u/Comfortable_Buyer239

I’m curious how people here think about LGS pricing when deciding whether to buy local vs order online.

For cheap singles, higher markup often still makes sense to me. If a card is under €2, the extra I pay locally is usually still less than what I’d lose to shipping anyway. A €0.50-€1 markup on a cheap card often feels fine if it means I get it immediately and support the shop.

But for more expensive singles, it starts feeling different. Shipping doesn’t really scale much, while LGS markups often do since they’re percentage-based. So paying a bit extra on a €1 card feels normal, but paying a much bigger absolute premium on a €10, €20, or €30 card can feel a lot worse.

Same question for sealed too. I expect some markup at an LGS, but at what point does it stop feeling like a fair local premium and start feeling overpriced?

I’m all of supporting my LGSs! I haven’t bought any product online thusfar but that was also because I haven’t pulled the trigger on any card costing more than €3 just yet. As a newbie, I wonder how other people in the community make these decisions, thanks in advance!

I’ve been playing commander for about 2.5 weeks now, and I think it just clicked for me why people end up with a ton of decks.

I built two decks from scratch using mostly bulk and cheap singles, one for me and one for my brother, both mono-colored. Mine is a very basic mono-black aristocrats list with the usual suspects (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Viscera Seer, etc.), plus some random cards I found in the LGS bulk and 50c binders.

So far, I haven’t won any games, which is fair. The deck is definitely on the weaker side (low-mid of B2), and I’m missing some of the stronger (and more expensive) aristocrats pieces (like Thran for example). But honestly, that’s not even the main issue. The bigger thing I’m noticing is that the gameplay is already starting to feel stale.

Almost every line of play boils down to some variation of “sacrifice creature → get small incremental value,” and while that was fun at first, it’s starting to feel very same-y from game to game. There’s not a lot of variation in how things play out.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing against people using precons (some upgraded, some not), and their decks just look more interesting to pilot. More variety, more unique effects, more moments where something unexpected happens even if they’re not necessarily stronger. Eve so, I’m guessing that even if I do own those decks instead, it may get dull after around 10 games or so.

So now I’m already thinking about building another deck, even though I just started. Maybe it’s just me, but is this basically how it starts for everyone?