hi guys (and girls ?).

here's a little rant from me on a topic i saw for myselfe.


most of the time you can get your magic cards, boosters, boxes etc. cheaper over the internet. ebay, large internet stores etc. its never been easyer to get hold of your cards at lower prices. now to the individual that is a good thing. save 10$ off a playset of some hot rare, i'll take that thank you. however actions trigger reactions and pebels falling in a pond create rippes that extend far beyond that pebel.

at the hight of magic in particular and gameing in general befor the internet we had no less than 12 stores in hamburg selling magic cards and that is not counting warehouses. stores where you could also play meet and exchange yourself with likeminded. than the internet hit. and it hit hard ! today there are only 3 shops left. in two of them you can only play competetiv magic and in the last one you will only find people playing yu-gi-oh most of the time. now i like competetiv games but i dislike the mindset of many competetiv players (winning befor fun). where can i turn to to have a nice casual game ? there is a tavern in hamburg that has a magic night on mondays. that's nice yeah but it will not bring new players to the game eventualy causing the player no. to dwindle. whats more EDH is almost the only format being played there. you good old basic kitchen table magic where you still play with serra angles, life gain and other fun non-competatvie stuff is almost non-existant.

that is realy bad for the lokal magic sceen even beyond the casual sector (remeber the pebble and the ripples?) new players allmost all start of in the casual camp. you dont want to buy all the expensive cards when your not yet certain you will realy like the game. you start because its fun not to win tournaments. so when casual disapears where will the new players come from ? exactly nowhere ... now if the yu-gi-oh wave drys out without and equaly financialy strong replacement the number of shops will dwindel to 0. when that happen it will take no longer than 5 years until magic will not be played any more in hamburg.

thoses are all effects of the internet and dumping prices shops can not compeat with. magic will not seze to exists. stuff like pro play and magic online will ensure that.

so at this point you might be thinking why should i care i have all my friends to play with. you might, at the moment. people leave the game for numerous reasons. work, collage, moveing home, family, money, changes made (like rules changes or the current layout ... i personly know of at least 5 people who stoped playing when mirrodin came out because they so disliked the layout). without places to meet new players there will come a time where you yourselfe will put magic aside on basis of i dont realy have anyone to play with

yeah you might say what happens in hamburg does not have to happen here. true it might not but if your not aware of it hamburg is the magic capital of germany. we used to have half a doesnt or more prereleases, friday nights etc. some of the best players ever hail from hamburg incuding the best player of all times Kai Budde. magic is big here but that has not helped prevent the pebble from causing ripples ...

just for a moment give that some thought.