Outpost 2000 & Beyond - Coon Rpaids, MN

Outpost 2000 & Beyond - Coon Rapids
http://www.outpost2000.com/

Grade: D

So I was out and about doing some Deckbox trading done, and I was up in the Coon Rapids area and decided to stop by a store I heard about on 'Magic: the Ameturing' podcast.  It was Outpost 2000 & Beyond, and let me tell you, I hope to never go there again.

What I did like about the store:
Plenty of space to play
Lots of space to park
McDonalds close by

What I did not like about the store (I am not even sure you can call it a store):
Not clean at all
McDonalds close by
They had a sign on the front door banning all outside food and drink
     - This just means they will charge you $5.00 for a can of soda
They had a single glass case with a bunch of binders with cards they are selling
     - There was no way to browse any of their cards without bothering the clerk
Their sealed product was very minimal
     - I only saw 1 opened box of each standard set, and nothing else
They has some comics all boxed up in racks near the front
Gaming tables for Warhammer type games were also in the front, but nothing crazy

I guess having a small exposure of product is not a bad thing, but it was just thrown together.  Just not sure what they were trying to do.

All in all, not impressed at all.  I think I spent a total of 3 minutes in that store.  Looked like they had a good showing for 3:30 on a Sunday, but it was mostly kids, Tweens, and teenagers.  It was a very basic beginner crowd for sure.  I spent more time trying to find the store than browsing the items they had for sale.

Now that I am writing this, I did a little more digging.  Looks like there is a sister store in Crystal. Looks like I am going to be stopping in to see if this store is any better.  And also found that there was a calender and Sunday at the Coon Rapids store is Pokemon day, so that explains the young crowd.

I will give an update on the Crystal store as soon as I go, and I hope I don't make it up to the Coon Rapids store again, but I am pretty sure I will, and will be disappointed again.

Update - Oh yeah, the website is nothing special.  They don't sell anything on there, and it looks like it just a bulletin board for the stores.  In fact, when you go to the products and click on the links, they send you directly to the vendor's websites...  So horrible...

Holiday Gift Boxes are back! - Mead Hall Games

They are back!  I dont know what it is about this whole gift box idea, but I love them.

1 2000 count box
4 Theros packs
5 card separators
2 sheets of label stickers
20 lands
1 foil special print card

Now you might think the best part of this whole deal are the packs, or the foil card, but oh no!  I consider the best part of this whole thing is the box itself.  You can hold up to 2000 cards in it, and they stack very well.  When you have a large collection, the hardest thing to do is keeping the small amount of important cards safe.  I had been doing some of this with Fat Pack boxes, but it go to be too overwhelming with how many boxes I needed to keep around.  Now I can keep all my trade stuff in a gift box, and all my foils in another gift box.

I have gone so far as to sleeve up all the cards I am looking to trade, and then storing them in this box. I will get more into the trading setup in a bit, once I get caught up with the sort and count that just got done.

I was hoping they would do this again this year!  So excited, I just had to pick me up two from the Mead Hall Games in Minneapolis when I stopped in to pick up some CUBE sleeves.

Commander 2013 - The Source Comics and Games

So it has been a couple of weeks, but I did go out and buy the new Commander set that was released in the beginning of Nov.  Was able to do a pre-order at The Source Comics and Games, swooped in on release day and picked up all 5 new decks.

It was pretty easy to do the pre-order.  I thought there was going to be a limited order, and I would miss it, but all I needed to do was call them up on the pre-order day and reserve myself a set.  No hassle at all.  The day that I went to go pick them up, it seemed they had a ton extra, but they were telling people they could only buy a single blue deck per person / per day.  So they knew what everyone wanted and limited what people could buy off of that, which is pretty cool in my mind.  I am a collector and really hate losing out on stuff because people over buy and sell on eBay.  The Source also sold at list prices, so that was another reason they limited people.

Love The Source!  The everyman store!

Done counting...

So, after all that I am 98% done with the count.  I still have Portal, Portal 2, and Unglued I need to sort, count, and organize.  But with the 98% I have counted over 160,000 cards, and I have sorted everything in the places they need to be.

I have started a new account on Deckbox.com, and I have my trade book all set.  I will wrtie a completely new blog for the Deckbox.com peice.  I have also bought a couple new items, and I will write a couple new blogs on as well.

I will send an update to this as soon as I get this all sorted. out.