So - if the real money is in the singles, why doesn't the source have a better selection? In my experience, the selection stays pretty stagnant - and as such (at least for me) leads to me coming in less frequently than I normally would. As time has gone by, I personally prefer to buy singles, because cracking a pack is taking a gamble, and generally only worth it if you're getting some other use out of it (draft, etc).
Another thing that _might_ be worth considering (depending on how much sway you have) would be to start keeping organized boxes/binders of the cheaper singles somewhere. Most stores that do this keep the cards behind the counter, and will go and find the singles you're looking for. Typical pricing on this goes from $0.25 for commons (save _good_ commons like lightning bolt, etc), and uncommons start around $0.50 and go up from there depending on demand.
It's a way to milk a bit more from the "bulk" cards that you guys normally just throw in the commons after cracking your packs for release singles. I can tell you, that it's well worth my time to just tell you what cards I want and pay a little more for them than it is to dig through the giant boxes of cards.
Personally, if the price of cards/packs/etc isn't too far out of whack, I much prefer to buy local (The Source/Beyond Shinders/Monster's Den, etc) - but the real problem with local is that often times cards are priced well beyond what they are worth. Having to pay an extra .50 to a dollar on an semi-expensive card? Not a big deal. Having to pay 3-4 bucks for a card that I can get elsewhere for 50 cents is where it becomes not worth it. I'm not sure where you base your prices on (and this is true for pretty much all local stores), but sites like www.apathyhouse.com and www.magictraders.com give you accurate pricing based on what cards are selling for on ebay. I think if you used this as a baseline (and obviously tacked a bit on here and there), you'd see a _lot_ more singles sell. Otherwise, www.magiccards.info will do a cross website comparison for a lot of the major online sellers, so that could be useful too.
Anyways, sorry for the long rant - with all the critisisms, it should be said that I do like your shop, and I've dropped a lot of coin there and will most likely continue to do so. Have a good one!
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- stuckpixel
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At the same time, I'm not out to screw people either.
If it's a new player who clearly doesn't know what's going on, I'll still do the trade, but throw in a bunch more than they had asked for.
_edit_ - egads, I'm wrong!
Teach them that they need to not break them. If they keep breaking them, find the people who are doing it and don't allow them to play unless they recoup you for replacement costs.
He's like one of my playgroup's favorite cards. I only run two Un cards - Booster Tutor and him.
Buying a box is pretty fun, and you get a good amount of cards for trade fodder. I cracked two boxes of RoE, have full common playset, almost a full uncommon playset, and a bunch of rares/mythics that will be going on my trade list (and a few going into my cube).
If you have buddies that like to play, get a box and just casually draft it instead of just cracking the box. Obviously you'd still keep the cards opened, but you'd get some play time out of the packs.
First one I cracked? Malfegor. =/
Still have 'em both.
There have been previous threads, as extremeicon mentioned - look those up. You also need to have a pretty large chunk of money sitting around to ride you through slow times - and your first year or so is going to be slow until you build up a client base.
Planar Cleansing for 7 instead of 3WWW? 7 mana should be plenty easy to ramp to - especially given eye of ugin and rumored 2 mana eldrazi land.
This card is pretty much bonkers, and should not have been printed at mythic. It _will_ be a utility card in standard for quite a while, and beyond that will see a ton of play in EDH and other misc formats.
Have fun when the store owner starts explaining to the police officer that you are playing with counterfeit cards - and then you get the fun of trying to explain the difference between a proxy and an actual counterfeit card - and so on.
Confront the store owner, if he doesn't make things right, find a new place to play. They're just effing proxies. Print more.
The choice cards that tend to be good are the ones where you as the caster make a choice also - like Gifts Ungiven (you pick the 4 cards) or Fact or Fiction (you pick which pile you want after your opp piles them).
Choice cards like Dash Hopes are bad. Sure, it will be a counterspell for BB sometimes - but the only time it's a hard-counter is if you have them at 5 life or less. As others have said, if the spell is important enough, they will pay the life to get it to resolve.
He does however have the right to state that proxies are not allowed in his store - and he most certainly has the right to kick you out if you are using them there, despite what he's said.
I wouldn't go so far as calling the police - as I think that will just by and large waste everyone's time. If you are going to be going to this store regularly, next time, ask the dude ahead of time what his policy on proxies is for playtesting purposes. Make sure it's clear you do not mean for tournament play. If he tells you they aren't allowed in his store - thank him, and tell him that you will need to find another store to do business with and leave. And, this is the most important part - don't come back. Ever.
Make sure you tell all your magic friends and acquaintances about the experience, and go on with your life. Pretty simple really.
I would _love_ it if standard players resold cracked legacy cards. (in the mythical world where wizards reprinted legacy staples) That lowers the price point for me and others actually interested in the format. Hoarding something that's in-print doesn't really bother me much - and I highly doubt that'd happen all that much anyways.
Comparing Legacy to Vintage shows that you really don't have much of an understanding of either format. Legacy has somewhere in the vicinity of 50 playable and competitive archetypes - even more if you get down into variants of decks. That's a whole lot of 'broken' cards to go around.
If we're never getting any new duals better than shocks - I think that the format will be in trouble. I'm not saying the format couldn't survive, I just think that we'd see rise to many more mono color decks.
The 'Restricted' cards in Legacy (namely, the duals) idea intrigues me, but would seriously hurt a number of decks - so I'm not a huge fan of it.