KAPOW! They get it!

Hello again Burninites! As most of you know I'm studying hardcore for important exams for the next few weeks, but I thought I'd break my silence to get back to the roots of GBS to tell you about my newbie experience at a store along my travels!

I haven't played paper in over a year and very much consider myself a student of the game, studying interactions and always looking at ways to refine my routes of play (for the ultra-rare opportunity that I do get to a shop!). I managed to visit Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada this winter and got some MTG games in on the side!

Heavy Meta, the HMSVU Cast, and many others talk about community and player experiences, a lot. It's for good reason, they shape how and more importantly, why we play Magic.

Kapow Ltd, a medium sized shop in Alberta, to me, embodies all the qualities that I look for and keep me engaged in this obsession that is MTG and fostering a community.

<Note: I'm purely writing this to detail my experiences. This shop had no idea who I was, so in my option these guys got it without any prompting, and I think this bodes very well for new stores!>

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Coming into a new card/hobby store for the first time can be intimidating, I always feel a bit like the new kid in school. Stores that are dark, dank, and underground don't help! I've been to quite a few stores throughout my travels, and the ones that project a bright, well laid out, and CLEAN atmosphere really strike me as shops that are not only interested in catering to the old crowd, but expanding their customer base to easily introduce people walking off the street to fun new experiences!

The same could be said for the player bases that these stores cater to. I played my first tournament in years (Mono Red, you know it!!), flukishly won every match, and despite professing to be a beginner (which is entirely true) was met with friendly and encouraging players from all skill levels. You simply don't get that in an store that doesn't look after its player base by tending to the needs of veterans and newbies alike. Owners that get to know their customers and maintain the healthy and happy atmosphere in their stores share the benefits with their players!

Kapow Ltd. was great, not only in the shop chatting strategy and sussing out what I was interested in playing, but they also had a presence over email, on Twitter, and Facebook. The days of having a stagnant website were people only know where your store is located and your phone number are long behind us. Interacting, and engaging with players and potential customers is SO key for people passing through, and establishing the nature of your brand on the local scene. I connected with players in the shop, online, as well as with the store owners over email.

For me, Kapow Ltd. seemed genuinely interested in helping me connect with local players, and making it easy to access all formats of Magic (and really spurred my recent interest in EDH). This principle is so basic but I think can be so easily overlooked in established stores that don't look beyond their current player base.

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I'm away from Alberta right now, but I can't wait to go back and play at Kapow Ltd.! There have only been a few shops that really spurred my excitement to play in their specific environment. If I had to boil it down to 3 principles it would be these: Approachability (friendliness/atmosphere), Accessibility (all playing abilities/genders/social backgrounds), and Connectivity (In store/Social media).

Shout out to Heavy Meta for establishing a similar presence over twitter, and big shout out to the Eh Team for inviting me to hang out while I was in the area (Definitely next time I'm in Calgary!!). Big thanks to Wallie and Nick of Kapow too :)

#BurnOnBurninators

#MakeTimeToHelpNewPlayers

#RETWEETTOBEENTEREDFORFREEGBSTECH!!

@Ricostravels

GBS card price bulletin!

I know this issue has been talked to death at this point, but in case it was worth 2 cents or more, here is my take. 

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I believe that WotC needs to look at the spikes in prices for Modern staples and directly respond. Not because more people need to be sustained in playing modern but because if they don't people WILL financially fatigue from how expensive this hobby is growing as a whole. There is a big difference in my mind between the player that has been in the game for +15 plus years and the newer guy (<5 years) who loves everything magic and wants to soak it all up (aka acquire cards to play older formats). 

To give you a bit of a background, I played paintball for +15 years and that sport saw immense growth, in part driven by the cream of the crop winning with flashy and expensive paintball guns and newer players looking up to them. I was sponsored, all my paint was paid for, I shot a +2500 dollar paintball gun and this was all designed to drive sales of gear and paint that other players wanted to see. The sport grew immensely, but instead of companies expanding and lowering prices to feed the markets as more got in on the action (which is how normal increase in supply SHOULD work), the entering businesses fixed their prices, seeing what their competitors could get away with. In essence the companies saw what people could pay and each wanted more and more pieces of the same pie. 

The key point to realize here is that both paintball and MTG products are "luxury" goods (in the economic sense). That is, they will thrive when people have the will and an abundance of funds to support them. With the recession, paintball had its teeth kicked in. The sport was at a financial breaking point, and scores of players abandoned the game. At first it wasn't the pros who were left out, but the guys under us who were being told the companies couldn't sponsor them anymore and subsequently, the artificial driving down of costs no longer existed for these players. Tournaments became smaller, prize pay outs went down too, and gradually the vectors (And companies) driving sales and hype for the game evaporated. 

Paintball as a sport is still alive and well, but it's a shadow of the scene it was before. The flashy, expensive stuff is a fraction of what it was when I played, the bubble has already burst. Like so many others, I sold my gear and got out.

I'm writing this because I see STRONG parallels in the hobby we know and love. I'm not going to suggest that at 100 bucks a pop (Scalding Tarn), that I shouldn't just cash out my money cards and walk away from competitive non-standard decks (the extreme luxury items of MTG). There is a breaking point to the greed (Speculators and Retailers fixing prices or driving them up) of "suppliers", the difference in this case is that MTG (not looking at other card games for now) CAN correct some of this imbalance by printing enough of the in-demand cards to put more cards in people's hands and bring the costs down (there IS a limit to the cards that speculators can horde in a attempt to sell high).

I DO NOT understand why WotC is stuck in the mindset that if they feel they "tamper" too much in the market vectors, that they will break the system and strangle local stores. Magic is seeing enormous growth in terms of player popularity, but this WILL be a flash in the pan and not sustained growth if measures are not put in place to stabilize and retain these players. 

I don't want to see the game crash as people cash in their staples and get up and leave. 

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Take a minute to think about what $100 buys you outside the game and then check that against the power that a single piece of cardboard can weigh in a game of magic. 

I've been playing for less than 5 years and appreciating card prices to me don't have the feel good of "I've had these cards for ages and they're getting better with time", they have the "this paywall is growing and growing" feeling. 

I'm sorry if this comes off as whining, that was not my intent, I want to see a healthy shape for this game and not just watch as history repeats itself. I'm writing this to you directly to fuel discussion and shed what I think is the insightful and underrepresented voice of the junior player (who I would put to you has as much stake in the future of the game as those who have been here for years and years).

#CashMoney

@Ricostravels