Black Friday Shopping!

Today on the Greatest Magic the Gathering blog in the multiverse!  Let's see what I picked up on the worst day to go out in public if you hate people!

Last year was the first year I had ever gone Black Friday shopping and I picked up some awesome items at some really good prices.  So this year, why the hell not!  I am lucky in the fact that I only really need to go to a couple places when I do go shopping on this horrible day.

Let's see what happened.

Of course I had to stop up at the shop to see what deals they have.  Normally this store sells cards at higher prices than most places, and they say they are matching what Star City Games charges, but what I have found that this store is setting prices to stay in business.  Most other LGS's are setting prices lower to get the customers, but The Source's business cycle just makes sense.

This is a store that does a lot more than Magic the Gathering, and I would say that MTG player base consists of about 10% of their customer base.  This store has been around for a very long time, and they try and do a lot of good for the community, but Magic the Gathering is not their bread and butter, so it is really nice to go in there to see what is going on.

Black Friday, if you bring in can goods they will give you 10% off of anything, and then they have a customer rewards card that you can buy to get another 10% off.  So really, you can get 20% off everything in the store.  This discount even gets added on top of the other discounts they have.  So for instance they could have a 50% off table, and if you buy something off that table with your other 20%, that does truly add up to 70% off.  So yeah, deals galore.  This is the place I picked up 4 Eldritch Moon booster boxes around $69 each.

This year, this is what I picked up.

I normally troll their singles for this old ABU stuff.  Since they have such a large player base, they normally get all the older collections that are getting sold in MN, so every once and a while you will find some cool older cards.  And these cards I need for my collection!

Yup, Iconic Masters.  I did my openings, and now I am trying to get everything I need to fill out the set outside of opening packs.  I finally decided to go with a playset of rare lands, and a couple of set cards.

And here are all the other lands I need.  I just need one more Graven Cairns to get all the lands I need.

And this little beauty.

And this.  Why the hell did I pickup another box of Ixalan?  Because of these:

Ok so these fucking things.  WoTC decided that this year is a good year to put out these little packs to move some sealed product.  If you recall, last year they did the same thing, where they gave you a pack of cards with 3 cards in it.  The pack had a chance to give you a Masterpiece card, but you also got 2 more foils.

So this year, if you buy a sealed booster box of any standard set you get one of these packs.  We will go over what is in the pack later on in the post, but these are the reason I am buying more sealed boxes.  I did end up buying the booster box for $120 with a 20% discount, so the cost basis is around $96 for this box of Ixalan.  So outside of a pre-Order buy of $90, I ended up paying $6 for this pack.

I also picked up a ton of deck boxes and sleeves, but it was a small day at the Source this year.

Next stop!  Here is my LGS, and I am really happy I made the switch to this shop.  They just get it, and they get me.  They have a great player base, they have a great shop, and they understand what players want.  Now I might be a bit bias because I buy a lot from this store, and they might treat me differently because of that, but I really like going to this store.

Let's take a look at what I picked up!

Ok, so this was a pre-Order and I was able to pick it up today.

Oh sexy sexy time!  So little tangent, when I was at the Source I asked them if they had any of these From the Vault box sets for sale, and they said that they only got 15 in, and were going to use them for prize support rather than sell them.  They do have a large player base, and this would be the only want to get them to the players fairly.  I understand it, and they do only sell this type of product at MSRP, so I can totally support that decision.

From Lodestone!  At MSRP!  Two of them!  Yeah, really happy to pick these up.

So let's just start out with the Ixalan flip cards.  This one finishes out the 2 playsets I was looking for.

Two playsets!

Dos Playsets!

Two!  Too!  To!

And boom! 

And if you are wondering, yes waiting longer to pickup Standard Cards is the best way to go, and prices are very low right now.

Kaladesh on the other hand...

Hear me out before you trash me on why I would pick up more of this set.  So yeah, the main reason for getting these was because I wanted more of those Buy-a-Box packs, but all this last month I have been thinking a lot about Energy and that new resource.  Like New Phyrexia I think that Energy from this block is going to be a really good long term bet.  Right now it is running wild for Standard, and they did have to ban Aetherworks Marvel because of how powerful it was, and I really think that Energy is going to go pretty far in the other eternal formats.

So it is a very long term bet, and considering how much they printed of these boxes it might be a very long wait, but I really think this is a good set to see some return out of.  They have some pretty good Masterpieces, a great new resource in Energy, a land cycle that is wanted, a new type of Snapcaster, a 4 ability Planeswalker, some pretty good Mythic Rare artifacts you could base decks out of, Expertise cards, and some artifacts that are used in Vintage.

Yeah, let's see if I am right about this.

I also got my first Flusterstorm.  So this is a weird one.  The Commander version was close to $90 a piece before they did this reprint, then it has dropped down to around $50 but it has been slowly been creeping back up.  I think that this original printing will hold it's value.

And...

So yeah, here is my playset.  Let's see, you can play this in Vintage and EDH.  Why the hell would I need to have a playset of this?  I just figured I would pick these up, just in case.

And then there was this stuff.

I opened up those Buy-a-Box packs and got some more of those Rebecca Guay lands that are in the Buy-a-Box promo packs from when I bought my Ixalan pre-Order.

Here are all the foils I picked up from the packs, and the only one to be happy about was the Foil Glorybringer.  I only expect that to drop in price after rotation.

And the whole reason why I went into debt by picking up sealed product I did not need.  I got all of the flip lands except for the Legion's Landing and Search for Azcanta, and I still need that Treasure Map.  I am hoping that I will have an update to those needs later this week...  /wink