How about fair market value
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on June 24, 2020, 9:08 a.m. by RambIe
Ever since the release of brawl decks
LGS's in my area have been price gouging every precon deck and booster packs that have been known to contain good cards for commander.
It has become so bad that target & walmart our my main venders for precon decks
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.
Gidgetimer says... #3
It isn't "since the brawl decks" for me. It is "since I started playing 7 years ago". Any precon with value reprints or reprint set has been price gouged to hell and back. LGS are not totally to blame for this though. WotC has been doing limited print runs of stuff therefore the LGS have been needing to sell at EV since they can not make it up in volume.
June 24, 2020 9:21 a.m.
but how far is to far?
Example: Commander 2020 precon's
walmart $35
target $42
lgs $75 -$120
Becouse mtg printed five "If you control a commander" cards that have value of $3-$30
meanwhile 98% of the rest of the 2020 commander decks are jank reprint cards you already own.
June 24, 2020 9:35 a.m.
griffstick says... #5
You need to be a better bargain shopper and haggle with the lgs
June 24, 2020 10:10 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #7
Is it not a better feeling to support a local store than that of a massive chain? I’ve had fairly good experiences at a few different LGS’s until pretty recently, I do believe this issue is becoming more prevalent. All I can say is; maybe buy off of online retailers? Better in my opinion that Walmart...
June 24, 2020 12:10 p.m.
seem's to be some confusion
i'm not in need of advise of this topic, as i stated in the topic i stopped buying precons from lgs's because of the price gouging
i thought this would be a fun topic to discuss thoughts & opinions.
As magic players many of us want to support our lgs's so we have a place to go and play.
But as a commander players were to be taken advantage of ?
Do standard players get price gouged ?
Do draft players get price gouged ?
Yet when they release a booster set with commander staples the price is more then double and there just reprints so the originals we already own crash in price.
every other format you pay 100% and get 30-50%
in commander you pay over 100% value then get reprinted or banned and you get 30-50% of the new price making it actually about a 5-20% return.
No one has thoughts ,feels, experiences, opinions, etc to share on this topic ?
June 24, 2020 12:11 p.m.
I believe this started when wizards removed MSRP from its product and is why non reserved list cards that are popular and in demand need to be printed early and often so new players don't need to spend hundreds of dollars just to make a deck good let alone semi competitive. Reprinting these cards will sell alot of product while discouraging price gouging. Commander precons once upon a time offered a ton of value with both reprints and new cards. The new ones are junk reprints with a few good new cards. I support your choice to go the Walmart route. While I prefer LGS, I'm not paying double and triple what something should cost to support a small business that's trying to screw people.
June 24, 2020 1:05 p.m.
Shadow63, I rarely ran into it until recently. Yes there were always that one guy who ultimately made his money from singles because he price gouged package product. That guy only got my business when I needed bulk rares/commons and uncommon s because I knew he would have them because of all the product he couldn't sell and opened on his own
June 24, 2020 1:20 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #12
Ok, european player here. Maybe this is a US-thing? After the MSRP has been removed, booster prices went up by like 50ct. Commander decks keep on being around 40€, depending on how good the value ist. From C20, the only deck at 46€ was the Jeskai one, the rest crawled around at about 40 or little below. Are here any other non-US-players who can tell how it's in their country?
Regarding the reprint-problem: Looking at the great reprints in M21 and Jumpstart, WotC seems to have understood they need to reprint stuff to keep the game affordable, and Jumpstart will apparently be at normal price level, which is great.
I don't care about Double Masters though. I don't even bother paying that much for the packs.
June 24, 2020 2:03 p.m.
I think the biggest thing.Ive done is avoid LGS and instead go to stores who main focus is comic books. Comic book stores I go to have sold me 35 buck precons and stuff, but every lgs Ive been to always screws me over
June 24, 2020 5:39 p.m.
TonyStark9001 says... #15
if it's more than double and they're just reprints, then talk to the owner of your LGS. thats what i've tried to do in the past. you gotta play hard ball and tell them flat out "hey, your stuff isn't gonna sell at that price. some money is better than no money."
June 25, 2020 1 a.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #16
An lgs with bad buisness practices deserves to die. Sure, they're important to the community but if they're going to charge 200% of what I can get a product for elsewhere I'll just shop at Walmart/amazon. I get needing to keep the lights on and paying over head but at least on the east coast in my area distributors price things fairly. They can still get decent margins selling it for what walmart does.
June 25, 2020 4:15 a.m.
@TonyStark9001 for me its not one lgs,
I live in the Chicago land suburbs and the owners won't negotiate because there are to many people willing to pay the price gouge.
@RNR_Gaming
If walmart/amazon was $35 and lgs was $50-$55 i would still buy from lgs
June 25, 2020 9:13 a.m.
P.S.
As a point of reference
My wife and i both play commander
Every year both of us preorder a complete set of commander precon
and every set release both of us preorder atleast 1 booster box
That is we did... Until 2020 now the prices have been jacked up
All the cards have alternate art work so the originals have no value
and most of the new mechanics are kinda jank
we both agree it no longer feels worth investing in.
June 25, 2020 9:23 a.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #19
So, if you preorder at my lgs you can get any product for about what walmart sells em for. Though if they sell out they'll up it a bit but they stay below whatever tcg players average is.
griffstick says... #2
Target and Walmart will always rain supreme as the champions of low market value.
June 24, 2020 9:09 a.m.