MtG Cabal Cast

Here we are. A time which we never thought we'd see: serialized Magic cards in non-specialty products. With The Brothers War looming and most of the important details laid out, we break down what has been announced about the retro frame artifacts, the schematic art treatment, and their serialized brethren. What does this mean for the LGS, for vendors, players, WotC and Hasbro, and who are these ev...

With the the release of the product slate for the rest of 2022 and first half of 2023 it's time we dive in and take a look at what eat set represents and discuss what we believe will be the outcome. Will Standard fall apart? How many artifacts need to be banned? Are there dinosaurs INSIDE Ixalan? And what about the Balrog? Join us as we finish this journey into the center of the earth.

With the the release of the product slate for the rest of 2022 and first half of 2023 it's time we dive in and take a look at what eat set represents and discuss what we believe will be the outcome. Will Standard fall apart? How many artifacts need to be banned? Are there dinosaurs INSIDE Ixalan? And what about the Balrog? Join us as we start on this journey, delving only as deeply as a dwarf woul...

LGSs open and LGSs close; and that could be for any number of reasons. This week we discuss what it's like shuttering an LGS, from the months ahead of closing up to day the doors finally close. What happens to inventory, stock, everything down to your player base and how to care for them.

With last weeks discussion about the return of format based "seasons" in the books, we turn our focus this week to another important element of "seasonality": buylist curation A viewer pointed out that we haven't covered how buylists are handled at the LGS and vendor level so we decided to break things down and discuss a lot of the "whys" and a number of the "hows", covering drivers and utility al...

After casting off the idea of a "season" of events where Grad Prix, Magic Fests and local events no longer paralleled one another in terms of format nor paralleled the Pro Tour or Mythic Championship that capped the current quarter, WotC brought us some interesting news. Currently scheduled, after the Pioneer Regionals and Pro Tour, the next capstone events will be Standard. And thus we seem to be...

In a stunning turn of events, eBay acquires the combined TCGPlayer and ChannelFireball Market place entity. An entity so new that the ink is barely dry on the aquisition contracts. With the comparison out of the way, we break down the public knowledge about the acquisition and give our thoughts on the details and a bit of a presecriptive view of what we believe both the timeline and driving force...

In a stunning turn of events, eBay acquires the combined TCGPlayer and ChannelFireball Market place entity. An entity so new that the ink is barely dry on the aquisition contracts. Surprisingly, the illustrious Halt_I_m_Reptar has lived through an extremely similar merger of tech corporations and is here to walk you through an eerily similar situation, give you the insights and reasonings behind t...

Pushing off as long as possible, we're finally ready to start talking about the current and future state of the US economy as well as a bit about the global economy. In the third and finaly episode of this series, we discuss the odss and ends events, market indicators, and curiosities that we have seen within the last quarter and their impact on the playerbase, LGS, and vendors. Everything from th...

Pushing off as long as possible, we're finally ready to start talking about the current and future state of the US economy as well as a bit about the global economy. In the second episode, Argus takes us through inflation and recession proofing from the LGS perspective. We've seen a lot of churn in the LGS ecosystem and that tells us that a lot of people aren't prepared for the long term, the ups...

Pushing off as long as possible, we're finally ready to start talking about the current and future state of the US economy as well as a bit about the global economy. In the first of three episodes, we spend our time talking about the individial; the player, the collector, the financier, etc. What happens to them, how can they protect themselves, and how they can get ahead. While a lot of what we d...

With in person play across all types of games returning to the LGS and competitive paper events being held by parent organizations, it was time we checked back in on the LGS. We discuss everything from in person play to tournaments even the invisibles and whether or not they attrition into players who make an appearance at the LGS! And we didn't forget finances and supply chain issues for all vert...

With Dominaria United looming and a rumor about the possibility of the Zendikar "Priceless Treasures" returning we decided to take a step back and look at how WotC has enterted the secondary market over the years. We discuss indirect card injection by way of pure reprints all the way through to direct to consumer offerings like Secret Layers and everything else we could think of along the way. And...

In an unexpected turn of events this week, TCGPlayer announced the acquisition of both ChannelFireball and BinderPoS (as well as all subsequent organizations and services) which threw us a curveball as we had another topic all lined up. Instead we decided to pivot and discuss this monumental announcement. Immediately there are a lot of questions ranging from, "What will the new offering looking li...

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times. A never ending spoiler season culminating in one of the best reprint sets we've seen in a while... what more could you want?! Maybe the products that were supposed to have been released earlier in the year that were pushed back? But those will be releasing in October, one full week before Pioneer Challenger decks and The Game Night product. Ove...

It was the best of times, it was the blerst of times. Working in the trading and collectible card industry is as unique an experience as they come and while we've both been lucky to operate within this industry, we've been here for a while and it's time to reflect. We picked a few key markers, parts of this industry that best represent the overall experiences shared at the vendor level and the LGS...

Several Command Fests and Origins later, we decided it was time to bring our knowledge and experience to a compare and contrast style episode. Not every vendor has the luxury to vend one or both of these, once or multiple times so while this discussion and comparison isn't all encompasing, we only have so much time, it's a great springboard for those looking to go. more general questions comparing...

Several Command Fests and Origins later, we decided it was time to bring our knowledge and experience to a compare and contrast style episode. Not every vendor has the luxury to vend one or both of these, once or multiple times so while this discussion and comparison isn't all encompasing, we only have so much time, it's a great springboard for those looking to go. In this episode we discuss the t...

Continuing our conversation from the week prior, we put into context our findings about the DOW and cryptocurrency market and how they stack up to the Reserved List. Based on our findings we also discuss the merits of investing money into these markets and which, if any, we would feel the most comfortable with and why. https://www.macrotrends.net/1358/dow-jones-industrial-average-last-10-years htt...

It's that time of year! When we look back fondly on the Reserved List as method to park money and let it ride! This time, however, instead of dissecting various parts of the Reserved List to point out trends and things to look out for, we are comparing the last 2+ years of Reserved List prices to DOW and Cryptocurrency markets. Drawing parallels between each to demonstrate how they may, or may not...

This week we cover Modern Horizons 2 and the glut of variants contained within. Retro, showcase, extended border, etched... the gang's all here. Taking a look at some of these variants we breakdown what we're seeing from the set financially and discuss where, based on current numbers, the value in sealed lies. Also the rather stagnant prices. As we've said before, please spend time with two old me...

Every set now contains its own unique type of card variant and it's about time to discuss this! With the start of the these "in set" variants being the Battle for Zendikar Expeditions, we drew a clear line and, looking forward, picked two type of variants to discuss, some key takeaways about them from all aspects, and then a bit of a financial breakdown for some of the individual cards we liked (o...

With the upcoming push for Pioneer at the OP level it seems that there's a fracture in the community at all levels about whether or not Pioneer will overtake Modern at the OP level, becoming the de facto non-rotating format supported by WotC. So we decided to discuss that and then, from a vendor standpoint, having time to adjust to player demand, discuss what supporting Pioneer means. Everything f...

With each set, we look at cards that we think are underrated or overrated during the prerelease period. Taking into account what we’ve seen from the cards over their three month period we cut through what happened between set releases. Utilizing the notes we took from that episode we reflect on where we went wrong, where we went right, and evaluate why that was the case to help improve our abiliti...

With the pre-release for Streets of New Capenna in the rear view and release weekend and the accompanying price drops in front of us, we had a sit down with friend of the cast ChiStyleGaming to discuss some cards! From Luxor to Triomes, we discuss card playability, wax about comparisons, and give out thoughts on what an appropriate price is. As an added bonus at the end, instead of picks we cover...