More Collectable Magic - Episode 69 - Magic the Gathering Podcast - May the Zoo be With You

So many rules. So many rules against that.

How does Pokemon have anything? I don't think there's... Is there really rules?

You just let me know and I can.

Well, I want to know.

Oh my gosh. People are interacting with you while you're talking. Stop.

Is there really rules against that?

[Music]

Let's do it. Baby.

Roll it.

Oh, are we... Am I supposed to do the... Oh, are we recording? Let me know when you're recording.

Oh, boo this man.

Welcome to America's favorite and best Magic the Gathering podcast. I was going to say something nice about my co-host, but I might have to pivot. I am, of course, joined by the man who flew halfway across the country just to support the game he loves and the company he rides or dies for. Donald.

I waved at you as I flew by.

That was a pretty cool picture. It made me giggle. I got to tell you. And I'm also, of course, joined by the man in the middle, at least on my screen. You know him. You probably don't like him, but you're still here. Louis to George.

Wow. I'm rocking my my retro May the Zoo be with you. Do you guys know we did this last week at the end of the podcast.

The three of us were hanging out talking. This podcast's like almost almost five years old now.

Awesome. And a little sad.

It's crazy. I leave a comment if you have been watching since episode one. That's crazy. Five hosts ago. There used to be a a bald man named George on the podcast. Uh, yeah.

Hey. Hey, don't don't be speaking.

Speaking of George, I am joined, of course, by the man whose wishes his intros were as good as George. Josh.

You stepping up to do them?

You say you you won't let me do them.

That's not true. I just say you do them poorly. You can do them poorly if you'd like.

What is up everybody? Today we're going to talk about Magic the Gathering, but really we're talking about Avatar.

God.

You're just starting off.

I can't. Well, it's like frustrating. It's so frustrating to me. Nothing takes me out of making magic content more than Universe Beyond. We're going to talk about Avatar the Last Airbender. We're going to talk. We're going to talk about uh the uh the Pro Tour stuff. There's a new promo and all that. No, that's in Avatar. We're going to talk about the Pro Tour stuff. We've got a sorcery topic. We're actually gonna we're gonna talk about sorcery and also talk about indie TCGs in general as well.

Goth baddies, dude. Let's go.

Uh, we got Lorana. Donald's going to tell us a story. We got story time with...

Story time with Big D.

You guys are in for a treat tonight. Story time with Donald is going to be... Just skip right now to the Lana section for the story time with Donald. How many times do you think he's going to throw out in his story that we only care about expensive boxes? How many times do you think it's going to come up in the story?

Yeah. Uh, we're going to talk about Pokemon. We're going to speculate on Pokemon prices and the things going on. Uh, we're going to talk about the Riftbound release and then we we'll come up with a secret sauce between now and the end of the podcast. And it will be it'll be epic.

Saucy.

Saucy. It'll be...

Yeah, Donald gets it.

All right, let's start off with Avatar the Last Air Bender. We're getting close to release.

Yes.

Uh, what is release? November 21st. So, uh, pre-release is in two weeks is pre-release. I want you guys as over or under more or less attended than Spider-Man.

Can it be the same?

No. Only more. Only less.

It's a a true gamer just tries to break the system. He's like, I'm going to win. Watch this.

I'm gonna I'm gonna have to go less.

This Oh, I thought this was so easy. This is going to be more.

Wow.

I'm have to go less.

I'm on the I think I'm on the more side because Spider-Man was just so not attended across the board. I would love I would pay so much money to see that data from Wizards. Like the amount of pre-release tickets in their event link system for each set.

I bet you Spider-Man I bet you it's not a fourth of Tear.

It was wild because a couple game stores out here in the Chicagoland area were like our biggest pre-release of the year so far was Edge of Eternities.

Yeah, dude. That's...

A couple people said I I find you told me Final Fantasy I believe you. I would have at the beginning of the year said Spider-Man like nope. Edge of Eternities was like the peak. People who want to go to play Magic the Gathering on a Friday night in a sweaty game store want to go to play Magic the Gathering on a Friday night in a sweaty store. They don't want to go.

None of the game stores I talked about were sweaty game stores. God allow you to play in their game store.

Every game store is a... I'm a I'm a game store owner.

Because you you bring the sweat.

Nope. My My game store has deodorant in the bathrooms. We keep the AC. We keep the AC at 67 degrees in that place.

Oh my god. You can't sweat. You can't sweat when it's 67 degrees. Okay. I don't want you sweating. I don't want to smell you.

Um,

You're like, Donald, let it happen.

I noticed in the bathroom yesterday, I had to... Luxur... I have a luxurious job. I got...

Story time with Lou.

I got to fix the toilet two days ago. The uh the the toilet was leaking from the bowl like the the back of the the the hose line. So, I just replaced the whole thing because when you're replacing a toilet, maybe this should be the secret sauce, but when you're replacing anything inside the toilet bowl, you should always just buy the kit and replace everything. Just get that get it all out. Get all get that toilet. I looked, it was it was 1994 that toilet was put in there. Okay, that is an old toilet. There's a lot of stuff in there that needs to be replaced. Anyway, so when I was replacing the toilet, I noticed we we're almost out of deodorant in the bathroom already. We've only been open for for two months in the new place. Almost out of we had like 25 sticks of deodorant in there. That's how fast we're giving the deodorant away.

People who aren't your customers. Just the homeless are coming in and be like, "Oh, sweet."

I was going to I was already going to compare it to homeless shelter.

Yeah. It's just like this is this is dope. I get Pokemon cards and deodorant.

Well, you think about it. You spend all day at work. You put deodorant on, you know, it's 7 o'clock. You put deodorant on 12 hours ago. You get to the game store. You don't want to be smelly guy. It's nice to have.

You guys are wearing deodorant.

Yes.

It's wild.

What kind of deodorant do you wear?

Old Spice.

Yeah, of course. The Sport.

I Whatever's cheapest at Walgreens, I don't care.

Oh, dude. I can't change deodorant. My wife want Did we talk about this already on the podcast once? My wife bought me the antiperspirant deodorant once instead of the sport version and I I was like, I can't use this. It burnt.

Yeah.

Yeah. It burnt my armpits. Why do they...

I can't use the gel. Anything that's a gel.

Gel? Well, the gel is gross. The gel is gross. It feels gross.

Like the like the blue.

Yeah, the blue. The not white. I can't use anything that's that's not the like the talking about the stuff that like squeezes out the top.

That's girl deodorant. That's gross.

No, they make. They make...

Spice makes one that comes...

Gross. I had when I was younger.

The ones that are like clear bluish color like whatever.

I call them gel. Anyway, I Yeah, they break me out. It has to be the like white solid ones.

Anyway,

Is this more or less riveting than the Avatar release?

I'm going to go with it's more riveting.

Listen, for the for the Magic the Gathering viewers, it's more riveting. It's more relevant to...

This is I must say this is something everyone can relate to.

Yeah.

Unlike Avatar. Um...

Especially the fact that I will say in a pinch I have used girl deodorant.

Yeah. I was I was going to say when my wife...

Smelling.

When my wife when my wife bought me the antiperspirant one I started using her deodorant instead so I could get to the store.

Gross.

Don't tell her. Um, it's nothing like when I use her toothbrush.

I don't do that. I don't do that.

Back to Avatar.

Uh, I think Avatar will be more attended than Spider-Man because I think Avatar feels like magic more than Spider-Man felt like magic.

I think that's I think that's true. I think that we have a little less, it seems, on the secondary market, a little less speculation combined with this set was created as a draftable normal Magic set. So, you're not going to have all the comments that come out before the pre-release about the the set sucks, the limited plays no fun, blah blah blah yada, whatever people are saying online. You're not going to have that as well. So, I think that's going to feed into more. But I also don't think it's going to be crazy. I mean, there was a time earlier this year where you told me Avatar and Spider-Man was like, "Oh, these are gonna be crazy limited events. It's gonna be packed." And I don't think that's where that's not the world we live in anymore.

I do have one set of customers, shout out to shout out to Julie, who's coming to her first pre-release event, uh, because she is a huge fan of Avatar. She's recently started playing Magic and Commander. So, um, that's cool.

If you play against Louis, he will cheat and draft more cards than he's supposed to.

I I don't play anymore in our pre-releas.

Got too big.

You just stopped that. I don't play anymore.

No, I I will tell you, Donald,

You just about Commander Conquest a week ago.

I have played more Magic in the last week and a half than I have...

I I've played more Magic in the last week and a half than I've golfed in the last week and a half.

Are you playing Commander?

Also 50 degrees and raining outside.

I know. I'm I'm depressed. What...

Are you playing commander?

Yeah, just commander. Still not playing magic.

Commander, according to wizards.

You and me today, dude.

I just found this out. According to Wizards, I am playing Magic because you can now get a uh what's it called? A um engaged player is now no longer limited to draft or pre-release or um, you mean...

Standard or modern.

Infranchised player? No, they they call him a an engaged player.

Engaged. Your point.

You the professor, Wizards of the Coast, everyone disrespecting Pioneer. Mention Pioneer in that sentence.

No, nobody cares.

Mention it.

Nobody cared about Pioneer.

I Oh, I I got a hot Pioneer theory that we're not going to get into this podcast, but it's 100% true and it's going to happen.

Let's hear it.

Guaranteed.

100 100%.

I I literally guarantee this.

What? Pioneer is going to go through a phase where it's popular like modern used to because it's everything you want out of modern. It's everything modern can be without all the bad. There's nothing direct to it. It gives you a chance to utilize cards that you've become attached to in other formats and it's not crazy expensive because you don't have to buy all of the premium product. It is in in a couple years from now, look back on this moment, clip this moment. Pioneer is going to be what peak modern was.

So I don't... What peak modern was?

Yep.

No shot.

100%.

No shot. Pioneer ever gets to feel and be like modern in what? Modern in what? 2006. That's peak modern.

Hold on. You're making a lot of claims about modern.

Hold on. What is peak modern?

Have you ever played modern?

Yes. What is peak modern for you? I mean the time of Jund and Tarmogoyf and Pro Tour Return to Ravnica like...

2006.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that was much later than 2006.

Between 2006 and 2010.

Sure.

Sure. I I don't think there is ever a time where Magic gets back to that timeline of magic.

I don't understand what that sentence.

I think it's out the window. That is that is and they would have to reset everything to get back to that area and that epicness of the of what modern was.

We'll just Hey, hold on. Hold on. Boo.

I think that was a that might be the hottest take that you have ever made on this podcast.

Hang on. I told you it's a spicy one. It wasn't ready for this.

I don't think I...

You got to come to Hometown TCG for that. This is not bland, vanilla, boring. This podcast is sponsored by Hometown TCG. Go subscribe.

And go be a part of the go be a part of the hometown over at the hometown TCG. I just don't think I don't think I don't think it would ever feel that way again with all the secret or with all the um universes beyond. I just...

You you are you are aged out. The person who in a couple years is interested in that is used to universes beyond. Universes beyond is not a complaint to them. universe is life. It is normal. It exists and always has.

My my a second argument is that without a without a consistent and growing standard environment at the LGS, you don't you're not going to get people who are interested in playing that competitive.

Oo, see here you go, Boo Boo. You already have people brought in through Commander. Now cards aren't printed directly into Commander. They're standard cards. And now people want to get some more juice out of those cards. They want to feel more nostalgic. They start to see synergies. They're building 400 standard decks. And yeah, Commander is becoming more and more competitive nowadays. It is less casual than ever. Commander is it is more competitive. More people admitting that they're trying to win than ever before. And that takes you in one direction.

Not to not to one-on-one formats. Donald, what do you think?

I have a couple thoughts here. One, I I agree with Josh that that pioneer...

Right there, baby. Let's go. Don't don't talk anymore.

My My question to Donald originally, I I dumbed down my question. Originally, my question to Donald was going to be, how full of is Josh on a scale of 1 to 10?

Shut up. You let Donald talk.

Donald, go ahead. I think Pioneer is like is the the new modern. Not now, but it it will be like one of the problems with modern is...

That's not what Josh said for the record.

Yeah.

Okay. Continue.

It was what he started at, but that is what I said. I said it will be...

Would be at the tier of modern.

I said it will be what modern was at its peak. What modern what modern did for our community. The people it satisfied. That is who Pioneer will satisfy in the future. That is exactly what I said.

Go ahead, Donald.

Putting words in my mouth, Louie.

There are less and less and less people playing like legacy and vintage and modern is slowly becoming the legacy and vintage. And then Pioneer takes that spot of what modern was 10 years ago. It's just like the natural progression of things. That's basically the way it was always intended when Pioneer Pioneer has the unfortunate thing of being incepted in the middle of the pandemic and there was no way to play it. So that's Pioneer's downfall. I think it's a great format, but if Pioneer fully comes to arena, that will be the game changer.

Right now we've got Pioneer Light. If Pioneer is fully on arena, Pioneer does become...

I am so bad at this content and the comment section is roasting all three of us right now.

Nobody cares how bad this comment to praise the word of Donald.

Including Josh.

Let's praise the word of Donald.

Modern wasn't a format until 2011.

Yeah, whenever it was. It was Jund. Nobody cares. It was Jund. Let's just take a moment to praise the work of Donald right there. That was a soliloquy that should be celebrated from here to wherever you went this weekend for a TCG event that wasn't Pioneer to where you will be going back to play Pioneer in like three to five years. 100%. Donald, you nailed it. And you got the vibes. You got the vibes right, too. Gosh, this is a great podcast. Uh, I was going to do AI research. As of late 2012, approximately 10,000 cards were legal in the modern format. That's according to AI. I wonder how that would compare with...

Dope fact.

Huh?

Dope.

I was I was gonna don't what...

Dope fact. Thanks for hitting us with that. I was going to I was going to look into Have you guys seen the statistic of the number of cards they've been producing?

Yeah.

Now,

Yes.

Like how how crazy.

And I was going to make the argument and I'm not going to do the research. I I don't care that much about um I was going to make the argument that they're printing too many cards for it to ever feel that way again where where the cards mattered. But we don't need to. I'll just let you guys be right. It's fine. I'm okay with you guys. Just...

You...

I still think nobody's going to play that. That that was my point was that the feeling back then was everybody was playing modern and standard. It was that was what it was. And my point was that we'll never get to that. It'll never feel like, hey, I'm going to play Magic and everybody knows what you're playing.

Yeah. I mean,

That's what I favorite cards. That's what it was. It was a place to play your favorite cards again, right? And by the way, the modern format existed pseudo, you know, it was extended. You had type two, type 1.5, type one. Right.

Right. So, it just wasn't called modern, but a a pseudo modern existed in fairness.

Sure.

Actually, when I started playing Magic, standard was type two.

I was I was a I didn't play Magic in 2006. I just...

And by the way, that didn't defer me. The fact that it was called type two didn't defer me as a new player. I wasn't intimidated by the word type two. I just played it because it was fun.

Josh, have you heard of the the new type two format?

No, wait. What?

Hello? I'm in a rumor. That sounds like exactly me. What?

Yeah, it's basically standard without any universes beyond.

And yeah, it's like...

Wait, that sounds awesome.

Yeah, it's pretty great.

Wait, nobody plays that? It's going to be so hard to get anyone to play that, but that sounds amazing. Is this just Sam, Donald, that's playing it?

It might be. I think Sam created it. Yeah, it's like a It's a fan-made uh...

I I love that format that basically just...

Tell him to get at me. I'll start promoting that on my channel.

It turns into the new commander because...

I'll 100% start promoting that.

Popular and Wizards has to overtake it and say, "Okay, here's what we're doing. We're going back and not having Univers."

I need I require a seat on the committee, Sam, but I will promote this format because I believe in it.

Speaking of universes beyond Avatar.

I can already tell you it's going to be a bad limited format.

Why is that?

Based on your criteria.

Well, God, he's after you today and let's do it. Let's see what you think I said.

There have been 31 creatures revealed.

Uhhuh. So far, 25 of them are legendary.

Sure. The the set is also like I think uh at least 25% bigger. It's like 290 cards.

I thought it was 192.

No, that was Spider-Man. Spider-Man was under 200 cards and a huge chunk of the percentage of those cards were...

I think Spider-Man was under 200. Was it?

Yeah, it's 286.

Yeah, maybe it was. I got it.

Nailed it.

Nailed it. You're good.

You're on it. You're on point.

Also, Channel Fireball agreed with me. Maybe it wasn't Channel Fireball. One of...

Wait, never mind. You're You're screwed. You're screwed.

I think it was.

And also, you're banned.

They they put out an article that said we got what we got wrong in Magic the Gathering, Marvel's Spider-Man Limited. They said a smaller set presented a unique set of challenges for limited play. So, I may have been wrong about a lot of things in the last two weeks, and that's okay because on this podcast, we encourage you to speak your freaking mind, and it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. We encourage the drama.

You might have been wrong. Podcast is lasting long.

But I was right about that Spider-Man fact. That one Spider-Man fact. According...

Better when you get it right.

Yeah, it way better. According to this guy on TZGP Player, Martin Ja Yuza, it's got one of those little got a dot above the U. I don't know what that does. I don't know how...

Is that an unlaw. Is that what that's called?

According to Martin, I was right. Um, all right. Anyway, back to whatever we were talking about.

What was it?

Avatar.

Avatar. Oh, okay. I do I do really like that Avatar and this is I think a really good limited mechanic is the learn lesson thing. Yes.

Learn lesson is is really good in limited. It never last time it was around it never really made it I mean like a couple cards made it out of limited but in limited it was awesome. Like learn learn lesson was really fun to play in.

That that's a great mechanic. If you can create a mechanic like that that is good only in limited but not good in commander not good in these other plays it does a lot for the set because people come back and they say you know what I want to do I want to play more limited. Um, Bloomber had I don't remember the exact mechanic, but just the overall feel of Bloomber was one of those things where it didn't feel as good in Commander. Um, but like I came back to play more and more limited of Bloomber I think I play more Bloomber limited than any Magic set in the last five years. I loved building the trash pandas. Like I just loved drafting the Gruul Pandas. It was so much fun to do. And uh like I think that means a lot when you have a a mechanic like that that you want to draft and want to go back.

Yeah. And it's a very um it's a very Strixhaven-esque...

Yeah.

Draft like it feel, you know, it's very spell-heavy and um it just feels like that with the learn lesson in there and all that. I feel like it's going to be a a pretty decent.

Wasn't learn that you get to tutor up a lesson from your board or loot. Couldn't you discard and draw, too?

Is that what learn was?

Can you discard and draw or is it...

I was taking myself back to Strixhaven.

Let me find a learn lesson card and I'll tell you.

This Ang's Journey is a just a strictly better Strixhaven card. Gotta get that power creep in there, baby. It's It sets up for the new Strixhaven set in a couple months, too, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

It It's a good little teaser to a lot of those things.

So, I was I I liked the learn lesson mechanic. I'm with you guys. It was fun. I'm trying to think what it was for Bloomber that was the it never really broke into standard or modern, but it was...

It was I I don't know what's in standard or modern because I don't I don't play those formats, but it it was a blast. And it never like the commander decks weren't it didn't show up. The mechanics from the main set didn't show up that well in the in the commander decks, but...

Sure. I never I never got to play Bloomberg Draft was when I was out of...

I'm just Do you think that I should make it a point to collect the the textless cards because I like textless cards so much?

Like Avatar?

Those borderless man these sets it's so hard to know what's going to happen with all this stuff now.

Right.

Like how rare are those going to be like they're exclusive to collector boxes are they going to be a Chocoo level. I mean, is this basically the same thing as the the traveling Chocoo and the Amazing Spider-Man? Is that the same similar pull rate?

That's my I would say probably.

So then Josh, these are like $2,000 cards or thousand cards.

Yeah. And...

Even the Spider-Man, aren't the Spiderman's Spider-Man?

They've come down. They're like...

What would...

Like the most...

What are Spidermen? Spider...

Ranging anywhere from 700 to 500 bucks for these different for the different suits on the men...

Of Spider.

Yeah.

What is it? What is the correct plural of that?

Spider-Man.

Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's.

That sounds weird.

Spider-Man.

Yeah.

I was mad because I wanted to do the comic book covers, but they're so expensive.

Yeah.

I can't like I...

We talk about this every time. I look at I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to buy the Eddie Brock." kind of like or I could put that towards finishing my dual.

I'll buy a dual land.

Yeah. And it's like...

After you get the whole set, right? If you get the whole set of the Final Fantasy where you're like, or I could buy a Black Lotus.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean that's that's such a hard part with all these collect new collectibles. And listen to Magic's credit, Magic's more collectible than it was when we pivoted this podcast to Magic.

Oh yeah. It's It's not even close.

But if you want to if you want to build a collection and keep your eye on the prize now, it's so hard. It's so hard cuz everything comes so quick and everything's got something crazy.

Here's a crazy question. Have they done the impossible? Have they made...

The collector box something that's labeled collectible? Have they made that collectible?

Oh, we we touched on this last week. They the work they've done on the collector box to make things inside actually collectible and then the base version of those cards like the playable version is...

Worthless.

$2, right?

Some of those Lorwyn ones that it's like literally worthless.

Right? But it's that's isn't that the goal? Isn't that amazing? That's that's collectibility. That's Hey, I didn't impact my players. We can play the game. Everyone's going to whine about thousand collector box. Guess what? You can get the cards to play the game for 2.95 in the bulk bin right now.

Right?

Like it's it's wild. They've done a really good job with that.

I didn't see this coming. I did not see collecting coming back to magic.

Grading is the next step. Grading's coming back to magic. Baby.

It's not. I'll...

Grade commanders and play with them.

So, the commander thing maybe, but nobody wants to put that in their deck box. You got to carry that stuff. Nobody want...

Oh, I've seen some people true for most deck boxes. Ridiculous deck boxes.

The only grading that would work for Commander in that regard...

Is the PW is Rudy's grading company's player slabs.

And like nobody knows Rudy's grading company exists.

Nor would that add any value to like there's no point in getting it graded.

Right?

The only thing I want graded in Rudy's grading slabs is Rudy.

And apparently I can get that. I I thought that we're going to criticize Rudy in a little bit on this podcast. I want it to be known.

I love Rudy. Like I I think any magic content creator that doesn't admit that they would trade places with Rudy any day is...

You're a liar.

Absolutely insane.

You're a liar.

I respect and I uh I admire a lot of what Rudy has done. I don't respect or admire PCW graded cards. Like I don't I don't It's just not It's just not my I just...

I'm I'm kind of a PSA or or bust kind of person. Um, anyway, didn't mean to just dig in on Rudy, but the player slab is the only thing that you could do for commanders. My boy.

What do you mean you don't respect these? You respect these? What do you mean? I need don't add any they don't add any value. There there's zero like there's not the demand for...

Say that to the shark's face. Try to say it to the shark's face. You can't you can't you can't say it.

That would probably sell less than raw.

I think so. You're right.

The person who's buying that is going to have to crack it out of the slab now.

And honestly, like for Sorcery, even a PSA 10 would probably be very very very difficult to sell. This is my biggest mistake.

Yeah, you should crack that and send that to PSA.

Wonder if you can send it like that and have them crack it.

I think so.

You could cross grade. Yeah, you could try to cross grade.

Um,

Would they relabel it?

Yeah, they would. They would take it out and put it in a PSA slab.

That's cool.

That's got That's got to be safer than doing it yourself.

Yeah.

Well, so there's a lot of there's a lot of theories on this, right? Uh, a it's safer. Sure. But the question is would PSA ever give like in that case it's a 10 at at P what is it? PCW PWC. What is the abbreviation?

Uh, PCG.

At PCG. In that case it's a 10 at PCG which is typically going to be a higher grade than a 10 at PSA anyway. So that one they would probably cross. But the argument is like they're rarely gonna cross a nine into their 10 because they don't show that they have a...

Superior.

A superior grading scale.

Right.

In that case, you would crack it out to try to, you know, get their honest opinion on.

Right. Can I tell you the only two cards that have a premium when grading with PCG is the Rudy Metazoo promo and you your authenticated signed card that they reached out to you...

And they said did you sign this?

Those are the only ones that have a premium. Maybe...

That's the only...

Authentic one of one. It...

Is one of one. So, I think PCG would probably have a premium for Flesh and Blood because that's the that is the audience. Boom. Right there.

The collectors of Flesh and Blood, if they still exist, they are Rudy people.

Like, they are like they're watching his content all the time. And so, I think that would that would hold a premium for that one game.

I I have a stack of Flesh and Blood cards that I sent in for that grading experiment. They do not have a premium nine 95s in bet and I can't it's...

Yeah. And and maybe it's again it's because it's it's not the new Marvel Heroes. It's old stuff, right? So, and it's not graded in player slabs. I did the regular one and so maybe that's maybe it's my mistake.

Back to the grading of I don't think Magic enters a grading. I know uh RNG Games also believes that you and RNG Games must have like all the graded Magic cards in the world. just want it to work. I just don't see the the attitude of the magic collector is I want to put this in my deck and show it off and be cool. I think it's so cool when somebody plays a card in Commander and it's an Alpha or a Beta version, I'm like, "Holy crap, that's cool." If somebody showed me a slab of like a a BGS7 Alpha card, I'd be like, "Oh, I mean that's..."

No, but sure.

That's cool. Yeah, but if someone showed you a slab of a BGS8 Mox, like that would be awesome.

Sure. Sure. So, I think at that scale, like your your high-end vintage magic, like I my my Lotus is graded. I bought a BS a BGS8 Lotus. That's the Lotus that I wanted.

Because how much real quick how much?

No clue.

Eight 18 to 22.

Yeah, probably somewhere. I think I paid 25. I think I traded 25 for it. But that what you're describing is going to be Chocoo's. Someone's going to show you and you're going to be impressed because it's a $22,000 graded magic card.

I I mean I've held a a graded serialized Chocoo in my hand. We did a guest card when the card...

You were so You were so proud of it. You did a video just because the card was in your hand.

It's very cool. That is cool. Graded only because you're not going to ever see that in a Commander deck. That's ridiculous. The price of that is worth grading, right? But I guess where I come from is compared to Pokemon where like people just want graded Pokemon cards because that's that's the ch I have a buddy Cody who is working on getting a PSA 10 version of every alter from Sword and Shield era. He's got like six more to go. That's his going to be his collection. He's literally selling everything else he has to have a PSA 10 version every other Pokemon card. not his like real stuff, right? But to have every...

Yeah, to have to have every PSA 10 alter from Sword and Shield era like that is a...

Those are like, you know, $200 cards, right? They're not like...

Right.

They're not $10,000.

Came to me and had like a PSA 10 Beta Mountain or like they had the land they had all five lands from Beta in PSA 10. I'd be like, that's awesome. What do you want to trade for that? Like I I want that.

That to me it's cool.

So, yeah, maybe for vintage cards that's cool. But like now take a now take this PSA. That's that's I don't think we're ever going to want I don't think people are going to want this in a PSA 10. I just don't think that's the thing that people are going to want. This is the search foil. Like I just don't see magic, modern magic becoming like, "Hey, I want to get this graded because everyone you send in, 90% of them are going to get PSA 10."

Yeah. I I think I would think more if if it ever takes on with modern magic, it would have to first take off with vintage magic. Like like Donald, you're collecting Spider-Man, right? If if you had the option to pay some more on top, would you want to get the high-end cards graded just to have them slabbed or is that not You don't care about that? Donald thinks grading is a scam.

I do. I don't I don't I'm anti-grading. But...

Can I interest you in some PCG slabs to purchase? Can I?

No thanks.

I also, for the record, think grading is a scam. Like I want that like but the market has has set its tone, right? Like the Pokemon market doesn't think grading is a scam.

Yes.

I think that the magic market will largely reject grading is my point. The only thing I like about grading is it preserves the card better than...

And that that's literally the only reason.

That's probably one of my Lotus graded.

The cards that I have graded are literally just graded so that they were preserved and my OCD needs them all to be the same. So they're all PSA. So, and and Josh, like to your point with the the vintage, I think one of the reasons graded vintage will take off and is taking off and has pretty much taken off is because then you have a an agreed upon a third party has said this is the condition of the card and now you can compare like for me I could compare that BGS8 Lotus to other BGS8 Lotuses and say this is the price rather than comparing some eBay LP listing and it's like really is that really LP or is that near mint or is it HP?

That gets bad when you get down. Again, I've been buying up Beta cards just because I like the set and I like the feel of the cards and it's like you you buy a near mint Beta Fireball.

Yeah.

And you're not getting what you when you first get into this is the first time I was buying old Magic cards online. You're not getting what you think is near mint. What you have been trained and taught as near mint buying new cards, that is not what you are getting.

It just you need to get over that hump right now. Well, and the lister shouldn't be listing that as they should still be listing that as MP. It's...

Just because it's an old card doesn't mean that the near rules don't qualify.

I agree with you, but I'm just telling you the way it works. Much like we talked about great, but this is the way the market reacts. The way the market reacts. And for everyone out there who hasn't done it,

Be ready. You're not getting near mint cards.

Yeah, this is what I think I told you, Josh, about this. I think maybe we talked about this on the podcast, too, with the vintage Pokemon I was buying last year. I was trying to finish a bunch of Wizard of the Coast sets of first edition. And I bet you I think I I think at the time I said I want to say 30% or 40% of the orders I placed on TCG Player got cancelled. Remember my account got banned because I got so many refunds. Like the the sellers before they even shipped acknowledged that they didn't have the first edition or a near mint version of that card. And then another 15 to 20% of them when I received them, they either weren't first edition or they weren't near mint or LP or whatever I ordered. And so I had to get and like...

That's the same with Vers.

So low key that's why I went with Beta.

Because I I would wonder how paranoid and how often I'd be checking and doing all the testing to be like, did I actually if I got went with Alpha, did I get an Alpha card or did I actually get a Beta card? Right? If you have Beta probably not getting it reverse...

Order like a clipped corner.

Right exactly and I was like I don't want to get into you know the deep dive of everything I need to know for that yet start with Beta.

Uh, anyway long story short these collector character in the battle post cards the textless ones I think are going to be really expensive.

This is why I'm going to struggle again.

I already want to collect universes beyond as much. I mean, the Spider-Man comic book covers. I like comics. It's cool, but it's just hard to justify.

It's so hard.

You know how many Pokemon cards I could grade for that money?

D I have so many cards at PSA right now.

I have a I just did a list to our our buddy. I sent him pictures and and the list because I have a whole stack of PSA over here, Pokemon cards from our endeavors. And the reason I'm selling it, I am just going to do it again. I'm not going to do it right now because the grading times and prices are hiked.

Yeah.

But I'm just going to start stocking the coffers and do it all over again. I'm addicted. I'm in.

Um, any other thoughts on the set? We haven't really I mean gotten into it that much. I I think there's been some spoilers, but not a ton of them yet.

Full set's out and I guess spoilers probably start this weekend.

This This probably isn't your podcast to go to for in-depth spoiler analysis. I just want to know does the set have a bunch of good Commander stuff? Like are people going to...

Because there's no Commander decks.

Well, Donald, how many creatures are legendary?

Yeah, but so that doesn't mean that they're good Commander stuff that like that's not going to sell the set. Every single one of those legendaries is going to be cheap.

Sure.

Well, I think...

Good Commander stuff or expensive Commander stuff cuz like I think we've seen a lot of good Commander stuff in the spoilers mana generators. We've seen uh some food token shenanigans and really low cost on creatures like there's there's some really powerhouse cards in here. Is there anything...

In the the series across source material cards?

That that's another thing. The source material cards have some some powerful reprints in them. Not that not that like...

No, but they've done a good job.

It does matter a little bit.

No, that matters. I think that matters a lot. What was I what was I thinking about the other day? Was it Bloomber? Might have been Bloomber I was looking at and I was like, "Oh my gosh." Like that's what's so Or maybe it was Wilds. I think it was Wilds of Eldraine.

The uh the subset in that set.

Enchanting Tales.

Enchanting Tales. Yeah.

Insane. But the like the Spider-Man source material cards were not like great cards, you know, like big expensive Commander cards.

Which is fine, but like this one of the ones we've seen, you've got like Mystic Remora, Force of Negation, Great the Great Henge.

Like I mean some some crazy...

Good Commander cards. So...

I think that sells a set almost as much as like is there a good Like these are mostly in colle like you can get them in play boosters but they're...

It's like what...

You can't get foil.

You can't get yeah, but like but even the...

According to the according to the thing, you can get foils in the set Josh.

Oh, you can get foils of the...

For well, according to their article, right? Force of Negation says treatment borderless traditional foil and it says available in play booster.

Play boosters. Oh, okay.

That...

But but those like I mean the Spider-Man ones.

They they specified later. I'm wrong.

Okay.

Sorry. It's very when you read just the graphics it looks like that, but if you read the not fine, but finer print, it doesn't.

I was about to say that seems to be something they're doing to...

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Continue. Sorry. Oh, I was just I was just saying like the Spider-Man ones, those are my favorite part of the Spider-Man set are the source material cards. And I'm glad that like there weren't crazy expensive ones because it makes it easier to pick them up. But these will be harder to pick up for anybody. I mean, not harder, but more expensive to pick up.

Yeah.

Because the like the Great Henge is it like $80 still or something crazy. I haven't looked at it for a while, but it was up there for a long time. Um, Mystic Remora has seen some reprints lately, so it's it's down, but still like $75 for the green.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Force of Negation. I mean...

65, dude. When when it was announced as a reprint went from 70 to $62.

Like, these will be some some...

Big pickups for sure. I also think that's a little bit of a scam when cards like this dip so heavily because they're reprinted in this one subset. There are 61 cards in that subset. It's not going to be easy to pull the Great Henge, right? Like it's not going to be a huge, it's not like it's a, you know, rare mythic in the set, right?

Um, it'll be an. This is going to be a really. This is, I have no clue if this set does really well or really poorly. It might just be a mid set, right? Like it might just kind of do okay. There are enough Avatar fans to. There's nowhere near the IP support for Avatar that there is for Spider-Man, but that only carries you so far because the set still has to be good. Then the content of the set, like the, like these source cards, you know, like those are way better than the Spider-Man when you compare the two already. That's a huge win over Spider-Man. So that brings in more of your non-Avatar players already. And it, I, I don't know. I think that it'll be a very similar experience as Spider-Man as far as pre-release is concerned.

Um, but I, I think over time this set sells better than Spider-Man does. It's just so cool. There's a. I'm looking at the subset. You got me all in looking at the subset now. The Marvel Universe Eternal Eagle, the, the that subset we're talking about.

And like one of the cool things I have is old border foils and stuff. And I like to put new cards next to this ponder here. Is you look at it. This again, I want a foil ponder here for this. I'm paying $17 per ponder. That's crazy. That's for ponder. It's crazy. It's nuts out. That is a cool the border. This one. That is pretty cool looking. Yeah. Yeah, man. He is definitely pondering, right? Definitely thinking about it. Oh, is that the one where he's up on the like on the with the gargoyle up on the? Yeah, it's a good one.

Um, all right. Let's skip the Pro Tour conversation because we are 45 minutes into Magic. So, um, that's what people come here for. Yeah. Let's get to uh sorcery/talking about indie TCGs in general. Uh, the topic of discussion I'd like to propose here is are.

Why did this become a court of law? What just happened? My motion to continue with the conversation. You, you have to stand up and make the motion. Uh, are collaborations with companies and individuals like Star City Games beneficial for the games that are doing it? So, the context here, Sorcery has a. I don't want to promote another person's sale. You can maybe go pre-order Sorcery on my website at kitchen tabletcg.com. Uh, I don't know how many boxes I'm getting still. Uh, but you can go pre-order boxes there. Um, but they have a much better bundle than I would ever be able to give anybody, uh, or any store would ever be able to give anybody, or the local store which you play at would ever be able to give anybody, um, for Gothic. And you know, they're doing the events, right? They're, they're doing the. I think that's a huge win for Sorcery, right? Having Star City Games at Star City Games Con, that's a huge win. There's certainly a lot going there. But what negative or what I don't want to leave my own opinion in. What is the net result of these companies being involved with indie TCGs? What do you guys think?

I think that for indie TCGs, nothing is more important than your local game store. And I think doing something like that is a slap in the face to your local game store by undercutting them essentially to where the players are going to go somewhere else to buy their product. You need those local game stores to promote your game. I think this is one, and we've talked about this a million times, and I hate to keep bringing it up, but this is where Cryptic, one of the big things that Cryptic failed on, putting their boxes through eBay and saying, "Sorry, local game stores, that your boxes that we sent you are unplayable because our," you know, but if you want it, you can go to eBay and buy it. You can't play a game at eBay. But like, that was the nail in the coffin to their game.

Mhm. And it's that's like you can't turn your back on the local game store as an indie TCG. You need them. Magic doesn't need the local game store. Magic will exist without the local game store. It will, it'll exist without the local. It might not be as good, but it will exist without the local game store. Your indie TCGs don't exist without a local game store. You're not buying them in Walmart. like you're, you're not like.

Piggybacking off of that too, we like we saw this with Flesh and Blood when Josh and I were making Flesh and Blood content where they they did, you know, this is what I see here with Star City Games and the Sorcery Bundle feels like, and this is what it drives me bonkers like I had to take a step, like I was texting you guys the other day about I had to stay, I had to take a step away. I literally texted somebody not that I that I know would give me an honest, I was like, am I am I crazy right now? Like I had to take a step away because this feels like the exact same scenario that we were in with Monarch for Flesh and Blood.

Flat circle. Okay, George. That was a George quote from the. Is that where? Is that who said it? Yeah. Like it feels like the exact same thing we saw in 2022. Yeah. 2022 with with Flesh and Blood where the the game stores were like people would pre-order from the store and be like, I'm not pre-ordering at the store anymore because I can get this exclusive playmat and this exclusive promo card from this person over here for a cheaper price than the than the retail price of the box. It's like a Ruby bundle. So, let's play. Yeah. I don't want to just throw Star City Games here. I want to ask the question, what are the positives? What are the negatives? Because there it is nuanced, right? I.

Let's not be complete, like let's not stick our heads in the sand and and cover errors and just scream about the things we're mad about. And I'm not saying you're doing that. I would have done that three three days ago. I would have done that. Yes, I would have done it with you because I was when I saw what you sent, I was also a little bit shocked. But there's something that's just as important to indie TCGs in my opinion and that's reach, right? Eyeballs. And in such a niche niche space, and as much as we like trading card games, it's a niche space. Getting the equivalent of Target shelf space and Walmart shelf space on things like Star City Games and TCG Player running promos for your release and that notoriety. That's meaningful. Even even things like having a content creator like Rudy behind you that is going to have an audience that he can essentially sell to.

Yep. And and promote and whether he believes in it or not, which I I truly think he does. I'm not saying that he's selling without believing, but if he buys into your system, your game, and sells that to his followers or their followers or people shopping at that store, that's valuable. And I think to not acknowledge that is disingenuous. And we we would the three of us wouldn't do that. But the question is, it doesn't come without tradeoff, right? You guys have mentioned a lot of the trade-offs, and it's not without fault. You don't get to do this for free. These these stores, these companies are not going to just put you front and center on such a valuable spot without something. How are you going to entice the customer to spend their money with me if I'm going to go through the work to put you front and center? So, it's I said this back then and I'll say it now. It's it's almost a devil's choice and I don't envy the people that have to make it and I don't like criticizing without a solution, but the current method seems proven to be broken and people just keep repeating it. And that's the part I will criticize.

Yeah, that's Yeah, we have a history that this doesn't work and we just keep going back to that. Well, um, I, I, I wanted to hear your guys's opinions before I spewed my own thoughts. The first thing I thought was the same thing Josh, you just said, that the exposure is really good, right? Um, Rudy probably sold whether it was through Rudy or just in general people seeing his content and then going to buy boxes somewhere else because of his content. Right.

That's it. More boxes than any person who has ever done Sorcery, right? Like I think Rudy is is is one of the factors that has really sold a ton of Sorcery, not just again, not just from Rudy but across the board people saw it on his channel and then went to a game store and did so like. Rudy's responsible for probably more sales of Sorcery than anyone else indirectly, but also more people bringing it to their game store importantly and saying, hey, game store owner, carry this.

I, I think that that is a very, very important nuance and and again, I agree. It's part of the whole thing, right? Um, I think Star City Games and and frankly Channel Fireball back in the Monarch days, right? An essential way, an essential person that you need on your team to run events. I talked to um Donald Tony about a guy who who uh comes from Kentucky. He sells me Magic cards all the time. Um, and he was going next last weekend to the Star City Games thing and he had just started getting into Sorcery and he was excited that there was a, you know, it's starting to become a pretty competitive. There's a lot of competitive Sorcery players now. Like that's part of the game. It's not just collecting and this Star City Games Con was one of the things he was going to that he was really excited about. So, I think that's a really, really, really important part of the piece of the puzzle. I don't think that the selling of the bundles works to make that happen. Like to put in perspective, the reason I knew about this bundle was because they were the Star City Games was posting it in the Sorcery Facebook group on Facebook. So their their reach is not what is selling boxes. You know what I mean? Their their event if they were just selling boxes to the event attendees with this exclusive playmat. I don't think I have a problem with that. I think that's huge.

Oh, that's now now it's an event promo. That's. I think that's super cool. Which is actually the. I heard I don't know if this I haven't fact checked this, but somebody told me uh who was at the events that the playmat that they're doing in the bundle was advertised as a prize wall exclusive or con exclusive at at SGC con. And then they found after the event, the players who had spent 450 tickets on the playmat found out that it was part of this bundle. Uh, so that's a whole another thing like whatever. That wasn't me. So I, I don't have the. I don't have the. But in the comment section the the two Sorcery guys that always comment every week will will correct you. My my point is like if they were just doing the bundle at cons, I think this is a really cool thing. It's not competing with your local game store. It is it is generating sales based on people who go to what they are providing. Just like you know Rudy's patrons, it that's a thing that Rudy is providing. It seems to me, it seems to me that the the equivalent of what they are providing is not the equivalent of what they are taking away from lo from other local game stores and other things. And on top of that, stores are really left with this this really frustrating part. And this is I want to highlight. Sorcery also does stuff for the local game store. They have the event kits which are really, really well done. Okay, they they have event kits that are really, really well done. But the event kit doesn't help you sell boxes. It helps it helps you play the. It helps people come and play the game. And I think if they're going to do, and I I would say this to any game, if they're going to do things at Star City Games or with Rudy or with, you know, Team Covenant, who gets an exclusive promo and that kind of stuff, then they should also do things that stores are allowed to sell and bundle alongside of the of the boxes that the local game stores have. And they should be as exclusive, as cool, and as limited as the box as the ones that you're seeing at these other places. So, like um, they they did with beta the the beta buy box promo, but they printed a trillion of them. I, I don't know the number, but it feels like they printed a lot more of those buy box promos than they did booster boxes. And so maybe print them less and maybe say, "Hey, one per, you know, one per three or four boxes and give them to stores to give out as incentives when you buy a box. When you buy a case, you get a promo or that kind of thing." Um, but incentivize stores with things that allow them to sell the product alongside of the promo rather than just giving the promos to these other places. What I would encourage um.

Sure. And the the promo thing, it only matters when the promo is has collectibility and value, you know, however you perceive value, whether it be it's a highly played card, whether it's an expensive card, whether it's highly collectible. This we see because because everyone's going to see Magic does this all the time, right? People get exclusive Magic promos when you buy Magic here. It's Yeah, but it's always it's a dino token worth two bucks. Do you know what I mean? Like it's. Yeah. No, nobody ever really cares about that. And if it's ever a valuable card, it seems to be a it's either a play prize like you get from playing in high level events or it's the buy a box promo back when they used to do that and every store got all of them. You could buy your box at any store. It wasn't a unfair playing field for the the bigger guys, if you will. But I, I also think it's worth looking at this from the other side of the table, right? And we put a lot of this on these these game companies because it is their job to shepherd this product to growth to a community that plays to fan bases to collectors. It's a hard job. But if I'm Star City Games and I'm Channel Fireball and it's I think it's easier to put myself in the shoes of Rudy because it's one human rather than a a conglomerate. If I'm Rudy and I'm saying, "Hey, okay, I do like Sorcery. I want to put something together and offer Sorcery to my fans, to to my community, to people. I want to sell this product, right? I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't leverage my reach and say, I'm different than Louis Game Store. I'm different than Minmax Games. I'm different than Nerd Rage. I speak to tens and hundreds of thousands of people every single day."

Right? You want me to sell this product, I need more than what everyone else has. I need something else. And it's as as a person whose job it is to shepherd this game into success and growth, it's really hard to turn that down. It's really hard. Especially when they can demand anything. There's no other city games. Well, if it's a partner that believes in you in a way that they're going to facilitate, there's a trade-off there, right? Star City Games, they're facilitating gameplay and organized play at an extremely high level. Rudy is facilitating collectibility and like or joke about his grading company or not, grading Sorcery is something that he puts on, you know, on his front page. It's like we do this, right? Right. And so it's hard to turn down. You're like, yeah, I, I'm maybe I'm sacrificing a little bit over here, but this is what I'm gaining. And I think it's, you know, if we keep seeing partnerships with these creators, I don't think it's ever going to go away because again, if I'm Rudy, why wouldn't I ask for something? And if I'm the game, how do I not give it to them?

I, I agree that that is a place that these games have to be in, right? Like I agree that they I agree that Sorcery can't answer more margin. Maybe the answer is more it's it's it's cheaper boxes to these people than the store. So they they don't sell anything exclusive, but they get to make more than you do for their reach, right? Maybe that's the answer.

Yeah, for sure. I, I think that I think the the question I have I think the the point I would make is that it's really really hard to create a game with authentic community and authentic growth when those are the main sources of the the clientele that you that you bring in, right? And so like um. Sure, there's an argument you don't need it, you just need stability. I mean, look at Fab. We talked about Fab a couple times. They they're not growing, but they're stable. Let, let me, let me finish my point if you want. Like um, I was thinking about this when we were talking about we had almost made a similar video to in the same day. I'm not a large content creator. I'm not I'm not saying that I deserve any. Oh, Donald, what does that make us? Crap. Like I'm not a large, I, I don't think that I deserve the that type of thing like whatever. Right. But in order to create a culture around a card game, I think that card games should be reaching out to smaller creators. Like I think that a Sorcery content creator who is making daily and weekly videos is as important, if not more important, than Rudy. Rudy is going to get a lot of eyeballs on the game, but those eyeballs have nothing else to watch if there's not daily content being made about the game. And so I would even venture to say that that those content creators who are making. I'm not making daily Sorcery content. I'm not talking about me. I want that to be very clear. But those content creators who are making consistent Sorcery content and any other TCG that you want to throw in there are as valuable as the Rudy and that kind of thing. They just don't they just don't have any leverage. And the games need to understand how important those content creators are and they need to do more to support those content. I think that would be my large my my large takeaway in the content creation sphere.

It's less about the size of the content creator, but like you said, a dedicated content creator. You want someone that you can entice them in whatever way to make content solely for your game. I don't even. Or someone who is already doing that. But you like those are. I think there needs to be some semblance of. I think those are the types of creators that need to see not necessarily promo, but some sort of support on the level of helping move product. I think the average viewer who is who's actively playing Sorcery and they're watching, you know, a a daily Sorcery creator, again, insert whatever game you want to insert here, is much likely would much rather spend their money that supports that creator rather than supports Star City. Maybe not rather than support Star City Games. We'll just use that as the example or Team Team Covenant, whatever it is. The the reaction you have to that creator is really important.

Yeah. But I, I think you lose that argument when you go creator to creator, right? Star City Games being a faceless, nameless entity and daily Sorcery content creator human versus Rudy. I think people are going to want to spend their money with Rudy more because they have a deeper connection there. They they followed that more. Like I, I don't think that's going to translate when you start when both are a personality. Rudy's gonna sell the boxes. I'm not saying Rudy doesn't get the boxes or or whatever. No, no, no. You were just saying where that person wants to spend their money. I think that person would want to spend their money more on the big the big conglomerate if that conglomerate is a a human a content creator. Like if if TCG Community College and I got the same thing, I think I would have people on my channel that are like, "Hey, I love the opportunity to support this guy." I think the overwhelming majority of people who saw both videos would be like, "I'd rather support TCG Community College." That works for the the 200 people already subscribed to and following that content creator. It doesn't work for the other 2,000 people that come across their content and then have to choose. I'm familiar with Rudy. There's this content creator who does make daily content. I like that. That's cool. But I'm This is where my loyalties lie, right? And I think that works for Star City.

I think you underestimate the the connection between a viewer and a smaller content creator. Oh, I, that's why I said I think the consistent viewers of that smaller content creator, but at the end of the day that the consistent viewers of the smaller content creator, if we're I mean, let's let's not let's not mince words here. Let's we're talking in the real world like adults. They don't move the needle. There's not enough of them. My my channel, for example, I recognize doesn't move the needle, right? There's no there's no there's little to no value that an indie TCG gets without targeting me and my content and my voice specifically. If they say, "Hey, your voice and what you do fits our lane, then there's there's value there because I think I've carved out a weird niche in the space." But in a general perspective, I don't think that I offer anything special because I'm a smaller content creator. I'm not more connective.

I disagree with that. I think you, I think I dis I I agree with your scenario and your channel not providing a lot of value to an indie TCG that comes up to you and talks to you because you're not going to talk about that indie TCG day in and day out. But if you, if you go back to I'm just going to use me as an example just because um this is three years removed now. If you go back to my content three years ago with Flesh and Blood, I was making two YouTube videos a day for Flesh and Blood. Okay. Viewers of my channel watched my videos every single day. They're in a lot of ways their main interaction with the game of Flesh and Blood was by watching my channel. They couldn't go to the LGS every single day. Right. Sure. Just at all actually at the time. Yeah. My reach wasn't super wide, right? But the people who were involved in my channel, it was a super deep channel.

I think a lot of I think that is an extremely extreme um no longer that right. I think that is an extremely extremely valuable thing for indie TCGs because you can't always find somebody to play with. You can't always find a store who's going to carry your game, but you can follow no matter where you are, you can follow those channels and you can be a part of that. And I think that things I I think that I think that all indie TCGs, I'm not highlighting just Sorcery, I think that all indie TCGs do a poor job of valuing those creators. So, that would be my point.

I want to make it clear. I don't think that that lane that you had carved out and the lane that now again I said this when I talked about just 30 seconds ago. I think if you are an indie TCG and you approach me and say hey this lane that you've carved out fits us perfectly that works right. I'm talking about just in general if we're talking about getting eyeballs on our game and what's more beneficial for the work of the game company. And while you did some like you you had this deep audience, right? Flesh and Blood or Sorcery or whoever and indie TCGX engaging with you two video a day content creator in my opinion should have a different goal than engaging with Star City Games, right? I don't think those two should be in competition. Those two should be two completely different things.

Yeah. And if game companies are choosing, hey, we can either choose to support little, you know, not little, but dedicated two video a day content creator or Star City Games. I, I could see why if they have to make that choice, they never choose content creator.

I guess the difference with with our conversation is I don't think that they have to make that choice. Like I, I think that most companies could could make a. Arguing that it's a zero-sum game though that support if you're support is is giving up product and time and energy, right? Whatever it is. Like to keep. It's not a zero-sum game though. To to keep your to keep the people who are already engaged to continue to engage on a deeper level is extremely valuable. No, no. I'm saying it's a zero-sum game as in you that support that you now want to expand and and deeper and more heavily support the two video a day the the Louis of the world not not you now the I'm just using you as the example right that support you you theoretically would either have to do more effort that which costs more money and more time upfront to provide that support or pull that support from somewhere else and it's it's like maybe that's just not in in the plan or on the books right I think, yeah, I, I guess we've gotten a little a little bit far away from the main point as we typically do.

Yeah. Um, again, conversations are fun. I think things like Star City Games are very important, but when you give them the exclusivity to compete with local game stores, um, I think that's a miss. Just like I think the Team Covenant things, I mean, I don't want to just harp on Sorcery. I think that is a I think that that is a I think that that's a miss. Like I think that that is a I think the Rudy one I think is different because he's selling it to his his audience. Exclusive audience. I think that is a I think that is a really really interesting difference there. It's probably exclusive to Rudy too. Like nobody else has a Patreon that that is like that. Even if you gave it to to Community College, like. No. There's not that type of level of of thing. Like I think that is an exclusive really different one. Um, I think if Star City Games was selling this just at conventions, I think that would be great. Um.

Donald said it best. It would be nice to have what these the promotions that these these companies, let's again content creators out of it. Star City Games, Channel Fireball, Team Covenant. If those promotions would facilitate people taking the game into their store and saying, "Guys, support this." If that was what it was doing, I think that's a bigger win. And it and it might be doing that to to an extent. But while it's with the exclusive promo, it's also while it's doing that, it's also taking out of the hands of the existing stores, which is it's it's a weird like. Is what's worth more to you, right? Your existing supporting stores or a new network of stores?

And and not never mind just the fact of the promo, but you know how frustrating it is that as a local store, I still I don't know how many boxes I'm getting. And now I see all these other stores, but because we use the distribution model, it takes us so much longer to do that. So, people who I mean, I'll just use my channel because I'm not going to pretend my channel doesn't exist, but like people who watch my channel and did the did the Sorcery thing with me and want to support my Sorcery endeavor, blah blah blah, they don't even I can't even tell them to go pre-order. You know what I mean? Like, I can't even I can't even really promote a pre-order because I don't know how many I don't know how many boxes I'm getting yet. And like, now take that down to a local game store level. When you have a a people who are asking and you know I know people who ask their local game store, hey, can I order a a decent chunk of boxes over the cost of uh I think this is one of the best ways to get your local store into a game like Sorcery is to go to them and say, "Hey, I want to order uh I want to order 12 boxes and I'll pay you X percent over percentage over the cost of the box and I'll pay for them right now and I want you to start carrying this game and I'll I'll buy the initial big wave of product. That's how I got um the store I was going to with Flesh and Blood at the time. That's how I got him into that game. Um, but you can't even do that now as a store. Like you can't because you don't know how many boxes you're getting. And then meanwhile, they're going to see these pre-orders from these other companies that have a better promo, have a better price, have a better whatever. And so they go there instead.

Um. And it's listen, it's got diminishing returns. We've seen it. We we tracked sales before, you know, TCG Player cut me off. who were tracking sales of indie TCGs and I mean there were indies and Fab was the main indie I was tracking, but because Sorcery didn't come out with a release in that time outside of beta. I mean, their sets on TCG Player sold 600 boxes like that was it. I, I think the newest set Super Slam has sold 650 maybe 7 maybe 700 boxes total and that's a it's a degradation over time, right? You start to devalue people, you start to devalue stores, and you you don't hit the growth you have the potential to.

Yeah, and especially if if you oversupply like they oversupplied Channel Fireball, remember how much they oversupply Channel Fireball with boxes. If you oversupply Star City Games and then all of a sudden Star City Games has a warehouse of boxes or something, that's that's a whole another issue. I think that that runs into now you've now you've just damaged your own thing and you can't control a Star City Games. You know what I mean? Like you can't. I can't hear oversupply Channel Fireball without just thinking about all the memes. I can't. I just can't hear it.

Yeah. Dude, people were tweeting about it again. Oh, I sent it to you. I did. People were tweeting they should play those sets that Channel Fireball has. And the tweet was quote like, "I'm sure Channel Fireball can supply yet another event." And I wanted so bad to be like, "Hey, LSF, this is bannable. This is bannable. Come on, do it."

Uh. No, it's it's a it's a Sophie's choice that I'm glad I don't have to make because there's a way to get reach. Definitely nuanced. Yeah. Definitely nuanced. And there's definitely pros and cons to both sides. Um, yeah. Yeah. Like what's what's more important to you? And I, I think we've seen that companies value reach. Yeah. If a company, if a game, if if Sorcery could figure out how to support those small creators, I think that would be a really, really big thing.

Here's what's wild to me about TCG Player specifically. If you support and build a successful ecosystem of stores, players, and community, then your product will be on TCG Player and available. You don't have to give them something special. You have to pay so much money. TCG Player is pay to win 100%. TCG, this channel, this channel does have a affiliate link for TCG Player in the description of the videos. If you're going to buy something, use my affiliate link. TCG Player is pay to win. I, I understand that. But guess what? Everyone's getting their Riftbound right now or like close to now. And guess what's going to be listed all over TCG Player by people that are not affiliated with TCG Player? Riftbound. It's going to be available. Singles are going to be out there. The ecosystem is going to flourish because of it. Like ecosystem without giving the exclusive to TCG Player. If you give the exclusive to all the stores, they can put the product on TCG Player. Don't need TCG Player for that. You can't put it on there without. Yeah. Without like Riftbound has to buy the slot on TCG Player to be able to listen. Sorry, I should be clear. I'm not talking about buying the slot to get your stuff, your game on TCG Player. I'm talking about the TCG Player exclusive promos and kits and the exclusive playmats. You don't TCG Player doesn't need to get that. Is Riftbound doing that? No, they're not. But that's that's a company that in the past we saw buy at TCG Player and get this exclusive promo. It's like why? This is a community marketplace. If your community is hype and you supply your community, it'll be on the community marketplace.

Yeah. I don't know. It's a weird thing. The TCG Player thing is bizarre. Speaking of Riftbound, is that the next topic? I Donald Story Time now. Let's go Donald Story Time. Let's Let's change the narrative. This is a long podcast. Let's let's get to story time.

Yeah, let's get to Donald story time. All right, Donald. I want you to imagine you're 10 years old. Close your eyes. Remember back to being 10 years old. Lorana has a DLC. It didn't exist when I was 10. Yeah, I can't. Sorry. Sorry. I'm out. Your favorite game has a event that has a main event tournament for 248 players and you go and play in that tournament at 10 years old. You're 10. Mhm. Okay. Day one, eight rounds of Swiss, eight hour or hour rounds. So, you know, a minimum eight hours and then plus an additional 20 minutes for games that go to time, whatever. So, you're 10 years old. You pay you play 12 hours of your game.

Can I pause the story because I just want to make a prediction. This story is either going to be terribly heartbreaking or it's going to be this 10-year-old winning a tournament and I can't handle either direction. Let's keep going. Spoilers. Day two, you have to make 18 points to make day two, which is winning at least six of those eight games. It's an oddly specific scenario for a general imagination, but go on. You have four more rounds of Swiss followed by a cut to top 32. Mind you, you started with 48 players. Yeah. And now you're cutting to 32 of those players. These poor players try to play against a 10-year-old. You're 10 years old. If I'm 10, I when you say Swiss, I just think of the cheese my grandpa used to eat. You're 10 years old. You make top 32 out of all those adults in the room. Yeah. I mean, if I was playing a 10-year-old, I'd let him win, too. I'm just saying. I'm just. That is not true. I have seen beat down some 10-year-olds. For real. For real. Anyway, cool enough like to say, "Hey, I made top 30." That's that's a that's a thing that most players will never say in their life. No. You win your top 32 match. You're now in the top 16. You get matched in your top 16 match as a 10-year-old against the current Lorana world champion. Okay. How hard do you slap the champion with your ultimate child brain?

Let me tell you. There was the feature match table and then there was the table that this kid is playing at. How did they not How did they not make that the feature? How is this not the feature match? 10 years old putting. You can't put him on stream. His parents can't sign a waiver to let him on stream. He's. No, this is a fail. Someone find so many rules against that. How does Pokemon have anything? I don't think there's there really rules. You just let me know and I can. Well, I want to know. Oh my gosh. People are interacting with you while you're talking. Stop. Is there really rules against that? If your parents sign a waiver? Yeah, but you would think they'd sign a waiver when you go in the tournament. Yeah. But anyway, there are three people watching the feature match. And everybody on the internet. Yeah. Yeah. The entire rest of the the building is circled around this table standing on chairs. There's multiple levels of people like phones out. Is there a good picture? There's got to be a good picture of that. Donald so he could sit on my shoulders. It was crazy. Plenty of people took video. I saw it. He beat the world champion. Oh, he's top eight. Let's keep going. He makes top eight. Can't stop there. The place erupted. I mean world champion. You got 3,000 people just cheered against you. Yeah, but he was cool about like I mean he went he went straight to Twitter tweeted about how like cool it was to see that all that stuff. I thought he went straight to Twitter and complain. Complain. That guy sharp me. He was a 12 the whole time. I'm still in limbo here. Top eight. Top eight. You get paired against the number one seed now. Goes to game three. I don't like where this is going. You win. You're the 10-year-old. You win on the next turn. You win on the next turn. Pass to your opponent. Pop decks the board wipe. The only thing that that kept him from winning was this one streamed. No. So, we don't have evidence of that guy cheated that card in. I'm calling it right now. That son of a gun cheated that card in. I, but you want I bet he had Mark Corners. So do you think the kid's going to be able to make it good next time? I mean, finish in top eight. I mean, come on. That that is a phenomenal feat for anybody, let alone a 10-year-old. Yeah. It's phenomenal hands, too. He gets his golden Mickey. He has a serialized golden Mickey. He now has a $20,000 card. He's 10 years old. Please kid, please put that into a Roth IRA. Please. Somebody. Please help that kid. Somebody help that kid. Somebody buy that card from that kid and let it. I'll buy that kid. I If that kid promises me that he will put that money into a Roth IRA, I will buy that Mickey for him. I'll sell it to George. Somebody said, "How long before he takes it to school and trades it for a Pokemon card?" Wow, what a story. Yeah. Top eight. Get your gold to Mickey. He gets I mean he has an invite to um the North American Championship which would qual could qualify him to go to Worlds. Where Ravensburger is going to have the kid sign a waiver so he can. What a miss. Like what an was going to be my first takeaway from the story is that's a miss. Uh, as far as I know, I, I didn't hear it or I didn't see it firsthand, but I heard that um he was offered a sponsorship too by some like I mean, you just like it, what you you're a god at your middle school like they should erect a statue in your honor, right? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're you're a god to us in middle school. I think you forget that most of middle school. The story was so good until Donald said that part. Yeah, most of middle school tried to stuff us in lockers. Thank god some of us were really big. I mean, if if the kid could go in and say, "Hey, look, I was on Twitch with 30 with 3,000 people watching me." Now he's a god at middle school. But yeah, I'm not really sure what the like there are there's some sort of. Yeah. Stuff there. Like they can't like when they they displayed all of them in top eight like they display where they're from. They just put United States for him. They didn't put I mean that's a safety thing. I get like you don't want to put his. Yeah. All that. But like I, I don't know. Maybe they maybe they could have. Maybe they couldn't. I don't If he would have made it to the finals, they would had to have put him on stream. How would that have worked? Would they have censored the finals? At that point, they probably get the parent to sign a W. I would I would think there's no rules against it if the parent signs a waiver. I would also think that they should have done this ahead of time. Yeah. Well, I mean, he was the he was the story of the weekend. Like you. Yeah. Kind of unfortunate he didn't win because then you could market the game Lorana. Lorana the game even a 10-year-old can win. Well, that's my other takeaway here is god Lorana is easy. Like I was right about the no interaction thing. Poor Donald. Poor Donald. He just wants to have a good Lorana section. That's a good. Listen, that's an incredible story. I know it'll never happen with you, but do you think the kids do you think the kids' parents were just at the bar and finally were like, "No, they were there." "Why is little Timmy still gone?" "What is going on?" Setting the whole time like that's dedication on your parent. Your parents really love you because they're sitting there the entire time. They have to set with him. That's stay with him. You're under 13. You have you can't be unoccupied at the unaccompanied. Occupied. You can't be unaccompanied on the convention floor. Nope. If you're under 13, you have to be with an adult. No. Under 13, you said? Yeah. Okay, that makes. Yeah, that makes sense. That's awesome. That's crazy. That's a really cool. Do you know the Do we know We don't know the kid's name. I do. Okay, we won't shout. Good. Good on you, kid. It. They They said it's Aiden. Like, his name's out there. Like, it wasn't I would have guessed it would be a name like Aiden. Aiden, feel free to reach out to me at hometowntcgmail.com. I'll send you a Magic the Gathering deck. You can start playing some games where it'll be a little harder. Your brain will think it'll be awesome. Such a jerk. That's so good. This is a great story. Are we not going to pretend easier game than Magic? Are we going to pretend that that because if we're going to pretend that this conversation can't go any further? No, we're not pretending that at all. Yeah. Doesn't mean it's any less of an accomplishment. No, it's not. Great accomplishment. It's amazing. I It would be It would be better if we knew that the guy who top decked that cheated. I, I think that that's the narrative here. Whoever beat Also, if I, I just wanted to be known world. If I'm in a top eight game against this 10-year-old and I top deck the card that's going to beat.

him, I'm going to put my cards face down and concede to that 10-year-old kid. If you need that more in your life and you're still, hold on. You're still getting a $20,000 card.

>> Mhm.

>> No.

>> And and the guys that beat him went on to lose the next round.

>> TCGs. I don't know if I believe that.

>> No. in that scenario. I think I love that. I honestly I I don't I Let's be very clear. I would never ever ever be in that scenario. I am not qualified to

>> The only one of us that ever would is Donald. And Donald, do you give him the win there?

>> I I would have

>> I think you're right.

>> I would my I wouldn't my heart would not have been able to beat him.

>> No.

>> And I'm not soft. Like there was a kid playing Magic. There was a kid playing there was a kid playing

>> care about people, Louie. There was a kid playing Magic in my shop the other day or was playing uh One Piece. I was like, "You better not be going easy on that kid. I'm not like team go easy." But if that kid's already made it to the top eight,

>> right?

>> It's not a go easy moment anymore. It's a this kid. Can you imagine that experience for that kid?

>> I I struggle because I'm the guy my dad never let me win at basketball. And then I remember I we played one-on-one oneon one day and I realized I was like, "Oh,

>> yeah.

>> In the last year, I've gotten a lot bigger than this guy." And I I still remember that moment because it was so meaningful because I never got to win. Maybe there's an argument. You can't let the kid win. You gota You got to He's got to earn it. He's got to go through the rocky moments. He's got to go through.

>> He earned it. He earned it though.

>> That's true. Top eight. That's crazy. That's got And all the pressure of the world. Do you think maybe he's because he's a kid, he doesn't realize the pressure of, you know, hundreds of people around him climbing on shoulders to watch him play? He's just like, "Yeah, I'm just playing my game." Like

>> to me, I think that's work. I think I think there's more pressure as a kid

>> really

>> like with all that around you. Like I I don't know.

>> I I feel like that

>> either I think I disagree with that.

>> Either he thought it was the coolest moment in the world or I like if it was me I would be terrified. But

>> yeah, as a kid you're just hyperfocused. You're just oblivious to all that stuff.

>> And if you're 10, you don't have enough life experiences to know that

>> is this a lot of people. Is it not?

>> You just don't like.

>> Anyway, that's awesome.

>> That's awesome. That's That was worth story time. That was a great story.

>> Good story. Good Lorana segment

>> as a

>> Did you give him any company swag when you were there for work?

>> I don't I don't have any company swag. What are you talking about? You should have gone and been like give this kid a shirt to wear to be insane.

>> His laptop doesn't even work.

>> Yeah, I I literally had to borrow a shirt from someone cuz George won't buy me one even though he sent me there laptop that works either.

>> Yeah, that too. But uh as a antidote to the end of that story, uh Frank Carson went on to win the whole thing. Heard that name before?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. He is the Oh, he's a Josh. Do you know Josh? Josh?

>> He's a Magic Hall of Famer,

>> which Louie doesn't believe in. Sorry.

>> That's That's ridiculous.

>> Yeah, that thing that doesn't exist.

>> They've got a bust of him in his head in the Magic Hall of Fame. That's super cool.

>> But he uh he is the first two-time DLC champion. He is the first one to win two DLC's now.

>> This is like when all the magic spikes went down to Fab and just carried everything.

>> So, that guy's already won one. He definitely would have let that kid win though.

>> Yeah, for sure.

>> Oh, I don't know.

>> I don't know. He's a pretty competitive human.

>> Yeah, I I don't think he would have.

>> That's true. I would think I think my heart agrees with you, Lou. My head agrees with Donald. He's a pretty competitive human. Top of the mountain a lot.

>> You know, there's some guy in the comments. You're going to raise your kids wrong, not let them win all the time.

>> My favorite is when YouTube comments get into parenting advice.

>> Yeah.

>> What a wild place. Oh, I got one one day. It was like a fullon book about you're you're working too hard. You're I was like, "Buddy, I

>> How about put the phone down and

>> I am I am with my kids more in a day than the average parent is in a in a

>> in a week probably.

>> Might." Uh, all right. Secret sauce.

>> That That was it to me. That's the end of the podcast as far as I'm concerned. That was an awesome story.

>> Good job, Donald. And Donald, you get you're going to get a raise for the podcast, buddy. I'm going to give you Congratulations. Your your pay for the podcast just doubled.

>> They they've tricked me with this before, Donald.

>> They've tricked me. Don't let them get you.

>> Zero zero doubling.

>> All because of that story, all of the monetation from this podcast is going to go to you, buddy.

>> That's four bucks in your pocket, dude. $4.

>> I'll believe it when I see it.

>> I offer to ship you candy and you never sent me an address. I just think you don't want it.

>> I promise I would just eat it all.

>> You're welcome.

>> Great episode. Make sure you like and subscribe. Make sure you go over to Josh's channel over at Hometown TCG and like and subscri subscribe to his latest content. and go subscribe to Scruffy Look in Gaming, which is Donald's channel. Everyone, remember, be kind to the people around you. May the zoo be with you with you, dudes.

>> Always.

>> Secret sauce should be, should we change the name of the podcast.

>> Are we doing a secret sauce right now?

>> No, I'm just saying I'll leave that at the end of the podcast. Is it time to change the name of the podcast?

>> It might be time. [Music] baby. Heat.