LGS thread

I opened a game store that focuses on D&D, Warhammer and Magic. So far, things are going great, we're the only store in a really big radius, we have regular customers and the competitive Magic scene is quite big in here.

While D&D and Warhammer playgroups are easy to control, we have a pretty big problem with Magic: we have a good flow of new customers, but when they attend events and are about to become regulars, the interactions with some attendees, specially PT players and semi-pros, scares them away. And it's not a thing of the newcomers losing too much, it's that some of the pro regulars form small cliques in which they behave like divas and are generally obnoxious. For example, some of them pester young players if they misplay, or act all cocky when they face decks outside of the meta.

I've been thinking about creating newbie friendly events to avoid those problems; during the weekends we do events for kids and youngsters (Mainly pauper, they can make theie decks for free at the store) and the revenue is good enough, so maybe we can try this format.

On the other hand, some coworkers have suggested the idea of "soft bans" and punishments, but I think it may drive them away, and those players are the one that buy boxes nonstop.

>I've been thinking about creating newbie friendly events to avoid those problems; during the weekends we do events for kids and youngsters (Mainly pauper, they can make theie decks for free at the store) and the revenue is good enough, so maybe we can try this format.

Go with that. You simply run into the problem that different people desire different things from the event. It cannot be put together, call theirs 'competitive events' or something similar.
Banning people makes them angry, catering to people should make them happier.

This is a pretty good idea actually. I would suggest having other new player events besides pauper though. And a problem I see is that if the pt guys are still around the store when it goes down they'll stay to watch, heckle, and backseat drive, if my experience is anything to go buy. Personally I'm one of those new guys that got driven out. Friend of mine introduced me to magic and I loved it. Loved everything about it and just played with friends, including the guy who got us started who as a pt type, but he didn't go all try hard with us so it was cool. Moved and decided to go to lgs for Friday night magic. Lose, a lot( I mean I'd win some, but I'd never win the tourney or the draft overall you know? )everyone gives me shit all the time and treats me like an idiot cause I didnt have a top tier deck and just ran something I had made myself. Eventually I just got sick of it.

Seems like the safest bet to diversify options and get revenue without having to frown upon some kind of players

That sounds just like what happens at the store. Now imagine being a 13 year old attending his first FNM. A living hell and a death sentence to Magic as a hobby


If I was to create newcomer events, which formats would be the best? Pauper with free decks is a kid's favourite and makes Magic dads come to the store to buy and chat while the kids play, so that's a sure shot, but what else can I offer?

Could try a draft, but that might price some people out and I'm pretty sure you don't want to be giving packs away for free or nearly free.
Might also consider asking the pro players to not be dicks. Make sure you use the word dick, too. Explain that their dickery is driving people away from the store.

>local gaming store has drafts every week
>visit draft and get laughed by neckbeards cause im very newbie
>went there once and never going back

I can look for real cheap boosters and do a newbie draft with really low prices

Or I can make my own cardboard pauper boosters and do pauper drafts in which you keep the cards and pay a small entry fee. Real small, I mainly do this to popularize the shop, gain customers and, more important, share the Magic with more people. It's a game I really like and seeing new players get charmed when they discover tactics, playstyles, combos and cards is magical.

I could also try lookig for prerelase sets from older sets and make limited events at a lower price, with smaller and more newbie oriented prizes (Deckboxes, good sleves, die...), and the 6 boosters in the prerelease packs will sure attract players looking to expand their cardpool

>Played for years
>Stopped when I went to college
>Come back to the shop one day
>Just soo happens to be the Dragon maze Pre release
>Only 1 other person there remembers me
>everyone else new since I last quit
>All think I'm some newbie
>Proceed to come in 1st
>mfw

I feel bad for you just like I feel bad and furious when I see married men blasting teenagers because they paid 2 life instead of U to play a Gitaxian Probe that left them at bolt range.
Should I ask the judge to enforce more harshly fairplay rules? It's another possibility


Btw, thanks everyone for the feedback and ideas

>visit alternative LGS to experiment with brewing Modern
>state my deck idea
>which is Allies Tribal
>Get laughed out of shop and asked to not come back
>Due to "offending the regulars" or some shit
>the phrase "no non-blue in MY meta" was said by the local Forever Champion
>Allies became a major Modern deck after BFZ
>fuckin hell

>alternative LGS
Generally speaking anything that labels itself "alternative" is best avoided.

I absolutely love when Magic dads decide to dust off their decks and attend legacy and vintage events. You would be surprised by how many of them have 4-7 pieces of the power nine and stomp their opponents.

One of them started playing when sleeves were real rare and he protected his Black Lotus with those sticky book wrap plastics you have to cut manually. Such a sight to see.

seems like an appropriate time to post stories

you could do like a really cheap repack draft, if you have the capability of repacking.

pauper is all well and good, but you could have kind of a casual standard tournament. No real prizes, doesn't go towards their win record, low or next to no entry fee, explicitly stated to be for new players/kids etc. Pt players won't participate in that, and it would let them play standard tourneys. Don't know if thats a viable idea or not, i just remember wishing there had been standard events for guys like me without having to worry bout that guy with the 300 dollar deck stomping my fluffy tribal that frankly wasn't all that good but i loved to bits.

Best of luck to you man. Just keep in mind that you run a buisness, not a playground. Don't overwork yourself with all the events.

One thing my store does is offer to take the draft chaff after each FNM and donate them to the local youth center. You could do the same to build the pool for tournaments. Or just donate the cards as well, gaining some rep and potentially expanding the player base.

Probably just meant a different store than the one he usually visits.

>Move to a new town for work
>Find a single Shop within driving distance
>find out they have a weekly EDH night. I know, I'm a filthy casual
>Bring a deck
>Do pretty well
>Find out next week my command has been banned by the shop because it was "Too unfair"
>Accept ruling because I don't care too much and play a different deck
>Win again
>Find out my deck has been banned again
>begin to complain
>Owner says he has more loyalty to his older customers and will do whatever makes them more comfortable
>Play a Bear Tribal deck
>A fucking 2/2 Bear creature type deck
>Win
>Gets banned
>Really begin to complain
>get banned from the store
>Closest store after that is 25 minutes away
>mfw

Donating the chaff sounds great, actually. Might look into it.

It's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you ban the neckbeards, you lose their extensive business. But if you keep letting them scare away new customers, you are never going to grow.

You're just going to have to calculate and decide whether the faggots or the newbies will be more profitable in the long run.

yeah i can see that being hard on a kid. Though at least at the store i went to even the super dicks didn't go hard on the kids. I mean yeah they might beat them, but they didnt rub it in or talk shit like they would if it was a grown man like myself. I remember this one guy would even always make sure the kid won at least one round of the two out of three even if he could have swept it.

Man, what the fuck

Yeah; it was choice of one LGS that only does Draft, Sealed, Commander and Standard (my primary); and one LGS that only does Standard, Modern, Legacy and Vintage.
p much same happened in another store I used to go to before it closed down; Isamaru got banned during the last days, was fuckin atrocious

that's some shit right there

"Leave now and never come back. Why? Well it's because you played the game."

I'll never understand """"ELITE"""" players

It didn't occur to me until they lost to my Bear deck that they were all scrubs who had never actually faced real competition before.

Closed playgroups are format killers if the groups are small

>go to first draft at LGS
>practiced deckbuilding after playing for a month or two
>proceed to kick ass two games and lose the third by a hair
>neckbeards warble and ask what formats I play

Feels good, but I couldn't stand those guys for a nondraft tourney.

>If I was to create newcomer events, which formats would be the best?
For Construced, I'd also suggest Pauper, with borrowed decks or their own.

Cube draft is also an option. It's probably quite easy to maintain a cardpool of the more recent sets and you give players the option to buy their drafted deck for 5 bucks or so.

>Closest store after that is 25 minutes away
Bitch, that's how long it takes to get to the train station so that I can start going to the LGS. It's worth it to play with decent people.

I'm talking about Commons/Uncommons only cube of course, maybe the occasional crap rare.

>two LGS in my city
>one has been around for a long time, the other pretty new
>older LGS run by older guys, pretty much the kind of nerds who were bullied in school, they know of most games
>newer LGS run by hipsters, only know famous games
>older LGS generally order in weird products if people want to buy them
>newer LGS tells customers their games are too weird and obscure to order in if they don't have it
>older LGS recently started selling older modules and books that can be hard to come by
>newer LGS barely sells RPGs
>older LGS has regular MTG nights, they have regulars
>newer LGS has some tables for wargaming and nobody ever plays

I guess I can keep going for a long time but I just want to express my frustration for the newer LGS still being around.

Yo OP, having newbie friendly events is fucking great and I wish the stores here would do it. Please keep it up.

Thank you very much, I do my best to be inclusive in the only way that matters: being a place where everyone can come, play and have fun.

My lgs has casual Wednesdays, and bar draft on Tuesday and it's cool to play pickup games there any time basically. I'm new to going there so I don't know how well it's working for them but they seem to be doing alright.

Yeah, banning people from certain tournaments or events will lead to hard feelings.

Instead, craft a noob event to play alongside the pro event.

the noob event is free or very cheap to enter. Have prizes, some for winners, some random door prizes. Have the prizes be things the pro players won't need. Preconstructed decks, sleeves, mats, tokens, land, big stacks of commons and uncommons.

the pro event, taking place at the same time, has a higher entry fee, but substantial rewards for the winners. The pro players won't want the cheap prizes, nor will they want to miss out on playing with their other pro friends and testing their skill against equals.

If pros do insist on beating up the noobs, talk to them politely, suggest that next week they play the pro event.

I don't really know, I don't play mtg. Hope this makes sense.

Have a, "Don't be a dick" rule in place, and consinder having a strike system and if someoyne goes over the threshold they either get an auto lose or kicked out.

This

I mean, that store is doomed. Don't sweat it.

Tfw no capital to open my own lgs. The dream :(

>Closest store after that is 25 minutes away
Wow. Do you manage to bring enough water supply with you for entire voyage?

>Nearest store is 5 minutes away
>Don't go there at all as nothing but MTG and X-Wing is played there, and the owner doesn't even play or like games (Making the store somewhat infamous as he ran a MTG tournament without even knowing the rules)
>He can't even order anything that I have asked from him
>Instead go out of my way to a store 25 minutes away, for its decent selection, experienced staff, and playerbase that isn't 14
Trust me user, you are going to do that drive at most once a week anyways. It might be worth it.

I laughed too. My lgs is 40 minutes and I'm glad to have it

I was thinking something like that might work. Keep them occupied. You could also encourage ones that seem like they might be persuaded to do so to be more constructive, or kind of step in and explain someone's dickass "YOU STUPID NEWB" comment that has no real constructive content, in as nice a way as they can too.

I would also advise asking players to offer constructive criticism instead of just saying it, if you want to really go inclusive. If someone wants to just chill and play their way as long as it isn't rule breaking, they should be allowed without being told it's wrong.

Magic players are generally obnoxious. They really need to be sprayed if they behave out of line.