MtG Cabal Cast

With the opening of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves behind us and a few weeks of box office numbers to breakdown and a new set in front of us, it's time to discuss the latest of Hasbro's IPs to enter the realm of cinema. Looking at the source material, we discuss how this serves the products, patrons and fans, new and returning, and discuss the role the OpenGL debacle has in this all. We a...

Hasbro's stock. What a ride. After the 2023 Q1 investors call, we moved almost immediately into the marketing cycle for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves which completely turned things around and looked to help address the issues mentioned in that fated earnings call. Coming out of release weekend, though, we look back on HAS and some of things that were noted through February, into March, a...

Boomeranging back to eBay this past year was Gene Cook; formerly the Director of Global Search, now the VP of Global Collectables. Why is this notable and worth an episode? Well, leading up to his announced return eBay made a very impactful series of announcements, culminating in their acquisition of TCGPlayer and Chedy's departure from the organization. Now, what is Gene here to do? What will his...

As a vendor, getting back out there to events is finally something to look forward to as the TCG ecosystem begins to flourish again. The only issue is that, while there are events to vend at, they are rather sparse. How do we fill the gap? Well, in this episode, we go over what it's like vending sports card shows, what it takes to start, and what you can expect from them.

Diving into the past, we are looking at the various era of Standard, Modern, Extended, and Legacy that we each individually enjoyed and what marked impact they had on the finances of the game. Not all eras of a format are created equally but they all have their own unique impact. We reminisce about game play, discuss backpacking, break down the mystique of formats and dispel some myths along the w...

Part two in our series! In this episode we discuss some import, and some crucial, elements of running a successful LGS, not just from a financial standpoint but also from a community standpoint because without a community, why have an LGS at all? With our combined experiences working at, starting up, and designing LGSs we break down five elements, each, that we find critical to success. How'd you...

In the first part of a two part series, we discuss some of the most important needs, be they items, skills, people, etc. for those looking to be successful backpackers and those looking to run their booths in a smooth and efficient fashion. Using our combined decades of experience, working for a myriad of entities in the space, we break down our top five needs with an essential caveat: No overtly...

With the first PT post-Covid in the books, we are taking a look at how our day to day involvement with Magic has changed from an era prior to the OP announcement that brought us Regionals, Worlds, and the return of the Pro-tour and after. And you might think, why now? Why wait so long after the announcement? And the short answer to that is, simply, that until OP actually mattered, until players ha...

In another shameless attempt to create levity, we're looking ahead to 2023 and making predictions about Magic, WotC, and HAS across all aspects. What's the over / under on sets in the year? Number of times on board meetings HAS C-level assure everything they're competent? All the way down to Magic bulk. Join us as we head into 2023 with a gleam in our eye and spring in our step after braking down...

In this weeks episode we look back at our BRO picks from episode 211 and discuss where we went right in our evaluations of cards and where we went wrong. Did we jump the rails completely, skidding to a headfirst stop or sail into the station smoothly. Come find out!

With The Brothers' War in the rearview and Phyrxia: All Will be One on the horizon, it's time for our set review. We each read through the full set and Commander spoiler to find cards we believe are overhyped, underhyped, or hyped just the right about and break down what we do and do not like about the cards as well as give a financial projection. Remember to hold us to these picks and values as w...

With over a year of new entrants into the TCG/CCG event space and having vending multiples, we decide to sit down and collect our thoughts about each. Looking to set expectation, we break down the vendor experience in a easy to understand and digest way. We cover everything from booth selection to interesting contract wording, even when you can enter and leave the hall. Distilling this down into a...

Whether you were able to play at a pre-elease event held at a WPN premium store or your local non-WPNs event, even just walked in these past few days, you've had the opportunity to engage with Dominaria Remasterd as a product. We touch on what this set means to the LGS and how they are handling such a short lived lifespan for a set that whose only purpose seems to maintain the constant hum of in s...

Last week we looked to the past, this week we look... to the future! With the quarterly analysis done, MaRo's lastest Tumblr blurb, and a number of key take aways from Hasbro, we compiled a list of things we are looking forward to in 2023. As a vendor, what are we looking for? As an LGS, what do we need? We also cover our hopes and dreams for 2023 and 2024. A few items that we know might not be po...

2022 felt like one hell of year when looking back at everything that's happened with Magic, WotC, and Hasbro so we decided to bring you the highlights wrapped up for the end of the holidays. Did you, for instance, remember that the Alta Fox discussions happened in 2022? How about the number of sets released or how consumer sentiment impacts the holiday season? Join us, won't you, for one last look...

WotC announces that players are frustrated they can't immediately play their paper cards from their pre-release events in constructed events like they can on Arena, so now paper cards are legal in constructed starting on pre-release weekend. Okay, but, why? Who asked for this? Why are the LGS and vendors who have an LGS or do events meant to suffer for nothing? Why does WotC continue to harm us? h...

As 2022 draws to a close we have yet another reprint set to scour as an LGS and vendor to determine how we are going to handle allocation. We discuss the contents and preorders, among other things, as we break down our view of the set on the way to each delivering a valuation of how we are going to be handling this set in the short term. Did you know that Collectors Boosters are $200 ea at the LGS...

If the Magic vertical were to topple and leave us with a hole in our product catalog, we need to patch this asap before we bleed out. So, as an LGS and a vendor, how do we identify perspective, successful games to plug into our ecosystem? This week we discuss how we measure success at each level, what we look for in a new product, to bring into the store or warehouse. What decisions have to be mad...

As Thanksgiving in the United States has passed, along with Cyber Monday and the "Holiday Season" in front of us, we continue our evergreen conversation about sales at the LGS and Vendor levels. While it makes sense that a "sale is a sale", the core remaining the same, the strategy for each sale can be unique unto itself and it's this idea that we discuss today. We break down the overall goals, in...

It's almost 2023 and we're back with our yearly tradition of discussing what we would do if we ran Hasbro. Comparatively, 2022 was a rather interesting year with the Alta Fox discussions, some rather obtuse earnings calls, and a product release schedule bordering on lunacy but we held in there and used all of this to distill down our changes for the organization on the whole. So buckle up and enjo...

It's another day so there's another Standard Magic set to digest. This week it's time for breakout of some of the most under priced, over priced, and correctly priced cards in BRO. Join us as we discuss playability, affordability, projected sales, and have a vivid discussion about some aptly named lands.

With the Hasrbo investor call in the books, time to read and digest Hasbros notes, relearning what the "Brand Blueprint" is and seeing the fallout of the 30th Anniversary event in Vegas, we pulled out some of the more interesting snippets we could find to help breakdown what happened on that call. Armed with links from everywhere, including insight from those on the call, we shed light on some of...

This week we were graced with the creator of MtGMate.com.au, Nick, who talked shop about... well, everything. We discussed intersecting interests, the driver behind how MtGMate came to be, and a bit of vision for the future of the industry. We did our best to keep the jargon to a minimum but it's hard when you get two developers together to just geek out about their stacks, so be prepared to learn...

As we wind down our fourth year on the podcast and come screaming into the last Standard set of the year and holiday season rush, we decided to do our retrospective a little early. In this, the second of our two part series, we look back at cards we chose as specs for the podcast. Cards that we studied, put time into understanding the reasoning for movement, the expectations based on knowledge of...

As we wind down our fourth year on the podcast and come screaming into the last Standard set of the year and holiday season rush, we decided to do our retrospective a little early. In the first of our two part series, we look back at cards we spec'd on personally this year. Cards that we mentioned just in passing in Discord, maybe bought into at the start of the year that made it into the cast, an...