The following is a short fiction placing us in a dystopian future for MTG. We come to see a day in my life in the year 2020! This is purely for comedy’s sake don’t get all freaked out….YET!

Saturday May 16 2020…

Zac rolled out of bed early. It was his 40th birthday! He had resolved to head out to Star City Store, the only store in NYC that offered live Magic: the Gathering tournaments since “YOUR LGS” campaign they launched in 2018. After SCG had bought out every store in the country save a few and pushed most Mom and Pop LGS’s out of the market, many players had quit the game due to the inflated price of playable singles and sealed product. But not Zac, he was super excited to get on the Subway and make the trip to the PPPTQ.

He had qualified just a few weeks earlier in a PPPPTQ, and only needed to make it to the finals to move on to the PPPTQ to be held in Boston on Memorial Day. He was even happier because the new set Mishra’s Resurrection would become legal today! It felt like it was only a few week’s since Drafna’s Baubles had been released, and Ulamog’s Funhouse/Nicol Bolas in Chaos World had rotated out of Standard. Actually, it was 3 months ago, but it all felt so quick now with this 4 set system.

“It was a good thing,” Zac thought, “that I sold my Legacy deck last year.” After Wizard’s announcement in 2017 that all GP’s would include only Standard and Modern constructed, it seemed time to give up on the format. Dual lands remained prohibitively costed but no one played with them any more. It was a good thing, Zac could afford to play Standard right as it debuted for the last few cycles.

The new Jace prerelease price debuted at $120 dollars and after missing the boat twice he was gonna be damned if he didn’t jump on before it doubled in price this time! Even though it was printed in three event decks and a duel deck, the last one only continued to skyrocket in price. Dealers just charged the price of Jace plus the cost of the product retail now anyhow. So Yea Zac was pretty impressed with his foresight this time around, one step ahead of those pesky dealers.

He was also really happy that the tournament fee had remained a cool $95 this time around. Finally it seemed that things were beginning to stabilize in that arena at least. “Maybe this is my Lucky Day! he thought as he packed his bag for the trip.

On the train Zac ran into Doug. Doug was another local grinder, known for playing RDWs and the more aggressive decks in the early weeks of the new meta.

“Whatcha on this time? More dudes and burn?”

“You know me, gotta play the cheap decks, I here you ordered the new Jace at it’s prerelease price! You got pretty lucky there!”

“I know right! Can you believe they jumped to $250!”

“Yea it’s wild, You can’t even play a sealed PPPPPPPTQ without shelling out $200 right now, the hype is real!”

“Ha, indeed, the hype is about as real as it gets! My deck retails for $2300 online right now! That’s gonna slump after release week once the meta settles.”

“That’s why I play RDW, man. My deck only cost $800. The FireBurn Mage from Paladina Mors Unfethered is down to $80! Most of the real of the deck in between $10-20 and it can play mostly basic lands so it’s pretty cheap for a standard deck. Me and a few other guys went in on a box for $400 and I cracked a foil Mage and sold it for the rest of the deck!”

“Who’s the lucky one?! Haha, That’s pretty sweet!

 

Zac and Doug keep chatting about match ups and some sweet combos they are hearing about from the new set. They arrive at the station for the LGS. After some lively convo and a bit of waiting the Tournament starts.

They both up do well and eventually meet in the finals of the tournament.

“Pretty awesome that we both made it this far. Right! Looks like we’re both gonna be in Boston!”

“Not me. I’m just playing for the product, It’s Memorial Day man, I hear Kanye West is supposed to make some kind of huge concert for his Presidential Campaign.”

“Ha, I was never that much of a fan. Do you really think he’s gonna be able to beat President Trump? I mean he won the last election by so much.”

“Come on! Don’t you remember when he ripped the mic out of Trump’s hand during his inauguration speech and was like ‘I’mma let you finish, but Bernie Sanders had one of the greatest campaigns of all time.’ I almost lost my mind. I think he wins just on that video alone.

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First thing that’s bad here is that I’m 40, and likely still haven’t Q’d for a PT. Ok ok that was a dark dark world that represents the future world we are headed toward if the prices of cards/sealed product don’t start to see a little bit of sanity. Between stores raising the price of Fat packs and Jace being priced at $80 (making Esper Dragons the most expensive Standard deck of all time) its a dark time to be a grinder. I remember when Bonfire hit $50 and I thought to myself, where does this insanity end?

 

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