Originally posted this in the Limited/Draft forum, but it was suggested that I might get a better response here, so here goes...
Mods feel free to move this post if this isn't the appropriate place...
That said, a gripe and a question.
First, the WotC site had listed (and our LGS had promoted) holding a Launch Day booster draft tournament for the release of SoM. Many people showed up yesterday, a lot of us driving in from out of town, only to be told that the LGS sold all but about 20 boosters of their product on Friday. As a result, they would just be holding a Standard tournament, and would not be giving out release foils and any prize support would be in boosters from other sets.
As you can imagine, there were MANY unhappy people. Several of us had brought friends who were new to the game and who wanted to get the new cards. As such, we either didn't bring a Standard deck, or didn't have one period.
We were turned away by the employees saying "Well, everyone that was buying boxes yesterday agreed they just wanted a Standard tournament, so we sold all our packs and that's what we're doing today."
I was under the impression that if you sanctioned a tournament with WotC and received prize support, foils, etc... that you were obligated to run that tournament.
We had issues last weekend during the prerelease with people opening their packs beforehand, and in some instances, trading before the deck-building time (you're not supposed to trade period). When this was brought up to the TO, he just dismissed it. They announced we were running 6 rounds, then proceeded to skip to Top 8 after five rounds. We played one round of Top 8, and then the other folks in the Top 4 (I made it to Top 4, yay!) pressured the TO into just calling it quits and dividing up the prize packs equally.
Most people would say to just find somewhere else to play, but the nearest LGS that host tournaments is over an hour away, and this one is in town, so many of us college students go there.
My question to the community would be what can be done about this? Are there official channels to report this to WotC? What can be gained by reporting it? The store owner doesn't seem to care, and his employees seem to just tolerate us Magic players. There has never been a REAL judge, and I'd offer, but darnit, I just wanna play.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit, and I welcome any suggestions y'all might have.
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"Here only miracles. Here, only the rising of spirit. And yes, love if it was pertinent (which it was so often); and sometimes bloodletting. But never the prosaic, never the trivial. Here the man who brought the strangest tale was the most welcome. Here every excess was celebrated if it brought visions, and every vision analyzed for the hints it held to the nature of the Everlasting." - Clive Barker's Imajica
if you feel they aren't following Wizard's policy, complain to Wizards.
My store ran launch events for as long as they could, but they ran out of Scars packs saturday night and had to owe prize packs to one of the winners.
It sounds like this guy was selling all of his tournament stock, however, which sounds odd. He should not be selling prize support packs, and they aren't allowed to sell the promotional cards ever (unless they buy them off of someone).
On the other hand, you can find them all over ebay, so its obvious not everyone sticks to this.
Originally posted this in the Limited/Draft forum, but it was suggested that I might get a better response here, so here goes...
Mods feel free to move this post if this isn't the appropriate place...
That said, a gripe and a question.
First, the WotC site had listed (and our LGS had promoted) holding a Launch Day booster draft tournament for the release of SoM. Many people showed up yesterday, a lot of us driving in from out of town, only to be told that the LGS sold all but about 20 boosters of their product on Friday. As a result, they would just be holding a Standard tournament, and would not be giving out release foils and any prize support would be in boosters from other sets.
As you can imagine, there were MANY unhappy people. Several of us had brought friends who were new to the game and who wanted to get the new cards. As such, we either didn't bring a Standard deck, or didn't have one period.
We were turned away by the employees saying "Well, everyone that was buying boxes yesterday agreed they just wanted a Standard tournament, so we sold all our packs and that's what we're doing today."
I was under the impression that if you sanctioned a tournament with WotC and received prize support, foils, etc... that you were obligated to run that tournament.
We had issues last weekend during the prerelease with people opening their packs beforehand, and in some instances, trading before the deck-building time (you're not supposed to trade period). When this was brought up to the TO, he just dismissed it. They announced we were running 6 rounds, then proceeded to skip to Top 8 after five rounds. We played one round of Top 8, and then the other folks in the Top 4 (I made it to Top 4, yay!) pressured the TO into just calling it quits and dividing up the prize packs equally.
Most people would say to just find somewhere else to play, but the nearest LGS that host tournaments is over an hour away, and this one is in town, so many of us college students go there.
My question to the community would be what can be done about this? Are there official channels to report this to WotC? What can be gained by reporting it? The store owner doesn't seem to care, and his employees seem to just tolerate us Magic players. There has never been a REAL judge, and I'd offer, but darnit, I just wanna play.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit, and I welcome any suggestions y'all might have.
i understand your misfortune. sadly money motivates a lot of people. I do not think a store can sell boosters before launch day. there are, unfortunately there's little WOTC can do. the store basically said screw it, i want the most bang out of my buck and went to sell boxes and boosters before anyone else could.
you should just tell everyone to stay the hell away. if a store would like to screw you over on a release day they promised, its there loss.
i understand your misfortune. sadly money motivates a lot of people. I do not think a store can sell boosters before launch day. there are, unfortunately there's little WOTC can do.
Apart from, among other things, banning them from running sanctioned tournaments, you mean?
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"...because without beer, things do not seem to go as well."
Apart from, among other things, banning them from running sanctioned tournaments, you mean?
Do you really want to do that to your only accessible local? Really?
Apart from gaining about an entire store's worth of enemies?
Honestly, this kind of thing sucks, but it happens a lot with new sets - in order to prevent stores from selling pre-release product early, it's much more limited then it used to be. While selling it is definitely taboo, I'm not sure I'd really od anything - it's not that abusive.
Running out of product also happens all of the time. Our pre-release wasn't sent enough product for Sunday, due to players wanting a Midnight release at 12:01 Saturday, and not even enough promos for Saturday at all. Apparently, the M11 numbers simply didn't validate increased demand, so WOTC gave them the short stick.
Apart from, among other things, banning them from running sanctioned tournaments, you mean?
Thats too extreme. When you only have 1 store in the area to play at, banning them to hold events puts a damper on your area. OTHER than that there's not much else WOTC can do.
I would go ahead and report them, as well. While it definitely sucks that it's your only local store (I'm in the same boat you are when it comes to that), if there's these kinds of shady things going on, I feel it'd be better to just not have this place at all. I'd rather just draft at my kitchen table and offer packs as prizes; this is what my friends and I did with ZZW. Would there be some people mad that the store lost its sanctioning? I'm sure there would be. However, unless you tell people that you're the one that made the call to WotC, how would they know? Besides, who's to say that people haven't already reported the store?
You could always just leave them an anonymous note, politely informing them that what they're doing is against Wizards' rules and that violating those rules can have very negative consequences for them. Hopefully that would get them to straighten up on their own.
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"...because without beer, things do not seem to go as well."
Definitely report the store. Best case scenario is WOTC steps in and tells them to shape up or lose their sanctioning. Worst case scenario is they lose sanctioning and you can't play as many tournaments. Prereleases and Launch parties may be worth the hour drive to the other location, and you just miss out on some FNM's. Or become a TO yourself and run events in the student hall at school.
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"They've done studies you know. 60% of the time, it works every time."
Report them. They're doing this crap because they think they can coast on blackmail ("nobody will report us or they'll lose their only tournament place"). The only solution is scorched earth policy. You know they're bluffing. If WotC comes down on them asking them to shape up, it's either doing it or losing their lifeline (what kind of gaming store doesn't carry Magic? the bankrupt kind, that's what). But WotC won't come down on them as long as they think everything is rosy and peach over there.
Thanks for all the feedback. It really just confirms my gut response. I have reported the store. We will see how everything pans out.
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"Here only miracles. Here, only the rising of spirit. And yes, love if it was pertinent (which it was so often); and sometimes bloodletting. But never the prosaic, never the trivial. Here the man who brought the strangest tale was the most welcome. Here every excess was celebrated if it brought visions, and every vision analyzed for the hints it held to the nature of the Everlasting." - Clive Barker's Imajica
This was a release-event NOT a prerelease right?, so when the boosters whent up for sale on friday he sold out and didnt have enough for scheduled draft event. WoTC doesnt subsidize thoose types of events, so first of all he didnt sell the price packs.
What he did do was get overzeleaus with selling his stock and ran out making it impossible for him to host the event he had scheduled. That is unfortunate, but not illegal, its a bad business choice to dissapoint your customers by not keeping enough stock to run the event, but unless im missing something he didnt do anything wrong...
First, the [LGS had promoted] holding a Launch Day booster draft tournament for the release of SoM. Many people showed up yesterday, a lot of us driving in from out of town, only to be told that the LGS sold all but about 20 boosters of their product on Friday. As a result, they would just be holding a Standard tournament, and would not be giving out release foils and any prize support would be in boosters from other sets.
Forget WotC killing their tournaments, this kind of stuff will kill your tournament attendance and business faster than anything WotC can do.
but unless im missing something he didnt do anything wrong...
They got prize support from WotC on the understanding they were running a tournament. Deciding not to run it after getting that prize support wouldn't be looked upon kindly, as I understand it.
This was a release-event NOT a prerelease right?, so when the boosters whent up for sale on friday he sold out and didnt have enough for scheduled draft event. WoTC doesnt subsidize thoose types of events, so first of all he didnt sell the price packs.
What he did do was get overzeleaus with selling his stock and ran out making it impossible for him to host the event he had scheduled. That is unfortunate, but not illegal, its a bad business choice to dissapoint your customers by not keeping enough stock to run the event, but unless im missing something he didnt do anything wrong...
I think you hit the nail on the head. Stores are unfortunately stuck between when it comes to these types of products. Stores get allocations of raw product based on their previous allocations, their turnout, etc. Typically, once a store receives their initial allocation they need to wait for "wave 2" of product to hit their distributors before they can get more.
So, a store is forced to choose--sell product to customers that come in who want boosters/boxes and have none for tournaments, or say no to customers who want boosters/boxes and hold the product for tournaments. It's not a very nice decision to have to make and it is hard to try to achieve a balance.
What makes this decision harder is also the attitudes of the parties involved. Many tournament players are 'plugged-in' and know they can get their product on-line for cheaper so they take advantage of the store's good will by attending tournaments but then buy all of their product elsewhere. On the other hand, people coming in off the street to buy boxes/boosters may not know they can get stuff at random online retailer for less money and are helping to support their local game store.
Honestly, its a lose-lose situation for the store owner.
Now, the pre-release situation sounds like the TO and players need to be reported to the DCI. First of all, how do players receive their pre-release product before the tournament starts?? Secondly, trading anything from their sealed pool is cheating, plain and simple. Each verifiable case of this should get DQ'ed from the tournament at the least, and possibly suspended from the DCI at best.
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Mods feel free to move this post if this isn't the appropriate place...
That said, a gripe and a question.
First, the WotC site had listed (and our LGS had promoted) holding a Launch Day booster draft tournament for the release of SoM. Many people showed up yesterday, a lot of us driving in from out of town, only to be told that the LGS sold all but about 20 boosters of their product on Friday. As a result, they would just be holding a Standard tournament, and would not be giving out release foils and any prize support would be in boosters from other sets.
As you can imagine, there were MANY unhappy people. Several of us had brought friends who were new to the game and who wanted to get the new cards. As such, we either didn't bring a Standard deck, or didn't have one period.
We were turned away by the employees saying "Well, everyone that was buying boxes yesterday agreed they just wanted a Standard tournament, so we sold all our packs and that's what we're doing today."
I was under the impression that if you sanctioned a tournament with WotC and received prize support, foils, etc... that you were obligated to run that tournament.
We had issues last weekend during the prerelease with people opening their packs beforehand, and in some instances, trading before the deck-building time (you're not supposed to trade period). When this was brought up to the TO, he just dismissed it. They announced we were running 6 rounds, then proceeded to skip to Top 8 after five rounds. We played one round of Top 8, and then the other folks in the Top 4 (I made it to Top 4, yay!) pressured the TO into just calling it quits and dividing up the prize packs equally.
Most people would say to just find somewhere else to play, but the nearest LGS that host tournaments is over an hour away, and this one is in town, so many of us college students go there.
My question to the community would be what can be done about this? Are there official channels to report this to WotC? What can be gained by reporting it? The store owner doesn't seem to care, and his employees seem to just tolerate us Magic players. There has never been a REAL judge, and I'd offer, but darnit, I just wanna play.
Thanks for letting me rant a bit, and I welcome any suggestions y'all might have.
My store ran launch events for as long as they could, but they ran out of Scars packs saturday night and had to owe prize packs to one of the winners.
It sounds like this guy was selling all of his tournament stock, however, which sounds odd. He should not be selling prize support packs, and they aren't allowed to sell the promotional cards ever (unless they buy them off of someone).
On the other hand, you can find them all over ebay, so its obvious not everyone sticks to this.
i understand your misfortune. sadly money motivates a lot of people. I do not think a store can sell boosters before launch day. there are, unfortunately there's little WOTC can do. the store basically said screw it, i want the most bang out of my buck and went to sell boxes and boosters before anyone else could.
you should just tell everyone to stay the hell away. if a store would like to screw you over on a release day they promised, its there loss.
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Do you really want to do that to your only accessible local? Really?
Apart from gaining about an entire store's worth of enemies?
Honestly, this kind of thing sucks, but it happens a lot with new sets - in order to prevent stores from selling pre-release product early, it's much more limited then it used to be. While selling it is definitely taboo, I'm not sure I'd really od anything - it's not that abusive.
Running out of product also happens all of the time. Our pre-release wasn't sent enough product for Sunday, due to players wanting a Midnight release at 12:01 Saturday, and not even enough promos for Saturday at all. Apparently, the M11 numbers simply didn't validate increased demand, so WOTC gave them the short stick.
Thats too extreme. When you only have 1 store in the area to play at, banning them to hold events puts a damper on your area. OTHER than that there's not much else WOTC can do.
Credit to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the Avatar & Miraculous Recovery for the Banner.
My 540 Card Cube (WIP)
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This was a release-event NOT a prerelease right?, so when the boosters whent up for sale on friday he sold out and didnt have enough for scheduled draft event. WoTC doesnt subsidize thoose types of events, so first of all he didnt sell the price packs.
What he did do was get overzeleaus with selling his stock and ran out making it impossible for him to host the event he had scheduled. That is unfortunate, but not illegal, its a bad business choice to dissapoint your customers by not keeping enough stock to run the event, but unless im missing something he didnt do anything wrong...
Forget WotC killing their tournaments, this kind of stuff will kill your tournament attendance and business faster than anything WotC can do.
They got prize support from WotC on the understanding they were running a tournament. Deciding not to run it after getting that prize support wouldn't be looked upon kindly, as I understand it.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Stores are unfortunately stuck between when it comes to these types of products. Stores get allocations of raw product based on their previous allocations, their turnout, etc. Typically, once a store receives their initial allocation they need to wait for "wave 2" of product to hit their distributors before they can get more.
So, a store is forced to choose--sell product to customers that come in who want boosters/boxes and have none for tournaments, or say no to customers who want boosters/boxes and hold the product for tournaments. It's not a very nice decision to have to make and it is hard to try to achieve a balance.
What makes this decision harder is also the attitudes of the parties involved. Many tournament players are 'plugged-in' and know they can get their product on-line for cheaper so they take advantage of the store's good will by attending tournaments but then buy all of their product elsewhere. On the other hand, people coming in off the street to buy boxes/boosters may not know they can get stuff at random online retailer for less money and are helping to support their local game store.
Honestly, its a lose-lose situation for the store owner.
Now, the pre-release situation sounds like the TO and players need to be reported to the DCI. First of all, how do players receive their pre-release product before the tournament starts?? Secondly, trading anything from their sealed pool is cheating, plain and simple. Each verifiable case of this should get DQ'ed from the tournament at the least, and possibly suspended from the DCI at best.