the year is 2023 and there are going to be some changes, sorta

We have some changes happening

Long story short: Our hours have changed and will be changed on the website to reflect that here shortly. Tournament entries for Magic: The Gathering are going up because they cost of those products is going up. Wizards of the Coast does not do suggested retail price but they sure as hell keep charging us more. Some of this is stuff we’re trying out and it might change rapidly, please don’t hesitate to ask if you have questions and keep your eyes peeled to these blog posts and our Facebook page for up-to-date information. We are going to be doing some changes to special order and pre-order policies. I will be doing a separate blog post to full update people on what’s going on. If you get why I chose the image for this, you a real nerd like me. RIP Owen.

What’s going on with Wizards of the Coast?

Whoa, boy. A lot. This is one you might want to just Google (or Bing if you’re a psychopath). First of all, last year Bank of American downgraded the recommendation for buying Hasbro stock because of, well, lots of things. Too many low quality products, ridiculous products, and just a general tone-deafness to their community. Now we have this D&D OGL debacle. That is even more complicated so you probably find a video to watch on it. Long story short? Neither of these are good things and if you care about D&D and/or Magic: The Gathering, do some research and make sure WotC/Hasbro hears you.

What about other products?

Pretty much everyone else is killing it. I’m not joking. Yu-Gi-Oh is growing here and our community continues to get stronger and better. We would like to start doing a second YGO tournament on Thursday nights and we’ll update you as soon as that’s possible. We want to get Pokemon going and start a night for people to play that either in an organized or a casual fashion. Same goes for Flesh and Blood, both Alex and I are both passionate about that game and we are going to get it going. Warhammer, while not immune from hiking prices, at least is doing an awesome job at supporting its community and putting out banger rules and updates. Move over Magic, YGO/Warhammer/F&B are about to eat your lunch. 

Yeah, but what about us?

Alex and I are okay. 2022 was a pretty tough year for both of us. Not really for business reasons because even though we’ve had a lot of curveballs thrown at us, we have handled them and will continue to, also you guys make it so easy for us to keep doing this. So I’m not really worried about that stuff. It was just another weird year for us personally for totally unrelated and separate reasons from each other and life never stops, that’s for sure. It would be nice if it did though, at least for like a couple weeks. 

I was really sick this last week with the Flu/Corona combo during what was supposed to be my only vacation for 2022 (but was actually in 2023) and that is basically the summary of how my entire year went. Nothing like super bad happened to me or my family or anything, I just had a huge comedy of errors all year preventing me from living my best life. That being said, I am super grateful for all the things that did go right, which there were a lot too. Business was good, my wife, family, and friends are happy and healthy, and I did get to spend more time on certain hobbies (even if I didn’t get to spend as much time on all of them as I wanted). 

For 2023 I’m hoping to make some personal changes to make sure that I have more comfortable years going forward. Toward the end of quarter three, 2022 I really started to do more self-care things and immediately started feeling better. Working out, stretching, meditating, quitting nicotine, dieting, all made a huge difference, who would have thought? Holidays and being sick really hampered a few of those but I’m looking to get back on that horse as soon as possible. I joined an escalation painting league for Warhammer 40000 stuff and after I get these few things posted, I’m gonna go paint a Chaos Space Marine. I hope we can all have a great time this year.