Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne discusses some of the supply chain issues with Magic: The Gathering.
We haven’t even had the prerelease for Marvel’s Spider-Man yet, and I already have customers coming in wanting to preorder Avatar: The Last Airbender (see “Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Product Line“). We have customer planning to skip the prerelease for Spider-man, but telling us they will certainly show up for the prerelease for Avatar. Meanwhile, we have customers willing to drop $500 for a Collector Booster box of Marvel’s Spider-Man, and willing to pay significantly over MSRP for a Spider-Man Gift Bundle while ignoring the regular Bundle. I have customers complaining about the prices for Marvel’s Spider-Man and saying they do not think it will be a good set, while at the same time paying those high prices.
In the meantime, Universes Beyond Final Fantasy, the best-selling Magic: The Gathering set ever, has been out of stock since July with no firm date as to when this Standard legal set will come back into print. One of the basic precepts for Standard format tournament play is that the cards for it are supposed to remain in print. Granted, I think Wizards of the Coast was caught flatfooted by the huge response from their player base, and collectors as well, to the set but not getting a reprint of Play Boosters until sometime during Q4 smacks of poor planning.
As soon as someone at Wizards of the Coast saw the numbers coming in for Final Fantasy, a second print run should have been greenlighted with dates given to retailers as to approximately when to expect the second print run to hit stores. The comic industry, when a book sees heavy demand, can get a second print run announced and solicited within a couple of weeks. Batman #1, which hit the shelves last week, already has a second printing solicited for this week’s final order cut-off date. Granted, a second printing of a TCG is not the same thing as a second print of a comic but for as many years as WotC has been making them, they should have plans in place to get another printing in the pipeline.
Stores have also seen demand and sellouts of the August set, Edge of Eternities. I really thought we would see sales of this set at levels like Tarkir: Dragonstorm, which sold well but was only out of stock for a month or so. Much like Final Fantasy, Edge of Eternities sold out in about a month and stores have been told not to expect reprints to arrive for “months.” While this does help move sales of older sets, as most customers do not want to walk out without a pack or two to crack, I can only fantasize about the amount of money stores have to forgo because they do not have the products customers want. As it is, I estimate our Magic sales are still easily 25% over what they were in 2024, outdistanced only by Pokemon sales (well, they would be outdistanced by Pokemon, if I could get a steady supply of Pokemon product into the store). Even with the trickle that comes in, I figure our Pokemon TCG sales have doubled from 2023.
Comments? Send them (and boxes of Final Fantasy Play Boosters) to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
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