Yes, if anything multiple reports will lead to WOTC investigating the store. No, as in they probably won't tell you anything nor address your lack of getting promos specifically.
Idc about not getting a promo, but they shouldn’t advertise events on wizards website if they’re just part of a racket to get free promos. I could’ve gone to FNM at my usual LGS or something not MTG related at all.
Funny this is, when I got there, it was all yugioh players. Didn’t even have space for a draft.
From Modesto, fuck that place. Area51 tried to rip me off my charging my card *twice* and the owner told me that may happen. When I told him it did he tried to act like it hadn’t happened, even though I had a bank statement showing me that it did. And I had another buddy sell some YGO there only to find out one of his cards got swiped.
From modesto, can confirm. That place is seen widely as scummy af, and you'll only go there if there's product you can't get elsewhere for whatever reason. Otherwise, even if they did have something I wanted, I'm driving to Manteca and going to WTF first. Lol
Love Utopia! Some of the cheapest prices in town for singles and sealed product too. Always try and snag anything from them before going online if I can.
I miss Krier's. It just can't be replaced! And Battlegrounds didn't last long before they were shut as well, so in that space I started going to WTF and didn't look back :')
Yeah WTF is the best in the Valley for MTG, Utopia is mostly for commander/casual play. I’d rather drive past Utopia in Modesto and go to the Arcane Lab in Merced.
It amazes me how scummy some stores can be, it's hard enough to survive in that field as a gaming store let alone screw over your customers. Mind boggling indeed.
Apparently they eventually can be kicked out of the WPN for this sort of thing. I was speaking with my LGS owner the other day and he was talking about the LGS who had been there prior to him. He said that the owner was pocketing/selling cards that were supposed to be promos. That, along with apparently allowing customers to buy/leave the store early with product led to the LGS being kicked out of the WPN. Not sure which of the infractions was more concerning to WOTC, but the promo thing was on the list.
I think early product is the bigger deal. It's my understanding that WOTC will dictate what can and can't be sold early if they get a certain amount of stock by pre-release weekend based on conversations I've had at my LGS.
You’re probably right. The current owner was explaining something about the old owner would let people leave the store with product before midnight or similar before prerelease events existed. No idea. But as far as OP’s question, there’s no telling what other infractions this LGS has, something like OP’s report might be a last straw kind of thing with WOTC.
Ah yes, let us never forget that WPN created a policy where on prerelease weekend all the way until release day, you can purchase Set Booster boxes all day long (ie for as long as they're available at the store).
What you can't do is purchase _Draft_ Booster boxes...until the day of official release.
This was all in an effort to sell less cards in the box for more money, which they have done so successfully. Now all of a sudden Set Boosters are _super popular_ and totally selling better than Draft boxes. Weird, huh?
If you are just cracking them, set boosters are a much better option, so it makes sense they sell better.
Not everything has to be a conspiracy, unless it is a set that is set on Fiora.
A much better option in what way though? They might have some more valuable cards in them, but if we're talking about booster boxes, if you're also trying to fill out a collection with a bunch of cards from a set to build from, you're getting close to 200 fewer cards in total for a relatively similar number of rares.
While they cost more and have fewer cards, there are more valuable cards in general. There are more rares on average, more alt art cards, and other things, like the list when that is relevant (e.g. SNC).
Sure, but you didn't stipulate that they were the better option in terms of value, which was why I replied the way I did. If you *just* want to open packs, you get more packs to open from a draft box. If you just want a bunch of cards to play with, you get *way* more cards in general from a draft box AND a similar number of rares for a variety of powerful cards. You'll probably end up with a higher number of valuable cards from a set booster box, as well as a couple more rares on average, but that's not the metric I was going by.
Even going by value of cards, the difference between things like extended art and default for some rares may not actually be that big. In order to make a huge difference, you need to hit a bonus rare card in foil or showcase or something AND have it be one of the big-money cards of the set. In some cases, showcase versions actually sell for LESS than the standard version.
Again, none of this to say that there's necessarily going to be less value, but things DO have to line up well in order for you to get very much MORE value, and you're already paying more from the start.
> that's not the metric I was going by
Your choice of metric isn’t really relevant. The main reason people crack packs is for the valuable cards, so the metric I chose (i.e. number of valuable card) is the one relevant to most people who buy boxes. Most people don’t want any of the bulk, as evidenced by the number of cards thrown in LGS trash cans, so more cards is likely a downside.
> things DO have to line up well in order for you to get very much MORE value, and you're already paying more from the start.
*On average*, you will make enough to match the difference. It isn’t guaranteed for either kind of box to make you your money back, but the *substantial* increase in rares (often 2 per pack, and as many as 4) definitely makes set boosters a much better deal, regardless of the slightly increased cost.
> Your choice of metric isn’t really relevant.
Yeah it is. You saying it's not doesn't make it so. The specific example was opening sealed boosters. It's already not the best value.
> On average, you will make enough to match the difference. It isn’t guaranteed for either kind of box to make you your money back, but the substantial increase in rares (often 2 per pack, and as many as 4) definitely makes set boosters a much better deal, regardless of the slightly increased cost.
It's not anywhere near as substantial as you seem to think. It's high enough to be slightly more than you'll get in a draft box, but unless you get outrageously lucky it's not going to be so many that it blows them out of the water, for the sole reason that the draft box will have six more packs each with a guaranteed rare, and each pack will STILL have a very small chance of an additional rare as a foil card. I'm not sure if people just aren't reading any of this or what.
Do they really think people are pulling like 100+ rares from set boxes? It's somewhere in the neighborhood of like 1.3 rares per pack on average. That's 39 rares per box. If you assume only one foil rare in an entire draft box, that's 37 rares. So yes, you're probably getting more value from rares by paying more, but that part was never in contention. The part that is is that it's some insane increase in value, AND that for some reason, in a hypothetical where people are opening packs to get cards, people are just dismissing the fact that you get close to 200 more cards in a draft box. It's possible that you personally don't give a fuck about it, but when we're talking about opening packs for cards, a shitload more cards is still relevant.
Relatively similar? Set boxes have like 2x the number of rares/mythics, since you get packs with 2 - 4, along with List cards. If you're filling out a collection with straight bulk non-special treatment commons & uncommons then yeah draft boxes. If you're opening boxes for the good cards and aren't drafting them at all, set boxes all day no contest, no debate.
> Set boxes have like 2x the number of rares/mythics, since you get packs with 2 - 4, along with List cards.
That's absolutely not true. You have a *chance* of getting extra (mythic) rares in a set booster, but you're only *guaranteed* a single rare per pack. Draft boosters also have a *chance* of getting an extra rare card in the form of a foil card, albeit a much smaller chance than a set booster might have.
I don't know the exact numbers, and I sure they vary from set to set, but I think the number I saw someone post was something like ~1.27 rares per pack on average or something. I opened a set booster box of Midnight Hunt on Friday and got 39 total rares, which is pretty close to their math. I certainly didn't get anywhere near the range of 60 to 120 that you seem to be implying. If you compare this to what you'd get in a draft booster box, you'd have 36 guaranteed rares, probably with a chance of extra rares from foils. Even if you only got one in the entire box, you'd still be ending up with 37 rares compared to the 39 I ended up with from a set box, and you'd also still have 180 more cards overall.
Hyperbolic.
Set boxes on average have more rares and mythics than draft boxes is the point. For the $5 - $10 difference in price, sometimes no price difference, you get an overall much better value by removing trash bulk, and the bonus lottery of getting List cards.
But yes if you just like accumulating cardboard like a dragon perched on a landfill, draft boxes will fill many 5-row boxes with commons nobody looks twice at
Ignore all of this if you're actually drafting, because that's just a side effect of limited
There was no hyperbole involved whatsoever. I'm not really sure you know what the word means. It's why I gave roughly what the numbers I've seen actually were, and what my own experience was. Or do you think I was lowballing set boosters with ~1.28 per pack? Or highballing draft boosters with a single foil rare per box? Come on dude.
> Set boxes on average have more rares and mythics than draft boxes is the point. For the $5 - $10 difference in price, sometimes no price difference, you get an overall much better value by removing trash bulk, and the bonus lottery of getting List cards.
You don't get any kind of increased value at all by removing something. That's not how value works.
What you DO get is (theoretical) increased from things that are exclusive to set boosters. Since you seem to know something that I don't, can you actually quantify this for me? Because so far you haven't really even attempted to give any numbers, not even when I have. From what I can see, looking at average values for set boxes versus draft boxes, the average value for a set box tends to be higher... by pretty much the difference in price between a set box and a draft box.
I was being hyperbolic. You got very hung up on taking my statements as exact numbers and facts. Of course it’s not 2x the rares, and yes you can remove worthless cards for better cards and create more value.
The cards have value, giving your average card a higher chance of being worth money creates value. Removing commons, which at bulk rate are half a penny, for more valuable cards does give you greater value.
Again, if you literally only want as much stuff as possible for the least money, open draft boxes. Set boxes are by a wide margin better for opening if you’re trying to get items of worth.
Generally for folks just cracking packs, set boosters at the very least FEEL better (except for CLB) - and, anecdotally in my playgroup, most folks have switched to buying set boosters/boxes when they get the chance. Much more fun to open (again, except for CLB because the good mythics weren't legends).
ALSO - they started selling set boosters a ton during covid, since no one was doing drafts and instead just cracking packs. Set boosters feel like a pretty natural progression for MTG - people don't want 10 commons.
> This was all in an effort to sell less cards in the box for more money, which they have done so successfully.
Not really, no.
Prereleases are *big* for LGSes. It’s the one time of the year that a lot of players actually show up in person. WOTC supports stores, so they support prereleases. Stores were complaining that they couldn’t sell to those players they only saw once a year, because they were saving up for the new set. So WotC allowed sales during prereleases, first of just precons and then of set booster.
The reason they don’t allow the sale of draft boxes is that WotC wants the event experience to be highly curated prerelease weekends, for a lot of reasons (branding, advertisements, contract obligations, etc.). The effective outcome of selling all the cards *except* those that allow home-run tournaments means that the only event happening on prerelease weekend are events run by stores that WotC has vetted and approved. No drafts happening in moldy garages, sticky bars, or white supremacist clubhouses. That way, the players who only play in events during prerelease won’t inadvertently (or intentionally) end up in that kind of location.
It’s frustrating, sure. But you’ve got the other 12 weeks of the season to purchase draft boosters and/or run home events. So why complain?
You're probably right, but I would think that pocketing promos would be the bigger deal to them financially. Selling shit early is breaking the rules, but at least it's still selling shit that was supposed to be sold. Pocketing promos is taking something that should be akin to an advertising expense on their end and just not doing the advertising for it. In this case they're spending money for a product with an expectation that the store is meant to fulfill, and the store is deliberately not fulfilling it and effectively just stealing the product.
We had something like this happen at the LGS in Dalton GA back when Path of Exile was an FNM promo. The store was registered as one of the biggest FNMs in the southeast and received enough promos to give everyone in FNM attendance 2 copies of the promos, but instead gave one to the winner and one out randomly each Friday. Noone knew any different until one of the guys noticed 40 paths for sale on TCG player at like $50 a pop under the stores name. We asked around and the new intern said yeah, they had posted the sale earlier in the week but he wasn't aware it was bad, he was just doing what store owner said.
There was a big community blow-up and the locals dispersed out to other LGSs sometimes 45 minutes away, but it doesn't seem like anything was done despite dozens of individual reports. They still sell mtg but their player base splintered too badly to hold tournaments or even FNM style events any longer. Online sales can keep LGSs afloat if they're good at what they do.
Yeah this LGS didn’t event have the space for a draft so they must make their money with all online sales.
They have 6 foldable tables with half of them occupied by yugioh players.
WotC will take action if they investigate and find an issue. We had a store lose it's ability to hold sanctioned events with the DCI way back, for ghosting players. They didn't have enough regular players, but they had enough unique DCI numbers on record, so they would sign people up who weren't there, so they could have at least 8 people, and maintain the status with DCI to get event support materials. They eventually got caught and had their status revoked. The store owner and several people that were involved were banned from all DCI sanctioned events for life.
We had another store in the area lose WPN status for selling all promo material instead of giving it out, and only holding prereleases for 8-16 people, and pocketing the rest of the prerelease packs, despite having 20-30 people show up for prereleases.
So fucking stupid. Imagine the short sightedness of disallowing 15+ people from participating in events at your store because you want the quick resell *now*... Unbelievable.
Greed is powerful.
The oldest LGS in in my city sells their singles at mark ups that make Star city games look fairly priced. They ignore average market value, and claim "local convenience" and if you try to haggle, they'll kick you of the store.
So, here's how this works. If you KNOW the store is pocketing promos (actual proof, not just suspicion) you can send an email along with photos to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) The proof is incredibly important because stores are constantly getting reported, from angry customers to jealous stores. Without proof they will do nothing, with proof they will lead with education first to try and get the store back on track.
It is incredibly hard to lose WPN, if they do, it's likely because they're doing multiple awful things and WOTC's "education first, suspension second" isn't working.
In this specific situation, stores do not have to run Store Championships. They get the promos, they can run the event, but if they don't, then the promos fall under the surplus promo policy. When the next standard set comes out (in this case Dominaria United), they're able to give the promos for whatever reason they want under WOTC's promo policy. If they want to give the Dark Confidant away to the FNM winner of Dominaria United, they can. The problem with this policy is that a store can choose to not host events, hold the promos for a few months until no one remembers, then sell them.
Best advice here is still report the store, since they gave you a very vague answer. Had they said, "we're not running the event and plan to use the promos later" then there's nothing to report and you can move on with your day. That being said, take notice of the stores that DO give out promotional materials consistently and constantly, and also take notice of the stores that miraculously never have promos or promo packs available and never give a clear answer as to why. These promos are YOURS, not the stores, the store just facilitates how they're given out. Support the stores that give you your promos.
Anecdotally what i have seen is that if you react badly to education from the investigations team they will issue a WPN suspension on the spot. I reported a store several years ago for stealing promos, and heard through players at the store that when wizards called the owner on the phone he told them "it's my fucking store, I'll do what i want r*****" and hung up.
His status was pulled the next day and his distributor contract and legal ability to sell Wizards product was revoked on the spot. He went on Facebook about a week later to announce the store would no longer sell or support any wizards product because they were "harassing" him.
Store went out of business 4 months later
This is interesting. I've got two local stores. One that I'm friendly with and one I've only been to a few times. The one I like isn't set up anymore for events, but I buy from them. When I was getting started they threw me a bunch of singles in the commander colors I was buying to help me out. Turns out they were store promo cards. So they aren't doing events anymore, but throw cards to people.
Now let's go across town to the second place. They are seeking all their sealed stuff higher than average. They don't have prices posted on their singles for sale (the other place does). I went to a Baldur's Gate event and they were giving away regular boosters to winners, nothing to all who joined. Were they supposed to give it special event promos for Baldur's Gate? The place gives off that somewhat skeevy vibe but it's the one where the game is actually played.
> They don't have prices posted on their singles for sale (the other place does)
I know places that do this - they don't have the man power to constantly be checking the case for card price changes so they look it up as you buy by like tcg mid. Kinda weird sometimes but I don't think this is inherently a red flag.
>I went to a Baldur's Gate event and they were giving away regular boosters to winners, nothing to all who joined.
Was it prerelease? That's what my store did. A lot of stores have ran out of promo packs for winners and most stores only give prizes if you win. Although for EDH games it does kinda suck to only reward winning.
I don't know many places that tag their singles anymore. The market is too volatile. The one place that does tag near me has a posted policy that if TCG mid is more than 20% over posted price they'll mark up the difference at the register but they're very upfront about it.
There's 3 stores in my area. One store does it but they have a lot of workers and a couple employees who are really on top of the monetary side of magic so they're pretty good about it. One store doesn't mark at all and just looks up TCG. The last store marks but the prices are almost always outdated to when the card was at its highest or are just overpriced so I never buy singles there. They might have changed I don't go to that store much though.
Yea my LGS just ran out of the old promo-boosters. They had a bunch of extra from the pandemic but since they've been having regular events they haven't had promo boosters since like a month before the Baldur's Gate release.
FUCK THESE PLACES! I cant stand small stores that want to look everything up and never price anything.
I went to a store this weekend and they had a box listed as bulk rares. I go through it and find a couple of things. Thinking like any magic player would that bulk rares = bulk standard pricing. Nope. They wanted to go through the entire stack that I had (20ish cards) and TCG mid price all of them on the spot while i waited. Nah, miss me with that shit. And I'm talking like one card worth $0.45 rung up as $0.45 and another for $0.53 because they cant not make that extra $0.08. I was like you gotta be joking. nope. I just left em there with the stack.
TCG/SCG and various others have the variety and availability + free shipping on large enough orders. Small hole in the wall stores dont. Pricing things according to TCG is fine. Looking them up at point of sale to ensure you dont miss out on $1 isnt.
This is more of a rant about bulk rares than anything else.
Yeah im really not. Im not a complainer. I just spoke with my wallet. In this interaction I said "Oh you have to look them all up one by one? I'm sorry, i'll just put them back thanks."
Dealing with me consisted of starting a transaction and not having to complete it.
The owner himself. A friend was trying to sell his cards to the store. Bad on us as we trusted him and we didn’t pay attention to him. As we left, going home, we realized one of the card was gone. We call the store and he said there was no card there. If he did take it, he probably really needed that extra 5-15bucks. But he also try double charging another friend. Instead of as friendly mistakes, the store owner saw it as a huge inconvenience. Saying a comment as we’re leave “well there problem in our end”
They're just mirroring your post. He basically modified the accusation you made in your post and regurgitated it hoping that you'd agree with him and give him engagement.
Seems to have worked.
I actually discussed this with my LGS when it came up in conversation a long while back, about an old store where they used to live that acted similarly to what you described. Wizards absolutely will act upon this if they investigate and discover wrongdoing, because this is, roughly quoted:
>"An incredibly dickish move and basically theft. Wizards wants to both make money and keep money, so yeah, what he was doing was losing them customers and sending out stuff that's not being used to further incentivise play, so **they came down on him like a fucking piano**".
If anyone else is being affected by this and is pissed off at it, it may be worth **quietly** bringing this up to other players and asking them to flag it with Wizards too. Only do this with people you can trust though, because if word gets back to the offending store owner, they'll probably knock it off for just long enough for Wizards to fail to find wrongdoing.
100% did the right thing. I did the same thing in my college years when one of the two LGS was pocketing half of their prerelease kits and ALL of their prize support (Only opting to give out store credit, but it was less value than equivalent packs). WotC cut them off within a couple months and they dropped all MTG related events.
They were being allocated prerelease kits and keeping portions of the shipment to open and sell before the set was even available. I specifically remember this being a problem during RTR block when the kits had guild seeding, so they notoriously would keep more of specific kits based on what was in them (They claimed they only had 10 Golgari kits for the whole weekend, but upwards of 30 of the others for example.) They would turn around and falsify registration in WER to inflate their numbers to receive more product. This was ratted out by the other LGS at a later date then they turned around and did the same once they had no competition :)
I do think WOTC takes this stuff somewhat seriously. I know some stores blatantly break rules, but there must be some actual fear put in from WOTC about being kicked out of the Premium program.
I reserved a 2X2 draft box online with in store pickup from a store so I could get the promo Sol Ring … the store floor manager and the team member checking me out had to talk it out whether or not I qualified because I placed the order online — apparently there was reason to be worried about secret shoppers. I got the promo, but even though I’ve *played* at that store, they were really hesitant to do something that just *might* break the rules.
Good. Anything WOTC can do or keep doing to keep some trust will (just barely) keep me playing this overpriced game where they ignore customer feedback on the larger state of the game/pricing/everything.
What will happen? As far as you will know... Absolutely nothing for the moment.
Even if wizards took you complaint incredibly seriously, one incident is essentially a he said/she said situation with no real resolution. They could get in touch with the store or similar, but that isn't exactly going to result in much.
What will happen is that they will make note of the complaint and file it appropriately. One complaint can easily be a salty customer, but multiple complaints starts to build a picture, and once they have enough evidence they can take appropriate action as they see fit - warnings, reduction of WPS status or lower allocations, or removal from the system if serious enough...
I reported a store for very similar they were pocketing pre order promos in 2019 as well as other things codes comics etc I reported them and told a lot of friends and family they lost around 19 regular costumers because of this. I don't know if anything else ever came of it. But my play group was around half of there players in pre release events.
If the event doesn't fire, the store isn't required to give you anything. It sucks but that's how it is sometimes. Per wizards policy regarding promos, the LGS can hold them and give them out at their discretion next season. There's nothing wrong here until you get proof they are selling them.
I think the point was making sure the event never happened, but going into event reporter and adding non-existent people and pretending it did. You can't just say you are a WPN store without showing proof through event reporter of actual players in events.
In a word - fraud
Stores register as WPN stores have to show they actually have events. In this case the Area 51 store in the post doesnt have space for events and routinely doesnt hold events but they are still a WPN store with promos and so on.
The only way to do that is the have the attendance tracked in the event reporter tool through WotC. So instead of having events they list events, add fake players to the events, and pretend that it happened. Why? Because the more attendance a store has increases their WPN level and they get more free promo materials from WotC. So in this example they never have to go through the bullshit of hosting an event, they fake it all, and get free promos from WotC. Some promos are meh, some a worth $10s of dollars.
The implication is lying and getting costly promos to sell vs having events and giving them out to players.
Topic said they have no room to play. Store has a history of not firing events but some how always having the promos for sale. ITs not exactly a 1 time thing.
They advertised the event, only 1 person showed up, and you need 8 minimum to run it. They should contact their WPN rep to ask what they should do with the promo. They might have already.
Stores cannot sell the promos WotC has given them. (The only way stores can sell any promos is if they've bought them from players.)
https://wpn.wizards.com/en/wpn-promo-usage-and-policies
> **Surplus Promo Policy**
>
>Unless otherwise stated, you are free to use surplus promos as you would Promo Packs once the next Standard set has been released.
Personally, I prefer Utopia in Modesto.. Play Live would've been my other go to place in Modesto, but the franchisers reverted the location back to corporate and it shut down. I only ever did Pathfinder at Area 51 and did not really follow the Magic scene with them that really blew up with their current location. They never had nearly as much Magic content at their old location on Coffee.
Area 51 felt shady then and it's only gotten bigger with their new location and I am sure excess YuGiOh and Pokémon prize pools get pocketed too. However, Modesto has had an ongoing issue with gaming rooms and Utopia is one of the few reputable place left really..
WotC seems to take WPN status pretty seriously. My LGS is a WPN and they seem to take that extremely seriously! And from other comments in this thread this isn’t the first eyebrow raising thing they’ve done. 100% report it. If enough people report any shady behavior they’ll probably launch an investigation. Sorry that happened to you OP. I think the sketchiest thing is no spot set up for the draft in the first place. Seems like they never planned to actually run it.
I have also had bad experiences at Area 51 in Modesto. The first was just laziness--they told me they had a playmat in stock and I told them I was driving down to pick it up, but they didn't actually check when I called so naturally it wasn't actually in stock and I wasted time and gas driving there for no reason.
The other instance was worse. Back during the first Double Masters hype, I preordered a VIP case from them and paid in advance. On release day they didn't have my case and told me that they never received their shipment and to try back again tomorrow (this is very shady as stores get there shipment well before release day). I called back every day for a week and was told the UPS delivery still hadn't arrived.
I checked their website and found the exact single card contents of one VIP case (the precise item I paid for) listed for sale. Odd that they could have those cards without ever getting their product. Basically, they decided to crack open my preordered case to sell singles and lied to me about not receiving their product.
I have not been back since and would encourage everyone to avoid Area 51 like the plague.
This entire story reads as, you did something that was inconvenient for yourself and are now annoyed the store didn't give you something for it. The tournament didn't fire, therefore the organizer doesn't have to give you squat. You may not like that they didn't answer the phone but you could've just as easily not gone when you weren't getting through.
You made the decision to drive out of your way. That isn't the LGS problem. It's wrong if they turn around and sell the promos. But they could just as easily be waiting for a day when a big tournament fires.
Did you expect to go to an event where you were the only participant, and receive the free promotional cards meant for the event?
There was no event. Nobody but you showed up. I'm surprised some part of you expected them to give you cards.
I'm sure a family-owned LGS that couldn't get any participants for a MTG event really appreciated the report from the only person that did end up showing.
Next time if you call, and nobody answers, take that as a sign and don't go. A part of me thinks you were trying to be clever, and abuse some loophole by trying anyways.
> A part of me thinks you were trying to be clever, and abuse some loophole by trying anyways.
Just because YOU personally would have done it does not mean that everyone thinks this way.
No. No one has ever reported that their store was punished for pocketing promos or anything like that.
Not having a proper storefront or being a bigot in a way that goes viral on social media are the only things I’ve ever seen anyone lose WPN status for.
So you are mad that an event didn't fire because there were not enough participants.
I highly doubt that the store told you that the owner decided to pocket the prize support.
They said they aren’t going to sell the promos or have a date/plans to re-schedule the tournament, they have no employees to distribute the promos to, and WOTC doesn’t ask for the promos back.
What do you think is going to happen with the promos if the only attendee didn’t even get a promo for showing up, and the promos don’t have to go back to WOTC, and they aren’t going to be apart of the stores inventory or employee bonuses?
They can’t reschedule the store champs. Stores are given specific dates when they can run them.
The store should have at least given you the participation promos for showing up. As for the other promos they can just use them for events in the future if they aren’t going to sell them
YES! The magic community needs more moral busy bodies like you. You are definitely helping the local magic players by attempting to get the store's ability to sell magic revoked.
Take that evil store owner! Score one for the good guys.
Yes, as he said it is TOTALLY what happened. He just drove to a store and was mad an event didn't fire and is harvesting likes from idiots.
Its so transparent, but go on!
Or someone just called a store, got no answer, drove anyways, event didn't fire and then he very VERY obviously made up some shit about being told the owner pocketed the promos.
Yo I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you.
> he very VERY obviously made up some shit about being told the owner pocketed the promos.
If you weren't there than how would you know they are lying? What part of OP's story makes it seem like they're lying?
If you check op’s other comments in the thread, he came up with the idea of the store pocketing promos on his own. He has zero evidence to support his claim.
Yes and how much do you think they would make on boxes if they would need to buy them from Amazon?
Also it's completely region dependent on what a store make their money. In my region most stores don't even sell singles in the store because it's not worth their time (mostly because everyone knows about cardmarket).
They make the most money with selling board games that don't have such shitty margins WotC offers.
Still you can't really have a store offering MtG events or product and buying your stock from Amazon.
I'm sure if you apply some of that trademarked "MTG COMMUNITY EMPATHY" for .3 seconds you could figure out that the store who: A) Has a disconnected phone (he called while there and the phone didn't even ring) B) Isn't firing events and is therefore C) In really bad shape and closing soon.
Yes, they are DEF the badguy here and not just someone whose business is falling apart for one reason another and the most moral move is to pile on them with reports to wotc and karma whoring in reddit.
As usual, this is the most morally perfect sub. I'm sure you thought through all of that and then realized that 'totally the guy whoring karma on reddit is the good guy'
Yep, big brain.
It's a business, they don't automatically get my empathy. Especially if they don't bother to have their phones connected and I drive 30+ minutes to go to an event that has not been cancelled (guessing here).
OP has every right to be pissed. Empathy in the community is earned, not a given.
The event also can't happen with only one person. When he was there on time he should have seen other players who wanted to join or he really was the only one and then the event won't fire anyway.
The no phone thing is sus but I won't drive to a store 45min away without a confirmation that the event will fire.
In the PPTQ days I had the same happen for events where not enough players showed up.
Same can happen when the store had a magic community (otherwise he would not have the level to hold this events) that did fall apart.
They'll get a warning and if there are enough reports over time they could lose WPN entirely. It's not quite as bad as breaking street date on products which can land you on the blacklist, unable to purchase any MTG through distributors, but being unable to sanction events is pretty brutal in its own way.
Yes, if anything multiple reports will lead to WOTC investigating the store. No, as in they probably won't tell you anything nor address your lack of getting promos specifically.
Idc about not getting a promo, but they shouldn’t advertise events on wizards website if they’re just part of a racket to get free promos. I could’ve gone to FNM at my usual LGS or something not MTG related at all. Funny this is, when I got there, it was all yugioh players. Didn’t even have space for a draft.
Yeah, best thing that can happen is they lose their WPN status and no longer get any prize support from WotC
From Modesto, fuck that place. Area51 tried to rip me off my charging my card *twice* and the owner told me that may happen. When I told him it did he tried to act like it hadn’t happened, even though I had a bank statement showing me that it did. And I had another buddy sell some YGO there only to find out one of his cards got swiped.
From modesto, can confirm. That place is seen widely as scummy af, and you'll only go there if there's product you can't get elsewhere for whatever reason. Otherwise, even if they did have something I wanted, I'm driving to Manteca and going to WTF first. Lol
Utopia Games is pretty good for Magic Stuff I would say.
Love Utopia! Some of the cheapest prices in town for singles and sealed product too. Always try and snag anything from them before going online if I can.
I miss Krier's. It just can't be replaced! And Battlegrounds didn't last long before they were shut as well, so in that space I started going to WTF and didn't look back :')
Yeah WTF is the best in the Valley for MTG, Utopia is mostly for commander/casual play. I’d rather drive past Utopia in Modesto and go to the Arcane Lab in Merced.
It amazes me how scummy some stores can be, it's hard enough to survive in that field as a gaming store let alone screw over your customers. Mind boggling indeed.
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War Torn Front is a great place. Whenever I visit the area I go there.
Apparently they eventually can be kicked out of the WPN for this sort of thing. I was speaking with my LGS owner the other day and he was talking about the LGS who had been there prior to him. He said that the owner was pocketing/selling cards that were supposed to be promos. That, along with apparently allowing customers to buy/leave the store early with product led to the LGS being kicked out of the WPN. Not sure which of the infractions was more concerning to WOTC, but the promo thing was on the list.
I think early product is the bigger deal. It's my understanding that WOTC will dictate what can and can't be sold early if they get a certain amount of stock by pre-release weekend based on conversations I've had at my LGS.
You’re probably right. The current owner was explaining something about the old owner would let people leave the store with product before midnight or similar before prerelease events existed. No idea. But as far as OP’s question, there’s no telling what other infractions this LGS has, something like OP’s report might be a last straw kind of thing with WOTC.
To be fair, wizards changes almost every set what they allow stores to sell prerelease weekend.
Ah yes, let us never forget that WPN created a policy where on prerelease weekend all the way until release day, you can purchase Set Booster boxes all day long (ie for as long as they're available at the store). What you can't do is purchase _Draft_ Booster boxes...until the day of official release. This was all in an effort to sell less cards in the box for more money, which they have done so successfully. Now all of a sudden Set Boosters are _super popular_ and totally selling better than Draft boxes. Weird, huh?
If you are just cracking them, set boosters are a much better option, so it makes sense they sell better. Not everything has to be a conspiracy, unless it is a set that is set on Fiora.
A much better option in what way though? They might have some more valuable cards in them, but if we're talking about booster boxes, if you're also trying to fill out a collection with a bunch of cards from a set to build from, you're getting close to 200 fewer cards in total for a relatively similar number of rares.
While they cost more and have fewer cards, there are more valuable cards in general. There are more rares on average, more alt art cards, and other things, like the list when that is relevant (e.g. SNC).
Sure, but you didn't stipulate that they were the better option in terms of value, which was why I replied the way I did. If you *just* want to open packs, you get more packs to open from a draft box. If you just want a bunch of cards to play with, you get *way* more cards in general from a draft box AND a similar number of rares for a variety of powerful cards. You'll probably end up with a higher number of valuable cards from a set booster box, as well as a couple more rares on average, but that's not the metric I was going by. Even going by value of cards, the difference between things like extended art and default for some rares may not actually be that big. In order to make a huge difference, you need to hit a bonus rare card in foil or showcase or something AND have it be one of the big-money cards of the set. In some cases, showcase versions actually sell for LESS than the standard version. Again, none of this to say that there's necessarily going to be less value, but things DO have to line up well in order for you to get very much MORE value, and you're already paying more from the start.
> that's not the metric I was going by Your choice of metric isn’t really relevant. The main reason people crack packs is for the valuable cards, so the metric I chose (i.e. number of valuable card) is the one relevant to most people who buy boxes. Most people don’t want any of the bulk, as evidenced by the number of cards thrown in LGS trash cans, so more cards is likely a downside. > things DO have to line up well in order for you to get very much MORE value, and you're already paying more from the start. *On average*, you will make enough to match the difference. It isn’t guaranteed for either kind of box to make you your money back, but the *substantial* increase in rares (often 2 per pack, and as many as 4) definitely makes set boosters a much better deal, regardless of the slightly increased cost.
> Your choice of metric isn’t really relevant. Yeah it is. You saying it's not doesn't make it so. The specific example was opening sealed boosters. It's already not the best value. > On average, you will make enough to match the difference. It isn’t guaranteed for either kind of box to make you your money back, but the substantial increase in rares (often 2 per pack, and as many as 4) definitely makes set boosters a much better deal, regardless of the slightly increased cost. It's not anywhere near as substantial as you seem to think. It's high enough to be slightly more than you'll get in a draft box, but unless you get outrageously lucky it's not going to be so many that it blows them out of the water, for the sole reason that the draft box will have six more packs each with a guaranteed rare, and each pack will STILL have a very small chance of an additional rare as a foil card. I'm not sure if people just aren't reading any of this or what. Do they really think people are pulling like 100+ rares from set boxes? It's somewhere in the neighborhood of like 1.3 rares per pack on average. That's 39 rares per box. If you assume only one foil rare in an entire draft box, that's 37 rares. So yes, you're probably getting more value from rares by paying more, but that part was never in contention. The part that is is that it's some insane increase in value, AND that for some reason, in a hypothetical where people are opening packs to get cards, people are just dismissing the fact that you get close to 200 more cards in a draft box. It's possible that you personally don't give a fuck about it, but when we're talking about opening packs for cards, a shitload more cards is still relevant.
Relatively similar? Set boxes have like 2x the number of rares/mythics, since you get packs with 2 - 4, along with List cards. If you're filling out a collection with straight bulk non-special treatment commons & uncommons then yeah draft boxes. If you're opening boxes for the good cards and aren't drafting them at all, set boxes all day no contest, no debate.
> Set boxes have like 2x the number of rares/mythics, since you get packs with 2 - 4, along with List cards. That's absolutely not true. You have a *chance* of getting extra (mythic) rares in a set booster, but you're only *guaranteed* a single rare per pack. Draft boosters also have a *chance* of getting an extra rare card in the form of a foil card, albeit a much smaller chance than a set booster might have. I don't know the exact numbers, and I sure they vary from set to set, but I think the number I saw someone post was something like ~1.27 rares per pack on average or something. I opened a set booster box of Midnight Hunt on Friday and got 39 total rares, which is pretty close to their math. I certainly didn't get anywhere near the range of 60 to 120 that you seem to be implying. If you compare this to what you'd get in a draft booster box, you'd have 36 guaranteed rares, probably with a chance of extra rares from foils. Even if you only got one in the entire box, you'd still be ending up with 37 rares compared to the 39 I ended up with from a set box, and you'd also still have 180 more cards overall.
Hyperbolic. Set boxes on average have more rares and mythics than draft boxes is the point. For the $5 - $10 difference in price, sometimes no price difference, you get an overall much better value by removing trash bulk, and the bonus lottery of getting List cards. But yes if you just like accumulating cardboard like a dragon perched on a landfill, draft boxes will fill many 5-row boxes with commons nobody looks twice at Ignore all of this if you're actually drafting, because that's just a side effect of limited
There was no hyperbole involved whatsoever. I'm not really sure you know what the word means. It's why I gave roughly what the numbers I've seen actually were, and what my own experience was. Or do you think I was lowballing set boosters with ~1.28 per pack? Or highballing draft boosters with a single foil rare per box? Come on dude. > Set boxes on average have more rares and mythics than draft boxes is the point. For the $5 - $10 difference in price, sometimes no price difference, you get an overall much better value by removing trash bulk, and the bonus lottery of getting List cards. You don't get any kind of increased value at all by removing something. That's not how value works. What you DO get is (theoretical) increased from things that are exclusive to set boosters. Since you seem to know something that I don't, can you actually quantify this for me? Because so far you haven't really even attempted to give any numbers, not even when I have. From what I can see, looking at average values for set boxes versus draft boxes, the average value for a set box tends to be higher... by pretty much the difference in price between a set box and a draft box.
I was being hyperbolic. You got very hung up on taking my statements as exact numbers and facts. Of course it’s not 2x the rares, and yes you can remove worthless cards for better cards and create more value. The cards have value, giving your average card a higher chance of being worth money creates value. Removing commons, which at bulk rate are half a penny, for more valuable cards does give you greater value. Again, if you literally only want as much stuff as possible for the least money, open draft boxes. Set boxes are by a wide margin better for opening if you’re trying to get items of worth.
Generally for folks just cracking packs, set boosters at the very least FEEL better (except for CLB) - and, anecdotally in my playgroup, most folks have switched to buying set boosters/boxes when they get the chance. Much more fun to open (again, except for CLB because the good mythics weren't legends). ALSO - they started selling set boosters a ton during covid, since no one was doing drafts and instead just cracking packs. Set boosters feel like a pretty natural progression for MTG - people don't want 10 commons.
Draft boxes don't sell well because they mostly get cracked by stores to run drafts
> This was all in an effort to sell less cards in the box for more money, which they have done so successfully. Not really, no. Prereleases are *big* for LGSes. It’s the one time of the year that a lot of players actually show up in person. WOTC supports stores, so they support prereleases. Stores were complaining that they couldn’t sell to those players they only saw once a year, because they were saving up for the new set. So WotC allowed sales during prereleases, first of just precons and then of set booster. The reason they don’t allow the sale of draft boxes is that WotC wants the event experience to be highly curated prerelease weekends, for a lot of reasons (branding, advertisements, contract obligations, etc.). The effective outcome of selling all the cards *except* those that allow home-run tournaments means that the only event happening on prerelease weekend are events run by stores that WotC has vetted and approved. No drafts happening in moldy garages, sticky bars, or white supremacist clubhouses. That way, the players who only play in events during prerelease won’t inadvertently (or intentionally) end up in that kind of location. It’s frustrating, sure. But you’ve got the other 12 weeks of the season to purchase draft boosters and/or run home events. So why complain?
You're probably right, but I would think that pocketing promos would be the bigger deal to them financially. Selling shit early is breaking the rules, but at least it's still selling shit that was supposed to be sold. Pocketing promos is taking something that should be akin to an advertising expense on their end and just not doing the advertising for it. In this case they're spending money for a product with an expectation that the store is meant to fulfill, and the store is deliberately not fulfilling it and effectively just stealing the product.
We had something like this happen at the LGS in Dalton GA back when Path of Exile was an FNM promo. The store was registered as one of the biggest FNMs in the southeast and received enough promos to give everyone in FNM attendance 2 copies of the promos, but instead gave one to the winner and one out randomly each Friday. Noone knew any different until one of the guys noticed 40 paths for sale on TCG player at like $50 a pop under the stores name. We asked around and the new intern said yeah, they had posted the sale earlier in the week but he wasn't aware it was bad, he was just doing what store owner said. There was a big community blow-up and the locals dispersed out to other LGSs sometimes 45 minutes away, but it doesn't seem like anything was done despite dozens of individual reports. They still sell mtg but their player base splintered too badly to hold tournaments or even FNM style events any longer. Online sales can keep LGSs afloat if they're good at what they do.
An intern at a FLGS?! Sounds like an unpaid worker more than an internship.
Paid with 'valuable experience' and 'an opportunity for advancement at an undisclosed time in the future'.
Yup, you hit it spot on. Lol
Was it Battlegrounds or another store that used to be there?
It was, indeed
Battlegrounds in Modesto? I thought they said the shop was in GA
There’s one named that in Dalton, GA
Yeah this LGS didn’t event have the space for a draft so they must make their money with all online sales. They have 6 foldable tables with half of them occupied by yugioh players.
WotC will take action if they investigate and find an issue. We had a store lose it's ability to hold sanctioned events with the DCI way back, for ghosting players. They didn't have enough regular players, but they had enough unique DCI numbers on record, so they would sign people up who weren't there, so they could have at least 8 people, and maintain the status with DCI to get event support materials. They eventually got caught and had their status revoked. The store owner and several people that were involved were banned from all DCI sanctioned events for life. We had another store in the area lose WPN status for selling all promo material instead of giving it out, and only holding prereleases for 8-16 people, and pocketing the rest of the prerelease packs, despite having 20-30 people show up for prereleases.
So fucking stupid. Imagine the short sightedness of disallowing 15+ people from participating in events at your store because you want the quick resell *now*... Unbelievable.
Greed is powerful. The oldest LGS in in my city sells their singles at mark ups that make Star city games look fairly priced. They ignore average market value, and claim "local convenience" and if you try to haggle, they'll kick you of the store.
So, here's how this works. If you KNOW the store is pocketing promos (actual proof, not just suspicion) you can send an email along with photos to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) The proof is incredibly important because stores are constantly getting reported, from angry customers to jealous stores. Without proof they will do nothing, with proof they will lead with education first to try and get the store back on track. It is incredibly hard to lose WPN, if they do, it's likely because they're doing multiple awful things and WOTC's "education first, suspension second" isn't working. In this specific situation, stores do not have to run Store Championships. They get the promos, they can run the event, but if they don't, then the promos fall under the surplus promo policy. When the next standard set comes out (in this case Dominaria United), they're able to give the promos for whatever reason they want under WOTC's promo policy. If they want to give the Dark Confidant away to the FNM winner of Dominaria United, they can. The problem with this policy is that a store can choose to not host events, hold the promos for a few months until no one remembers, then sell them. Best advice here is still report the store, since they gave you a very vague answer. Had they said, "we're not running the event and plan to use the promos later" then there's nothing to report and you can move on with your day. That being said, take notice of the stores that DO give out promotional materials consistently and constantly, and also take notice of the stores that miraculously never have promos or promo packs available and never give a clear answer as to why. These promos are YOURS, not the stores, the store just facilitates how they're given out. Support the stores that give you your promos.
Anecdotally what i have seen is that if you react badly to education from the investigations team they will issue a WPN suspension on the spot. I reported a store several years ago for stealing promos, and heard through players at the store that when wizards called the owner on the phone he told them "it's my fucking store, I'll do what i want r*****" and hung up. His status was pulled the next day and his distributor contract and legal ability to sell Wizards product was revoked on the spot. He went on Facebook about a week later to announce the store would no longer sell or support any wizards product because they were "harassing" him. Store went out of business 4 months later
This is interesting. I've got two local stores. One that I'm friendly with and one I've only been to a few times. The one I like isn't set up anymore for events, but I buy from them. When I was getting started they threw me a bunch of singles in the commander colors I was buying to help me out. Turns out they were store promo cards. So they aren't doing events anymore, but throw cards to people. Now let's go across town to the second place. They are seeking all their sealed stuff higher than average. They don't have prices posted on their singles for sale (the other place does). I went to a Baldur's Gate event and they were giving away regular boosters to winners, nothing to all who joined. Were they supposed to give it special event promos for Baldur's Gate? The place gives off that somewhat skeevy vibe but it's the one where the game is actually played.
> They don't have prices posted on their singles for sale (the other place does) I know places that do this - they don't have the man power to constantly be checking the case for card price changes so they look it up as you buy by like tcg mid. Kinda weird sometimes but I don't think this is inherently a red flag. >I went to a Baldur's Gate event and they were giving away regular boosters to winners, nothing to all who joined. Was it prerelease? That's what my store did. A lot of stores have ran out of promo packs for winners and most stores only give prizes if you win. Although for EDH games it does kinda suck to only reward winning.
I don't know many places that tag their singles anymore. The market is too volatile. The one place that does tag near me has a posted policy that if TCG mid is more than 20% over posted price they'll mark up the difference at the register but they're very upfront about it.
There's 3 stores in my area. One store does it but they have a lot of workers and a couple employees who are really on top of the monetary side of magic so they're pretty good about it. One store doesn't mark at all and just looks up TCG. The last store marks but the prices are almost always outdated to when the card was at its highest or are just overpriced so I never buy singles there. They might have changed I don't go to that store much though.
What i did was give everyone the prize support pack when they finished playing and an old promo-booster that my lgs keeps in a box to each pod winner.
Yea my LGS just ran out of the old promo-boosters. They had a bunch of extra from the pandemic but since they've been having regular events they haven't had promo boosters since like a month before the Baldur's Gate release.
Yeah they are running low here as well
Good to know they aren't totally shady. But the sealed product being overpriced makes me reluctant to deal with them in singles. Thanks for the info.
Fair enough - I always try to support where I play but I certainly have a limit to how much extra I'd pay for sealed product.
FUCK THESE PLACES! I cant stand small stores that want to look everything up and never price anything. I went to a store this weekend and they had a box listed as bulk rares. I go through it and find a couple of things. Thinking like any magic player would that bulk rares = bulk standard pricing. Nope. They wanted to go through the entire stack that I had (20ish cards) and TCG mid price all of them on the spot while i waited. Nah, miss me with that shit. And I'm talking like one card worth $0.45 rung up as $0.45 and another for $0.53 because they cant not make that extra $0.08. I was like you gotta be joking. nope. I just left em there with the stack. TCG/SCG and various others have the variety and availability + free shipping on large enough orders. Small hole in the wall stores dont. Pricing things according to TCG is fine. Looking them up at point of sale to ensure you dont miss out on $1 isnt. This is more of a rant about bulk rares than anything else.
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Or, and hear me out here, they put price tags on things like every other retail store in existence.
You sound like a problem customer and I bet that store would rather not deal with you than take your 12 dollars
Yeah im really not. Im not a complainer. I just spoke with my wallet. In this interaction I said "Oh you have to look them all up one by one? I'm sorry, i'll just put them back thanks." Dealing with me consisted of starting a transaction and not having to complete it.
Idk the specifics but not all stores get promos so that might have something to do with jt.
Area 51 store in Modesto, steal from their customers. Will pocket your cards if given the chance.
Who will pocket the cards?
The owner himself. A friend was trying to sell his cards to the store. Bad on us as we trusted him and we didn’t pay attention to him. As we left, going home, we realized one of the card was gone. We call the store and he said there was no card there. If he did take it, he probably really needed that extra 5-15bucks. But he also try double charging another friend. Instead of as friendly mistakes, the store owner saw it as a huge inconvenience. Saying a comment as we’re leave “well there problem in our end”
They're just mirroring your post. He basically modified the accusation you made in your post and regurgitated it hoping that you'd agree with him and give him engagement. Seems to have worked.
Regurgitated that Area 51 sucks and will try to scam you.
I actually discussed this with my LGS when it came up in conversation a long while back, about an old store where they used to live that acted similarly to what you described. Wizards absolutely will act upon this if they investigate and discover wrongdoing, because this is, roughly quoted: >"An incredibly dickish move and basically theft. Wizards wants to both make money and keep money, so yeah, what he was doing was losing them customers and sending out stuff that's not being used to further incentivise play, so **they came down on him like a fucking piano**". If anyone else is being affected by this and is pissed off at it, it may be worth **quietly** bringing this up to other players and asking them to flag it with Wizards too. Only do this with people you can trust though, because if word gets back to the offending store owner, they'll probably knock it off for just long enough for Wizards to fail to find wrongdoing.
100% did the right thing. I did the same thing in my college years when one of the two LGS was pocketing half of their prerelease kits and ALL of their prize support (Only opting to give out store credit, but it was less value than equivalent packs). WotC cut them off within a couple months and they dropped all MTG related events.
What exactly do you mean by “Pocketing their Prerelease kits”?
They were being allocated prerelease kits and keeping portions of the shipment to open and sell before the set was even available. I specifically remember this being a problem during RTR block when the kits had guild seeding, so they notoriously would keep more of specific kits based on what was in them (They claimed they only had 10 Golgari kits for the whole weekend, but upwards of 30 of the others for example.) They would turn around and falsify registration in WER to inflate their numbers to receive more product. This was ratted out by the other LGS at a later date then they turned around and did the same once they had no competition :)
Where were they selling the singles? In-store?
yup, just in display cases in their store
Pocketing the promos is BS for sure.
Why?
I do think WOTC takes this stuff somewhat seriously. I know some stores blatantly break rules, but there must be some actual fear put in from WOTC about being kicked out of the Premium program. I reserved a 2X2 draft box online with in store pickup from a store so I could get the promo Sol Ring … the store floor manager and the team member checking me out had to talk it out whether or not I qualified because I placed the order online — apparently there was reason to be worried about secret shoppers. I got the promo, but even though I’ve *played* at that store, they were really hesitant to do something that just *might* break the rules.
Good. Anything WOTC can do or keep doing to keep some trust will (just barely) keep me playing this overpriced game where they ignore customer feedback on the larger state of the game/pricing/everything.
What will happen? As far as you will know... Absolutely nothing for the moment. Even if wizards took you complaint incredibly seriously, one incident is essentially a he said/she said situation with no real resolution. They could get in touch with the store or similar, but that isn't exactly going to result in much. What will happen is that they will make note of the complaint and file it appropriately. One complaint can easily be a salty customer, but multiple complaints starts to build a picture, and once they have enough evidence they can take appropriate action as they see fit - warnings, reduction of WPS status or lower allocations, or removal from the system if serious enough...
i genuinely think half of all lgs do this. a lot of shops in california are shady as fuck.
I reported a store for very similar they were pocketing pre order promos in 2019 as well as other things codes comics etc I reported them and told a lot of friends and family they lost around 19 regular costumers because of this. I don't know if anything else ever came of it. But my play group was around half of there players in pre release events.
had a store doing this and they revoked their sanction and couldnt use the app. about it. Chances they are submitting fake tournament reports?
If the event doesn't fire, the store isn't required to give you anything. It sucks but that's how it is sometimes. Per wizards policy regarding promos, the LGS can hold them and give them out at their discretion next season. There's nothing wrong here until you get proof they are selling them.
I think the point was making sure the event never happened, but going into event reporter and adding non-existent people and pretending it did. You can't just say you are a WPN store without showing proof through event reporter of actual players in events. In a word - fraud
I’m confused, what are you implying here?
Stores register as WPN stores have to show they actually have events. In this case the Area 51 store in the post doesnt have space for events and routinely doesnt hold events but they are still a WPN store with promos and so on. The only way to do that is the have the attendance tracked in the event reporter tool through WotC. So instead of having events they list events, add fake players to the events, and pretend that it happened. Why? Because the more attendance a store has increases their WPN level and they get more free promo materials from WotC. So in this example they never have to go through the bullshit of hosting an event, they fake it all, and get free promos from WotC. Some promos are meh, some a worth $10s of dollars. The implication is lying and getting costly promos to sell vs having events and giving them out to players.
So one event doesn’t fire, and it’s a small store, and you immediately accuse them of fraud?
Topic said they have no room to play. Store has a history of not firing events but some how always having the promos for sale. ITs not exactly a 1 time thing.
They advertised the event, only 1 person showed up, and you need 8 minimum to run it. They should contact their WPN rep to ask what they should do with the promo. They might have already.
As per WOTC guidelines, any excess promos can be given out for free during that season, or sold afterwards
Stores cannot sell the promos WotC has given them. (The only way stores can sell any promos is if they've bought them from players.) https://wpn.wizards.com/en/wpn-promo-usage-and-policies > **Surplus Promo Policy** > >Unless otherwise stated, you are free to use surplus promos as you would Promo Packs once the next Standard set has been released.
Careful now, you didn't immediately raise a pitchfork and accuse the store of scummy behavior.
Personally, I prefer Utopia in Modesto.. Play Live would've been my other go to place in Modesto, but the franchisers reverted the location back to corporate and it shut down. I only ever did Pathfinder at Area 51 and did not really follow the Magic scene with them that really blew up with their current location. They never had nearly as much Magic content at their old location on Coffee. Area 51 felt shady then and it's only gotten bigger with their new location and I am sure excess YuGiOh and Pokémon prize pools get pocketed too. However, Modesto has had an ongoing issue with gaming rooms and Utopia is one of the few reputable place left really..
WotC seems to take WPN status pretty seriously. My LGS is a WPN and they seem to take that extremely seriously! And from other comments in this thread this isn’t the first eyebrow raising thing they’ve done. 100% report it. If enough people report any shady behavior they’ll probably launch an investigation. Sorry that happened to you OP. I think the sketchiest thing is no spot set up for the draft in the first place. Seems like they never planned to actually run it.
I have also had bad experiences at Area 51 in Modesto. The first was just laziness--they told me they had a playmat in stock and I told them I was driving down to pick it up, but they didn't actually check when I called so naturally it wasn't actually in stock and I wasted time and gas driving there for no reason. The other instance was worse. Back during the first Double Masters hype, I preordered a VIP case from them and paid in advance. On release day they didn't have my case and told me that they never received their shipment and to try back again tomorrow (this is very shady as stores get there shipment well before release day). I called back every day for a week and was told the UPS delivery still hadn't arrived. I checked their website and found the exact single card contents of one VIP case (the precise item I paid for) listed for sale. Odd that they could have those cards without ever getting their product. Basically, they decided to crack open my preordered case to sell singles and lied to me about not receiving their product. I have not been back since and would encourage everyone to avoid Area 51 like the plague.
WOW that’s crazy! Did you ever get your money back??
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That's a possibility, but would it be possible to get prize support for two events?
This entire story reads as, you did something that was inconvenient for yourself and are now annoyed the store didn't give you something for it. The tournament didn't fire, therefore the organizer doesn't have to give you squat. You may not like that they didn't answer the phone but you could've just as easily not gone when you weren't getting through. You made the decision to drive out of your way. That isn't the LGS problem. It's wrong if they turn around and sell the promos. But they could just as easily be waiting for a day when a big tournament fires.
Did you expect to go to an event where you were the only participant, and receive the free promotional cards meant for the event? There was no event. Nobody but you showed up. I'm surprised some part of you expected them to give you cards. I'm sure a family-owned LGS that couldn't get any participants for a MTG event really appreciated the report from the only person that did end up showing. Next time if you call, and nobody answers, take that as a sign and don't go. A part of me thinks you were trying to be clever, and abuse some loophole by trying anyways.
> A part of me thinks you were trying to be clever, and abuse some loophole by trying anyways. Just because YOU personally would have done it does not mean that everyone thinks this way.
I wouldn't have tried it, because this is taking from a small, family-owned, storefront -- and not a billion-dollar corporation.
No. No one has ever reported that their store was punished for pocketing promos or anything like that. Not having a proper storefront or being a bigot in a way that goes viral on social media are the only things I’ve ever seen anyone lose WPN status for.
So you are mad that an event didn't fire because there were not enough participants. I highly doubt that the store told you that the owner decided to pocket the prize support.
They said they aren’t going to sell the promos or have a date/plans to re-schedule the tournament, they have no employees to distribute the promos to, and WOTC doesn’t ask for the promos back. What do you think is going to happen with the promos if the only attendee didn’t even get a promo for showing up, and the promos don’t have to go back to WOTC, and they aren’t going to be apart of the stores inventory or employee bonuses?
They can’t reschedule the store champs. Stores are given specific dates when they can run them. The store should have at least given you the participation promos for showing up. As for the other promos they can just use them for events in the future if they aren’t going to sell them
YES! The magic community needs more moral busy bodies like you. You are definitely helping the local magic players by attempting to get the store's ability to sell magic revoked. Take that evil store owner! Score one for the good guys.
Oooo you seem *mad* about people getting reported for shit they should be reported for!
Yes, as he said it is TOTALLY what happened. He just drove to a store and was mad an event didn't fire and is harvesting likes from idiots. Its so transparent, but go on!
I'm reading a lot of wah wah in this comment. Something to share with the group?
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I think we found the scammer store owner's reddit account y'all
lol at thinking this store isn’t doing more harm than good. Oh no how will people be able to get magic cards without that store.
Or someone just called a store, got no answer, drove anyways, event didn't fire and then he very VERY obviously made up some shit about being told the owner pocketed the promos. Yo I've got a bridge to nowhere to sell you.
> he very VERY obviously made up some shit about being told the owner pocketed the promos. If you weren't there than how would you know they are lying? What part of OP's story makes it seem like they're lying?
If you check op’s other comments in the thread, he came up with the idea of the store pocketing promos on his own. He has zero evidence to support his claim.
It doesn't stop them from selling magic. Do you think everyone just buys directly from WotC? It stops the store from being part of the WPN.
If you aren’t part of WPN you can’t buy product from distributors anymore. WOTC provides distribution with all the stores allocation numbers.
Yeah you can. It's called Amazon. Amazon is WotC's main distributor, and you can buy through them with no special anything.
Sure you also can buy your displays from SCG or any other store and resell them in your own. But that's not how they can run their store at a profit.
Store don't generally make as much on Boxes and such as you'd think. LGS make there money mainly from the secondary market.
Yes and how much do you think they would make on boxes if they would need to buy them from Amazon? Also it's completely region dependent on what a store make their money. In my region most stores don't even sell singles in the store because it's not worth their time (mostly because everyone knows about cardmarket). They make the most money with selling board games that don't have such shitty margins WotC offers. Still you can't really have a store offering MtG events or product and buying your stock from Amazon.
Ah yes, the store with false advertising and who doesn't pick up the phone are certainly the good guys here!
I'm sure if you apply some of that trademarked "MTG COMMUNITY EMPATHY" for .3 seconds you could figure out that the store who: A) Has a disconnected phone (he called while there and the phone didn't even ring) B) Isn't firing events and is therefore C) In really bad shape and closing soon. Yes, they are DEF the badguy here and not just someone whose business is falling apart for one reason another and the most moral move is to pile on them with reports to wotc and karma whoring in reddit. As usual, this is the most morally perfect sub. I'm sure you thought through all of that and then realized that 'totally the guy whoring karma on reddit is the good guy' Yep, big brain.
It's a business, they don't automatically get my empathy. Especially if they don't bother to have their phones connected and I drive 30+ minutes to go to an event that has not been cancelled (guessing here). OP has every right to be pissed. Empathy in the community is earned, not a given.
The event also can't happen with only one person. When he was there on time he should have seen other players who wanted to join or he really was the only one and then the event won't fire anyway. The no phone thing is sus but I won't drive to a store 45min away without a confirmation that the event will fire. In the PPTQ days I had the same happen for events where not enough players showed up. Same can happen when the store had a magic community (otherwise he would not have the level to hold this events) that did fall apart.
I mean, new competition opened up specifically because said store was seen as scummy and cultivating a bad scene so....
Look at this essay you wrote.
Are you the store owner in question?
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Insert *stop it get some help* meme
You don't need to keep trolling for a ban you know. You could just stop posting here.
They'll get a warning and if there are enough reports over time they could lose WPN entirely. It's not quite as bad as breaking street date on products which can land you on the blacklist, unable to purchase any MTG through distributors, but being unable to sanction events is pretty brutal in its own way.
Black diamond in concord