... our government is trying to slowly reopen things. However, only one month after the quarantine was relaxed.. we have 8,000+ new cases. In one of our provinces, the dead are piling up in hospitals -- although in contrast, some parts of the country are almost recovered. Also my mom told me this morning, another one of our relatives was taken to the hospital, not sure if it's severe or mild case.. but only one thing is clear.. this pandemic is far from over.
I feel like there's a bunch of people I know who want MtG to go back to normal (among many other things). In my province, the provincial government did a gradual reopening by region, with the hardest it regions reopening slower than other areas. They also had different phases, which determined what could be reopened. Most are on phase 2 which allows for patios, barber shops and a few other things but it might be a while before everything is allowed to go on as it was pre-pandemic. Which is understandable.

Even orders from within Canada are really slow right now, let alone anything from out of Country. I waited maybe 2-3 weeks for an order from Face to Face (which ships from a neighbourhood in Montreal, so only a few hours away from me). I've been waiting for an order from CFB for over a month and I'll assume it'll be that long for an order I used with my SCG credit. It's frustrating sometimes but the mild inconvenience is better than people having to risk their lives to fulfill an order for something I won't be able to use for a bit longer anyways.

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Post by Krishnath » 3 years ago

We should not expect things to get back to normal until the disease is under control, and that is not going to happen as long as certain governments keep fubaring the response, my own included.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I think a lot of governments could have handled their responses a lot better, which is an unfortunate reality of this. I don't really want to talk about the changes to every day life as I don't really know how to approach it.

Large gatherings such as Magic Fests and SCG Tour events probably won't be happening until sometime next year at the earliest. There's way too many risks involved with large gatherings right now as shown by other large gatherings. Not to mention CFB events going under so it'll probably take time to get a new group to run the events and get the infrastructure in place.

It still might be a bit before we can even get most stores running small level events, as there are still limits to how many people can be in a store. also having people playing events will limit the amount of customers who aren't playing you can have in the store. at least that's the way I think it works in some places

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Post by Krishnath » 3 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
I think a lot of governments could have handled their responses a lot better, which is an unfortunate reality of this.
Problem is that most politicians care more about making money of their stocks than they care about serving the populace of their nations, which leads to decisions that are not in the best interest of the public. And unfortunately we keep voting the same bastards into office.

Because of this, I do not expect anything to get back to normal until late next year, at the earliest.
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Post by Card Slinger J » 3 years ago

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.

No sane LGS owner is going to renew their lease on a store that went bankrupt when the business model itself was already doomed to fail because it was too reliant on cash flow in order to succeed.

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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

Card Slinger J wrote:
3 years ago
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.

No sane LGS owner is going to renew their lease on a store that went bankrupt when the business model itself was already doomed to fail because it was too reliant on cash flow in order to succeed.

Game Over Man, GAME OVER!

Regarding what you wrote and MTG my question is this: At what point are people going to start realizing their paper cards no longer have many places they can be used and are thus borderline useless?

FYI folks the value of paper cards is going to crash. It hasn't happened yet but it WILL be happening. Sure older cards will probably hold their value, but anything newish ESPECIALLY paper standard is essentially unplayable until after covid and by then it will be rotated out.

But hey paper collectors with older collections, you aren't totally safe either. Once standard paper dissolves and the interest moves online, large scale paper magic may be gone forever. SCG is gone now too which would make it tough even without a covid world. I feel like there is only one possible outcome for large scale paper magic in the long run, the only question was how long would it last. Covid basically put paper magic into an early grave.

If you are the type of person who buys and sells cards as some form profit, then I would say the market is about to crash get out now before it does.
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Post by RxPhantom » 3 years ago

I went to my LGS for Commander night last week. Masks were required and they had plastic dividers between players. It was strange but workable. I really wanted to play my Yarok deck at one point, but between Bribery and Gonti, Lord of Luxury and other stuff like that, I just didn't want to touch other people's cards.
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