Subject: State of Magic in St. Louis
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 13:48:03 EDT
From: MJDGLD@aol.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

Frank and others,

This will be a statement of what is happening with the Magic scene in the St.
Louis area.  It is an example of how the actions of one particular retailer
can hurt the entire local Magic community and also attempt to divide the
players into "factions" who are loyal to a specific store.  My personal point
of view is that this is very detrimental to the game here in the area, and I
will explain exactly what is happening.

William, if you can, please print out a copy of this for "store B," because I
will not be in town from this afternoon through sometime Monday.

Here is a summary of the 3 main businesses and the one organization who have
held sanctioned tournaments over the past year or more, with a description of
what each business has to offer and what it is doing for and/or to the local
Magic scene.

Store A has been the main tournament center in the St. Louis area for the past
two years or so.  Store A was supposedly modeled after the original Neutral
Ground in NY City, but Store A only holds 3 tournaments per week.  What Store
A has always been good at is acquiring and selling all sorts of product, both
in-print and out-of-print, worldwide.  The owner of Store A started in this
business as a mail order business, and that is still the strength of his
business.  Below is a description of the good and bad points of Store A:

Good Points:

Store A is an excellent place to trade or sell your singles, because the owner
gives you a good price for them.

Store A is an excellent place to buy or trade for "hard to find" cards because
with the "high demand cards," he tends to "buy high" and "sell high," which
enables him to keep a good supply of them on hand.  He also takes extra effort
to obtain any cards that he does not have many of in stock to keep a good
supply available for his customers.  Many people will pay a premium for cards
that are hard to find anywhere else and the owner of Store A does an excellent
job to fill this niche.  Stores that sell their cards cheaply generally do not
have many high demand cards in stock, and the owner of Store A does an
excellent job of determining what the "real supply and demand curve" is for
particular cards, rather than relying on price guides, etc.

Store A offers VERY competitive prices on boxes of product if they are pre-
ordered and pre-paid in advance. Some other businesses in the area offer
similar prices, but none offer better prices, unless you buy an entire case.

While Store A is often at odds with Wizards of the Coast on some things, he
does support their main marketing tool, Type II, very well.  Store A always
holds at least one sanctioned Type II tournament every week, with two Type
II's approximately every other week.  As a result, his customers are mainly
the younger players for which the Limited and Extended formats are generally
too expensive, although more Pro level players generally prefer the Booster
Draft and Extended formats over Type II.

Store A also supports the Sealed Deck format.  Sealed Deck is an excellent
format for beginning Magic players, because the luck element is much higher in
it than it is in Booster Draft, so those types of players often enjoy Sealed
Deck a lot.  Every other week, the Sealed Deck tournament is a two-person
partners Sealed Deck, which is sanctionable now, but unless you play with the
same partner in every event, it is difficult to get a decent DCI rating in it.
With so many multi-player ratings now, the multi-player rating is not of much
value, and many of the regulars I know at Store A would much rather see
Booster Draft tournaments in lieu of Partners Sealed Deck.

Store A also holds other occasional constructed format tournaments.  Store A
does hold an occasional Extended or Type 1.5 tournament, with very rare Type I
events.  This is generally good, but these events are not frequent enough for
the players to want to spend any time playtesting for them.

Store A at one time HAD the Pro Tour Qualifiers in the area, so Store A did
attempt to fill this need, but Store A no longer has them.

Store A stays open later on weekends than any of the other businesses do in
the area, because many people do like to play late on weekends.

Bad Points:

Store A does not hold ANY tournaments from Monday through Thursday, when PTQ
players would be most available to play.

Store A does not hold ANY Booster Draft tournaments, which is the most popular
format for Pro-caliber players.

Store A holds three times as many Type II events as any other type of event,
averaging 6 a month, while holding 2 Sealed Deck tournaments, 2 Partner's
Sealed Tournaments, and 1 each of two other constructed format tournaments per
month (or per 4 weekends).

Store A views tournaments as an additional "profit center," rather than as a
way to attract customers, as Store B and Store C do.  Stores B and C generally
try to break even on their tournaments, and they are VERY generous with their
prizes.  If they get a large turnout for their tournaments, they will increase
their prizes accordingly, which Store A does not do.

Store A used to have PTQ and Prerelease tournaments, but now those are run at
Store B.  This was a result of 3-4 poorly run PTQs and it culminated in a
particular incident involving the selling of Prerelease packs after the
Prerelease tournament, but before the official release date.  The owner of
Store A, rather than taking advice of several experienced PTQ players, seemed
to think that his method of running tournaments, which isn't even fast for
20-person events would work well for 100-person events.  As a result, while
registration began at 9 AM, it would normally be 2 PM before the first round
of the tournament would begin, while nearly ALL other tournament organizers
would get their first rounds going about 2 hours earlier.  Some particular
events that occurred in these events were particularly disturbing, and here
are 2 examples:
a.  One or two pairings out of 50 were done incorrectly, and the pairings were
done by hand.  Rather than just switch a few people to where they would be
paired appropriately, ALL matches were paired again, which took 1/2 hour to 45
minutes.
b.  In a Sealed Deck PTQ, about 3-4 players arrived an hour and a half late.
The tournament organizer HELD UP THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT, which had over 100
people at that time, so the judges could register decks for these late people.
Those are just two examples of the inefficiency, and I even tried to help
judge one, but ALL decisions were made by the tournament organizer, and none
by the judges.  I had been to several PTQs by that time, and I had several
ideas on how to run a PTQ inefficiently, but the TO had to do things his way,
and now the TO no longer runs PTQs.

Because of Store A losing PTQs, for one or two PTQ seasons, St. Louis had NO
PTQs at all.  Then one particular organizer began running PTQs here in St.
Louis again.  This particular TO happened to be friendly with the owner of
Store A.  When a SECOND TO got his first PTQ here in St. Louis, which was at
Store B, BOTH Store A AND the first TO banned together to hold a DIFFERENT
MAJOR EVENT at the same time as the PTQ was being held at Store B.  While the
first TO is no longer running PTQs, Store A had continued to run tournaments
AGAINST the PTQs in St. Louis, and the owner has major events planned to go up
against the PTQs for BOTH the August 1 AND the August 15 PTQs.  These events
tend to split the local players about 60:40 with about 60% going to Store A's
cash tournaments and about 40% going to the PTQs.  The good players who don't
want to try to qualify for the Pro Tour or who are trying to do so via DCI
ranking are going to Store A's cash tournament, while those of us who have the
guts to play against solid competition week after week in PTQs not caring what
it does to our DCI ratings tend to go to the PTQs.  Basically, what Store A is
doing is offering an ALTERNATIVE to playing in the PTQ, but this is cutting
PTQ attendence in half, and the St. Louis players will suffer because it will
become more and more difficult for us to get PTQs in the future because of the
competitive situation between Store A and the current TO and Store B, who run
and host the St. Louis PTQs.

Store A had lost two judges in his first year of business, due to the owner of
Store A micromanaging of the tournaments, when he didn't even know how to PLAY
the game.  The current judge has much more leeway, and he is now a Level 3,
and he is an EXCELLENT judge.  Store A still has a lot of difficulty getting
people to substitute for the Level 3 judge when he's out of town now, because
of the way judges have been treated there in the past.  Also as a result,
Store A generally has to pay their judges more than Stores B and C do.

Store A has turned away more customers than it has retained, because the owner
of Store A takes offense to suggestions and well-meaning criticism and tends
to become argumentative, rather then discuss these suggestions.  The owner of
Store A often even ends up telling his customers if they don't like things
there, they can go somewhere else.  It's amazing how many of his customers are
doing just that.

Store A seems to believe that prizes should be "set in stone," rather than
given in store credit.  While the owner is giving prizes in cash for major
events, and booster packs right after a new set is released, the most common
prize structure for Store A is to give prizes in "Singles Credit."  Even
though Store A's mark-up on in-print booster packs is approximately equal to
that on singles, his prizes are in Singles Credit, because singles sell much
slower than packs and many other things he sells do.  Sometimes, he even
doesn't even allow certain "High Demand" cards to be purchased with Singles
Credit.  My question has always been:  "What good is Singles Credit if you
can't purchase singles with it?"

Now on to Store B:

Store B is a gaming business, which currently has 4 locations in the St. Louis
area.  Store B has the largest selection of all kinds of games in the area,
and as a result, Magic only accounts for about 10% of their total sales.  As a
result, they got into running Magic tournaments very slowly in the area.  Now
that they see how Store A is treating his customers, they see a definite
opportunity to gain more Magic business by holding a lot of tournaments,
though.  One of the 4 locations for Store B was bought by or merged with Store
B not long after Magic began (I really don't know the details of that business
arrangement).  Under the previous ownership, that particular store was one of
the "national poineers" in bringing Magic to the Midwest, and they sold MUCH
more of every edition up through Legends than most of the other businesses in
the area, combined.  As a result, Store B still is a major supplier of Magic
in the area.  Now onto the good points and bad points of Store B:

Good Points:

Although Store B holds few sanctioned tournaments now, beginning in September,
Store B will hold 4-5 Sanctioned events per week.  Store B is already running
non-sanctioned tournaments at least 4-5 nights per week.

Store B views tournaments as a way to get players into the store, by offering
excellent prizes, which are based on turnout.  His prizes are ALWAYS
excellent, and they are always in Store Credit.  It is not uncommon for Store
B to charge $12 entry for a booster draft tournament, and give away $100 in
Store Credit + a few booster packs.  Store B also allows players to use Store
Credit to pay for tournament entry fees, which Store A does not.  As a result,
several of the good players go there and often win enough Store Credit to pay
for several tournament entries, AND be able to add significantly to their
collections.  Store B is able to do this, by basing their booster prices on
suggested retail pricing, so this system works very well for both the business
and the players.

Store B supports ALL formats of Magic, with Booster Draft being the most
popular format there and Type II and Sealed Deck also being popular.  Store B
will also hold some of the less popular formats like Extended, Tempest Block
Constructed (to get players ready for the NEXT PTQ cycle), and they will
probably hold an occasional Type 1.5 and/or Type I, for some of the older
players who like to dust off those cards on occasion.  The main difference
between Store B and Store A here is that Store B realizes that Booster Draft
is the most enjoyable format of Magic to play for good players.

Store B is committed to keeping Pro Tour Qualifiers in the St. Louis area and
is suffering major losses to do so.  These losses are primarily due to the
competition from Store A's major events, which HAVE NOT BEEN RUN at any other
time than during Store B's PTQs over the past couple of months.

Store B offers weeknight tournaments, which are very convenient to people who
play in PTQs on most weekends.

Store B has developed an excellent volunteer judging program where their
judges are paid in credit.  Because the judges are given most of the authority
they need to run the tournaments, many people are interested in volunteering
to judge for these events.

Bad Points:

Store B will not be set up for sanctioning until September 1 this year.  Had
this been done much sooner, Store B would have a much stronger Magic customer
base than it does now, and it's tournaments would be much larger.  This is
mainly due to Magic being a part of a business at Store B, rather than the
major part of it's business.

Store B's prices on boxes are generally higher than some of their
competition's are, but they are well known in the area, so they still do tend
to sell fairly well.  Most of the better players in the area no longer buy
large quantities of cards any more, because there are so many opportunities to
win them, though, and there are plenty of trading opportunities, as well.

Store B is also just getting into the singles market.  This is where the good
players who win a lot can help stores like Store A and Store B, by selling
excess cards at a good price, rather than by buying them.  Store B has quite a
bit to learn to turn this part of the business into a good revenue generator,
though.  The easiest way to learn this will be by seeing what singles sell and
what singles sit on the shelves.  That's the real law of supply and demand,
not some numbers from a price guide.

Store B tends to close pretty early on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights,
which are "prime tournament times."  Their tournaments often begin a lot
earlier than many of the players want to get up for on Saturdays and Sundays,
too.  Store B's weeknight tournaments (including Friday night) often start too
late for a lot of working people to be able to attend.  This is primarily due
to the location of Store B and the fact that rush hour traffic patterns make
it difficult to get there.  There is major bridge construction, which impedes
many people from the area from getting to their tournaments on time.  At least
they OFFER some weeknight events, though.

Store B does not do a good enough job to advertise and promote their
tournaments.  As a result, attendence is often very low.

No onto Store C.  Store C has been in the Magic business for quite some time
and has been sanctioning tournaments for quite a while.  Store C is a much
smaller business than Store A and Store B are, and Magic is a major part of
their business, but not their entire business.  The good and bad points of
Store C will now be listed below (these will be shorter, because examples of
Stores A and B will be referred to):

Good Points:

Store C has offered Sanctioned Tournaments for quite some time.

One of the owners of Store C is a Level I judge, so he is able to run his own
sanctioned events.  Store C does have other judges who are able to fill in on
occasion.

Store C also offers excellent prizes for their tournaments, similar to those
of Store B, although normally, the prizes are in booster packs, which is still
OK.

Store C also offers very competitive prices on boxes of starters and boosters.

Store C is conveniently located in a Mall, with a food court very nearby, so
it is easy to run and get something to eat while waiting for long matches to
finish.

Bad Points:

Store C is on the same side of the bridge that Store B is on.  As a result,
Store C has decided to suspend tournaments until the bridge construction is
completed, which could be quite some time.

The owners of Store C travel to conventions a lot, which makes the judge
unavailable at times.  On several occasions, back-up judges have had to
cancel, too, which is another factor why Store C has suspended tournaments for
a while.

Store C is in a mall, which closes at 10 PM, which imposes time constraints
for the tournaments, making weeknight tournaments very difficult for many
people to get to in time.  This is another reason for the suspension of their
tournaments.

Store C does very little promoting/advertising of their events, so their
attendence is often small.

Now on to the Student Organization that began last year, but kind of fizzled
out.  Last year, at one of the major universities in St. Louis, a student
organization was formed, which promoted Magic on campus and in the city, in
general.  The university that this organization was founded at is a very
difficult school, and all of it's founders are very busy students, so
unfortunately, they became too busy to keep it going very well.  Below are the
good and bad points of this organization:

Good Points

The student organization was formed to promote Magic at the campus and in the
city while being completely INDEPENDENT of any business.  While cooperation
with businesses wasn't out of the question, the organization never really took
off enough to get this started.

This organization did run some sanctioned events.

This organization was run with a "student's" budget in mind, with very low
tournament entry fees, in order to attract student players.

Bad Points:

Because the main people who were in charge of this organization were very busy
students, they didn't have the time to keep the organization going.

Because the main people in the organization were students, Saturdays were the
only days they ever held tournaments, and those often competed with local
PTQs, etc..  In order NOT to compete with other events, these events were
often held in the morning, but other events at Store A would go late on Friday
nights, making it difficult for people who would go to Store A's Friday events
to get up in time for the Student Organization's Saturday events.

The student organization never held any tournament other than a Type II event.
This is primarily due to the budget of the students that were there.  The
people in charge of this organization never promoted limited events, which are
actually less expensive overall, because you actually GET something when you
enter a limited event, as opposed to a constructed event.  The way to get
limited into this type of organization would be to ALLOW competitors to supply
their OWN Starters and/or Boosters, while also having them for sale at
reasonable prices.  A small entry fee for prizes could also be included.  This
would get new players to learn not to just OPEN product they buy or win, but
to save it for limited tournaments.  All Starters and boosters could be turned
in and then redistributed to try to eliminate cheating, and this would work
very well.

The other problem is that this is a student organization, and most of the
students live out of state, effectively making it only viable 7-8 months of
the year.  This would be different if any of these students took summer
classes, but most go home for the summer and for a month over Christmas break.
As a result, there are many "starts and stops" with this organization.

ANYWAY, the problem that I see here is that the St. Louis area has several
businesses and organizations that fail to work with each other for the good of
the Magic community in the area, and some businesses are even "at each other's
throats."

Here is MY suggestion for the PTQs, if the businesses will WORK TOGETHER.
Rather than Store A have a CARBON COPY OF THE PTQ at the same time as the PTQ,
why not hold their event later in the day, AFTER MOST OF THE ROUNDS OF THE PTQ
ARE OVER?  This way, BOTH BUSINESSES CAN WIN.  Store B can hold the PTQ and
ENDORSE Store A's tournament which occurs AFTER THE SWISS ROUNDS OF THE PTQ
ARE OVER, which is about 6:00 or 7:00 PM, which is EARLIER than Store A
generally starts their tournaments, ANYWAY.  Why should BOTH EVENTS LOSE MONEY
WHEN THEY COULD BOTH MAKE MONEY, or at least BREAK EVEN?  Store A could even
choose a DIFFERENT FORMAT than what the PTQ is, so maybe more people would be
more interested in playing in it.  If Store A feels that the SAME FORMAT will
draw more players, that is great, too.  Whatever gives the most benefit to
BOTH THE PLAYERS AND THE BUSINESSES is the OPTIMUM SOLUTION, rather than 2
"GIANTS" trying to "KNOCK EACH OTHER OUT."

The reason that I play in the PTQs instead of the other events is based on
PRINCIPLE.  I'll play at whatever major event is scheduled FIRST.  I've also
enjoyed my past Pro Tour experiences, so I'd like to go back again.  If Store
A would schedule their event at a DIFFERENT TIME than the PTQ, I'd show my
appreciation by attending BOTH events, rather than CHOOSING ONE, and I'd also
GLADLY MENTION that Store A is having a big event in the evening of the PTQ.

If this COOPERATIVE APPROACH doesn't work, I have some suggestions for Store
B.  Since Store A will only have ONE sanctioned event during the course of the
PTQ day, Store B should ADVERTISE that there will be "quick-sanctioned" events
ALL DAY LONG, so people could come from Store A's big event and play as late
as they want to in Store B's side events.  This would help Store B make up
from some of the losses incurred by Store A's competing tournament.

Another thing Store B could do is to offer a SECOND major event of the day,
near the end of the PTQ Swiss Rounds.  This SECOND event could be in a
different format than the PTQ is in, and it could be designed to get some of
the players from Store A to come and compete after they are eliminated from
Store A's tournament.

My point in this article is to emphasize that "Store Loyalty," is fine, but
not to the point where it damages the entire local "Magic scene."  I know
several people who won't play in EITHER event because of what is going on
here.  I just play in the one that was scheduled first.  If I qualify at some
point and am thus unable to play in one of the PTQs, I probably WILL play in
Store A's competing event, just to show that I support the GAME, but not
necessarily the store.

The strange thing about all of this is that despite "Store Loyalties," all of
the PLAYERS get along very well in the St. Louis area.  In fact, Mark, I'll be
glad to share any ideas I have for Type II and Rath Constructed, so you can
help Kyle have a better chance of doing well at Worlds.  I might be interested
in playtesting Rath Constructed, too, since that will be the next PTQ format,
as well as one of the Worlds formats, and as always, I'm always up for a
draft.

Because the players in the area get along so well, when our student players
get back in town in a few weeks, I'm going to propose that several of the
players here get together and form a "St. Louis Players Organization," which
will be independent of all businesses, but will be happy to WORK WITH and and
all businesses that would like to work with us.

I'm tired of being one of few people to qualify for a Pro Tour and not even
being able to get 8 quality players together to draft to get good practice (I
mainly qualify in limited events).  Drafting with 4 or 5 just didn't cut it.
When friends of mine qualify, I try to help them get some practice in, too,
but I'm tired of THEM going to major events without sufficient preparation,
too.  It just doesn't do anything to show that our city does have some fairly
high caliber players.  Not everyone in the city has net access and can get
Apprentice or Netdraft.  In fact, the old machine I'm writing this on isn't
even capable of handling them.  If we schedule several events around the Pro
Tour and PTQs, we can get everyone the quality practice that they need.
Invitational tournaments will be another excellent way to do this.

"Team St. Louis" will be my NEXT project, and it's concepts will be outlined
here shortly.  Of course, since this will be a team, it will be my IDEAS that
are posted, rather than what the team will actually BECOME.  A TEAM should be
a DEMOCRACY, and there is no "I" in TEAM, either, so everything will be
finalized by whoever wishes to join.

Anyway, I'm done "ranting and raving for today."  I need to get out of here to
KC in time to get some sorely needed Rath Cycle Limited practice in with some
friends of mine there, who I'm staying with.

Since today is Friday, I doubt that Frank will post this until AFTER the KC
event, so if the KC PTQ is "report worthy," one from there will appear shortly
after this one.

Good gaming to all, and "don't take any crap" from stallers and cheaters,
because this is OUR game.  If people want to cheat, they can play SOME OTHER
game, because we as DCI members should not TOLERATE any of this behavior.

That's it for this message,

Mike Donovan
Certified Pro Tour Scrub